Accessible Sports Grounds Bill [HL]

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Friday 17th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, like others I congratulate my noble friend Lord Faulkner on his persistence and tireless campaigning on this whole issue, as well as his ability to get to the top of the queue and bring forward his Bill so that it gets the maximum chance of being considered before your Lordships and, I hope, be endorsed so that it goes forward. He made an excellent speech which reflected on the long history that is antecedent to this issue. In doing that, he has also brought out of your Lordships’ House a range of fantastic speeches, which have covered all the issues with knowledge, compassion and humour—and has also opened to those of us who are not as knowledgeable about this some of the extraordinarily bad practices that are going on. I hope the Minister has noted that, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, this is a non-party issue. This is an all-party issue as well as a non-party in the sense that all sections of your Lordships’ House have supported what is being said. It is very important that the Government reflect on the fact that there is a huge amount of support for this issue.

On this side of the House, we believe that everyone should be able to watch sport in safety, security and comfort, and we support all measures that improve the current situation, which we find completely unacceptable. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, this is an issue about respect. We need to look at all aspects of this issue, not just the simple but obviously rather complex issue of access, but ticketing processes, family access, the training that is provided and the catering—the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made a good point about the way that is operated. If you bundle this up together, it is really about the culture in which we engage with sport and not just sport. As has been pointed out, many of these stadia and facilities are also used for other purposes. We need to think much wider than we would perhaps otherwise have done.

When this issue has previously been before the House, we argued that the SGSA should have powers to address accessibility issues directly and that it should also look at spectator safety issues in the round; in other words, the gap between what the SGSA does and the responsible safety authority, which is usually the local authority, has become too great. That needs to be looked at more closely so that any recommendations that can improve the situation we have been hearing about have an immediate impact. At the moment, it is a requesting situation, not a directing situation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, reminded us, we all have an interest in this because we are all going to be in this situation sooner or later—hopefully later. Importantly, there should be no question that the duty required should be anticipatory, not one that is left to those who have an issue to raise. It should not be contested in the courts because it should already have been sorted by those who have the responsibility to do it.

Several noble Lords mentioned the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and my noble friend Lord Rosser, referred to its briefing note. It is extraordinary that the law to require this matter to be resolved is already in place. It is interesting to read in the briefing that the FA Premier League rule book, which is binding on clubs, already has a rule, albeit a very simple one, which deals with disabled sport. A number of noble Lords mentioned the contrast between it and Rules 44 to 124 which deal, broadly, with what media facilities have to be provided. They show up by their prescription the enormous gap between the attitude that FA Premier League clubs seem to have towards disability issues as opposed to media and other faculties. For example, Rules 53 and 54 require clubs to provide,

“at least three UK TV Commentary Positions on the Television Gantry”

and that each seat must,

“be no less than 3 metres wide and 1 metre deep”.

Rule 66 provides that,

“each club shall make available … at least 25 seats for the use of accredited representatives of Overseas Broadcasters, to be situated in close proximity, and with easy access, to the tunnel area”.

Rule 86 requires clubs to provide,

“a minimum of 50 seats for the use of accredited representatives of the media”.

Really, what a ridiculous way to behave. To set out in such detail that sort of provision for media access when the line for disabled supporters is:

“Each club shall provide sufficient and adequate facilities for disabled supporters”,

is to rub people’s faces in the issue. I thought it would be a trivial, but rather interesting, reflection to read the phrase which I have just quoted at length from Rule 66 substituting “disabled supporters” for “accredited representatives of broadcasters” and see what impact that would have.

The Government are in a mess of their own making on this issue. The legislation is either available and ready to sort this mess out, in which case the Government need to explain why it is not being enforced fully, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments on this matter, or it may be that the legislation is in some way deficient, in which case, they need to explain to this House and to disabled fans, their families and the world at large why they will not act.

This is a short, but necessary, Bill, in my noble friend’s words, but it is one that we want to see progress. My noble friend Lord Rosser said that the figures involved are really quite small relative to the overall economy of football. At the moment it is about £9 million, so what are the Government going to do about it? Are they feart, or are they unwilling to take on the vested interests which seem to be the block here? The current situation is a stain on our country and on our reputation for fair play, and it is unacceptable that those who own and run our national game continue to evade their legal, let alone their moral, responsibilities. Surely it is time to sort this out. The Government should either take over this Bill or perhaps do what the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said and take powers to make regulations. The status quo is unacceptable.