Queen’s Speech

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister highlighted the forthcoming Commonwealth Games and the World Cup in her opening speech. She spoke of soft power, and sport was, of course, a key part in the deliberations of the committee chaired on that subject by my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford. I note that “culture” lies in the title of today’s debate, Either there is a typo in the omission of “media and sport” or, more likely, it is an all-embracing recognition of the Corinthian ideal of sport for the able-bodied and disabled alike as inherent in the Foreign Office’s lexicon of a civilised culture.

In reflecting on the brave speech of the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, I believe that it is the governance of sport that is the central issue for the solution to the development of sport in the United Kingdom, and it should be central to our influence within international federations of sport. The rapid global commercialisation of sport over the past 30 years has transformed the relationship between sports policy and the law-makers across the world. The autonomy of sport or, as the European Union calls it in the Nice treaty, the specificity of sport, is important, but it must be earned—it is not a right. Governments, either directly through Treasury support on financial guarantees for major events or indirectly through lottery funding, have significantly increased investment in the sector and placed growing importance on sport and recreation in government policy formulation, including overseas development and diplomacy.

We need to address the consequences of this generational change. We must capture the inspiration of a nation that embraced the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and will do so again through the Commonwealth Games. The soft power accrued from these Games should not be underestimated. We need to look to government to deliver a sports legacy from the 2012 Games—a legacy still capable of transforming the sporting landscape of the United Kingdom in terms of facilities and opportunities, especially for our children, able-bodied and disabled, in all our schools.

We need to bring professional management, accountability and transparency to the organisations that run British sport, and through our influence abroad, to the international bodies that regulate and direct international sport. The need for good governance in sport—along the lines of that required for FTSE 100 companies or major not-for-profit organisations in the United States—is essential if we are to protect the interests of athletes in the future. Only by demonstrating good governance in sport can the Government and British sports administrators use their influence internationally. Only through taking action to introduce best governance among international bodies and federations will the problems that have already beset many of the international organisations—from FIFA today, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, bravely stated; to the IOC in Salt Lake City in 2002; to Formula One in recent years—be consigned to history. This is all the more important in the complex world of lex sportiva, in which international organisations and federations set the administrative regulations and dispute-resolving mechanisms of sport, while national Governments and international law are ineluctably playing an increasingly important and active role. It is simply no longer the case that sport and politics can or should be neatly separated.

We need action on behalf of spectators and supporters. Supporters should have at least some representation on the boards of their clubs, thus ending years of disfranchisement. We should substantially strengthen the opportunities for disabled access to sporting venues, in line with the guidelines of the International Paralympic Committee. We need an athletes’ charter to ensure that the voices of our sportswomen and men are heard, and that the many concerns they are expressing are acted upon by sport governing bodies that must follow unimpeachable good governance. We need the Government to become accountable to Parliament for the formulation and delivery of such a sports policy—principally but not exclusively through the Department of Health in the fight against obesity, the Department for Education in all our schools, the Home Office and the DCMS. We need a policy which looks to the Government to act as an enabler, not a micromanager, and to the Minister responsible to have the influence to co-ordinate policy from the centre.