Sport: Team GB and ParalympicsGB

Debate between Toby Perkins and Nusrat Ghani

Thursday 10th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Let me begin by drawing the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am sure that Members on both sides of the House will want to join me in sending condolences to the family of George Baldock, the former Sheffield United player who, shockingly, was found dead on Wednesday at the age of just 31. He was a fantastic footballer, who played many times for Greece and was involved in two promotions to the premier league. His death will leave a huge hole for all who supported him, and particularly, of course, for his friends and family.

It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and to reflect for a while on the amazing success that we enjoyed in the Olympics. I say well done to everyone who represented Great Britain in both the Olympics and the Paralympics. Success in the Olympics requires preparation, and I have no doubt that our team were hugely inspired by our Prime Minister, who remembered to bring a cagoule to the opening ceremony when none of the other world leaders had thought to do so. That may have been the key moment that secured their subsequent successes.

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on tennis, I want to take this opportunity to bang the drum for tennis, and to focus a little on the future horizon. At the elite level, British tennis has seen huge successes in 2024, including its success at the Paralympics. Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid won gold in the men’s doubles and completed the career golden slam, having won all four of the grand slam events—and now the Paralympics. Alfie Hewett also took home the wheelchair men’s singles silver medal, and Andy Lapthorne and Greg Slade won silver in the quad wheelchair doubles.

If there were a prize for the most memorable non-medal-winning moments of the Olympics, the remarkable comeback of Andy Murray and Dan Evans in the first round of the Olympics tennis against Japan, prolonging Andy Murray’s amazing career in the process, would have been a strong contender. This year saw Andy lower the curtain on what has been a fantastic playing career. To win three grand slams and 49 main tour events, while sharing an era with the three greatest players ever to engage in the sport, is a tremendous achievement, and I think he will be remembered as one of the greatest athletes in our country’s history.

This year also saw coming-of-age moments for Jack Draper, who reached the US Open semi-finals, and Katie Boulter, who won her first WTA 500 event in San Diego and is now comfortably established among the world’s top 40 players. There were exciting signs for the future, with Mika Stojsavljevic winning the US Open girls’ singles and Mimi Xu reaching the girls’ top 10, Hannah Klugman continuing to establish herself at the top of the girls’ game, and, towards the end of the season, a remarkable run of Challenger victories that took Jacob Fearnley into the world’s top 100 male players.

Away from the elite level, tennis continues to buck the trend of falling participation that is seen in many sports. Some 5.6 million adults and 3.6 million children play tennis every year, and the strong growth in participation in recent years means that tennis is the third biggest traditional sport in terms of participation. It is also one of the most gender-equal sports, with females representing 42% of adults and 49% of children who play every year, while a range of formats including wheelchair, learning disability, visually impaired, deaf, para-standing and walking tennis provide opportunities for people with a range of impairments to take part in the sport.

There is growing evidence that nothing does more to boost longevity than playing tennis. According to a recent study of people in Copenhagen, those who play tennis live an average of 9.7 years longer than the overall average, outperforming badminton, football, cycling, swimming, and jogging in that regard. You will be glad to know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that these opportunities to enjoy a long and healthy life are also available to Members of Parliament: the thriving APPG on tennis gives them an opportunity to play every week over the summer months here in Parliament.

However, it is important for opportunities to play tennis not to be denied to anyone because of where they live or how wealthy they are, which is why the park project launched by the Lawn Tennis Association, in partnership with the Government, is so important. It involves a nationwide investment of more than £30 million by the UK Government and the LTA Tennis Foundation to transform park tennis courts across Britain and open up the sport to many more people. The LTA’s aim is to bring back into use 3,000 courts across Britain spanning 250 local authorities, and to increase participation, with a further half a million people playing tennis in parks annually, and with more than 50% of the sites being transformed in areas of highest social deprivation. The new tennis courts at King George V Park in Staveley are one example of courts, previously in a state of disrepair in a deprived community, that have been brought back into use, and I was delighted to join my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies), who was then the lead on leisure in Chesterfield Borough Council, in giving them their very first use last summer. This programme’s facilities are so transformational that it really needs to be extended by this Government, and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to work with the LTA on ensuring that it is extended in the upcoming Budget.

Expanding access to tennis is a key objective for the LTA, but it has always been my view that allowing people across the country to watch top tennis players in action is a key part of expanding participation, and I must again express my disappointment that professional tennis in this country continues to happen largely in London and the south-east. The Wimbledon championship is the world’s most iconic and well-known tennis tournament, bringing in an estimated £56 million annually and looked forward to by players, fans and sports reporters every year. Britain currently holds main tour men's events at Queen’s Club in west London and in Eastbourne, and women’s events at Eastbourne, Nottingham and Birmingham. That had already meant that there were no men’s main tour events north of west London, but now the LTA has announced that the main pre-Wimbledon women’s event will also be at Queen’s Club, thus down- grading Birmingham and Nottingham. It is true that the LTA has held a GB Davis Cup week, very successfully, in Manchester for the last two years, but that is not a replacement for a main tour event.

Among our competitors, such concentration of events is unusual. France holds men’s main tour events in Montpellier, Marseille, Lyon and Metz as well as in Paris; Germany holds them in five cities; and the United States does so in 11. The picture is similar when it comes to women’s events, with the other major countries playing in many different cities. From 2025 onwards, Britain will hold only one event north of London for women and none for men. That is not acceptable. While I recognise that it may be more difficult to run events profitably away from London—although the recent Manchester Davis Cup sell-out was the biggest crowd ever in Britain for a tennis match—I urge the Government and the LTA to sit down and find a way to ensure that professional tennis is not seen only in London and the south-east.

The other big issue for tennis will be the finalising of plans for some lasting legacy from Andy Murray’s career. Andy’s mother, Judy, has been battling for years to create a new tennis centre near Dunblane, and it was hugely disappointing when, owing to the many obstacles placed in the way, she recently announced that the plans were being shelved. It is crucial that a lasting legacy is created to mark Andy’s amazing career, and to ensure that the increased exposure that his success brought to the sport is not lost.

Tennis is in good heart, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is good for your heart as well. There is more to do to ensure that the sport is enjoyed at all levels throughout the country, and I hope that the Government and my hon. Friend the Minister will do their bit to keep it growing.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Vikki Slade to make her maiden speech.

Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Toby Perkins and Nusrat Ghani

2nd reading
Thursday 5th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Perkins]

I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s description at all. We are part of a United Kingdom, and we all make contributions and we all receive benefits. The people of Scotland were given an option to vote to leave, and they chose not to. I know that is a result he bitterly regrets, but that is the choice the people of Scotland made. It is absolutely true that Scotland produces a large amount of renewable energy and of energy more generally, and it also gets many other benefits in many other ways. That is why I suspect the number of Members on the Benches next to him is so much smaller than it was previously, because people have recognised, overall, the benefits of being part of this great Union.

As I say, we should benefit from the great natural riches that his country is endowed with, but the previous Government’s approach withheld those opportunities. What today’s Bill offers, alongside the astonishingly successful round 6 auction, is a strong signal that the new Government are taking the generation of renewable energy far more seriously. It is imperative that the sector knows it has a Government who are a reliable partner, without constant knee-jerk changes in policy: not a pushover or a Government who give away taxpayers’ money thoughtlessly, but one setting out a fair and reliable basis for firms to invest.

Alongside the imperative to reduce emissions and bills, GB Energy can be crucial for our economy. I am pleased that the Government have announced that GB Energy will be headquartered in Scotland. Scotland is proportionately the leading nation in the UK for renewable power. However, I caution the Secretary of State not to ignore the contribution of coalfield communities such as those that he and I represent. In north Derbyshire and across the north midlands and south Yorkshire coalfields, communities that were created to power the nation with coal from the dawn of the industrial revolution should be central to the Government’s thinking in this arena.

This Government have laid down demanding targets to double energy generated by onshore wind farms, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind. Those objectives are a vital part of decarbonising the grid by 2030, but we should not be in any doubt about the challenge they represent. There are still many legitimate questions about the operation of this new enterprise and where the balance will sit between being a conduit to private investment and being a provider in its own right, but criticism of the Bill from Opposition Members has been wildly overblown. The truth is that this small Bill is introducing the company—it is not the entire energy policy of this Government—and much of the criticism has been fanciful. However, I would be interested to know from my hon. Friend the Minister how the new company will work across Government to unlock the planning system while taking communities along with us.

I am extremely pleased to speak in support of this Bill, and I will be voting for it with great enthusiasm. Yes, there is lots more work to do, but this Government have made a damn good start.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Ann Davies to make her maiden speech.