Leisure Services: West Lancashire

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

I will call Ashley Dalton to move the motion and then I will call the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered leisure services in West Lancashire.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris. Today, I will focus in particular on the future of swimming in West Lancashire, and I start by acknowledging the research by Swim England and Swimming Nature on swimming and communities.

Everyone has a relationship with swimming. Some people love swimming—they get to the beach and run for the sea, because they love water and being in it. That is just as natural to them as walking on solid ground. But other people’s relationship with water is far more complicated. For people who are not confident swimmers, like me, or for people who cannot swim at all—like me, sometimes—being in water can be scary and even panic-inducing. Swimming is far more than a hobby or something we watch at the Olympics every four years; it is a life skill.

Park Pool in Ormskirk and the Nye Bevan Swimming Pool in Skelmersdale have both served the communities in West Lancashire for over half a century. Over the decades, Ormskirk and Skelmersdale have boasted more than just swimming pools. The Park Pool and Nye Bevan Swimming Pool have taught thousands of children how to swim. They have been a place for friends to meet, as well as a place to meet new people, and they have also given older people places to remain active in retirement.

However, as the children who first learned to swim in West Lancashire’s pools now reach retirement age themselves, our swimming pools are also ageing. Park Pool and Nye Bevan Swimming Pool have both given so much to our community, but are reaching the end of their usable lifespan. They struggle to cope with modern demands and need major refurbishment or replacement. West Lancashire is not alone in this regard. Nearly two thirds of leisure centres in the UK need urgent investment, and there has been a growing fear that the industry could completely collapse in the coming years. Understanding the importance of our pools, in 2019, West Lancashire borough council announced detailed plans for new health and wellbeing hubs in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is outlining the issue that clearly exists and the critical need to improve swimming facilities. However, she has also talked about the importance of leisure, physical activity, social interaction and wellbeing. All those things are critical for her constituents, and my constituents have the same problems that hers clearly have, so when it comes to the improvement of pools, it is important that health and wellbeing are part of that.

[Ashley Dalton]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I agree that swimming pools and leisure facilities more broadly are crucial for the mental and physical health and wellbeing of all of our communities.

West Lancashire borough council recognises the importance of our pools, so it has issued plans that include replacing the leisure centres in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk, and relocating facilities while keeping the existing provision open during construction, to prevent any reduction in services for local people. However, since 2019, and the pandemic, the energy crisis and the huge rise in interest rates under the last Government, the project costs have risen by more than 30%, from £36.6 million to £49 million, and it is not just the costs of building new facilities that have increased. The cost of simply keeping the doors open at Nye Bevan Swimming Pool and Park Pool have also increased, not to mention the fact that both facilities continue to age.

All of this means that plans to replace our pools in West Lancashire are now at risk of failure. Although West Lancashire borough council remains committed to delivering new pools for the community, it also has to empty bins, provide housing support, and look after our parks and green spaces. Local government finances have been squeezed to the bone over the past 14 years. Councils were once able to undertake large capital projects, in order to invest in the future of their communities, but the rug has been pulled from under their feet. The council has been left with no choice but to open a public consultation on the future of our pools in Skelmersdale and Ormskirk. That consultation ends tomorrow.

Since 2010, more than 400 swimming pools have closed in Britain, with deprived areas taking more of a hit than affluent ones. The number of pools in local councils with the highest levels of health deprivation fell by 14% over the past 12 years, while those in the least health-deprived areas fell by 6%. Only 45% of children and young people attending school in the country’s most deprived areas can swim 25 metres, compared with 76% in the least deprived areas. Among year 6 children, 25% cannot swim 25 metres unaided, while that figure is almost 50% in low-income families.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

I agree with the hon. Lady that swimming pools are important. Like her, I am not a very confident swimmer, although I would love to be. When I was leader of Wokingham borough council, we opened the Carnival Hub, a multimillion-pound leisure centre that is enjoyed by residents from across the constituency. I agree that leisure services promote better health outcomes and build a sense of community. Does she agree that the Government need to fund local government properly, so that we can keep those centres opening, and that they need to set out the impact of increases in the national minimum wage and employer national insurance contributions on our leisure centres?

[Ashley Dalton]

I agree that the mechanisms for local authority funding need to be—and are being—addressed by the Government. I am confident that we will see announcements on that in due course.

We all know the value of swimming, especially for children. Learning to swim shapes the relationship we have with water, which stays with us. That relationship can literally mean the difference between life and death, sink or swim. Our children understand the value of that relationship. The school council at Crawford Village Primary school in Skelmersdale wrote to me last month. They are desperate for the pools in West Lancashire to remain open to the public, because they know that access to swimming brings health, as well as social and educational benefits to the community, as the hon. Members for Wokingham (Clive Jones) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) have mentioned.

The alternative to council-run pools is costly private leisure facilities. The Bannatyne health club in Skelmersdale is the nearest private pool to Nye Bevan. I looked at its website to see how much membership would cost. It states that subscriptions start from “as little as” £42.99 a month. For a family of five, that would be more than £200 a month. The council currently charges £15.99 a month per person to access all its leisure facilities across three sites.

People might not need a monthly subscription, but just want to swim for a day or two a week. Anyone wanting to swim at the Park pool or Nye Bevan can do so for £4.70. At private facilities, such as Bannatyne clubs, an individual swimming session would require a day pass at £25. Many of the people responding to the council’s consultation will be simply unable to afford anything close to that. We know that when leisure facilities become less accessible for the community, those from low-income households literally pay the price.

Those living in affluent areas, classed as middle-income families, have a higher chance of being able to swim than those living in a deprived area. Even if someone cannot swim, they have a better chance of attending a school that can foot the bill for swimming costs, which have risen dramatically in recent years. I know that the Government are committed to opening opportunities to children of all backgrounds. Announcements of investment in our schools—an additional £1 billion for students with special educational needs and disability, and free breakfast clubs—are transformational and will make a huge difference in outcomes for children leaving school.

We also know that education is far more than what we learn in textbooks. It comes from interacting with the world outside the classroom and learning life skills, such as swimming. West Lancashire borough council wants our community to have access to swimming and leisure facilities. It wants our children to form a positive relationship with water. It wants to create a more social community, and it wants a more active community. However, its hands are tied behind its back. It tells me that it needs the Government to bring forward plans for councils to restructure local government finance, so that it can invest in the big capital projects that will support our communities. I appeal to the Government to do that, and to help us to unlock the funding that will give our community access to the facilities it needs.

I know that my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will be working with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to improve our communities’ access to leisure facilities. I would like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister what plans the Government have to support access to affordable swimming and leisure facilities for those communities that cannot access private centres.

Football Governance Bill

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The Government are very conscious of the impact on clubs, which is why we are giving them time to prepare for the measures we are bringing into play.

On top of the new licensing system, the regulator will introduce a new strengthened owners and directors test to make sure that a club’s custodians are suitable, and to protect fans from irresponsible owners. This responds directly to growing concerns about financial mismanagement in football, particularly illicit finance, as well as to fans fighting back against owners at clubs like Blackpool and Charlton Athletic. The regulator will also bring in new, robust financial regulation to improve the financial resilience of clubs across the football pyramid.

As members of this House will be all too aware, a lack of financial resilience is one of the key risks to clubs’ futures. Giving the regulator powers to oversee financial plans and to step in to require clubs to beef up their financial resilience, where it has concerns, will prevent clubs from facing cliff-edge situations like we recently saw at Southend United. That will not mean that all clubs have to break even. We know that striving for success can come at a cost and that this ambition makes the game so exciting, so we welcome sustainable, sensible investment. What we cannot have is reckless overspending, irresponsible risk taking and inadequate funding. That is why the regulator will look at each club’s plans and how they are funded, and ensure that clubs have the resources to manage their risk taking. No longer can we have short-term actions jeopardising a club’s long-term sustainability.

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has mentioned fan engagement a couple of times. Fans increasingly feel as though they are not being listened to by their clubs. The fan-led review, which she has also referred to, made a series of recommendations in 2021 to give fans a real say in how their clubs are run. Will she be clear as to how the Bill will ensure that clubs are effectively and properly engaging with their fans and that fans’ voices are not being ignored?

[Lucy Frazer]

The Bill identifies a number of things that we know are important to fans, including heritage assets such as the colour of shirts, badges and the location of a club’s stadium. We know that those are the things fans care about. The Bill ensures a proportionate approach, because we know that engagement with different fans at different clubs, which have very different measures in place, will require us to take a proportionate, case-by-case approach. The regulator must ensure a level of engagement with fans, particularly on the issues that I am identifying, but we also want to ensure that it works for the clubs. Therefore, it will be for the regulator to ensure that a proportionate approach is taken.

I was about to go on to discuss that aspect, because we will be setting a minimum standard of fan engagement, and requiring clubs to seek the approval of their fans for changes to those things I mentioned in order to comply with the strong existing protection for club names. We know that most clubs have a strong relationship with their fans, consciously engaging them in decisions about the club’s heritage. However, there have been some notable exceptions, as we have seen at Cardiff City and Hull City, whose fans have had to battle to bring back or keep their club’s colours, badge and name.

As I said, the regulator will also protect fan interests with the requirement for clubs to seek its approval for any sale or relocation of their home ground. The stadium a club plays in is not only of significant value to fans; it can be the club’s most valuable asset, and it is only right that a club seeking to relocate has to demonstrate that such a move would not significantly harm the heritage of the club.

Budget Resolutions

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). I gave my maiden speech in the Budget debate this time last year, so I am feeling a little reflective and reminiscent, and I have found myself reflecting on the past year and on what has changed. In what state do we find the economy, a year on? Supermarket prices are still rising, living standards are falling, the tax burden is at record high, and there is still no real sign of interest rates coming down to where they were before the Tory mini-Budget tanked the economy. But one thing has changed: the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have managed to put the country into recession. At a time when every other economy in the G7 except one is growing, the Conservative party has fallen asleep at the wheel, and the UK economy is getting smaller as a result. Had the UK economy grown at the average rate of OECD nations over the past decade, it would be £140 billion larger today. That would have contributed an additional £50 billion in tax revenues to invest in our public services.

Let us be clear: the economic issues we face today are the result of 14 years of mismanagement of the country’s finances. The Government are out of ideas, and fast running out of time. The economic reality that we face in Britain today is a pale and weak imitation of the sunny uplands promised by the Conservative party at every election since 2010. Britain has always been a country where we are proud to pay our taxes. We understand that by contributing from what we earn, we fund the public services that we all rely on—roads, schools, the NHS. So with taxes at their highest since the war, Britain’s public services must be the envy of the world, right? Sadly not. They are creaking at the seams. Time and again, I hear from constituents how hard it is to get an appointment with a doctor or register with a dentist. School budgets have been stripped to the bone, and teachers are having to fund pens and pencils from their own pockets. Our roads are littered with potholes. Many routes in West Lancashire are bordering on dangerous, given the state they have been left in. Taxes are at record highs and public services are on their knees. The national debt has trebled since 2010.

The Government are giving working people a raw deal. The state of our economy is not an accident, but a choice. Conservative Chancellors chose to impose austerity on public services and to let the covid fraudsters get away with billions of taxpayers’ money. It was a Conservative Chancellor who rushed through the “kamikwasi” Budget, crashing the economy. Those were choices that the Conservative party made knowing that working people would foot the bill.

I am glad that the Chancellor decided to draw inspiration from the Labour Benches. Scrapping the non-dom status is a choice that we on this side can get behind, but why has it taken so long? The shadow Chancellor has been calling for non-doms to pay their fair share for two years. That is £6 billion that the Chancellor has left on the table—£6 billion that could have been funding our schools, hospitals and roads, and used to relieve the pressure on household bills. Faced with the worst poll ratings on record, the Chancellor is so desperate to cut national insurance that he has introduced a policy on non-doms that he has consistently argued against since getting his job. He has even promised to abolish national insurance altogether, but that leaves a £46 billion unfunded hole in the economy.

Working people are still worse off. For every £5 the Chancellor gives with one hand, he takes £10 with the other. The average family will be £870 worse off under his plans. It gets worse: someone with a mortgage in Tory Britain in 2024 will have hundreds of pounds added to their bill. This summer, we are set to see even more mortgages get even higher at the end of their terms. There is nothing in the Budget for parents, the elderly or first-time buyers; in fact, I am not sure what the Budget has for anyone. There is certainly nothing for the loan charge or infected blood scandals—not much at all, other than gimmicks and unfunded promises. Whether at by-elections or in the polling, it is the Labour party that voters are choosing to trust with the economy. It is about time the Government gave them a chance to decide. It is time for a general election.