Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Katrina Murray Excerpts

Friday 11th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)]

I am pleased to support this Bill. A lot of the things I wanted to say have been highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth). It is clear that the numbers are stark, and there is an issue. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) asked why this legislation is important, and I will say why and why it is personal for me.

On 2 January 1971, eight teenage boys from the village where I grew up, Markinch in Fife, travelled to Glasgow to watch an Old Firm game at Ibrox. They walked together to Glenrothes to get on their respective supporter buses. Five of them went on the Rangers bus, and three of them went on the Celtic bus. Only three of them came home. Sixty-six people lost their lives that day in a tragic crush. Just like Hillsborough years later, the trauma of that event still reverberates. The grief never truly lifts for the families, for the communities or for those who were there. The names of Ronald Paton, Bryan Todd and Mason Philip, who were all aged 14, Douglas Morrison, who was 15, and Peter Easton, who was only 13, were ones I grew up with. Their lives and loss are remembered by the friends who came home that day, Shane Fenton and Peter Lee, who have dedicated their lives to this cause and to remembering them.

Those tragedies teach us a painful lesson. Stadium crushes do not start as disasters; they begin as overcrowding, as bottlenecks and as poor control at points of entry and exit. The Bill will not change the past, but it can prevent future risks. We can make football what we all want it to be: fun—about whether your team does well or badly, something to talk about with pals. It is a part of life, but we need to make sure that we keep it safe. This is about fairness. Most fans do exactly the right thing. They queue, they pay, they are searched, and they have their teeny tiny bag that means they are not taking things in. They deserve a system that does not reward those who flout the rules. Stewards—often low paid, often young—deserve to do their job without being overwhelmed or put at risk by hundreds of people surging in unlawfully.

This Bill is not heavy-handed. It is proportionate and focused. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley for bringing it forward and allowing me to represent and to record in this Chamber the names of those who my community have lost. I hope that no other community has to go through that again.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

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