Non-league Football

David Mowat Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on bringing this important debate to the House. Clearly a great number of hon. Members on both sides are enthusiastic football supporters and know a great deal about the subject. I am not one of them. I have to confess that I am not the most enthusiastic football supporter in the country, and I think that any constituent who sees an MP trying to “ham it up” will see through them straight away, so I do not pretend that I am the world’s leading expert. Instead, I rely on my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), a son of Kidderminster who keeps me in touch with the Kidderminster Harriers, the leading team in my constituency, alongside Bewdley Town football club and Stourport Swifts—I too have three non-league football clubs in my constituency.

In the years I have been involved in Wyre Forest as a parliamentary candidate and as the local MP, I has been my sad duty—albeit one I relish each time it comes about—to work with successive chairmen to raise funds to try to save the Kidderminster Harriers football club. It is, I am afraid, one of the great problems of the smaller, lower league football clubs that most of them, despite enormous support from supporters and fans who give personal contributions, are, broadly speaking, ultimately supported by the patronage of private individuals. Most recently, the Kidderminster Harriers were got on to a sound financial footing through the incredibly hard work done by one such individual, Mark Serrell, and his wife, and through quite substantial personal financial sacrifice.

As we heard from the previous speaker, there is an awful lot of money in the broader football economy—probably enough money to keep the whole thing going, were it not for the huge amount of leakage at the top end, where a great deal of money seeps out of the football economy into the pockets of star players. They are probably worth it, but at the end of the day even an investment banker might blush at £300,000 a week in salary. The sport needs the non-league clubs to bring on the players of the future, and that is why more should be done to support them. At the moment, because of the complex interconnectedness in the football economy, people such as Mark Serrell of the Kidderminster Harriers are, in effect, subsidising Wayne Rooney’s salary.

It is important to recognise the huge contribution that clubs such as the Harriers make to their communities, and I will go through in detail some of the stuff they do. Kidderminster Harriers run a number of community and charitable activities. The club’s community scheme has football courses for children aged between five and 14 during the school holidays—an incredibly important time when they are not being supervised. They are held not just in Kidderminster, but across the entire county and in neighbouring south Shropshire and south Staffordshire. Malvern, Worcester, Bromsgrove, Droitwich, Cleobury Mortimer and Kinver—all benefit from the Kidderminster Harriers.

The football academy, which is run in association with Birmingham Metropolitan college, holds trials for players aged between 16 and 18. Importantly, this enables potential Harriers stars of the future to combine football training with a range of full-time courses at Birmingham Metropolitan college. We all know the importance of having a plan B, especially when one is in sport.

The Harriers have recently been recruiting teenagers to a five-a-side indoor football team that will play against larger league clubs in the midlands. Aggborough stadium occasionally hosts charity fun days. The club’s official charity partner for this season is Prostate Cancer UK. It linked up with the charity at the start of the new campaign in August, with the players posing in special “Men United” shirts during the traditional team picture. The use of Aggborough stadium is also available for other events. It is right that any organisation with assets to sweat should do that as much as possible, but it is encouraging that Kidderminster Harriers lets the community use its stadium. On 27 August, Aggborough hosted an international match between England Under-17s and Czech Republic Under-17s.

We have heard that the “fit and proper” test is incredibly important, and a great deal has been said about that. Two issues are worth looking at. First, there is inadequate distribution of money throughout the entire football economy, and the Football Association needs to deal with that. I call on the Minister to use her substantial powers of persuasion to help it to come to the right decision and conclusion.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. The Football Association has a surplus of about £80 million per annum, which basically comes from the England team. That money is given 50% to the grass roots and 50% to the professional game. There is absolutely no reason why it should not all go to the grass roots. Front Benchers on both sides of the House should be applying pressure on that. It would result in an additional £40 million for Hereford, Worksop, Kidderminster and Warrington.

[Mark Garnier]

I entirely agree. It is absolutely right that we should be pushing as much money as we possibly can down to the non-league football clubs.

Secondly, as we have heard, the Government can probably do a little more to help these football clubs directly. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire that we should not go round handing out VAT breaks to them. However, given the great amount of charitable and community activity going on within some of them, there is a case to be made for having charitable or quasi-charitable status for the element of the club that is giving back to the community. The Government could do a great deal of work in looking to provide such help so that clubs benefit, as other charities do, from a reduction in business rates. Furthermore, there could be help for the businesses outside in the community that support the clubs through donations whereby they get tax breaks on those donations.

This has been a very interesting debate. I am learning a great deal about football, having, as I said, come from a very low base to start with. It is important that we support these clubs. Many football supporters recognise that they are fantastic, enthusiastic centres of the community, but people like me who are not supporters, but work with our communities, also recognise absolutely that the work they do is incredibly cohesive in a town. Even if one hates football, one has to recognise the value of the game in supporting the community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Grant]

I will give way later if I have any time left, but I must cover a couple of matters first. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) spoke with great passion about falling attendances at games. I cannot promise that the FA will take him up on his offer in relation to Wembley, but, as other hon. Members have mentioned, we do have a non-league day coming up this weekend. I encourage all hon. Members to visit their local club and enjoy everything that is on offer.

Lastly, I wish to discuss one potentially strong safeguard, which has been mentioned by many Members: better engagement with supporters. There are many good examples of supporters engaging with their local clubs, some of which can be found at AFC Wimbledon, Brentford and Exeter City, but there is more to do. With that in mind, I have accepted Supporters Direct’s proposal for an expert group of supporters, which will include representatives from across football. I hope that the group will examine, among other things, the barriers to supporter ownership and what more can be done to increase engagement with supporters.

[David Mowat]

rose—

[Mrs Grant]

I really am out of time, because I want to leave a few minutes for my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire to speak.

In conclusion, I do not want us to lose sight of the exciting opportunities for non-league football to generate and maintain both interest and participation in the sport as a whole. It is with that in mind that I will continue to work with the football authorities on providing a supportive environment for them to prosper in the future.