Sport: Women in Rowing

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I must declare one interest. I am the third member of the House of Lords boat to be here. I am afraid I have to say to my noble friend Lord Thomas of Gresford that it is his fault, because I could not row before I got in there. I can now row badly. My other sporting claim to fame is that I am what is left of a rugby player.

In talking about the esteem that women’s sport has to be held in, the Boat Race is important. It has become something that conveys esteem. Until very recently, it was probably the only rowing that anybody had ever heard of. It was the time when the Thames became full of people having a pint and occasionally seeing a boat go past. Now, as we know, it is part of a huge international sport built upon the success of the Olympics. I hope that we will put this to use and make sure that the esteem of the sport is seen, worked into government and supported.

To take a slight diversion into my original sport of rugby, I hope that my noble friend the Minister can point out that esteem has to be carried in a message. I have given him notice of this point. When England’s men won the Rugby World Cup, they all got honours. When England’s women won the Rugby World Cup, which they did as amateurs and not as part of their professional lives, only two got honours. It is not the same sport but the message of esteem has to be there. There may be a good reason but it does not smell good. I hope that we will hear why that occurred and have it put it into context. I will leave that one where it falls.

As has been said, general congratulation to rowing has to go forward, given that rowing now has to turn away people from its clubs because it cannot deal with the great demand to take part. At the bedrock of any sport is the participation level. We have already heard from numerous people that you have to build capacity. We will be able to continue to build that capacity only if we make sure that people can open new rowing clubs. At all amateur clubs, somebody goes out as the missionary and says, “Let’s do something new”, inspired by a great vision that this sport should be played—or having fallen out with the people at the club they were at in the first place. It does not matter; they are still doing it. That is what is required to build capacity. Every time somebody does this, they have to take on a series of bureaucracies that are national, local and internal to the sport. I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell us what the Government are doing centrally, and encouraging locally, to make sure that those people go out and form a club. All political parties should look to this.

Do we remember the idea of the big society? I know that is an election ago now, but amateur clubs in sport are probably the epitome of that. If you take on a public good, you make sure that you can do it properly. You bring in bigger organisations and build a social background to it. Making sure that this can happen is incredibly important, and what the Government do is vital. I spoke to new rowing clubs in Oxford, Leeds and the Lake District. All said that their relationship with government was slightly patchy. Going north, they were Cheney Falcon Rowing Club, Leeds Rowing Club—there had been no rowing club in a city of that size—and Lakeland Rowing Club. All had a mixed bag when it came to dealing with local bureaucracy—and, indeed, the bureaucracy with such things as universities and centres. Clubs with people who knew how to fill in forms did better. That is a lesson which all sports can carry forward.

Trying to address this in order to allow people who are doing a good thing to do it better is something that we should expect of government. Doing this—not just funding but making sure that people can access and get the best out of systems—is something which those of us in power should be encouraging. I hope that this will be a central thrust of everything we are doing here.