Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

5. What steps she is taking with her ministerial colleagues in other Government Departments to advance the role of sport.

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

The Prime Minister has established the Cabinet Committee on Olympic and Paralympic Legacy, through which all Departments are working together to deliver a tangible and lasting legacy from London 2012. Sport is at the heart of that process.

[Charlotte Leslie]

It is evident that sport has a vital role in improving behaviour in schools and health outcomes, and in preventing youth offenders from reoffending, as I have seen at Ashfield young offenders institution near my constituency. Will the Minister pledge to work with colleagues from across Departments to ensure that such interventions are available to young people so that they can turn their lives around?

[Hugh Robertson]

Absolutely. That process is already happening, as is evident from the work that the Department of Health does through Change4Life clubs, the work of the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine, and the cross-departmental funding for the school games.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

13. The Minister will be aware that betting on sport has always been central to the business model of betting shops, but a new development is the use of fixed odds betting terminals. Their high stakes and speed of play have led them to be described as the “crack cocaine of gambling”. In my constituency, there are more than 50 such terminals. What does the Minister intend to do about this problem?

[Hugh Robertson]

I am not entirely sure what that question had to do with advancing the role of sport. The answer on FOBTs, which emerged in the middle of the question, is that they are subject to the triennial review of stakes and prizes, which has just been launched. The Responsible Gambling Trust is just launching the largest ever consultation into the effect of FOBTs. If, as I suspect, it shows that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, it will be addressed.

[Mr Speaker]

The Minister rightly implies that there was an elastic interpretation of what constitutes sport. We will leave it at that for the time being.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Today’s report by Ofsted on sport in schools calls on the Government to devise

“a new national strategy for PE and school sport that builds on the successes of school sport partnerships”.

Those partnerships have been totally undermined by this Government. It is unacceptable that six months after the Olympics, we are still waiting for the Government to deliver a coherent sports strategy. If they continue to delay, they will fail the generation that we should be inspiring. How many more damning reports need to be published before the Minister gets it and the Government deliver the sporting legacy that our children deserve?

[Hugh Robertson]

First, the Opposition spokesman should not conflate sport legacy with a school sport policy. He is well aware that the sport legacy is going extraordinarily well. He tends never to mention that 1.75 million people are now playing sport who were not playing sport at the time of the bid. There is also a range of international events, and around the globe 14 million extra children have been touched by sport.

If the hon. Gentleman is going to criticise sport provision on the back of the Ofsted report, he should wake up to the fact that it covers 2008 to 2012—throughout the period in which the school sport partnerships were operating. If he wishes to see them reintroduced, he has to explain to the House and others how they would be funded, about which we have heard not a jot from the Opposition since the election.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Graham Allen. Not here.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

7. What steps her Department is taking to encourage the development of non-league football clubs.

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

We have been clear, along with the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, that we expect the Football Association to reform the governance of the game as a top priority. As part of that, we expect the FA to show representative, accountable and strategic leadership and help develop football across all levels including the grass-roots, non-league and professional parts of the game.

[David Mowat]

I declare an interest as a director of Warrington Town football club, which would not exist were it not for dozens of donors and unpaid volunteers. Other non-league clubs are going bust, yet 50% of the money from our national team continues to be diverted to the professional game, which is really very wealthy. The Select Committee has mentioned that problem. Will the Minister update us on the progress towards fixing that allocation?

[Hugh Robertson]

There is a fine dividing line here, because it is not for the Government to tell the sport how to allocate money that it raises itself any more than it would be for us to allocate the England and Wales Cricket Board’s broadcast income or the Rugby Football Union’s income from Twickenham. However, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the issue. If we can get the reforms at the FA that we and the Select Committee are pushing for, they will empower the board to take precisely the decisions that he advocates instead of relying on an arbitrary 50% split.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Non-league football is the bedrock of our beautiful game, and as the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) said, many community clubs face extinction. Bedlington Terriers, a community club in my area, faces a very uncertain future. How will the Government engage with the Premier League to ensure that the vast riches trickle down to assist the survival of non-league community clubs?

[Hugh Robertson]

The Government are doing a number of things, and I entirely take the hon. Gentleman’s point. This is one of the key things that we discuss regularly with the Premier League, the Football League and the FA. The FA, of course, receives one of the largest whole sport plan funding awards of more than £30 million, which is there precisely for the development of the game and to encourage more people to play football. He makes a good point, and we will address it in the reform process.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

8. What her Department’s administrative expenditure was in 2010; and how much that expenditure will be in 2015.

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[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

17. What recent assessment she has made of the process by which public appointments to her Department’s arm’s length bodies are made.

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

Ministerial public appointments to my Department’s arm’s length bodies are made on merit, under fair, open and transparent processes, regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments under the commissioner’s code of practice.

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but there is a crisis in the museum and arts sector as a result of political interference and incompetence in Downing street—a number of heritage bodies and museums have waited months for decisions on trustee appointments only to have them vetoed by a busy-body Prime Minister on political grounds. Will he tell the Prime Minister to butt out of matters of which he has no knowledge and stop gerrymandering our cultural institutions?

[Hugh Robertson]

As the hon. Gentleman well knows, all such appointments are made under very strict Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments guidelines and can be challenged. In the appointments for which I have been responsible, we have worked extensively across boundaries. We appointed the former Minister with responsibility for the Olympics to the Olympics board and I kept the former Minister with responsibility for sports as a trustee of the football foundation. That arrangement was not extended to the Conservative party when it was in opposition.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

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[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

T3. News in January that Seedhill athletics track and fitness centre in Nelson has been awarded a £50,000 grant by Sport England to resurface the running track followed similarly great news for Colne and Nelson rugby club, Belvedere and Calder Vale sports club, and Pendle Forest sports club. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating all the volunteers involved in those excellent Pendle sports clubs on securing their part of the Olympic legacy?

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

I join my hon. Friend with pleasure in congratulating those volunteers. I should add to his excellent question by saying that more than 1,000 local community sports clubs have benefited from funding under Places People Play. The funding was made available by the reforms to the lottery introduced by this Government and opposed by the Labour party.

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

With the Arts Council cut by 30%; with regional development agencies, which did so much to support the arts in the regions, abolished; with arts donors smeared as tax dodgers; with the Education Secretary trying to squeeze arts out of the curriculum; and with local government, especially in hard-pressed areas, which does so much to support arts in local communities, facing the biggest cuts in a generation, does the Secretary of State not realise that it is her job to fight for the arts for everyone? Will she therefore withdraw her shameful assertion that the arts community is disingenuous and that its fears are pure fiction?

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[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

T2. A middle-aged constituent of mine, with no previous history of gambling, lost her family’s life savings after being seduced by clever marketing by a television gambling programme. There is a new pestilence of high-speed, high-stakes gambling that has cost my constituents in Newport West at least £2 million. What are the Government doing to stop it?

[Hugh Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman raises concerns that are felt by a number of hon. Members across the House. The Responsible Gambling Trust has primacy in this area and is in the process of conducting the largest piece of academic research ever undertaken. If further action needs to be taken as a consequence—he and many other hon. Members have made this point powerfully—then the Government will take that action.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

T5. I hear from many constituents who are subjected to a barrage of unsolicited telephone calls on a daily basis, despite the fact that they are registered with the telephone preference service. Will my hon. Friend undertake to look carefully into this situation, because it is causing a great deal of stress and anxiety, particularly to my elderly constituents?

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[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

T8. What discussions has the Minister’s Department had with the Department for Transport about rail links to seaside resorts in order to fulfil the coalition’s pledge in its tourism strategy?

[Hugh Robertson]

Access to resorts, particularly seaside resorts, is one of the key issues that will drive domestic tourism. The numbers are increasing considerably, but one of the great challenges facing domestic tourism is getting more tourists out of London and into coastal resorts. That is one of the issues we are seeking to address.

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

I am sure the Minister will share my disappointment that libraries have become a political football between national and local government. Does he agree that perhaps the best way of safeguarding our libraries is to define more clearly what constitutes a statutory comprehensive library service?

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[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

Does the tourism Minister have a view on recent proposals by the BAA to raise the per-passenger charges at Heathrow and does he have plans to make representations to other Whitehall Departments to address the potential effect on the tourism industry?

[Hugh Robertson]

Yes; as my hon. Friend is well aware, if money is raised in one area and there is a cut, it generally has to be found from somewhere else, and of course raising these duties has the perverse effect of encouraging people to take their holidays in this country. There is a balance to be struck, however, and that is what we are trying to do.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

Next week, it is the Brit awards, when we will once again celebrate the massive success of our music industry. I am sure the Minister will be in his usual place. He will know of the usual challenges facing the music industry, particularly from illegal downloading and piracy. When can we expect to see the provisions agreed in the Digital Economy Act 2010?

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I do not believe I have an interest to declare, but if anybody wishes to crawl over my register of interests and come to a different conclusion, I am happy for them to do so.

Is it the Government’s plan to regulate and tax the gambling industry on a point-of-consumption basis? If so, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that the Gambling Commission is prevented from empire building and using that as an excuse to hike up its fees?

[Hugh Robertson]

As my hon. Friend will be well aware, the point of the proposed legislation is consumer protection and there are no plans at the moment for the Gambling Commission to increase its fees.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—