Sport: Integrity

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to placing a duty on all publicly funded and professional sporting bodies to co-operate actively in identifying and punishing anyone damaging the integrity of sport.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)]

We expect all sports bodies to adhere to the highest standards of governance and to fully co-operate in taking appropriate action against those who damage the integrity of sport. As a result, the Government are introducing a new governance code for sport in the UK later this year. The code will be mandatory for all sports governing bodies in receipt of public funding, and non-compliance with the code will mean that those bodies will lose that funding.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. However, what is her opinion of what happens when some of those bodies reach the end of their authority and have to report on to somebody else to achieve any action against somebody who has broken the spirit of the code—for instance, a doping scandal that ends when it runs out of that authority? Are we to undertake a law review so that action is taken across the board and does not end at artificial boundaries, often there for purely historical reasons?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

The noble Lord is quite right about the need for things to be joined up. That is why we have set up a group, curiously called the GIGS group—the government integrity group for sport—drawing from across Whitehall and from the key agencies, such as the Gambling Commission and UK Anti-Doping. We will be putting the governance code out to consultation so that the sort of issues that he has identified are properly thought through and dealt with.