EUC Report: Grass-roots Sport

Baroness Billingham Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Billingham]

My Lords, the European Union Committee and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, are to be warmly congratulated on producing this excellent report. Not only does it inform and update us on the role of sport in the EU, but it points the way to the future, where grass-roots sport can take its place at the centre of people’s lives.

It is a particular pleasure for me to talk about sport in such a context. In the 1990s, when I was a Member of the European Parliament, I wrote and spoke constantly of the need to reflect the importance of sport in member states, and urged the Commission to provide legislation to reflect that. I was secretary and, later, president of the European all-party committee on sport, which undertook numerous reports and hearings that provided an opportunity for important debates. None was more so than when a Belgian footballer made his way to my office in Brussels to explain his predicament and his dispute with the football club for which he played. I almost said “which owned him”, since that was the nub of the case.

Little did I realise at that first meeting that the Bosman case, as it became known, would have such a fundamental effect, not only on football but on all professional sport. It changed for ever the rights and entitlements of individual players. I well remember telling the player that his case, within the existing legislation of the single market, was strong. I urged him to take it forward; he did and the rest is sporting history. Despite this and other controversial cases, the Commission refused to incorporate sport into EU legislation. Therefore, its inclusion in the most recent treaty—the Lisbon treaty—is welcome, if long overdue; sport is now recognised.

As with many good ideas, timing is everything. With economic chaos across Europe, the likelihood of generous funding—a strong, separate budget line—would appear to be a forlorn hope. What is to be achieved in the current situation? The report gives us good pointers. It reminds us of the scope of sport within society, notably in health, social and educational spheres. It highlights the role of volunteering, which is so crucial to both professional and amateur sport, and asks for recognition of this. Here in the UK we are focusing on volunteering in the build-up to the 2012 Olympics. Thousands of people have already signed up, with many more to follow.

By taking evidence from a wide range of sources, the EU Committee provides us with an excellent overview of where we are now and where we can be in the future. Not only does it look at the implications of the single market, it focuses strongly on intellectual property rights—all of which is aimed at protecting sport from negative factors and promoting good practice. As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, the failure to take sport into account in the formation of legislation has caused significant problems.

What, in reality, can we hope for in the future? The Commission is now a paid-up member of the sports lobby, promising to include sport in all future policy areas and quite rightly granting it its proper status. The benefits for member states are highlighted in the EU work plan for sport. With better EU data collection, member states will be able to measure themselves against others. There are huge discrepancies, so the comparative performance data will enable member states to learn from each other, stimulating Governments to match up, either through better funding or better structures. No sporting body ever wants to be at the bottom of the league table.

The breadth and sources of submissions to the EU Committee are impressive. The Sport and Recreation Alliance made a strong case for the benefits of participation and the active notion of sport for all ages and standards, which is of course the hallmark of grass-roots sport. It also reminded us that sport and physical activity have a positive impact on educational attainment—a fact which sadly seems to have eluded Mr Gove with his dispiriting educational proposals. The point was strongly made that sport must be mainstreamed in structural funds if disadvantaged and unrepresented groups are to be helped.

Sport England highlighted a number of concerns, not least the sadly small number of women participating in sport compared to the number of men. Oh, for some form of Title IX across Europe—the USA really did get that right in the 1980s and Europe should be encouraged to follow suit.

My suggestion for enhancing sport in an economic downturn is based on co-operation. My inspiration comes from comedian and writer Tony Hawks, a committed and, indeed, good tennis player, who for the past seven years has founded and promoted Tennis For Free. For most of that time I have encouraged and supported him and lobbied for him with the LTA and with governments, until recently with scant success. His formula is simple. A charity, Tennis For Free, uses his local park courts at the Joseph Hood Recreation Ground in Merton, for a weekly free coaching programme on Saturday mornings. It is amazing. The courts, though pretty rundown, are packed, with mums, dads and kids all being coached, provided with racquets and balls and coming back week after week. It is all made possible by the far-sighted Merton Council, which has decided that the court should be free all week and the pay-and-play charges have been removed.

Now Tony has moved further. Councils up and down the country—most of them cash-strapped—have signed up for a similar package. There is no requirement for expensive upgrading of courts for Tennis For Free; as long as the courts are deemed to be safe, they are deemed to be playable. Some 80 councils have now signed up to that project; it is truly amazing. At last—at very last—Sport England has come online, recognising that this is a unique way to foster grass-roots tennis. It is funding eight new centres so that the basic cost for coaches, racquets and balls can now be met.

This I believe is a formula that could work for most sports: a charity employing coaches, a local authority giving its facilities free of charge and seed-corn funding from the Sports Council. It is a formula that could be used across all member states.

I thank the European Union Committee for opening up this debate and I thank all who contributed to the report. Let it be the first of many.