Squash and the Olympic Games

Debate between Christina Rees and Glyn Davies

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I completely agree with him. I have yet to see the advantages of synchronised swimming, however hard I have tried.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for securing this debate. We are really dragging out the old squash players today; I, too, have loved the game for many years. We have watched golfers pulling out of the Olympic games; I understand why they are doing so, but not their comments about the Olympics not being the pinnacle of their sport and in a sense not being valuable. If squash was in the Olympic games, the Olympics would be the main tournament in the squash calendar. Squash would take its place as an Olympic sport more readily than golf and many other sports have done.

[Christina Rees]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It would have been the pinnacle of my career to win a medal at the Olympic games. I do not understand golf. It involves spending five hours on a golf course, hitting perhaps 100 balls, while on a squash court it is 100 balls in five minutes. I am sorry, but I do not get it. That is my personal opinion.

There are more than 750 players from 69 countries competing on the men’s and women’s professional squash tours. The World Squash Federation—WSF—world junior circuit for boys and girls embraces world, regional and national junior open events. We have WSF world and European rankings for seniors, juniors and masters. Squash has full gender parity and has begun to offer equal prize money for major competitions. The sport is fully World Anti-Doping Agency—WADA—compliant.

SQUASHTV is a WSF bespoke production, with staff who travel to all major events, providing quality and consistency. We have super-slow-mo replays, multiple camera angles, in-play stats, live web transmission and full-match video-on-demand uploads. Super HD was introduced in 2015, and Sky, Fox, Al-Jazeera and others have broadcast agreements. The world series finals were shown live in 47 countries in Europe by Eurosport.

State-of-the-art all-glass show courts have been introduced, with glass floors and side door options. Squash is very cool now; it is presented very differently on the professional tour from how it was when I used to play. There is music, lighting and MCs. An old friend of mine, Robert Edwards, started the cool commentaries, and became known as “the voice of squash”. There is a great connection between players and spectators. Para-squash is well established; for example, deaf squash has its own world championships, and the German squash federation is making excellent progress with wheelchair squash in an effort to meet the requirements of the International Paralympic Committee.

Squash has been a Commonwealth games sport, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) mentioned, since 1998, a Pan American games sport since 1995 and an Asian games sport also since 1998. The WSF has been working with the International Olympic Committee—the IOC—since 1986 to get squash included in the Olympic games, but at that time the sports included were set in stone, so it has been an uphill task to get squash in.

How does it work? The decision on which sports are included in the games is made at the same time as the successful bidding city is announced. In 2005, London won the bid to host the 2012 games, and the sports for 2012 were announced, with squash coming top of the shortlisted sports to be included. To be included would have been amazing, because at that time James Willstrop of England was ranked No. 1 in the world and Nick Matthew of England was ranked No. 2—gold and silver Olympic medals. Jenny Duncalf of England was ranked No. 2 in the world and Laura Massaro of England was ranked No. 3—silver and bronze medals. I must admit that our Welsh players were not quite as highly ranked.

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 would be in. However, we then fell foul of a rule that new-entry sports should have a voting threshold of 75%, which none of the shortlisted sports had, so London ran with only 26 sports.

Then, in 2009, the two vacant spots for the 2016 games were filled by rugby sevens and golf. Some may say that that was commercially attractive after the 2008 crash. It was then decided that a sport would be removed from the 28 sports in the 2016 games to make room for a new sport in the 2020 games. Wrestling was removed, but then added back in to a shortlist of eight. The list was then reduced to three sports: wrestling, baseball and softball—now combined—and squash. But in 2013, wrestling—not a new sport—was voted back in, when squash was, in fact, the only new sport on the shortlist.

Baseball is a major sport in Japan, so Tokyo was very keen on baseball. The IOC gave the host country the right to nominate new sports. Originally these were squash and baseball because they were the two on the shortlist, but Tokyo was encouraged to open it up to any sport. The city selected a shortlist of eight from the 25 sports that had applied. In August 2015, each sport gave a presentation to the IOC, and in the September Tokyo selected five sports, not including squash. They were baseball and softball combined, karate, skateboarding, sports climbing and surfing. Surfing does not even have an international federation that is recognised by the IOC and, because of concerns over the level of waves in the Japanese ocean, a wave-making machine like the Snowdonia model might have to be installed. We cannot get away from Wales, no matter how hard we try.

The host for 2024 will be decided in 2017. The front-runner appears to be Los Angeles, but we have no idea whether there will be any space for new sports. Squash would be inexpensive to introduce, with men’s and women’s singles draws of 32 each. The competitions would take place on two courts over six days with two spectator sessions each day, and only 20 refereeing officials would be needed. Existing squash court venues could be used or glass show courts could be set up. Each show court could accommodate 4,000 spectators, using steep seating to create a fantastic atmospheric arena. There is no need for a warm-up venue because players train on the courts on which they compete. Imagine what two show courts in Horse Guards Parade would have added to the London games.

I understand that the co-vice-chair of our new all-party parliamentary group on squash and racketball, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), had some discussions with Mr Speaker to see whether a show court could be set up in Speakers Court, so that MPs, peers and staff could have the squash experience. But that might have caused a few by-elections. Will the Minister pledge her Department’s support to squash at both grassroots and elite level? Will she shed some light on what has gone wrong with the bids to include squash in the Olympics, and will she help us to campaign for squash to become an Olympic sport?

We had a World Squash Day in 2015, on Saturday 10 October. This year’s day has not been announced yet, but perhaps the Minister would be able to join us. We would be honoured if she would join our APPG on squash and racketball.

Spending Review and Autumn Statement: Wales

Debate between Christina Rees and Glyn Davies

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Christina Rees]

The hon. Gentleman may think it is a diatribe but I do not—these are the facts, and the so-called national living wage is yet more rhetoric from the Conservative party.

In Neath Port Talbot, the county borough in which my constituency sits, the local authority has seen a cumulative cut of £65 million to its budget since 2010, not including this coming financial year, with further planned cuts potentially of £37 million over the next three years—a total of £102 million being taken out of its budget in eight years. That has meant its workforce has shrunk by 20%, and it is important to point out that those cuts have come as a direct consequence of UK Government cuts to the Welsh budget. That has hit local services hard, leading to the unwanted but necessary reduction in support for community facilities, such as libraries and leisure centres.

The IFS has estimated that the tax and social security changes introduced in the last Parliament cost the average Welsh family £560 a year and took £700 million out of the Welsh economy each year. According to the IFS, the Chancellor’s plans mean that Welsh households will lose a further £500 each year between 2015 and 2019, meaning an annual loss of £660 million to our economy.

The Chancellor made much of implementing a Barnett floor to ensure that the funding gap between Wales and England does not widen further. I welcome that announcement. Six years on from the Holtham report, which recommended such a floor, I am pleased that the Government have finally pledged to deliver that mechanism, but the simple fact is that the floor makes hardly any difference when spending on Wales is falling. What is unacceptable, and completely at odds with the recommendations of the Holtham report, is that the Barnett floor is only being set at its present level of 115% of spending in England for the duration of this Parliament, with the amount being “reset” at the next spending review

“to take full account of the Welsh Government’s new powers and responsibilities.”

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady clarify something? If the 115% level is deemed to be too low, what level would the Labour party want to apply to Wales, in terms of the Barnett formula?

[Christina Rees]

We have to look at this issue. When spending in Wales is falling, that level is too low, so surely the best thing is to generate an economically viable situation in Wales so that spending increases.