Brain Injuries in Football

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an incredibly important point.

I will dwell briefly on the main statistical outputs of that field study, because it is the best baseline that we have in the UK. The figures are stark. The study discovered that former footballers have a fivefold increase in Alzheimer’s disease, a fourfold increase in motor neurone disease and a twofold increase in Parkinson’s disease against the base level for the general population.

Further medical studies have identified, too, the medical condition of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which is linked to head trauma—head injury. It can be caused by a severe blow to the head, but also within the course of playing football. It causes a release within the brain that is made worse by repetitive injury. That is why the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has a point about classifying this as a form of industrial injury caused by the circumstances of playing football. It can have prolonged and lasting effects. Players who have received concussion injuries on several occasions may be more likely to have severe trauma later on, even if it is recognised at the time.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this subject forward. It has taken some time and I commend him for his zeal in making it happen. There have been advances and helpful discussions with the Irish Football Association. Does the hon. Member agree that the lessons learned have meant that changes must be made, including the pilot scheme that was introduced by the IFA in 2020 to allow substitutions for suspected concussion with no disadvantage to the teams? That means that players do not feel that they have to shake it off and can be medically wise. There are some things that can be done. For every debate that we bring forward, it is important to highlight the issues, but it is also important to highlight the possible solutions.

[Damian Collins]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that concussion substitution would be a sensible measure. In Scotland, I believe there is a campaign for rugby called, “If in doubt, sit them out”, which recognises the danger of concussion injuries and allows a pause in play. Often the incentive within professional sport is to keep people playing as long as possible, and often the players want that themselves. However, there must be proper safety standards so that the right decision is made and the incident does not lead to lasting injury and trauma.

In the United States of America, the recognition of CTE as an injury caused by playing professional sport, particularly American football, is well recognised. The National Football League is providing hundreds of millions of dollars of support for players who are diagnosed as having CTE. There is recognition of the link between head injury and playing sport, and people are properly supported and compensated.

There are two challenges that we have to look at. First, how can we prevent unnecessary and lasting injury as a consequence of head and brain injuries in football and other sports? Secondly, how do we support people who, late in life, are suffering as a consequence of the injuries they sustained during their playing career? The question of compensation is one that families in particular have raised. While a £1 million fund has been created by the Premier League, administered by the Professional Football Association, the concern is that there is no guarantee beyond the first year of its operation, which we are still in, that the fund will continue—although we hope that it will. It needs to have proper resources and to be properly accessible to families.

I spoke recently to John Stiles, the son of former England footballer Nobby Stiles, who made it clear to me that in his father’s case, his care costs per year were over £100,000, and yet the cap for funding from the current fund is £60,000 a year. That would not have been enough. In that case, Nobby Stiles decided to sell his medals, including his World cup-winning medal, which helped pay for his retirement and his costs. However, not everyone is in that position. Many other footballers and their families can be in a position where they are required to sell the family home, although they were told that would not be the case when the fund was created. Some former players and their families have had to sell their homes.

Criminal Cases Review Commission

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks, and I am sure my constituent is as well. I have some particular asks for the Minister at the end of my speech and they may be relevant for the work the hon. Gentleman is involved in.

I would like to consider what has become known subsequent to the 2002 Court of Appeal case. Much of Mr Cleeland’s conviction rests on the belief by the Crown, as established in the trial, that the Gye & Moncrieff shotgun was the murder weapon and the two guns found in a weir in Harlow were nothing to do with the murder at all. The view of the Court of Appeal was that the two shotguns found in Essex could not be considered to be the murder weapon, and that it might have been established that the Gye & Moncrieff gun was the murder weapon.

Mr Spencer, the forensic expert called to give evidence to the Court of Appeal, discredited a lot of the evidence presented against Mr Cleeland by Mr McCafferty of the Metropolitan Police Service in the original trial. In particular, he noted that there were no case notes for any of the assertions that Mr McCafferty made in the trial, and therefore doubt should be placed on the evidence he had given. Mr Spencer also concluded that there was no hard evidence connecting the gun with either the murder or Mr Cleeland.

There was also the question of the consideration of the other guns that had been found. The summing up of the Court of Appeal case said that it was clear that both Mr Pryor and Mr Spencer discounted the other guns. That was not true. In the transcript from the proceedings of the Court of Appeal, when my constituent was questioning Mr Pryor, Mr Pryor was very clear that he could not rule out that one of the sawn-off shotguns could have been the murder weapon. He may have said he did not believe it was, but he could not exclude that possibility.

It is also not the case that Mr Spencer could have reached that conclusion, because he had never actually examined the guns himself. The Court of Appeal wrongly stated that he had, but he had not—in fact he could not have done, because the guns were destroyed in the 1970s, when it was believed that they were no longer of any importance to the police.

It was clear from the Court of Appeal hearing, despite what was said in the summing up, that there was no forensic link between the gun and the murder and Mr Cleeland, and that the expert witnesses did not discount the possibility that one of the other guns could have been the murder weapon.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate; I spoke to him beforehand. He has outlined a very serious case that prompts a lot of questions. Of 31,300 applications received by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, 832 have been referred to the Court of Appeal and only 500 have been successful. The Government and the Minister must try to encourage more people that the process is effective by referring more cases and hearing more evidence. That would instil the confidence, as the hon. Gentleman has clearly outlined on behalf of his constituent.

[Damian Collins]

I agree. The hon. Gentleman raises a point essential to the work of the Law Commission in reviewing whether enough cases are being referred or whether the CCRC is taking too much of a precautionary approach.

Since the Court of Appeal hearing, other cases have come forward. At Mr Cleeland’s initial trial, Mr McCafferty presented evidence that there was lead residue on Mr Cleeland’s clothing and that this was consistent with firearms discharge. The sodium rhodizonate test was the one used at the time—this was the theme of my 2011 Adjournment debate—but it was not a firearms residue test. It was known not to be so: as early as 1965, it was known within the police that it could not detect firearms residue, but only the presence of lead. Concerns were raised that it was not made clear at the trial that the test was extremely limited, and that the lead residue could easily have come from other environmental pollutants. Mr Cleeland was a painter and decorator at the time and worked with lead-based paints. He had also been to a fireworks party on the evening of the murder and could have picked up lead residue there, but that was never clearly explained.

Further forensic evidence produced since 2002 by Mr Dudley Gibbs has also cast doubt on the judgment. He maintained that there is no forensic evidence linking the Gye & Moncrieff shotgun with Mr Cleeland. He also pointed out, significantly, that the gunshot pellets found in the victim’s body were a different size from those found in the Blue Rival cartridges alleged to have been used at the shooting. It was believed at the time by Mr McCafferty, and presented in court to the jury, that the Blue Rival cartridges came with a highly distinctive wadding that would have linked the cartridges to the gun and to Mr Cleeland. Mr Gibbs made it clear that the wadding was not distinctive in any way and could have come from any number of brands of cartridge that could have been purchased. Again, that casts doubt.

In the Barry George case, Barry George was convicted of the murder of TV presenter Jill Dando and later acquitted on the basis that the lead residue found on his clothing and presented in court could not have been evidence of his having fired a gun. Again, it was only a small particle of lead and it could have come from environmental factors. On those grounds, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, in what is often referred to as the Pendleton judgment, on the basis that it was not possible to know how the jury would have reacted if they had known that the lead residue itself was circumstantial evidence, not evidence of having fired a gun.

All these things apply in Mr Cleeland’s case. The concern throughout—in the subsequent cases he has brought to the CCRC and when he sought to appeal the CCRC’s decision in the divisional court and latterly in the civil court of the Court of Appeal—has been that the CCRC, the courts and the judges have consistently relied on statements that are just not true, and that have been demonstrated in court not to be true. Mr Pryor did not discount the question that one of the Harlow guns was the murder weapon. Neither he nor the other expert believed that there was any forensic evidence linking the Gye & Moncrieff shotgun to the murder or Mr Cleeland—a point that was consistently made.

Mr Cleeland is now in the position of having been accused of being a vexatious litigant simply because he is seeking to correct the record and have the CCRC clearly state these facts instead of relying on previous evidence and previous rulings that are not true and that are inaccurate. He wants the record to be corrected, and he wants the CCRC to acknowledge the complaints that have been made and consider the judgments that have been made by other judges who have relied on evidence presented by the CCRC, which continues to reassert these points.

When we look at the case now, it is hard to know how the jury would have reacted in the 1970s when they considered Mr Cleeland’s case, particularly because almost every principal area of evidence presented by the Crown was subsequently proven to be flawed. That is true even of the evidence from two policemen who described having overheard cell confessions by Mr Cleeland that implicated him in the crime. Subsequent to 2002, those policemen were discredited and regarded as unsafe witnesses, as their evidence was considered to have potentially misled another case. Had that been known at the time, their evidence would have been considered very differently in the case of Mr Cleeland. There is now substantial evidence that challenges what has gone before, but the CCRC continues to reject it. In many ways, it is presenting evidence that does not bear out the facts. Those seem to be the reasons why the CCRC will not refer the case on.

My request to the Minister, which I am happy to set out in writing to her and to the Lord Chancellor, is that there be an acknowledgment of these mistakes; that the record be put right and fresh consideration be given by the CCRC to Mr Cleeland’s case, in the light of these facts having been corrected and amends having been made; and that the Law Commission considers Mr Cleeland’s case directly in its work on the safety principle for referrals.

Draft Online Safety Bill Report

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Report of the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill, HC 609.

I would like to start by thanking the members and Clerks of our Joint Committee, who put in a tremendous effort to deliver its report. In 11 sitting weeks, we received more than 200 submissions of written evidence, took oral evidence from 50 witnesses and held four further roundtable meetings with outside experts, as well as Members of both Houses. I am delighted to see my Joint Committee colleagues Lord Gilbert and Baroness Kidron in the Gallery. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and the Secretary of State for the open and collaborative way in which they worked with the Committee throughout the process and our deliberations. I also thank Ofcom, which provided a lot of constructive guidance and advice to the Committee as we prepared the report.

This feels like a moment that has been a long time coming. There has been huge interest on both sides of the House in the Online Safety Bill ever since the publication of the first White Paper in April 2019, and then there were two Government responses, the publication of the draft Bill and a process of pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Committee. I feel that the process has been worth while: in producing a unanimous report, I think the Committee has reflected the wide range of opinions that we received and put forward some strong ideas that will improve the Bill, which I hope will get a Second Reading later in the Session. I believe that it has been a process worth undertaking, and many other Lords and Commons Committees have been looking at the same time at the important issues around online safety and the central role that online services play in our lives.

The big tech companies have had plenty of notice that this is coming. During that period, have we seen a marked improvement? Have we seen the introduction of effective self-regulation? Have the companies set a challenge to Parliament, saying “You don’t really need to pass this legislation, because we are doing all we can already”? No. If anything, the problems have got worse. Last year, we saw an armed insurrection in Washington DC in which a mob stormed the Capitol building, fuelled by messages of hate and confrontation that circulated substantially online. Last summer, members of the England football team were subject to vile racist abuse at the end of the final—the football authorities had warned the companies that that could happen, but they did not prepare for it or act adequately at the time.

As Rio Ferdinand said in evidence to the Joint Committee, people should not have to put up with this. People cannot just put their device down—it is a tool that they use for work and to stay in communication with their family and friends—so they cannot walk away from the abuse. If someone is abused in a room, they can leave the room, but they cannot walk away from a device that may be the first thing that they see in the morning and one of the last things that they see at night.

We have seen an increase in the incidence of child abuse online. The Internet Watch Foundation has produced a report today that shows that yet again there are record levels of abusive material related to children, posing a real child safety risk. It said the same in its report last year, and the issues are getting worse. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen the rise of anti-vaccine conspiracies.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this forward. We have a colleague in Northern Ireland, Diane Dodds MLA, who has had unbelievably vile abuse towards her and her family. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a huge loophole and gap in this Bill—namely, that the anonymity clause remains that allows comments such as those to my colleague and friend Diane Dodds, which were despicable in the extreme? There will be no redress and no one held accountable through this Bill. The veil of anonymity must be lifted and people made to face the consequences of what they are brave enough to type but not to say.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not trying to make a speech, is he? No, he is not.

Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The rules apply to content that is accessed by users in the UK; it does not matter where in the world that is coming from. For example, we have recommended in the report that frauds and scams should be within scope, including when they appear in adverts as well as in organic postings. Google is already working with the Financial Conduct Authority to limit people advertising unless they are FCA-accredited, but what about organisations elsewhere in the world that are not accredited? They should clearly be in scope as well. We are asking the companies to take responsibility for content that is accessed by users in the UK, and they will have to comply with UK law if we set that law. We can see how this is already being done in legislation elsewhere in the world, and we can set laws, even for global companies, that have to be applied for users in the UK.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

With reports that children as young as nine years old have smartphones, that the internet is essential to their learning and that their homework is almost all done online from the age of six, can the hon. Gentleman tell the House what will be done to filter out the trash to ensure that those smartphones do not turn into a tool to disrupt our children’s healthy development?

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the impact on children. Important work on this has already been done and this Government have passed legislation on the design of services, which is known as the age-appropriate design code. In our report and in the Bill, we stress the importance of risk assessment by the regulator of the different services that are offered, and of the principles of safety by design, particularly in regard to services that are accessed by children and products that are designed for and used by children. I spoke earlier about the regulator’s power to seek data and information from companies about younger users and to challenge companies whose platform policy is that those under 13 cannot access their content and ask whether they have research showing that they know people under that age are using it but allow them to keep their accounts open anyway. Keeping children off the systems that are not designed for them, and from which they are supposed to be deliberately excluded, could be an important role for the regulator to take on.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Programme motion No. 3: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend is right to say that it is in the interests of many different stakeholders in the industry to do that, but at the moment it is not happening across the board. Some of the bigger artists and events have been able to introduce these measures, but it has been difficult to do it uniformly.

We must ask ourselves why the primary ticketing sites do not report the mass use of bots to the authorities. Why did they not report it as suspicious behaviour? It would be easy for them to do so. We heard in evidence to the Committee that it is so easy to do that the primary sites’ biggest customers often have favourable terms of trade. Their own secondary ticketing sites certainly have favourable terms of trade with people who are bulk selling vast numbers of tickets. It is easy to identify who they are, and it would be easy for a primary site to report them if it became suspicious because they were selling thousands of tickets only minutes after they had gone on sale on the primary ticketing site. If they are able to do that so quickly, they must be using bot technology to pervert the market. It does not get reported, however, and we must ask ourselves why that is. Is it because they are making too much money?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions smaller venues, and I want to put on record something that happens in Northern Ireland. People often queue on phone lines or try to buy tickets online only to find that they have already all been sold. Does he agree that the industry needs to be regulated and that this is the place to do it? If it cannot regulate itself, let us do it here.

[Damian Collins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments; he is right.

We are proposing a way to control the bots. The Government are in discussions with the industry, and they might find a better solution to achieve the same end, but I certainly think it is incumbent on us in this place to try to find a solution, not only because this affects the ticketing market but because it rips off the consumer. What kind of people seek to make money selling tickets in this way? We asked that question in the Select Committee and we were told that criminal gangs—some linked to paramilitary organisations in Ireland—were making money as industrial touts selling tickets on the secondary market. It is important that we regulate this industry, not only to protect the consumer but to clamp down on some serious criminal elements who are seeking to make money through this technology. If we can stop that, we will be doing this country a service.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

I agree with the hon. Lady on that point, which is why I think the Prime Minister was right to focus our efforts on the region itself. We should be looking at the aid we are delivering to Syria and the support in the camps in the region where we are playing a leading role. That is where we and other countries should be making more of an effort, rather than encouraging people to make perilous journeys across Europe. I do not think that that is what any Member wants. All Opposition Members have done during this debate so far is to focus purely on the numbers and to ignore the broader contribution that this country is making. Help is needed on the ground, close to Syria. Millions of people are on the move. No one is suggesting that any one European country can accommodate millions of people. There should be a bigger international effort to provide safe havens in the region itself. The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart McDonald) asked whether the Gulf Arab states should be doing more. Providing financial support to safe havens on the ground is exactly the sort of thing they can do.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

[Damian Collins]

I am afraid that I have very little time left. I just want to make a couple more remarks.

The Home Secretary was absolutely right to focus on the efforts that have been made by the Government in conjunction with the French Government in Calais. This is very important. Although the death of a three-year-old boy touched the heartstrings of everyone all around the world, it has not been the only death this summer. I represent the constituency where the channel tunnel enters this country. Migrants have died seeking to access the channel tunnel to get into this country. That cannot be allowed to continue. We have an obligation to protect our borders and to safeguard the lives of people seeking to enter this country. We need to ensure that the border and the frontier are secure. The Government have provided millions of pounds for proper security fencing, which has safeguarded the channel tunnel site and led to a massive reduction in the disruption of services, which has been a terrible blight on the people in the south-east of England and Kent throughout the summer. The fencing has also prevented people from breaking into the tunnel where they can not only lose their lives but endanger the lives of other people as well. That support, in conjunction with the extra policing effort from the British and French police forces, has been a huge step towards securing the site at Calais.

We all want to see proper humanitarian intervention in the camps as well. No one is advocating that we should let everyone who is at Calais into this country without any checks. If we did so, we would encourage greater numbers of people to make that treacherous journey to get to those camps, believing that simply arriving there is enough to provide them with instant access to the UK. That is not what should be done. There has to be proper processing of people on the sites to determine who are the genuine refugees and asylum seekers. Decisions can then be made about where they should go to seek asylum. That is the next necessary step.

Fishing Discards and Quotas

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

I agree that there is widespread concern about the operation of the common fisheries policy and the deal that it gives our fishermen, and I think that we would all like to see more local management of our waters. That is part of the agenda that the Government have pursued during their negotiations in Europe, which I think we would all support, and which the sector would certainly support.

There is also the question of the allocation of quota. The inshore fishing fleet has about 4% of the United Kingdom’s quota, although it supplies about 75% of the manpower for the UK fishing industry. Will the Minister consider making additional quota available for the inshore fleet? The fishermen tell me they need a substantial increase, and that they need it soon. The provision of additional quota in a year or two may come too late for a number of fishermen who are currently in great difficulty.

The question of conservation levels has been raised in the House recently, and, indeed, arose last week during questions to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is especially relevant to sea bass stocks. Because sea bass is outside the quota, inshore fishermen in particular are going for whatever fish are available to supplement their catch, and sea bass is a good species to go for. It is possible that any concern about fish that are not on the quota will be exacerbated by the lack of quota for the inshore fleet.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on raising this matter. Fishing is important in my constituency. Nephrops and prawns are stable species in the Irish sea, contributing some 60% of the value of landings. We think it imperative for an exemption to be made by means of the survivability clause, of which I am sure the Minister is well aware. Does he agree that that is vital to the fishing fleets of Northern Ireland, and particularly vital to the fishing village of Portavogie?

[Damian Collins]

The Minister referred to the important issue during DEFRA questions last week, and I hope that he will say a little more about it this evening. Survivability rates are indeed important. In my constituency, plaice, skate and sole, including Dover sole, are an important part of the local catch. We know that survivability rates are good, and that fish that are caught can be returned. We also know that the gears that fishermen use often make it difficult to restrict catches, and that smaller fish, such as small plaice, cannot always be returned to the water, although they are normally thrown back as a matter of routine.

We do not want good fish, particularly smaller fish, to be left rotting in boxes on the quayside because nothing can be done with them, and we do not want fishermen to be unable to go out to sea because they cannot guarantee that their catches will not include fish that might tip them over the quota and that they cannot use, mixed up with other species. I think that when there is a good case for fish to be returned to the sea—and that certainly applies to flatfish—they should be exempt from the discard ban. Such an exemption would be greatly welcomed by the fishermen in my area of the North sea and the English channel. It would make the ban much more workable, as would additional quota for the inshore fleet.

The potential impact of the discard ban and the current lack of quota are crises with which inshore fleet fishermen must deal immediately, but in certain areas there is also concern about the impact of marine conservation zones. I thank the Minister and his team for their work in considering the proposal in tranche 1 of their consultation for a marine conservation zone in Hythe bay, and for deciding that the zone should go ahead only if it was compatible with the commercial interests of the fishermen. It is clear that there was no evidence to justify its imposition, and that the Government made the right decision. What has come from that is a proposal from the fishermen to create a permitted zone in Hythe bay, which would restrict access to the waters to larger vessels that operate heavier gear, which might damage the biodiversity of the bay, but would not restrict the current fishing rights that are enjoyed by the smaller vessels in the under-10 metre fleet and others that have certain rights to fish in those waters.

I think that is a good approach. It balances the need for conservation with the livelihoods of the fishermen. It respects the fishermen, particularly those in the under-10 metre fleet—they have the biggest vested interest in the sustainability of the waters they fish, because their livelihoods depend on it; they do not go deep out to sea, but fish from their local waters—and puts them at the heart of the management of future stocks. This proposal, which the fishermen are working on with the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, is a good approach. I hope that they can agree the proposals and present them to the Minister, and that this can be a model for the sustainable management of local waters, respecting sustainability targets. That is a much better model for the future.

However, that is part of an ongoing conservation. The urgent need for additional quota and exemptions in the discard ban to make it workable are the two pressing concerns now, and I ask the Minister to address those this evening.

FIFA World Cup Bids (Serious Fraud Office)

Debate between Damian Collins and Jim Shannon

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I have called this debate after several weeks in which FIFA, the governing body of world football, has once again been dragged through the mud. FIFA stumbles from one crisis to another, dogged by persistent allegations of bribery and corruption, involving some of its most senior officials, and unable to shake off the perception that it is a rotten organisation that is not fit to lead the world’s most popular game. It appears that some very ugly people have control of a beautiful game, and I believe that it is time that FIFA was subject to the full force of international law, not just left to investigate itself.

At the heart of the current crisis lie the persistent claims of bribery and corruption surrounding the bidding process to host the World cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022. These are serious allegations—that millions of dollars were paid by bidding nations in bribes to members of the FIFA executive committee in return for their votes. These are not just private matters for the FIFA family, as its president, Sepp Blatter, seems to want the world to believe. They are potentially criminal matters, which are of interest to law enforcement agencies around the world. For several years the FBI has been running its own inquiry into the bidding process, investigating whether corrupt payments were made to officials in return for their votes using servers and payment systems based in the jurisdiction of the United States of America.

In response to the widespread allegations that have been made, FIFA—through its ethics committee—launched its own investigation, led by the American attorney Michael Garcia. We were all promised that the process would get to the truth, that it would be transparent and that it would be independent from FIFA, but that has been far from the reality. FIFA has investigated itself, and has found itself to be not guilty. It set up a process which was always guaranteed to fail, and which is at the heart of my reason for initiating this debate. It was always going to fail because FIFA has no legal powers to pursue an investigation even against people within the organisation, let alone people outside it. It does not have the judicial powers that would enable it to request access to private correspondence and bank records. In fact, it could only request evidence that people were willing to supply.

According to information published in the most recent edition of The Sunday Times, it was also clear that FIFA could offer no anonymity or protection from prosecution to people who complied with its requests and took part in the investigation. Indeed, members of the England bid team told the newspaper that they had felt able legally only to supply information for which FIFA asked, and had not felt able to volunteer information that would otherwise have been helpful.

We know that the Russians told FIFA that all the computers containing e-mails and documents relating to their bid had been destroyed, and that they therefore could not comply with its request for information. As for the Qatar bid, we know that FIFA’s investigation report highlighted its concern about the role of consultants in that campaign, but stated that as those consultants had no official role in football, it had no jurisdiction to pursue them.

What angered me, and angered many football fans around the world, was the fact that, instead of acknowledging the limitations of its own inquiry, FIFA pretended that this was the last word, that there was nothing more to be said, that the World cups would go ahead in Russia in 2018 and in Qatar in 2022, and that no action would be taken against the bidding nations—although there remained the option of taking action against individuals. FIFA seems to pursue a line which involves corporate innocence, but individual potential guilt that warrants further investigation.

The world responded with alarm to the results of Michael Garcia’s inquiry. Of course, FIFA has banned the publication of the full Garcia report. Sepp Blatter is sitting on it personally, and does not want the full 430 pages ever to see the light of day. However, Hans-Joachim Eckert, chairman of the FIFA ethics committee, published a 43-page summary of the report, which Michael Garcia said contained

“numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations”.

FIFA has now realised that people will not buy its white-wash, and has handed over its own investigation of the allegations of bribery and corruption surrounding the World cup bidding process to the Swiss authorities and the Swiss Attorney-General, believing, it said, that the report contained evidence of “unlawful” activity. FIFA has also stated that other “relevant national investigatory authorities” have a responsibility to investigate the allegations of bribery and corruption in the World cup bidding process.

Over the past few weeks I have written to the director of the Serious Fraud Office, David Green, asking him whether the SFO—as one of the '”relevant national investigatory authorities” described by FIFA—would look into these matters. He has assured me that the SFO has been monitoring the situation closely, and that it would act if it believed that it had the jurisdiction to do so. Furthermore, in a letter to me dated 25 November 2014, Alun Milford, the SFO’s general counsel, wrote that

“every reasonable line of inquiry, including working closely with appropriate overseas authorities, is being pursued to ascertain whether the director has grounds to open an investigation.”

I want to ask the Solicitor-General a number of questions. Can he confirm the following: first, that the Serious Fraud Office has entered into a process to determine whether or not it will open an inquiry or criminal investigation; secondly, whether the SFO has received a request for mutual legal assistance from other bodies, including the FBI; thirdly, whether the SFO has approached the FBI and the Swiss authorities regarding their investigations into FIFA; and fourthly, whether the SFO has, or might reasonably expect to, make a request to the Swiss authorities to view the Garcia report produced by the FIFA ethics committee?

The SFO has the jurisdiction to investigate events involving UK companies and citizens around the world, and under the Bribery Act 2010 has far-reaching powers to investigate any organisation that has commercial operations within the UK. I would be grateful if the Solicitor-General could confirm that it does indeed enjoy those powers and that there is a substantial difference between the powers that existed before the Bribery Act was passed by Parliament and the situation now.

A series of events falls within the jurisdiction of the SFO to investigate. We know from reports that the FBI has been working with the former FIFA official Chuck Blazer, that he has held meetings on behalf of the FBI where he has sought information from other football executives and other people he has met, and that he conducted some of these meetings, where he was under FBI surveillance, in London during the London Olympic games. Those meetings would be under the jurisdiction of the SFO and with the knowledge of the National Crime Agency, as is normal practice.

We know from the reports published in The Sunday Times this weekend that the England bid team gathered intelligence from around the world on not just the activities of members of the FIFA executive committee, but the World cup bids being prepared by other nations. It was alleged in these reports that this information contained intelligence passed through the British diplomatic network and intelligence services back to the FA. This information has never been fully published.

I served on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2011 when we conducted a brief inquiry into the FIFA bidding process and invited people to submit evidence. The FA had the chance to respond at that time and did not do so. We took evidence from Lord Triesman, where he laid out substantial allegations against members of the FIFA executive committee, in his view seeking bribes in return for their votes. The FA launched its own inquiry into that and made no reference at any time to this intelligence information that it had gathered. I certainly believe that that information should be made available to the SFO to support its investigations and inquiries and to help it determine whether it can open a criminal investigation.

We know from Lord Triesman’s evidence that there were allegations against key FIFA executive committee members, including that Jack Warner—who is a senior member of FIFA, and who became embroiled in a scandal with Mohamed bin Hammam around the attempt to rig, as people saw it, the presidential elections—was at the heart of the substantial allegations made against the Qatar bid and that he received from Mohamed bin Hammam large payments that were intended both for himself and to be channelled to other FIFA executives. That is the substance and meat of the serious allegations that were made, and we know he had meetings with England officials during that bid process, including Lord Triesman, who states that Jack Warner effectively asked him for payment to secure rights to broadcast football matches in the Caribbean that Jack Warner already owned.

We heard that UK companies were involved in the Qatar bid and that PR executives, including Mike Lee of Vero Communications, worked closely with the bid process. We also know that other executives and companies were involved, such as Nigel Rushman and Rushmans, which offered a specialist service. It helps its clients bid for major global events. On its website it states that it was cheering Qatar all the way in 2010—and there are other reports that it still works closely with Qatar—and that its services to clients boast

“insightful people with enormous amounts of data and knowledge at their finger tips. Much of this sports event bidding information is not available elsewhere.”

If it has relevant information related to the FIFA World cup bids, perhaps it would be interested in sharing some of that with the SFO. There is also the role played by people like Peter Hargitay from ECN consulting group, who made millions from its consultancy work for the Australian 2022 World cup bid, and had previously asked for over £4 million to do the same for the England 2018 bid.

There is also the role of the Qatar bid whistleblower Phaedra Almajid, who provided information to The Sunday Times newspaper regarding the Qatar bid for the FIFA World cup, alleging that Mohamed bin Hammam, the former vice-president of FIFA, had established a network to support the payment of FIFA officials, to secure their votes for Qatar in the World cup bidding process. Phaedra Almajid gave evidence to Michael Garcia’s inquiry into this matter, including the reason why she had later retracted the evidence that she had first produced for the UK media as a whistleblower. Despite being promised anonymity by Michael Garcia, she was clearly identified in the summary of his report produced by Hans-Joachim Eckert. She feels that there has been a deliberate attempt to discredit her, and she has given me a statement to support that. In it, she discusses for the first time the pressure she was placed under to withdraw her allegations.

That statement is relevant to the debate and to the jurisdiction of the Serious Fraud Office to investigate these matters, and I should like to share part of it with the House. She says:

“I never set out to be a whistleblower. I have provided the information about what I witnessed as part of the Qatari bid in confidence, because I believe the World Cup bids should be won honestly. I continue to support an honestly awarded World Cup bid for the Middle East. The most publicised effort to discredit me relates to an affidavit I executed in July 2011. The facts surrounding that affidavit demonstrate that it was coerced and based on a promise that was never kept. I provided documents, emails, recordings and data to Mr Garcia showing the following facts:

In early June 2011, a senior official of the Qatari bid contacted me, urging me to recant information I had provided anonymously to the British media in late 2010 and early 2011. Initially, I refused to recant, as I knew what I had witnessed. I was then informed that a legal injunction had been issued against me in the State of Qatar in the amount of one million dollars for breach of my non-disclosure agreement. The Qatari official threatened to enforce the judgment against me internationally. I finally agreed to sign a recanting affidavit upon the Qatari official’s promise that I would receive in exchange a legal letter that they would not sue me. Their agreement to this deal is confirmed in numerous documents and recordings.

In early July 2011, a lawyer from a London law firm representing Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy came to Washington DC and presented an affidavit to me. I resisted signing it because it alleged that I had lied about what I had witnessed and altered documents, which I had not done. Finally, under threat of being sued and upon a promise that I would receive the legal letter, I agreed and signed the affidavit. I then requested my letter, but the Qatari officials changed the deal saying that, before I would receive it, I had to give media interviews about my affidavit, contrary to their promise of anonymity. After objecting, I gave those interviews, as the Qataris and their lawyer kept assuring me that I would receive the legal letter. Those assurances are recorded.

In September 2011, as I was continuing to demand my legal letter, three FBI agents came to my house unannounced. I had not contacted them. I told them all I knew about the Qatari bid, the threats against me, the affidavit and the Qatari refusal to give me the legal letter. At their request, I agreed to co-operate with them. In October 2011, at the FBI’s request, I spoke to a Qatari official who confirmed that there was a deal to give me the legal letter in exchange for the affidavit. The FBI agents recorded that conversation on their equipment. I continued to demand my letter from the Qataris and their lawyers. Finally, in October 2011, instead of sending the promised legal letter, the London lawyers for the Qataris sent me a letter accusing me of harassing them and threatening to sue me if I continued contacting them. I discontinued demanding my legal letter under that new threat of being sued by the Qataris’ lawyers.”

Ms Almajid does not name the London law firm in her statement, but I have been told that it was Olswang.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; I sought his permission beforehand to intervene on him, and I apologise for not being here at the beginning of his speech. He has outlined clearly the position that the whistleblower took in outlining what had been happening. Does he believe that it is now time for our Government to call on FIFA to give protection to whistleblowers, wherever they might be within that organisation, to ensure that they keep their jobs, despite what they have said, and that they are protected from prosecution?

[Damian Collins]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes a serious point. That is at the heart of my reason for raising this matter in the House tonight and for contacting the Serious Fraud Office about it.

What Phaedra Almajid’s story tells us is that she co-operated fully with Michael Garcia’s inquiry and feels that her evidence has not been treated seriously and that, if anything, FIFA sought to discredit her for coming forward and co-operating with its inquiry. It also demonstrates that the FIFA process offers no guarantees to whistleblowers—people coming forward with information—whereas if they approach the proper authorities in this country, such as the SFO, or the FBI in America, they could discuss in confidence serious matters of concern to them. That is why a proper investigation and inquiry led by international agencies, including the SFO, will be the only way to get to the truth, and to encourage whistleblowers and protect them in coming forward to share their information with us. I believe some of these whistleblowers have genuine grounds to be fearful of the consequences of coming forward.

Other individuals supported the network that Phaedra Almajid describes and supported Mr Mohamed bin Hammam in his work, and little has been understood or acknowledged about them, and certainly not fully investigated. They include Najeeb Chirakal, who was suspended from football by FIFA in 2012 for failing to co-operate with its investigation into bin Hammam; Amadou Diallo, who worked for FIFA’s Goal Bureau for six years and was later alleged to be involved in bribing African football officials on behalf of the Qatar bid; Mohamed al-Mehshadi, a former FIFA Goal Bureau chairman and an insider who accompanied bin Hammam to key meetings in 2010 in Cairo and Moscow connected with the World cup bids; and Rahif Alameh, who resigned in 2012, having been for more than 50 years the general secretary of the Lebanese football association, following years of allegations of bribery and corruption.

There is a huge list in press reports and documents of names of people and allegations of the roles they played in seeking to secure votes for money in the bidding process for the World cup, and I think we see a system that was corrupt. People have been asking whether it was the fault of individual nations bidding, but we see a total system that had been corrupted and by an organisation that people have no confidence in. In 2010, when the 22 members of the FIFA executive committee cast their votes, they were determining which countries should host the next two World cups. That was unprecedented, and people have their own ideas about the reasons for it. Since that time 18 of those 22 members have faced allegations of some sort or current investigations into their conduct and whether they were involved in some sort of scandal involving the way they cast their votes. Just less than a third of the 22—seven of them—have been forced out of football because of their actions and activities. They have been banned by FIFA and forced to stand down because of their involvement in practices that were not considered suitable for a member of the FIFA ethics committee. That includes people such as Jack Warner, Chuck Blazer and Mohamed bin Hammam.

When we consider that 18 of the 22 face some sort of questioning of their role, that seven out of the 22 have resigned and that Russia and Qatar, coincidentally, both won the right to host the World cup by winning margins of six votes, we see why many people would say that the weight of allegations is so great and the stink of corruption that has stayed around this process for more than three years now is so strong that we can have no confidence in that process and therefore no confidence in the decision to award the World cup to those host countries. Those host countries deserve to have these allegations brought out and the world of football deserves to know what happened. If the SFO or the FBI were able to investigate these matters and bring criminal charges against people involved in that process, it would be impossible to see how it could continue. My concern and the reason for raising this tonight, is that without the involvement of organisations such as the SFO and the FBI, which is already involved, it seems impossible that we will ever get to that truth. It is only external pressure that will lead FIFA to change, and we need to act together to save football from FIFA.