Football and Dementia

Debate between Ian Blackford and Caroline Dinenage

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House asks the Government to investigate the links between football and sport-related neurodegenerative disease.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and to the number of Members across the House who support the motion, particularly my co-sponsors of the debate, the hon. Members for Moray (Douglas Ross) and for Easington (Grahame Morris). To use an old-fashioned footballing term, what a half-back line the three of us would make—although, if the hon. Member for Easington will forgive me, I will take up position on the left. I hope that we have an engaging debate and that, at the end of it, the Government will commit not just to examining the issue but to recognising our duty to support those suffering from football-related neurodegenerative diseases, and that the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council will conclude that classing those as industrial injuries is the right thing to do.

Many of us in this House are passionate about football and can celebrate just how much joy the beautiful game his given so many, but it is utterly tragic that so many of our heroes have suffered so much from diseases of the brain that academic research shows conclusively are a result of head impacts from careers in football. So many of those suffering, as well as their families, face challenging and distressing times, often without the professional and financial support that would make a difference.

Football holds a special place in the hearts of many people in Scotland and right across these islands. It is a sport that brings communities together, fosters camaraderie and showcases incredible talent. However, beneath the glory and the cheers lies a silent but devastating issue: dementia among football players. Dementia suffered by players should be classed as an industrial injury. That reclassification would provide much-needed financial and social support. As parliamentarians, it is up to us to demand that the UK Government and the devolved Administrations use their powers to support those who need early intervention and appropriate care and support.

Football has been an integral part of Scottish culture since the formation of the Scottish Football Association 150 years ago. Indeed, the oldest international game was Scotland versus England in Glasgow in 1872. Generations of players have graced our pitches, showcasing their skills and passion since the establishment of the game all those decades ago. However, the physical nature of the game, especially in the past, when head injuries were not adequately addressed, has left a legacy of suffering. Many former players are now facing the harsh reality of dementia, which robs them of their memories and quality of life. It is a tragic situation, and it is high time that we acknowledged that that is an industrial injury.

The connection between repeated head trauma and dementia is well documented in medical literature. Studies have shown that chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease, is prevalent among athletes, particularly in contact sports such as football. The repeated blows to the head during tackles, headers and collisions can result in long-term brain damage, leading to dementia in later life. According to a study by the University of Glasgow, professional footballers in the UK are three and a half times more likely than the general population to die of neurodegenerative diseases such dementia. That alarming statistic highlights the urgency of recognising the condition as an industrial injury.

In 2002, the passing of Jeff Astle at the age of 59 brought the issue of CTE into the public arena. Jeff, an ex-West Brom and England centre forward, was diagnosed post mortem with CTE. He had suffered from that terrible degenerative illness for five years. We should be grateful for the work done by Glasgow University, which conducted a field study of 7,676 former professional football players from Scotland. Although the headline rate is that footballers are 3.5 times more likely than the general population to die with a neurodegenerative disease, that risk increases to five times more likely for developing Alzheimer’s disease, four times for developing motor neurone disease, and double for developing Parkinson’s disease. The evidence is all there; these should be classified as industrial illnesses.

There is also a link to the length of a player’s career. If they played for less than five years, they are 2.26 times more likely to suffer from brain injuries, but if they played for more than 15 years, that figure rises to no less than 5.2 times. There is a demonstrable link between playing football, heading the ball and brain injuries, and we must recognise that now.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I hesitate to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, because he is making an excellent speech and I do not want to disrupt his flow. He will have heard that the Premier League and the Professional Footballers’ Association have launched a £1 million brain health fund to assist former players and their families who are impacted by dementia. I have a foot in each camp, as a former Health Minister and with my Culture, Media and Sport Committee hat on, so I see the issue from a range of perspectives. A dementia diagnosis is a diagnosis not just for the individual concerned, but for their entire family and all their friends, as we know. September is World Alzheimer’s Month. That £1 million health fund is an important step forward, but there are 55,000 male and female former professional footballers in England alone. Does he agree that that fund must be merely a starting point in the work that the various football associations put in to tackle the issue?

[Ian Blackford]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member, who makes valid points. We must recognise that the people we are talking about—the Jeff Astles and the thousands of people who are suffering, as she has identified—were often paid an average industrial wage; they were not well paid. They are in very serious ill health relatively early in life, and they do not have the financial circumstances to support themselves. They often have to rely on family members, and have to give up work early—let us remember that football players very often went into other careers. We are talking about people who are in many cases financially destitute, so that help from the PFA—with which I have worked closely in preparation for the debate—is welcome, but we cannot get away from our responsibility as a society to recognise football-related dementia as an industrial injury. Let us ensure that there is support for football players, as well as for those who suffer from these conditions in other sports. We cannot leave them, as we have been doing, to die on their own without support. That is the salient point.

The position a footballer played on the park also was a key determinant. Defenders were 4.98 times more likely than players in any other position to suffer from neurodegenerative diseases—perhaps that is not surprising given the propensity for defenders to head the ball. No tragedy better encapsulates the gravity of the risk to defenders than the case of Billy McNeill, the iconic Celtic and Scotland captain. Billy was a legendary figure in Scottish football, perhaps best known for leading Glasgow Celtic to their historic European cup triumph in 1967. Sadly, he became a victim of dementia in his later years. His family revealed how this once mighty figure gradually lost his memory and ability to recognise his loved ones. Billy’s case serves as a poignant reminder that dementia in football does not discriminate.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Billy’s son Martyn, and as Martyn pointed out, it was not just about heading the ball; it was the multitude of head knocks that were endured in a player’s career. Of course, in those days, players tended to stay on the park regardless of their condition. There were no substitutes back then and little, if any, in the way of physio support.

In Scotland, we also pay tribute to Amanda Kopel, who has fought valiantly to highlight the case of her sadly departed husband, Frank. Frank passed away in 2014 aged 65, having been diagnosed with vascular dementia back in 2008. Frank started his career at Manchester United but is perhaps best known for his 10 years with Dundee United. Indeed, he was the first signing of the legendary manager Jim McLean. I see I have an Arab sitting beside me—my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald). Amanda fought a long time to make sure that the Scottish Government put in place free personal care for those such as Frank, who at the time were excluded from such support, which was available only to those aged 65 or over when it was introduced in 2002.

State Pension Age: Women

Debate between Ian Blackford and Caroline Dinenage

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

We have taken forward transitional arrangements. It is insulting for Members from parties that have played their part in getting us to where we are today somehow to wash their hands of the matter. I will go on to make a few points, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

Those who are able to work should support those who are not, confident in the expectation of similar support when they reach retirement. Today’s workers provide the support for today’s pensioners, and that is why it is so important that we have the right balance of the contributions that are paid in at present with the pensions that are being withdrawn, and that we adjust pension ages to maintain that balance. Women who retire today can still expect to receive the state pension for 24 and a half years, on average—almost three years longer than men.

As was outlined by the Pensions Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), the Department for Work and Pensions has communicated the timetable for changes to the state pension age since they were first set in train 22 years ago. As my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) pointed out, in response to concerns raised during debates on the Pensions Act 2011 in both Houses, we introduced the £1.1 billion concession that has been mentioned, which staggered the changes and ensured that no one would wait more than 18 months for their pensions, compared with under the previous timetable.

Any further concession would cost significantly more. It would involve asking people of working age—more specifically, today’s younger people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) mentioned—to pay even more for it. Those outcomes simply cannot be justified.

[Ian Blackford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am not going to give way to the right hon. Gentleman. He made criticisms in relation to the Budget and the Chancellor, but he went on to speak for a considerable time today, taking more than 40 minutes for himself and depriving Back Benchers of the chance to have their say. I will make some progress—[Interruption.] I want to address some of the issues that have been raised by SNP Members, so if the right hon. Gentleman would like to listen, I will do so.

As has previously been stated—my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) pointed this out—if the Scottish National party disagrees with any of the UK Government’s welfare reforms, it has the power to do something about it in Scotland.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) has mentioned on several occasions that the Scottish National party’s Westminster parliamentary group published a report by Landman Economics, which modelled—[Interruption.] I thought he would be keen to listen to this. The report modelled the impact of a number of options for compensating women affected by the 2011 Act. Of these, the Scottish National party’s preferred option was to abandon that Act entirely, returning us to the timetable under the Pensions Act 1995.

The SNP-commissioned report put the cost of this option at £7.9 billion for the period between 2016-17 to 2020-21. As it stands, that is simply unaffordable, but it has the double misfortune of also being wrong. The Landman report significantly underestimates the full costs of returning to the 1995 Act’s timetable. The Government estimate that the cost over that period would be about £14 billion—nearly double—and that figure includes the impact of lost revenue from tax and national insurance, which the Landman report does not fully take into account.

What is worse is that the SNP’s position applies the costs only to the five-year window between 2016-17 and 2020-21. The costs beyond this horizon are simply not included in the option put forward. If the changes we are implementing did not happen, the actual costs to working-age people would be more than £30 billion over an extended period, which is equivalent to over £1,100 per household. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would like to justify that to his constituents.

The Scottish National party has also suggested using the national insurance fund to pay for the cost of scrapping the Pensions Act 2011. However, that is not the intended use of the fund, and it is worth reiterating that today’s national insurance contributions fund today’s pensions, with an excess of only two months’ outgoing payments at any given time.

The new state pension is actually much more generous for many women, who were historically worse off under the old system. By 2030, over 3 million women stand to gain an average of £550 extra per year as a result of these changes. The acceleration of the increase in the state pension age for both women and men is necessary to ensure the state pension system’s sustainability in the light of increasing life expectancy and more pressure on public resources. In fact, by 2035, there will be more than twice as many people aged 100 and over as there are now.

Failure to act in the light of such compelling evidence would be reckless. Given the increasing financial pressure that I have described, we cannot and should not unpick a policy that has been in place for 22 years. It is simply not affordable, especially when we take into account the fact that the average woman reaching state pension age will get a higher state pension income over her lifetime than an average woman reaching state pension age at any earlier point.

It is important to appreciate the modern lived experience of later life in the 21st century, which has altered significantly since the inception of the state pension in the 1940s. Longer life, better health and continued activity in later decades are reshaping the profile and participation of older people in our society. This includes sustaining work and other economic activity as those over 60 continue to learn, earn, contribute and participate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ian Blackford and Caroline Dinenage

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

As my hon. Friend knows, the judiciary are entirely independent of the Government, and rightly so. There are no gender preferences in sentencing guidelines; every sentence is handed down on the basis of the offence committed and any mitigating factors. As my hon. Friend also knows, although women who are convicted of the offence that he identified are less likely to go to prison, the sentences that they receive when they are sent to prison are longer than those given to their male counterparts.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

T7. We learnt this week that the Government had downgraded the pensions portfolio from Minister of State to Under-Secretary of State. Vast inequalities are facing women such as the members of the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, and will face future pensioners following the change in the state pension. Is it not simply shameful that a Minister of State has not been appointed to deal with not just those inequalities, but the uncertainty that retirees will face following the vote to leave the European Union?

Women and the Economy

Debate between Ian Blackford and Caroline Dinenage

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These people make an incredible contribution to our economy and need to be supported in everything they do.

Not only are more women in work than ever before, but we are taking steps to ensure that work always pays. The national living wage, beginning next April and reaching more than £9 by 2020, will disproportionately benefit women. We expect that 65% of the beneficiaries made financially better off will be women. Further increases in the personal allowance will lift 660,000 people out of income tax by 2018, and 60% of them will be women. This reform, too, will make women financially better off.

We also have more women than ever right at the top of business. These fantastic role models are inspiring others to follow in their footsteps. Thanks to the business-led, Government-backed approach and the passion of business leaders such as Lord Davies, we have doubled the number of women on FTSE 100 boards since 2011.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

The Minister trumpets the fact that women will disproportionately benefit from the higher so-called living wage that the Government are bringing in. Does she not recognise that the reason more women will benefit from an increase in the minimum wage is that there are more low-paid women?

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman could not have put it better. These are the women who, as I have said, were educated under the last Labour Government. Under our education reforms, these are the women who will be aspiring to higher paid work in the future. When Labour left power, there were more than 20 all-male boards in our FTSE 100 companies. Now, there are none.