Gambling Act Review White Paper

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

The end of gambling company sponsorship on premier league team shirts is a welcome step, but it will not come until the end of the 2025-26 season—three years hence. It is not good enough; there is not enough urgency in that. Everyone who watches sports coverage, particularly football on TV, is constantly bombarded with images and repetitious advertisements urging them to partake in gambling games, spot bets and betting offers for particular scores or match outcomes. What are children watching those matches on TV meant to do—hide behind the sofa, cover their eyes, put their fingers in their ears? They are being constantly bombarded. It has become far too normalised, and we know it is damaging lives with regularity. Action and urgency are imperative.

[Lucy Frazer]

I recognise the points that the hon. Member is making, but I would like to congratulate the Premier League on the action it has taken. It has talked about it for a long time, and it has now taken action. The White Paper today brings in a large number of actions that will make a significant difference. We will obviously keep matters under review, but the statutory levy will help us and enable us to do that.

Football Governance

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

I congratulate Forest Green Rovers, too. My hon. Friend makes the important point that we are all here because fans were at the heart of the review. I will continue to engage with both fans and clubs, which is one of the advantages of a White Paper. As we get closer to the final details just before legislation, there will be an opportunity for fans to comment, which is good.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I also thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch). I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for football supporters, the secretariat of which is provided by the Football Supporters Federation.

The review was published in November, and we welcome the announcement of an independent regulator, but the list of failures, points deductions and relegations grows. The English Football League’s clubs are laden with debt and outspending receipts on players’ wages, and the FA is in hock to the Premier League and is paralysed by self-interest and sectional interests. Why the delay? The fans of many clubs want to know. When we say “act now”, we mean: bring forward a Bill that can be discussed in Parliament in the next Session. The review included significant consultation, so why delay any further? Such a delay has the potential to allow more horses to bolt and again it might be too late to close stable doors. Let me add that Gateshead play away to Chorley next Monday, hoping to clinch the national league north title.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I fear we may be playing club bingo in the Chamber today, Madam Deputy Speaker. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the intention is to move forward as soon and as fast as possible, but I would not want to underplay the complexity of what we are doing or the scale of the changes we are proposing today—that requires that we get this right.

Racism in Football

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there is no excuse for what happened last night. What makes it even worse is the fact that this has happened previously. As I said, this is a pivotal moment—it is a turning point. The fact that we are having this debate in the Chamber and not in Westminster Hall sends a strong signal to UEFA that we want to see action of the severest kind on these incidents.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

As a Newcastle United fan, I am very aware that we are not without significant remaining problems here in the UK, but I hope that this is a watershed moment. Unfortunately, UEFA has paid lip service to this issue for decades. The Bulgarian stadium in Sofia was part closed last night due to previous infractions, but despite that the Bulgarian team manager, who was interviewed after the game, seemed oblivious to events happening around him and did not seem to understand what racism is and what constitutes racist abuse of players and/or other fans. UEFA has a clear responsibility not only to act where racism occurs, but to be proactive, as the European governing body of football, to educate the constituent football associations, clubs, officials, players and, yes, fans of clubs and nations across Europe and to act as a beacon within FIFA to stamp out racist abuse across the whole of the world. Our Government must urge UEFA to act properly—enough is enough.

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Gentleman, whom I know to be a passionate Newcastle United supporter, because I recall a sign above his office door—it was welcoming to other clubs, too. [Laughter.] He is absolutely right in what he says; there is nothing I can disagree with him on about this. We need action, not talk. We have been very clear in our communication today with UEFA. The Prime Minister has spoken out today in very clear terms. It is about time this House was united on something and I sense this issue is uniting the House. Be in no doubt that this Government want to see action by UEFA.

Football: Safe Standing

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), I have stood in the Roker end and felt very unsafe indeed. [Laughter.] As a founder member and chair of the all-party group for football supporters, I felt it was vital for me to be here today to represent the interests of football supporters.

I attended my first game at St James’s Park in Newcastle in the 1966-67 season, so not quite as long ago as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). I have visited 70-plus football league and premier league grounds and dozens upon dozens of non-league grounds, many of which I have heard mentioned today. For me the issue is not an abstract concept. It is something that I and many fans experience week in, week out through the football season. Standing in football grounds in all-seater stadiums happens now. The problem currently exists. We are not advocating a return to the large open terraces of the past.

Hillsborough was a tragedy, but it is not the only tragedy to befall football fans in this country. Ibrox in Glasgow has had two significant disasters in the past century. Bolton Wanderers had a significant disaster at Burnden Park. Bradford had a dreadful fire that took many lives. There have been other smaller incidents where walls have fallen down or crush barriers have gone.

When I was a young person going to football matches, I remember people being crushed on crush barriers on open terraces on a regular basis, and the accident and emergency wards of our local hospitals were testimony to that. However, 27 years have passed since the Taylor report. Grounds, fans and football have changed, but there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

Having seen the improvement, I was a fan and MP who remained to be convinced about safe standing at football grounds, but now—regularly attending football games at St James’s Park where I am a season ticket holder, and travelling round the country going to away games—I am part of the experience where fans stand week in, week out in the away ends and in many parts of home grounds as well. Safe standing is much safer than standing in designated seating areas; there is no doubt about that whatever. In designated seating areas where fans are standing in numbers, the seats in front of them are undoubtedly a trip hazard. I myself have tripped over seats, and seen many others doing so as well.

It is unlikely that safe standing will reduce ticket prices. In the Bundesliga, Dortmund, for instance, has one and half people standing for every seated place, but at Celtic—the experiment in Scotland—it is one for one. There will not be any real return from the football clubs’ perspective, but there is demand. No one wants it to become compulsory; it will be in selected parts of football grounds. However, there is no doubt that standing in sitting areas is less safe than safe standing. We need to think about it, and do something about it as soon as we can.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. I still feel quite scarred by the response I received on social media to my initial comments. They were loose and wrong, but were not a reflection of my views on football. It was certainly unfair of people to say that I did not understand the game with which I have been personally involved since I was knee high to a grasshopper. That shows a lack of understanding that Ministers and Members of Parliament have views and sometimes make mistakes.

It is useful to start by summarising very briefly the framework in which we operate. As colleagues have heard, Lord Justice Taylor’s report following the terrible Hillsborough disaster ushered in the all-seater policy for the top two divisions of English football, as well as Wembley stadium and the Principality stadium in Cardiff. The wider safety regime, which includes the all-seater policy, also took into account other tragic events, such as that at Bradford. No Government of any political persuasion should ever be complacent about safety or other measures that have enabled us to achieve such consistently high levels of safety since the all-seater regulations were introduced. That must be paramount in our considerations.

[Ian Mearns]

One thing that has changed since Hillsborough is that the Government and the establishment have taken safety at football grounds much more seriously. Ibrox had two disasters in the space of less than 50 years, and Bolton Wanderers had a significant one. Crushing injuries occurred week in, week out at football grounds. The evidence of earlier years shows that football’s fans and their safety were not taken seriously by people in the halls of power.

[Tracey Crouch]

I was about to say that the all-seater policy has served football and football fans well over many years—the hon. Gentleman makes that point. It is not just a domestic measure: FIFA and UEFA both mandate that host stadiums for their main competitions must be all-seater. Let us not forget that all-seater stadiums provided the impetus for clubs to transform their grounds after years of neglect, which meant the widespread improvement of facilities for fans, which has brought about a welcome increase in the diversity of those choosing to attend.

I recognise the increasing support for the Government to change the all-seater policy in the top two tiers of English football, and the interesting innovations in spectator accommodation in recent years. They include various forms of seats incorporating barriers, or seats with independent barriers, which provide both a safety rail and a seat. They have been installed at grounds in Germany and at Celtic Park. More recently, they have been installed at Shrewsbury Town in League One. Those developments led the then premier league club West Bromwich Albion to make the request to the Sports Ground Safety Authority to run a rail seating pilot. The request to install rail seating made it clear that the intention was to create a permanent area within the ground where supporters would be freely permitted to stand. That would have been in breach of the licence conditions imposed on all clubs in the top two divisions under the powers set out in the Football Spectators Act 1989, the current legislative framework.

Ministers make decisions based on the evidence put in front of them within the legal framework permitted. Contrary to media reports, I did not receive a recommendation from the SGSA to approve the application. The club’s request would have required an immediate change in the law as it stands. As the application was for permission to start this coming season, colleagues will appreciate that the processes required would have taken more than the few months that Albion wanted them completed in. However, more significantly, the current legislative framework means that I cannot allow for any pilots. There is no wriggle room. It is either the status quo or changing the legislation.

So, what next? What are we going to do? The one thing we need to do is to collect and analyse the evidence that exists and ensure that all views on this issue can be heard and considered before we make any decision on changes to the all-seater policy—a point that many hon. Members have made today. We need proper evidence and solutions about how risks associated with standing would be addressed and what systems might be needed to achieve this. The first step is to gather that data and to conduct further research if necessary.

Today I can announce that we will commission an external analysis of evidence relating to the all-seater policy. My Department will be going out to tender for this piece of work shortly, and my aim is that the initial analysis work will be completed by the end of the year. As well as looking at what evidence already exists and assessing its reliability, that work will look to identify any important gaps in data, including injury data, and recommend the best ways of filling them.

The premier league has already shared some of its injury data with me, collated in the SGSA format from its clubs. What is clear is that not enough information is collected to determine the circumstances, severity or outcome of injuries. For example, data collected so far shows that, of the 1,550 injuries reported over the season at 19 premier league clubs, none related to persistent standing and 242 may have been caused by some standing—the equivalent of two injuries per 100,000 match attendances. Hon. Members have today made it clear that people are standing in unsafe ways, yet the current injuries log suggests otherwise. Some colleagues have outlined their own experiences of being injured at football matches, yet the injuries log says otherwise. Given that that fan experience is very different from the data, it is clear that the data needs further probing, and that is what I am announcing today.

The precise scope of that work will be defined in conjunction with the SGSA and other expert stakeholders. I am grateful to the Premier League and English Football League, with whom we have discussed this approach, and with whom we will work to improve the evidence base from the start of next season.