Coalfield Areas: Sports Facilities

Kevin Barron Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I thank the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for raising this matter. The Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation has been mentioned. Its headquarters are in my constituency, and I have worked with it over many decades. I am referring to the work that it has done and continues to do for mining communities and individuals in those communities. Its core activity includes services to individual clients through the organisation’s personal welfare service. That includes advice, guidance, advocacy and grant assistance to former miners and their families. The organisation’s website states that that is its medium-term priority. Sadly, we all know that that medium-term priority will be lessening all the time, because there are not many ex-miners around now.

Obviously, it is a long time since the coalmines closed in some parts of my constituency and, as has been pointed out, what we have left, as a consequence, is many recreation grounds that were tied to the local coalmine. When I was a miner in Maltby colliery, we used to pay a certain amount a week from our wages to the miners’ welfare field, which was there to assist with the different activities that took place. Providing support for mining charities acting within mining trusts and preserving recreational facilities in former mining communities is difficult at this stage, but I believe very strongly that we should look after these facilities for current and future generations.

I have discussed individual projects with the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation. I ought to declare an interest. My grandson, 10-year-old Ted Barron, plays for Maltby Miners Welfare junior football club. His older brother used to play for them, but he plays for another club now. There is still a hive of activity in these ex-coalmining communities, but there are a lot of problems.

I will not talk about all the grounds—there are many in my area—but one has been empty for years and we have argued about redevelopment and getting some sporting activity back on to it. It is in a village called Dinnington, where my constituency office is. Through CISWO, we tried to get some movement on that many years ago. We have had problems with other grounds as well. It may be argued that personal fallouts have been an issue. The biggest issue we have had recently at Maltby—I am going to ask the Minister whether her Department can help in some way—concerns the local football team. There are many people there—there is bowling and cricket, and whippet racing is still an activity—I have not seen a human beat one yet, but anyway, it is still an activity that takes place. There is an issue about ground improvement. Because no miners work down Maltby colliery any more, nobody is paying money into the welfare scheme, and the bar takings are depleting by the day. The culture is changing. We have a situation that is potentially a serious threat.

There was a scheme involving the football club, called Maltby Miners Welfare. This year it was streamed in the first FA cup round playing Pontefract Collieries. Sadly, Pontefract Collieries won—I was at the match and saw it. But the main thing about that is that there was an attempt to get some improvements through the Football Foundation, but that was not possible because of the lease arrangements between CISWO, the local Miners Welfare trustees and the users themselves. There is constant debate about the costs.

There are football clubs peppered throughout south Yorkshire playing in major amateur leagues. The football clubs have abandoned those grounds and gone elsewhere. At Kiveton Park in my constituency the football club left about three years ago—it could not get one locally. The priority for CISWO is the issue of independent advice, which I accept is important, but I and others would like the legacy left by coalmining to carry on now, in terms of health and activity in our constituencies, especially given the levels of childhood obesity. I am not saying that they should necessarily get an NHS grant, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) says, but these clubs will need advice as they move into the future.

It is clear that CISWO has some assets in buildings and land. Its priority at the moment is to look after people who worked in the coal industry and their dependants, which I understand. In my view, it needs some advice about the future, so that we can get Football Foundation money to keep the recreation going, and to keep our young and elderly people fitter by using these facilities, which are a legacy from coalmining throughout the UK. I am sure that, with some assistance, CISWO would be the right organisation to do that.

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[Tracey Crouch]

We already involve the NHS, but we can do more. That is not within my portfolio, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that a lot is going on in terms of the social prescribing of physical activity in local communities to combat the issues that he mentioned. Other things can be done—he should remind me to tell him about some girl guides from Wales who just visited me, who have been working hard to get sports such as rugby into their schools, despite opposition from their headteachers to allowing girls to do traditionally boys’ sports. I will talk to him about that outside the Chamber, because it is not the issue that we are talking about today. There is no simple solution, though; we need a partnership across many different agencies.

To support the Government’s ambitions, Sport England is investing £40 million in large-scale facilities up to 2021 through its strategic facilities fund. Its community asset fund provides grants of up to £150,000 to organisations and communities that want to take more ownership over the spaces and facilities in their local areas. I am pleased to see the extensive support that Sport England has already provided to mining communities, with £4.8 million of public investment having been awarded to 30 miners’ welfare organisations since 2005.

I was very interested in the comments by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley, because it says here in my script that the Kiveton community sports park in South Yorkshire is a particularly successful and recent example of how Sport England funding has helped to regenerate land and support mining communities to be more active. The park is used for sports as diverse as football, cricket, tag rugby and bowls; there are also para-sports such as boccia and goalball. Clearly, we need to talk about Kiveton outside this Chamber. It also says here in my script that it is a wonderful facility, and I am thrilled that so many people are being introduced to such a wide array of sports. Clearly, our perception of what is being delivered at Kiveton is very different from the reality on the ground, and I welcome his feedback on that.

It also says here in my script that Kiveton is a great example of how local interest and drive can be harnessed to make a real difference for communities. Regardless of Kiveton, however, it is clear that facilities only work properly when they are properly planned, properly used and properly maintained. That means being clear about which people we think would benefit the most from using them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield and others spoke about CISWO. Although colleagues will appreciate that I am not in a position to comment on specific details of CISWO’s operations, I encourage all interested parties, including CISWO, the local trusts, local county sports partnerships and others to come together to discuss how local communities and facilities can best be supported and managed. Sport England has huge expertise in this area and I am sure that its staff would be very happy to contribute to such conversations. If that is of interest to colleagues, we can help to facilitate it.

We all know that many of the mining communities that we have talked about today include people from some of the hardest-to-reach groups in society, who are exactly the people who benefit the most from becoming more active. That is another key message in the sport and physical activity strategy. We want a strong focus from the whole sport and physical activity sector on how we can reach people who traditionally have not got involved in sport or who think sport or physical activity is not for them.

A great deal of support is already out there. Sport England has delivered a range of opportunities that place tackling inactivity and engaging under-represented groups at their core, and it is investing up to £100 million in 12 local delivery pilots across the country. These pilots focus on bringing together a wide range of partners to solve inactivity challenges in very specific locations. We are monitoring those pilots very closely, as they will be vital in helping to deliver better interventions across the country in the future.

Public funding and support can only stretch so far, but I shall make sure that the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield is passed on to the Chancellor as soon as possible. However, as I said earlier, there is no simple answer and therefore no one solution. Organisations that have great ideas about developing their facilities need to be encouraged and directed to other sources of finance and support. They need to be brought together—even cajoled—and it is in this regard that local leadership and understanding is key. Local authorities are the organisations best placed to understand what is needed in their communities and how to build support for any proposal, and the brokerage that local leaders can offer is invaluable. I urge the parties involved to get around the table to find a solution. Whether it is the challenges of planning regulations, access to finance or a lack of co-ordination, there is an opportunity to address real community need.

What we must avoid at all costs is building facilities that do not have the support of local organisations and that have not been tested by the community. I know that as someone whose constituency received funding for a major sports facility in the early stages of Sport England and lottery funding. That facility was developed, but a few years later it went into administration, because it had not been subject to community testing and did not have the right business plan. I really encourage thinking through the bids that go into the lottery organisations.

[Sir Kevin Barron]

I am very grateful to the Minister for what she has said. I will make contact with the CISWO officer in my constituency to see whether I can facilitate a meeting between CISWO and Sport England, to look at all these issues that are affecting people up and down the land in former coalfield areas.

[Tracey Crouch]

We all want to see more and better facilities. It is important that we work together in partnership to help people to get active, but sporting facilities all need to be properly planned, and that is where the leadership of colleagues here in Parliament, including leadership of their colleagues in their own constituencies, is incredibly important. Understanding the needs of local communities and building a broad consensus are crucial, and those of us in central Government in Whitehall are probably not best placed to do those things. However, we can provide the expertise from Sport England to help to support those conversations.

In addition, the Cabinet Office and the Local Government Association’s “One Public Estate” programme brings together partners from across a range of different local backgrounds to help to deliver property-based projects. I know my colleagues in the Cabinet Office would be very happy to meet interested Members to discuss that programme further.

At the very centre of this debate is the importance of understanding how we can help communities to be more active, including how they can access better quality facilities. We all know of the benefits that people gain from sport: it improves mental and physical health, improves skills, brings communities together, and makes the country a more productive place. That is why we want to see strong local partnerships coming together to understand the needs in their area and consequently to reinvigorate their local facilities and green spaces.

That already happens in many places, but there is scope to do so much more. I want communities to be supported to ensure that everybody, regardless of their ability or background, feels able to get active and live a healthy, happy and full life. I urge Members, CISWO, the relevant local authorities and county sports partnerships to meet urgently to identify a way forward. It is only through local collaboration and the drive of the community that meaningful progress can be made.

I thank all the Members who participated in today’s debate. Their contributions have been thoughtful and insightful. The points that have been expressed have been well made and I hope that progress on this matter will be forthcoming, because, like everyone else in this Chamber, I passionately believe that sport should be for everyone and is at the heart of a happy and healthy nation.