Discrimination in Sport

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Allin-Khan]

It is almost as though my hon. Friend had read my speech. He is right about the sterling work of Show Racism the Red Card, which works tirelessly in schools to ensure that racism is rooted out from the heart, where it never deserves to see the light of day. Kick It Out has also worked for many years to eradicate that blight on our beautiful game.

Sadly, discrimination in sport, as in society, also extends to gender. Now retired from the pitch, former Arsenal and England player Alex Scott is a successful and respected TV pundit. Despite 140 caps for the England women’s team, multiple FA cups, several premier league titles and a Champions League trophy, Scott is still subject to intense sexist abuse. Alex Scott has said that she receives sexist insults online every single day.

Outside the pundits’ box, things are hardly better. In March, The Daily Telegraph surveyed more than 300 elite sportswomen from 20 sports and found that, shockingly, more than a third had been subjected to sexist comments from fans or social media, more than half had been the victim of gender discrimination and almost a third said that they had suffered sexual harassment.

When I called out an incident of sexism aimed at a female BBC reporter, in one day alone, I received 1,000 abusive tweets, including one from a former footballer and pundit who still presents on the radio today. He said, “Imagine being offended by it,” then called me an expletive. Other colourful tweets directed at me included: “Get a grip, woman”; “Get a life, silly girl”; “Tell her I’d give her a slap”—another expletive—and then a threat that I might get a slap; and “Shut your mouth and get back to the kitchen to make my tea”. I am rather good at making a cup of tea, particularly a builder’s brew, but I have no desire to get into any kitchen and make a cup of tea for someone directing social media abuse at me. Those tweets remain online today.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady is making an excellent speech and I congratulate her wholeheartedly on bringing such an important issue to the Floor of the House. On social media abuse, does she share my shock that, when I was at the Women’s World cup at the weekend, supporting Scotland, I took a clip of a celebration by a female footballer on my iPad while watching one of the other matches, posted it online, and FIFA almost instantly got in touch with Twitter and had it removed? Does the hon. Lady agree that it is incredible that social media companies take copyright issues much more seriously than abuse?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank the hon. Lady, whom I will call a friend and a teammate—I will explain shortly—for her intervention. How can it be that she was requested to remove her clip, yet millions of pieces of abuse directed at many Members of the House, let alone the wider public, remain online?

If elites of the sporting world are experiencing such prevalent sexism, one can only imagine how much worse the problem is at the grassroots. Fortunately, one area of the grassroots that I can vouch for is the women’s parliamentary football team. I would like to take the opportunity to give a great big shout-out to my football colleagues, who are some of the finest women I have ever played alongside. As our recent match against Crawley Old Girls showed, it does not matter what gender or age people are, or indeed what party they represent or which newspaper they may write for, sport is a uniting force.

Back pitch-side, Sol Campbell, with his hugely successful Arsenal and England career, also had impressive form in his first managerial role. When he took on the role of manager of Macclesfield Town in 2018, the Silkmen were rooted at the bottom of League Two and five points from safety. Under Campbell’s leadership, Macclesfield pulled off the great escape and stayed up with a last day draw against Cambridge United. All that was not enough to protect him from discrimination, however, with audible homophobic chanting recorded by several fans during a January game between Macclesfield and Cheltenham. The FA is investigating and I hope those responsible face appropriate and harsh consequences.

A titan of a different sport, our very own Gareth Thomas, played rugby for Wales 100 times and is the second-highest try scorer for his country. In December 2009, he courageously became the first openly gay professional rugby union player.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I am very happy to say that he also played rugby league. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for your very important intervention and clarification.

Sadly, in November last year Thomas was viciously attacked just for being gay. Showing the immense strength of his character, however, Thomas chose to pursue restorative justice against his attacker. He made a full recovery, but the incident is a reminder of the barriers LGBT sportspeople continue to face, barriers that need not be there and must not be there.

[Hannah Bardell]

On homophobia in sport, does the hon. Lady agree that it is frankly ridiculous that we have countries such as Russia and Qatar holding international competitions like the World cup, when they persecute LGBT people and have seriously dubious human rights records? If we want to send a really strong message, we should not be allowing such countries to hold very important competitions.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, articulated perfectly as usual. She is absolutely right that no international competition should be held anywhere where fans, players, coaches and the wider public at large are persecuted for being of a minority group.

It will surprise no one in this Chamber that the discriminatory views I have outlined are plaguing social media platforms. This abuse is mostly left unpunished on social media. Racists, sexists and homophobes can leave awful comments, but without the use of specifically harmful phrases the algorithm does not notice how discriminatory those posts are. These comments would be indefensible in a court of law and indefensible in front of an employer, yet they go unpunished on social media. With social media, it is direct and it is personal. I know that many Members in the Chamber have themselves experienced abuse on social media. We use Twitter daily and not just for our work. We scroll through when we wake up in the morning, while we travel to work or are on a tea break. When something hateful is directed at us, the pain and fear runs deep. It is personal; it is disgusting; and it is wrong.

For our sportsmen and sportswomen, who often carry millions more followers than the average MP, the abuse, and the pain that is felt, is magnified. Faceless accounts are run by bullies in bedrooms, sitting in their underpants, where an attacker can keep their anonymity and post vile replies to tweets. These people can be identified, but only through a police investigation. We want a system introduced where this information is sent to our sports’ governing bodies and clubs, so that offenders can be banned from attending matches and sporting events. To be clear, a minority of fans take part in homophobic, sexist or racist chanting and it is important that we do not tar all fans with the same brush.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

I certainly do agree. It is important for more women’s sport to be broadcast. I think that we are taking steps in the right direction. The England-Scotland football match—I am sorry to remind the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) of it; I will not mention the result—was watched by about 10% of our population. It is important for us to get the message across to broadcasters not just that broadcasting women’s sport is the right thing to do but that, if they broadcast it, people will watch it.

[Hannah Bardell]

I am happy to congratulate England on their 2-1 win, although I have to say that it was a very dubious penalty.

The Secretary of State speaks positively about the action that we should be taking on homophobia and discrimination in sport. I want to share something with him. I ask Members please to forgive me for the language; it is not mine.

Earlier, I called out someone who had tweeted a colleague of mine, saying:

“Is it wrong that I’m watching women’s football for a possibility of tits and fanny?”

I responded to that on Twitter and received this response from another unfortunate man who appears to be a football fan:

“People like this exist cause women’s fitbaw is absolutely dug shite and the only point in substituting real fitbaw for this pish is the hope of a decent swatch…it’s true and if you dispute it, you like men…there av said it”.

I will be reporting that homophobic, discriminatory tweet to Twitter. I hope that it will take swift action.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Of course I wanted to hear the hon. Lady’s intervention, but I have found room for her to speak later, because I think that she can make a very important contribution. I would sooner she did that in a speech, rather than trying to make an intervention into one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I have just been handed an envelope, so I think I need to speak quickly.

I am not sure whether I need to declare this, but I recently became a trustee of the Cornish Sport Foundation, a new foundation that seeks to get to grips with the opportunities of sport and to address the important issues we are talking about this evening. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate on such an important subject, not just because we have a problem that must be resolved but because sport, as has been said, offers a solution.

I do not wish to rehearse the many important points that have been made, other than to say that we should never accept racist or discriminatory behaviour, and we must always work, using sport and whatever other tools we have, to rule out their existence. Sport offers a great tool to unite people and to improve fitness. I remember being at a football match many years ago—it was a long game that had gone into a bit of extra time—and, looking around, someone said, “There are 22,000 people here badly in need of exercise and 22 people out there badly in need of a rest.” This debate has reminded me of that story.

Sport also offers a tool to address inequalities and improve life chances, and I am pleased that the motion mentions the need for education. This will come as no surprise to the Secretary of State or the Minister, but what better example of a place for education than a stadium for Cornwall? That includes Cornish wrestling, or wrasslin, which we will hear about in the Adjournment debate.

I do not wish to diminish or take away from any of the important issues related to discrimination, racism or anything that happens against individuals in some sports and on some sporting occasions. We should never accept that, as I have said.

In Cornwall, there is a different type of discrimination, which I will briefly touch on. I am told that Cornwall is the only county without a big sporting arena or stadium. As the Secretary of State said, we should be working to give young people access to sport, partly because of education and all that comes with it—the way that young people grow and develop as human beings. I hope that we can soon resolve Cornwall not having access to that. We lack a stadium, and the Football Foundation has already accepted that, because of its geography, Cornwall does not have good access, is discriminated against in the location of facilities and has not had the kind of money that other parts of the country have enjoyed.

Having said that, even without the facilities or the stadium, Cornwall has a great record. There are of lots of elite sports personalities from Cornwall, and I will mention just a few, particularly because of the work they do.

[Hannah Bardell]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about a lack of sports facilities, but I know that he has a great coastline and many surfers. Does he agree that we need to see more about minority sports like surfing? Surfing is an up and coming sport that will be in the Olympics next year. In Scotland, 64% of our sports coverage in the media is of men’s sport, and only 2% of print media coverage in the UK is of women’s sport. We need to see a much broader range of sports being represented to break down those barriers of discrimination. Does he agree?

[Derek Thomas]

Of course, what the hon. Lady says is right. My entire constituency is surrounded by our immense coastline, as are the Isles of Scilly—it is a great chore for me to have to visit them from time to time! Gig rowing, kayaking, paddle boarding, kite surfing and surfing, which she mentioned, are all fantastic and they are important because they help people to know how to be safe in water. Again, on access and equality, they are expensive sports to do, whereas rugby and other sports provide more access as they can sometimes be much cheaper. However, these things are expensive in Cornwall because people travel great distances, sometimes with their young but talented children, to even get to a decent pitch. They are even driving out of Cornwall from the far west, where I live, to engage, and we need to resolve this.

As I was saying, let me mention a few people who are celebrities in Cornwall. I could mention loads of others and I am going to get in trouble for not mentioning them all. Jack Richards was an England cricketer and he works with me on the sports foundation. Lucy Payne is a kickboxer who is celebrated in my part of the world. Helen Glover is an Olympian, whom Members will know. Jack Nowell is an England rugby player in my constituency. Melissa Reid is a triathlete who has been fantastic in breaking down the barriers that face so many people in sport. Then there is Sir Ben Ainslie, whom we all know. He came to speak to children at the beginning of the 2012 Olympics and just lit up Cornwall when it came to how accessible sports could be.

Let me make the case again on discrimination: sport gives people life chances, so that they know how they can and should support and accept each other, whoever they might be, wherever they might come from and whatever their differences. The right facilities also do that. Sport addresses health inequalities, and it provides the education, fairness and opportunity that we are arguing for. We are talking about celebrating elite Cornish sport and achievement. I welcome the comments the Secretary of State has made today about why it is so important that we make sure that our young people, as they grow, are never in a position where they believe that the kind of discrimination that we have heard about is acceptable. Sport is the tool, and the right facilities can be the tool, to make sure that they never are.