Gambling-related Harm

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I intend to start the wind-ups at 3.27 pm, so if Back Benchers take a maximum of four minutes, we should get everyone in.

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[Aaron Bell]

I am glad to hear that. The fact that she has paid her tax and has not sought to keep that money in the company or do anything else with it is admirable.

Bet365 pays a huge amount of tax and is a British company with huge export success. A lot of its revenue comes from abroad, and any bet taken from abroad improves our balance of payments as an export success. Denise Coates has donated a nine-figure sum to the Denise Coates Foundation, which funds charities locally, nationally and internationally. Bet365 also owns Stoke City football club, so it is rooted in that community.

The hon. Member for Swansea East rightly raised a number of issues, but Bet365 has already gone above and beyond regulatory and industry guidance, by setting deposit limits, picking up on red flags, and having a huge team for responsible gambling proactively contacting people believed to be at risk. The hon. Lady said she wanted a net deposit limit of £100 a month, but I hope she will understand my genuine concern that the process of asking people for data, such as mortgage and bank statements or pay slips, is very intrusive.

In the experience of Bet365 and other firms that I have spoken to, people do not want to provide that information and at the point at which they are asked for it, they stop betting with that firm. We do not know where they then go. Do they go to another firm, elsewhere or stop gambling all together? We do not have enough information, but lessons from the industry tell us that asking people for pay slips and mortgage and bank statements stops them engaging with the firm that already knows their behaviour best. I am not against deposit limits, and neither is Bet365, but we have to get the level right and have lower levels for young people, and so on. Equally, Bet365 has set slot stake limits lower than previously and is prepared to look at feedback.

Change is necessary. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea East for her campaign. I hope that in the course of the review the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport can learn from firms that are at the forefront of the sector, such as Bet365, which is a major local employer that is setting standards for responsible gambling within the sector that I believe we can learn from.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Can Members reduce the length of their comments to three and a half to four minutes? I call Jim Shannon.

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[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we see that in snooker and darts as well, which rely on funding to ensure they remain popular.

I mentioned Norway and I will highlight a similar story in France, where online gambling is illegal and 57% of all gambling is done on the black market. In Bulgaria, it is 47%. In Italy, 23% of all money staked now goes to the black market. Here in the UK, although the figures are low in comparison, we have seen a large rise in online unregulated gambling, from 2.2% to 4.5% over the last 18 months. In unregulated, black market gambling—

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman wind up, please?

[Craig Whittaker]

Of course. The average stakes are much higher, with billions and billions of pounds involved.

Let us be careful what we ask for. Although the scourge of addiction is a problem that we need to address, we have to be very careful that an act of good intention does not make the problem far worse than it currently is. The evidence is there if the Government are keen to look. We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Government need to work closely with the industry on solutions and not destroy good intentions by imposing on the industry rather than working with it.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I am sorry for the three speakers remaining. We have less than nine minutes left, so that is three minutes each.

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[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Ms Rees. Like all Members present, I recognise the real importance of addressing problem gambling. However, I think it important that we put this issue in context, especially given that the latest Gambling Commission figures show a drop in problem gambling from 0.6% to 0.3% in the 18 months up to December 2021. Those figures compare with far higher rates of problem gambling among many of our European neighbours.

The vast majority of people in the UK gamble responsibly and safely. EY has suggested that the sector supports 119,000 jobs and contributes £4.5 billion in tax and £7.7 billion in gross value added to the economy. In Stoke-on-Trent alone, the industry supports 4,500 jobs, predominantly at Bet365, many of which are highly skilled. We have very few of those high-skilled jobs in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, which is still on the journey towards the levelling up of opportunities.

It is also important to recognise the significant investment by the sector in sport and wider charitable causes, such as through the Denise Coates Foundation, which most recently gave more than £1 million to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. More than £40 million is provided annually to the English Football League alone—which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell) mentioned, includes Stoke City Football Club, which is based in my constituency at the Bet365 Stadium. Most of the investment in the club and the Stoke City community foundation comes from Bet365. The community foundation, in particular, does fantastic work to engage young and vulnerable people in sports. Without the investment of the gambling sector in such causes, much of that work simply would not be possible.

Most recently, we have seen many in the sector lead the way by improving standards, including investing in improvements in safer gambling education and in efforts to address problem gambling. The action that industry has taken, including to introduce a whistle-to-whistle ban on sport advertising and almost entirely removing gambling ads seen by children, has resulted in a significant reduction in problem gambling. Those standards should be implemented across the sector. I have met Bet365 and I know it has led the way on much of the work, including significant measures for those who need that support and flagging concerns where they exist.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order. Wind up, please.

[Jack Brereton]

It is important that these actions are further rolled out throughout the sector, but there is a significant risk that if we do not get this right, we will just encourage a growing black market industry. The number of people accessing unlicensed betting websites doubled between 2019 and 2020. I urge the Government to be very cautious and to fully understand the implications, to ensure that we do not see unintended consequences that would only further gift those criminal black market operators. We want proper action focused on those who really need help and support.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order. Thank you. Jonathan Gullis, you have two minutes. Go for it.

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[Jonathan Gullis]

You have never had a briefing from anyone else.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Ronnie Cowan]

We will cover that in a minute; we are wasting time.

It is simply not true that 66% of Norwegian gambling is on the black market. I am not trying to replicate Norway. In Norway, gambling is state monopolised, and because of that they use the internet a lot to gamble. In fact, the 66% relates to people using online gambling. It is not black market gambling as we understand it.

On whether the whistle-to-whistle ban works, Stirling University carried out a survey during five football matches with a whistle-to-whistle ban and recorded 2,000 gambling marketing references. It is clearly not working or protecting the people it is supposed to protect.

The all-party parliamentary group on gambling related harm has spoken to all the chief executives of the big gambling firms. We have listened to what they have to say. We have spoken to gamblers who gamble every day and do not have a problem with gambling—we are not trying to step on their toes. If they want to gamble and they are comfortable, they can gamble. We are not prohibitionists. We have spoken to people who control the provision and support for people with addiction. We have spoken to academics, to addicts and to people whose lives have been destroyed by the gambling industry. That is the rounded, responsible way to go about forming a view on this topic, not to sit here and read a briefing from a gambling firm. A number of figures have been chucked around, and they came straight from the PoliticsHome article by Michael Dugher, chief executive officer of the Betting and Gaming Council.

I am not accusing anybody in this room—absolutely no one—but I do know that among those who support the gambling industry, a number of elected MPs are well funded by the industry to do so, while among the people who are fighting to reform gambling and make it a safer environment for all our constituents, no money changes hands.

The film “Erin Brokovich” tells the true story of a campaign against the practices of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which had illegally dumped hexavalent chromium—deadly toxic waste—and poisoned the residents in the area. For most people, it is inconceivable that directors sitting in the boardroom of a large and successful company would allow such damage or behaviour in the full knowledge of the harm that they are doing, but that case is not unique. Large corporations have a history of putting profit over people, be they the tobacco giants, which have a long history of denying the health risks of smoking, or the logging companies that ruthlessly exploit the Amazon rainforest for personal gain.

In that respect, industry and politics share the same dynamics. The power to make decisions that affect the lives of many are often made by a few people who sit at the heart of the process. Just like Prime Ministers and senior members of the Cabinet, chief executives and company directors make choices that can have huge impacts on people’s lives, for good and for bad. When they act in their own self-interests, they can heap misery on many others. The damage that they cause may not be apparent to them—they can confine themselves to their ivory towers—but plenty of people who witness that harm are prepared to testify if listened to. Throughout history, a catalogue of people have been willing to turn a blind eye to injustices in return for the opportunity to feather their own nests. When chief executive officers are driven solely by the pursuit of massive personal wealth and the privilege that it brings, the plight of others can easily be ignored or underestimated.

The gambling firms must be today’s equivalent of the tobacco firms. They have taken vast amounts of money, generated massive profits and paid their elite employees huge salaries, while ruthlessly pursuing punters and squeezing every penny out of them. The health and welfare of their customers is not a priority. Games are designed to be addictive. The exponential growth of online casinos has removed the human touch, and punters are reduced to being part of the machine.

Gambling online can be done 24/7—cooling-off periods no longer exist, and chasing losses goes unchallenged. People who have self-excluded are often approached and tempted back to gambling. Free bets in VIP rooms are lures to hook often vulnerable people and draw them back into the fold. People have turned to crime to feed their addictions, families have been left broken, and people have committed suicide. In attempts to divert criticism, the public relations departments of the gambling industry are quick to point out the charitable organisations that they support. In fact, if those who run the gambling industry paid themselves less and their employees more, that money would be spent in local communities, where the benefit would be felt—less charity, more fair distribution of wealth.

The gambling industry also funds research into addiction and support for sufferers, and picks up the tab for the Gambling Commission, which regulates the industry, but it is not right that those who cause the harm have financial control of the research, education, treatment and regulation. The link between industry money and those services must be broken, and funding must be channelled through the NHS in the form of a smart statutory levy. The UK gambling industry employs more than 45,000 people and directly contributes more than £4 billion to the Exchequer. Those are impressive numbers, but the money spent on gambling does not yield as much tax revenue as money spent in the retail or food sectors, and we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that some of those jobs and much of that profit are the result of gambling-related harm.

I am not a prohibitionist, but I recognise that the gambling industry has to change; it must take responsibility for its products and its punters, and it must recognise the damage of addiction and play a part in reducing it. The industry has run amok since 2005, but in this digital age it is now time to grow up and act responsibly.

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[Jonathan Gullis]

On a point of order, Ms Rees. I am very grateful to you and to the Minister for agreeing to allow me to do this. I do apologise. Because my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) kept the clock ticking down on me, I was unable, and forgot, to draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the £540-worth of match tickets to Stoke City versus Fulham at the Bet365 stadium in January. I do apologise to Members for that.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

The record is duly corrected. Thank you.

Ultrafast Broadband: Devon and Somerset

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate. That is in line with current Government guidelines and those of the House of Commons Commission. I remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the estate. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the roll-out of ultrafast broadband in Devon and Somerset.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. Although in many ways being the MP for North Devon is an immense privilege, our broadband connectivity is not one of the constituency’s finer features. On the doorsteps during the election campaign of 2019, getting broadband done was second only to getting Brexit done.

Ever since, I have taken every opportunity to raise the plight of my constituents’ poor connectivity. I have taken on chairing the all-party parliamentary group on broadband and digital communication, where we also campaign tirelessly for better connectivity in colleagues’ not-spots, including the majority of Devon and Somerset, which is more not-spotty than not.

The sorry state of broadband across Devon and Somerset stems back many years, many contracts and, in my mind, a decision by Connecting Devon and Somerset in 2015 to reject BT’s £35 million bid to connect our counties. BT was clear then that it could not meet the 95% superfast target by 2017; here we are in 2022, with south-west England still at only 92% and my constituency at just 87% connected. That decision set off a chain of events that I suspect colleagues across Devon and Somerset will also reference today. It has sent our constituencies to the bottom of the superfast pile. My constituency, at 607, does not win the race to the bottom in Devon and Somerset, with central Devon in at number 643. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) could not be with us today, but wanted me to ensure that I mentioned his concerns, with his constituency languishing at 631.

Although CDS does its utmost to connect us, the nature of the contracting process has not attracted the big boys of broadband to our contracts. We remain a technology roll-out behind much of the country, with confusion as gigabit rolls out alongside superfast. I am not sure many residents are clear which fibre is which, or how much we may be missing out on by not even having superfast.

CDS notes that the UK’s superfast programme was predicated on an assumption that the commercial sector would deliver for two thirds of premises, leaving the programme to deliver the remaining third. In the main, across the CDS region, that ratio has been inverted, with CDS needing to deliver closer to two thirds; in more rural parts of the region, CDS has on occasion delivered more than 80% coverage.

Bizarrely, our gigabit availability, relative to the rest of the country, is nothing like so poor, reaching more than 27% of the constituency, ranking us at 399. The commercially viable parts of my constituency, like so many all over the country, are being fibred—over-fibred—offering great competition to those constituents who live in conurbations. We need to find a way to connect rural Britain, as well. Why is choice only found in town or city? My concerns about being over-fibred are different from many. It happens when the CDS contracts overlap with an extended commercial build.

The complexity of the process of connecting Devon and Somerset cannot be overestimated. I know we have to look forward and cannot change the past, but the future looks as though it will go the same way—and that we can influence. Delivering gigabit-capable broadband to the depths of Devon and Somerset is a monumental engineering task. It is clearly not commercially viable, and reaching the ultimate target of 100% gigabit capability is not happening any time soon.

Pondering today’s debate, I was keen not to repeat the anecdotes about persuading Openreach to connect schools, charities and all of Lynton and Lynmouth, using the funicular railway as home for the fibre, but it would be remiss not to mention how the voucher scheme does work, as Lynton and Lynmouth have shown and Chulmleigh will show.

However, Lynton and Lynmouth were the subject of a special Openreach project. Together, they form the fourth biggest town in my constituency, yet they were an Openreach special rural build. Accessing the vouchers has worked well, but when a constituency has 93 villages, as mine does, it is difficult to know how many of them will access the voucher scheme and make it work.

Football Governance

Christina Rees Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

It is always a pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Ms Elliott. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for his excellent introductory remarks and my Neath constituents for signing the petitions, and I congratulate Wales on securing a draw in their first Euro match last Saturday, despite not playing their best.

The anger and furore over the recent efforts of six English premier league clubs to a form a breakaway European super league sparked universal condemnation from fans, yet it demonstrated the importance of football to the sporting community and wider society, and was evidence of a deep disconnect between football clubs and the communities they once represented. Many clubs are now global business, far removed from the supporters and communities from which they were established.

At the heart of the problem is ownership. The defining feature was once supporters and their interests, but now the footballing model pushes clubs into greater financial insecurity at the hands of unscrupulous owners with scant regard for fans and communities. Fans are taken for granted, and it is taken for granted that they will always support their club, irrespective of their having no say in how it is operated. The UK Government’s fan-led review is welcome, but wholescale reform is needed, putting ownership at the forefront.

Fan ownership has been part of a campaign that the Co-operative party has been conducting for the past 20 years. In 2007, the Labour party and the Co-operative party founded the fan ownership organisation Supporters Direct and campaigned for funding and resources to enable supporters to start fan-owned trusts and then progress to take over their clubs. We fought for supporters to have a place on club boards, so that fans could have a voice. We campaigned for the community shares model often used in supporters’ trusts and to strengthen community asset legislation to prevent the sale of football grounds.

The Football Association and governing authorities should welcome community ownership as a necessary means to safeguard clubs and ensure their survival. Football clubs are too precious to their communities and supporters to be at the mercy of unregulated, unscrupulous owners, and suffer weak governance from the Football Association, which is unwilling to take on those with vested interests in the game. A robust, effective, independent regulatory framework, with statutory backing, is vital to safeguard football.

Unless supporters can influence or have ownership of clubs or assets, we will continue to be second-class spectators. The 50+1 rule is the ownership model in the majority of German football clubs; commercial investors are unable to gain a majority share and supporters retain a majority of voting rights. The rule would not be suitable for shared ownership of the top English premier league clubs that have invested millions of pounds, but would be suitable as a voting structure. The five parts of the game should work together for the benefit of football.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Christina Rees Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The Chancellor’s Budget has created a new cliff edge at the end of September. The furlough scheme stops at the end of September. It should be extended and be flexible. The 5% VAT reduction for food and drink in pubs and restaurants stops at the end of September. It should be extended and include the close contact service industry. The universal credit £20 uplift stops at the end of September. It should be made permanent and include legacy benefits. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts peak UK unemployment of 6.5% at the end of September. That is 2.2 million people without jobs at a time when coronavirus and flu may be overwhelming.

The Chancellor’s Budget is rhetoric over substance, playing down his £4 billion of cuts. Austerity is not over in Wales. While we wait for his rhetoric to turn into substance, the Welsh Labour Government have stepped in again to protect public services, build a greener future and create positive change for a more equal Wales, filling in the Chancellor’s gaps in support to move Wales forward. The Welsh Labour Government’s £2 billion economic resilience fund is the most generous coronavirus support package in the UK, securing 141,000 jobs in Wales.

Hospitality, leisure and tourism businesses in Wales that are affected by ongoing coronavirus restrictions will have an extra £30 million. If restrictions are extended in next week’s Welsh Government review, an extra £150 million will be available through the non-domestic rates scheme, with each business receiving up to £5,000. The business rates holiday for retail, leisure and hospitality in Wales will be extended for 12 months, with a targeted, responsible £380 million for businesses with rateable value up to £500,000, plus charities. Together with the small business rates relief scheme, that ensures that more than 70,000 businesses will not pay rates in 2021-22. Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality said:

“The Welsh Government has again listened directly to our constructive proposals for more vital support and the new money will play a leading part in continuing to save local jobs and local businesses”.

One potential investment for Neath is the Chancellor’s announcement of £30 billion for the global centre for rail excellence in Onllwyn. Since 2016, the Welsh Labour Government have partnered with current landowners Celtic Energy, the rail industry, academics and Neath Port Talbot and Powys local authorities, and had positive consultations with local communities. Let us hope that this announcement is substance, not rhetoric.

Squash: The Olympics

Christina Rees Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered squash and the Olympics.

It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. This is the second time that I have secured a debate about squash in the Olympics. The first was in July 2016, when I made the case for squash to be included on the Olympic games programme. The reason I am before the House again is that unfortunately squash did not make the list of sports included in the 2016 Rio Olympics, the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, or the Paris Olympics scheduled for 2024. Nothing has changed in that respect.

What has changed is that my dear friend the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) is not responding on behalf of the Government, as she did in the July 2016 debate. We share a passion for sport and I am sure that she is watching today, so will Members please join me in sending her our very best wishes? I am sure the Minister will do a great job today, but he has big shoes to fill—no pressure.

My love of sport began when I was a child. I was very shy and did not speak in my primary schools. I got beaten up by some teenage girls when I was walking home on my last day in my junior school, and my mother decided that I needed toughening up, so she sent me to judo classes. I found my voice—indeed, some would say that I have not stopped talking since—and I made many lifelong friends. I got my senior black belt first dan when I was 13 and my fourth dan in 1974. I won many Welsh and national titles. I was a member of the Great Britain youth squad that went to the Munich Olympics, and I retired from judo in 1975. In Cynffig Comprehensive School, I had the opportunity to play other sports and represented Wales schools in hockey, tennis and athletics. Sport gave me a focus and confidence and made me a team player. Some would say that I went to school only to play sport.

My love for squash began when I was supporting myself through university and had a job as a sports coach in the newly built Bridgend Recreation Centre near the village of Kenfig Hill in south Wales, where I was born and brought up. I was teaching sports in the main hall when I heard a thudding noise, so I went to investigate. I climbed some stairs up to a balcony and saw below me two men locked in a room with very strangely shaped rackets, hitting a little ball into submission. It was love at first sight—not the men, but the game—so I hired a racket, scrounged a squash ball and spent every spare minute on the squash court teaching myself to play.

The squash players at Bridgend Recreation Centre adopted me and I made the men’s team. I was invited by Squash Wales, the national governing body for squash in Wales, to the national trials for the Welsh ladies’ squad and got selected after playing squash for only six months. I went on to represent Wales more than 100 times, sometimes at No. 1 for the team. I won some national and international titles, including the Dutch Open, but my forte was losing in the final. I have lost count of how many times I have come second in national competitions.

Squash is a great game. It is dynamic, physically and mentally challenging, strategic, tactical—it is like chess on legs. It is a healthy sport for all ages. Squash shares some similarities with other racket sports, but it is the only racket sport where players share the same space. There are differences, too: for example, in common parlance “nick” means stealing, but in squash it is where the wall meets the floor. If someone hits the ball into the nick, it is irretrievable; it is the perfect shot. “Boast” usually means singing one’s own praises, but in squash it is a shot where someone hits the ball against the side wall on its way to the front wall, and that is a really deceptive shot.

A tin is usually something that holds baked beans, but in squash it is the line on the front wall of the court above which the ball must be hit. Tea is a drink, but in squash the T is a place in the centre of the court that players seek to dominate in order to control the rally. Performing squash movements without the ball is known as “ghosting”—I am doing it now, and with squash courts closed at present, I am doing a lot of ghosting in my living room.

Squash has given me so much: fun, fitness, lifelong friends and a job. When I retired in the early 1990s from international competition and had a squash sabbatical, I took up marathon running. In 2004, I called Squash Wales to try to track down an old friend. The director of coaching and development, Mike Workman, said, “Chris Rees, I haven’t heard from you for ten years. We need more women coaches, and there’s a coaching course tomorrow. I’ll put your name down.” I said to him, “Mike I am not a coach, I’m a player.” But I lost that argument, and every other argument, I think, when I went on to work for Mike at Squash Wales. I worked my way through the qualifications and am now a level 3 coach, tutor and assessor, and have become a Welsh national coach. I was honoured to receive the Sport Wales coach of the year award in 2008—the only racket sports coach to receive that award so far.

One of the best experiences of my life was pulling on the red shirt and playing for Wales, representing my country, but it is wonderful to coach a youngster from beginner to playing for Wales, helping them develop into a confident, skilful, respectful and well-rounded player. As part of the very successful Squash Wales junior development programme I encouraged children to take up squash, taking them through the squad system—if that was what they wanted—or simply helping them enjoy playing the game that I love. I am proud that two players, products of the Squash Wales junior development programme, are now international stars: Tesni Evans from Prestatyn, aged 28, and Joel Makin from Aberdare, aged 26, are both ranked number nine in the January 2021 world rankings. Children as young as age four take up squash, and there is a masters circuit for everyone aged over 35 to over 80. Competitions are held in many countries, and there are also the world and European championships. A few years ago, the Welsh team were the over-70’s world men’s champions. They were all skill, trickery and bandages, but not much movement on court. Sport is hard on the body’s joints, especially judo, marathon running and squash, and I have done all three. That is especially the case when there is a habit of over-training as I had and as I have now, and I thank my orthopaedic consultant Mr Chandratreya for looking after me and for keeping me going.

The Minister is aware, through his responsibility for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, that squash has been in the Commonwealth games since 1998, as well as the Asian Games since 1998, and the Pan-American Games since 1995. The British Open squash championships have been taking place since 1920, and the Welsh Open began way back in 1938. The International Squash Rackets Federation was formed in 1967 and is now called the World Squash Federation. It is recognised as the international federation for squash by the International Olympic Committee. We now have over 50,000 squash courts in over 185 nations from the Arctic circle to the bottom tips of South America and Australia. Squash is a genuinely global sport played by millions all over the world. Professional senior tour events have been hosted by 47 countries featuring players from 74 nations, and over 750 players from 69 countries compete on the men’s and women’s professional squash tours. The WSF world junior circuit has world, regional and national junior open events. We have world and European rankings for juniors, seniors and masters. Squash has full gender parity, and all major events offer gender-equal prize money. Squash is fully World Anti-Doping Agency compliant. We have highly qualified referees, led by the World Squash Officiating director, my good friend Roy Gingell from Maesteg—no one messes with Roy.

Squash is televised via state-of-the-art all-glass show courts, with glass floors and side door options. Squash is very cool. It is presented very differently on the professional tour from when I used to play. There is music, lighting and MCs. An old friend of mine from Cardiff, Robert Edwards, started the cool commentaries and is known as the voice of squash. We have super slow-mo replays, multi-camera angles, in-play stats, live web transmission and full match videos uploaded on demand. What other sport has had championships played in a stunning site next to the pyramids in Egypt, in New York’s Grand Central station, on the Bund in Shanghai and in many other innovative indoor and outdoor settings?

In 2005, London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic games. The sports for 2012 were announced and squash came top of the shortlisted sports to be included. At that time, James Willstrop and Nick Matthews of England were ranked world No. 1 and 2, so were potential gold and silver Olympic medallists. Jenny Duncalf and Laura Massaro of England were ranked world No. 2 and 3—potential silver and bronze medallists. I must admit that our Welsh players were not quite as highly ranked but, as I said, Tesni and Joel are making great progress up the world rankings.

It was not expected that any places would be available among the then 28 maximum sports to be included in the London Olympics, but baseball and softball were taken out, so we thought that squash, being top of the shortlisted sports, would replace baseball or softball, but that did not happen, and London ran with only 26 sports. When Rio won the host bid in 2009 for the 2016 Olympics, the two vacant spots were filled by rugby sevens and golf. They are great sports, especially rugby—being Welsh, I would say that—but do they really fulfil the International Olympic Committee mantra that the Olympic games should be the paramount event of a sport?

The IOC subsequently decided that one sport would be removed from the 28 sports selected for the 2016 games to make room for a new sport in the 2020 games. Wrestling was removed, but then added back into a shortlist of eight. The list was then reduced to three sports: wrestling, baseball and softball, which were combined into one sport, and squash. In 2013, wrestling—not a new sport—was voted back in, although squash was, in fact, the only new sport on the shortlist.

Tokyo won the hosting rights for 2020 and persuaded the IOC that, as host, it could add two new sports. Originally, they were squash and baseball and softball combined, because they were the two on the shortlist, but Tokyo opened it up to other sports to bid for a place and selected a shortlist of eight from the 25 sports that had applied. In August 2015, each sport gave a presentation to the IOC, and Tokyo selected five sports, not including squash. They were baseball and softball combined, karate, skateboarding, sports climbing and surfing.

Paris will be the host city for the 2024 Olympic games. There are many excellent squash court venues in Paris that could be used, where glass show courts could be set up. Hon. Members can appreciate how devastated I was to discover that breakdancing, known as breaking, had been included by the IOC in the Paris games ahead of squash. The jury is still out on whether it is a sport or not, but including it in the Olympics ahead of our genuine sport is heartbreaking—do you get the pun there?

Since 1986, we have campaigned for squash to be in the Olympics and made some truly fantastic presentations, but the presentation for the Paris Olympics was the most ambitious ever. The WSF and the Professional Squash Association combined to launch “Squash Goes Gold”, a web and social media campaign. It was launched just before the 2018-19 PSA world championships, played inside Chicago’s Union Station. It built on the global growth of squash over the past decade and allowed players from all over the world to unite behind one common goal. France’s top-ranked woman player, Camille Serme, who has won the British and the US opens, took part in the bid. France has also had two recent men’s world No. 1 players, Thierry Lincou and current professional Grégory Gaultier. As hon. Members can imagine, the opportunity to compete in the Olympics in their home country and in Camille’s home city, and possibly win a medal, would have been the pinnacle of their careers.

When I watched the campaign film, it gave me goosebumps and reminded me of all the reasons why I am a squashoholic. My old friend Andrew Shelley, chief executive of the WSF from 2010 to 2019, has worked in squash for over 40 years and has been involved in all the Olympic bids. He says that he would not change one moment of his time working in squash, but that our non-selection for the Olympics is his greatest disappointment. Andrew was awarded the MBE for services to squash in the new year’s honours list. He is now creating a world squash library, and one day I hope there will be a special section in his library titled “Squash makes it to the Olympics.”

Jahangir Khan, who is the greatest player of all time—six world titles, 10 British open titles, unbeaten for five and a half years in the early 1980s—as well as the former WSF president and current emeritus WSF president, has said,

“We have been running bids for so many years and these sports”—

breaking, surfing, sport climbing and skateboarding—

“weren’t in the queue and now they are. It’s really hard to understand”.

Malaysian female star Nicol David has said that she would give up her eight world squash titles for one Olympic gold medal, which shows just how much taking part in the Olympics means to squash players. Many politicians play squash: it is a great stress-buster. I do not have time to name them all today, so I will just mention my good friend Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, who is a very enthusiastic and accomplished squash player.

Why is it so important to get squash into the Olympics? There are many practical reasons, including increased funding, but the opportunity to showcase squash on the biggest sporting stage in the world, so that our fantastic players can be seen, is the main reason why we will not give up. I do not have any specific asks of the Minister, because I know he does not have power over the IOC. He may be relieved to hear that, but if he could write to the IOC supporting squash’s bid to be in the next Olympics and increase funding for a sport that has to fight for every penny, I would be grateful. I am not sure what sports the Minister plays, but if he plays squash, I will be his coach. If he does not play squash and wants to take it up, I will teach him how to play. Any support we can have from the Minister to get squash into the Olympics, I would be really grateful for.