Professional and Amateur Sport: Government Support

David Simmonds Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

Of course I join the hon. Lady in her congratulations. In terms of the support package, we want to help absolutely as many clubs as we can. As I have said, our focus is on those that have particularly suffered from the 1 October cancellation and the inability to get fans into stadiums. There is a whole host of other global financial issues and considerations for football; our focus at present is on the return of fans and the issues the delay in that has caused, but the hon. Lady raises the point that many other clubs across the country are struggling for a whole variety of other reasons as well.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I would like to associate myself with the remarks about Wealdstone FC from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman); it has many fans in my constituency also. Does my hon. Friend the Minister share my disappointment in the lack of leadership shown by the Mayor of London in getting Londoners back to sport—in particular, football—and does he welcome the efforts by many community organisations and local authorities in ensuring that sport, especially children’s sport, is being reopened, so people have the best opportunities to access that as we recover from covid?

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend raises a couple of important points. First, on children’s sport, I agree absolutely, and I had a good conversation with the Education Minister with responsibility for school sport the other day. We are absolutely committed to get school sport up and running, and leisure centres and grassroots sport play a vital role in getting our children active, so I agree exactly with his comments on that. Also, when people are not showing that they are sports fans, I, like him, am disappointed in their comments.