Accessible Sports Grounds Bill [HL]

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of UNICEF UK for reasons that will become apparent in a minute. I am also a member of Southampton Football Club, and usually a season ticket holder—but not in a general election year. I am not quite sure why. I offer my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, for bringing forward this important Bill. It is utterly reasonable, and rightly brief. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, I should like a couple of details to be discussed, for reasons that I shall come to.

I am in a wheelchair these days, and I want us to pause for a second over the meaning of “accessible”. There are many other forms of disability that provide problems for people trying to access stadia. I have progressed from being fully fit and walking many miles a day through to using a stick, finding that I have to pause, having balance problems and then moving into part-time and then full-time wheelchair use. My experience at Southampton Football Club has been to watch my own progressively more disabled position and see how the club has responded to my needs—and it has been a very positive story.

We need to think clearly about how training happens for staff, not just for disabled access officers or stewards but right the way through the organisation, from that first moment when you telephone and ask for a ticket, so that the right questions are asked to facilitate us as best as possible. I, too, have had the problem of not being able to have my family sit with me. My brother is usually my neighbour, but sometimes we like to go as a fairly large family. In the past, they have often had to sit many rows behind us—but I now find that when I ring and ask, the first thing that the ticket people do is to ask how many tickets I need for the family, and they see how close they can find them. It is quite often my fault because, without a season ticket, I am booking very late. None the less, they go out of their way to help.

There are some other things, too, about training. That is what is missing from this Bill and from the accessible stadia guidelines. For example, are stewards trained to spot somebody who may have a problem? Stewards started coming up to me when I was using a stick saying, “Would you rather come through the side door than use the turnstile?”. Then there is making sure that there are enough benches on the route to the stadium, which can be very long these days, to make sure that someone who cannot walk very far can pause and rest for a moment. It is sometimes necessary to point out when there is no space where a wheelchair can be stored during the game, so my brother can take me to my seat and then take the wheelchair and park it somewhere else. Most importantly, in the run-up to the game, you sometimes have to ask people to move from standing right in front of wheelchairs, having a look at what is going on. They obviously have to move as the game starts. Stewards need to keep their eye out for that, so that we as disabled people do not have to say to other fans, “Would you mind moving?”. All those things are good practice, and I am proud that my club makes training such a key part of that.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, it was wonderful at the Olympic Stadium—and I have seen Wembley Stadium as well. My disappointment came last year in the Commonwealth Games. I am a trustee of UNICEF UK, which was a co-sponsor and ran a very unusual scheme during the opening ceremony, whereby we highlighted disabled children throughout the Commonwealth countries. But there were no wheelchair spaces in the VIP seats, so I was the only trustee of the sponsoring organisation who had to sit elsewhere in the wheelchair seats because the stadium just did not provide them.

As we have heard, it is not good everywhere else. I wanted to highlight two points that young Trailblazers raised personally—because, while we anonymise it, we do not get the feeling of the frustration of the fans. Mansoor Ahmad told us:

“I go to Chelsea often. Access is fine but the view in west stand is poor, especially depending on how high or low your wheelchair is. At my eye level I see shins and feet of players depending on where they are on the pitch. They should raise it”.

Jo McNicol, who is a regular spectator at premier league football games, told us:

“I have been to loads,”

of stadiums,

“and I hate the grounds where as a”,

disabled,

“away fan you have to sit with the home fans. At Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium, you sit in front of home fans then get told off for cheering your team by stewards … The stewards threatened to throw my friend out … as he was shouting”,

for his team,

“which we always do and we were told we couldn’t shout or cheer as home fans were behind us. If we were sitting with our fans it would not have mattered. I want to be able to sit with the fans of the club I support so I am able to enjoy the match and not worry about the other fans’ abuse”.

Let me make a political analogy. It would be like asking a member of the Conservative Party in the Lords or the Commons to sit with Labour or the Liberal Democrats for a long debate and asking them to be completely silent for the four or five hours of a Budget debate. We would think that was not on.

I want to contrast that with some of the very specific things, other than disabled seating, which I know that Southampton and some of the other clubs provide elsewhere. There are RADAR locks on all the concourse-accessible toilets, so that only people with a RADAR key—therefore, disabled—can use. That is important, because some disabled fans also have illnesses that mean that, if a toilet is dirty, it is a dangerous place for them to go. Accessible toilets have painted contrasts for the fixtures, so that you can see grab rails easily, improving the facility for visually impaired supporters. They work closely with guide dogs and canine partners and assess the allocated spaces specifically for supporters with assistance dogs. There are lowered counters at all units and ticket office windows. I hate having to buy a hot drink of coffee at nose level; it is not safe. They provide DAB radios for visually impaired supporters, so that they are provided with a full match commentary. There are six disabled parking spaces for away fans, reduced ticket prices and free enabler tickets anywhere in the stadium, and dedicated accessibility stewards to help to support us. There is also a disabled drop-off point outside the main entrance in the lay-by, giving access on the main match day, which was vital in the days when I had a stick and could not walk the half a mile plus from where I usually park.

One thing that I am really pleased about are the new UEFA regulations, which mean that disability access officials will become mandatory. However, there are disturbing reports and stories that some disability access officers at some of the high-profile clubs that have been mentioned today are gatekeepers not facilitators. They sometimes prevent disabled supporters from getting tickets because they have “caused trouble” in the past, in their view. Disabled access officers should not be handing out tickets; they should be making sure that those who do so at that club are doing so correctly. They should be accountable to the board and, at the minimum, there should be an annual report every year. I would like to see the guidelines for accessible stadia to include training and specific responsibilities for disability access officers in future.

Finally, there is no more time to go through it but there is one extra hidden benefit from allowing disabled sports supporters to really enjoy their sport. It is not just about viewing sport; the good clubs provide foundation money for disability sports in their communities. Southampton is one among many that does that.

To end on a warning note, the Equality and Human Rights Commission says that it always aims,

“to work with organisations to help them improve their equality practice, in order to avoid costly legal proceedings. However, we also continue to consider whether future action is needed to ensure clubs comply with their legal duty to make reasonable adjustments to improve access for disabled people”.

I and other disabled fans will hold the Equality and Human Rights Commission to that promise.