Commonwealth Games 2014

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on securing this debate. Before I go further, I also congratulate a fellow new boy in your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Haughey, on his maiden speech—a snappy but sincere speech about the benefit for young people in his native city. When the eyes of the world are on Glasgow and Scotland, they will see the friendly Games in the friendly city, which will afford the athletes the best platform to strive their hardest in their given sport.

In what both the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, we saw politics and sport mixing. However, as the wise counsel of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, indicated when he talked about the caution that we should exercise, politicking and sport do not mix. The noble Lord’s warning about the constitutional and political debates that will be taking place in Scotland at the same time as the Commonwealth Games should be heeded.

For completely understandable reasons, major events such as the Commonwealth Games are hosted by cities. However, in view of the level of funding that goes into them, I hope that your Lordships will allow me to make one comment about the areas and sports that are not from the cities. That includes a sport—rugby sevens—that originated in the constituency that I formerly represented in the Scottish Parliament. Rugby sevens is one example of how the Commonwealth Games can show, in a microcosm, the benefits that sport can bring. It will now be featuring in its fifth Games, and I hope that friends from New Zealand will not be too disappointed when I say that I hope that they will not win the gold medal, because they have won it for every Games that they have participated in so far. The sport originated in 1883 in the Greenyards in Melrose; it will now be in Glasgow, and then an Olympic sport for the first time in Rio in 2016. With the World Cup sevens coming soon in 2018, we can see the best example of an amateur sport, with a community basis and a strong heart, also having a global profile.

As the purpose of this debate is to ask the UK Government to do what they can, I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, about using all the might and all the persuasive powers of the United Kingdom Government to promote this sport as one element of the Commonwealth family—the family of sports in the widest sense.

Last week I was in Taiwan, and I flew from Hong Kong, where the Hong Kong sevens is now possibly the biggest sport in the area. It is sponsored by Cathay Pacific. Then, coming back to London, when you are on the Heathrow Express you see that that sponsors the English rugby sevens team. This is a local sport with a massive heart, and with, we hope, a global following to come. It is one of the examples of the sort of sport for which Glasgow will afford one of the best windows that we can secure.