Racism in Cricket

Navendu Mishra Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on reports regarding racism in cricket.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I am appearing here this afternoon in place of the Minister for Sport—the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston)—who is in Geneva having meetings with football officials.

I will start by being very clear about something on which I know the whole House will agree: there is no place for racism in sport. Indeed, there is no place for racism anywhere in society. It must be confronted, it must be eradicated and it should never be written off as just “banter”.

The Government are extremely concerned by the reports of racism at Yorkshire county cricket club. Quite simply, the situation faced by Azeem Rafiq was unacceptable. It should never have been allowed to happen in the first place, and it should have been dealt with properly during the initial investigation. We have made it clear to the England and Wales Cricket Board that this requires a full, transparent investigation, both of the incidents involving Azeem Rafiq and of the wider cultural issues at Yorkshire county cricket club. The ECB is now investigating the matter fully. It took action against the Yorkshire club on Friday, stripping it of the right to host international matches, and has suspended a player.

There have been a number of resignations from the Yorkshire board—quite rightly—including that of its chairman. Lord Patel of Bradford has taken over as chairman, and has set out the approach that he will be taking to tackle the issue at Yorkshire. Crucially, he has started by apologising to Azeem Rafiq, but we know that that will not undo the pain that Azeem feels. More action is needed, and we have called on Lord Patel and the ECB to investigate fully, to eradicate racism where it exists, and to tackle the culture that can support it. In addition, the ECB is now undertaking a regulatory process. It must take strong action where it is necessary, and that action must be transparent and swift, for the benefit of cricket.

The ECB has also launched the independent commission for equity in cricket to look at wider issues that go beyond Yorkshire. It is chaired by Cindy Butts, a highly respected anti-racism campaigner. She is a board member of the Kick It Out campaign in football and is also, as you know, Mr Speaker, a lay member of your Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. I have great confidence in her independence and her phenomenal track record in this area. This terrible case—the awful case of the abuse that Azeem Rafiq should never have suffered, but did suffer—shows how much more needs to be done to stamp out racism in the game, and I urge anyone who has experienced discrimination in cricket to approach Cindy Butts’s commission and report what they have experienced. I understand that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has requested information about this incident. That is quite right, and I encourage the EHRC in its work.

Sport should be for everyone, and it should not take cases such as this to bring that to life. The Government applaud Azeem Rafiq’s courage in speaking out, and encourage anyone who has been similarly affected to do the same. This must be a watershed moment for cricket. The Government will closely scrutinise the actions taken by the ECB—the Minister for Sport met the board last week to discuss this topic—and by Yorkshire county cricket club in response to these damning allegations. The investigations to which I have referred must be thorough, transparent and public. That is necessary to restore the public’s faith in cricket in Yorkshire and beyond. Parliament is watching, the Government are watching and the country is watching. We expect real action, and the Government stand ready to step in and act if those involved do not put their own house in order.

[Navendu Mishra]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

The leaked racism report from Yorkshire county cricket club has exposed the extent to which serious allegations of discrimination have been mishandled, covered up and sadly, it seems, entirely ignored over a long period. Players and former board members of the club have since come forward expressing their regret, but it is too little, too late. The question of how to address this should not be solely concerned with what to do next; rather, we should ask how the club arrived at such a low point. Why were players not properly investigated, why were no processes in place to address these allegations, and why did it take the leaking of the report to kick the club into action?

Members on both sides of the House have spoken publicly about how appalled they are, so I hope that the Minister will tell us today what concrete action the Government intend to take to tackle racism in sport. I know that my good and hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) wrote to Mr Mark Arthur, but unfortunately he has not received a response to his letter. The news over the past week has focused on cricket because of this report, but we know that it is not in cricket alone that racism and discrimination fester. The Government’s intervention on this particular issue must be a model for the way in which other sports address racism.

I want to express my solidarity with Mr Azeem Rafiq—who has shown great bravery in the face of this injustice—and with all who have been discriminated against in cricket and other sports. Sport should be for everyone. No one should be excluded or belittled because of their race, gender, sexual orientation or disability, and I hope that today will be a landmark in the addressing of these serious issues.

In the light of the leaked racism report—which I hope will be published in full this week—1 hope that the Equality and Human Rights Commission will investigate Yorkshire county cricket club and publish a full set of recommendations for how it will tackle racism in future. We must not forget that it was only when there were financial repercussions and corporate pressure that Yorkshire actually acted; that is simply unacceptable. We also know that, although nearly a third of all cricket players at grassroots level in the UK are from ethnic minority backgrounds, the figure drops to only 4% among cricketers with professional contracts. That too is shocking. I hope that today the Government will set out how they intend to work with the England and Wales Cricket Board to ensure there is independent scrutiny of the sport, so that incidents such as this never happen again and the sport is diversified at all levels.

[Chris Philp]

I shall try to respond briefly to those further questions from the hon. Gentleman.

I entirely agree that the conduct of Yorkshire county cricket club in trying to brush this matter under the carpet and ignore it was completely unacceptable, and it is right that the chairman and others have resigned. The club’s conduct has no justification whatsoever: it is disgraceful, and we condemn it unreservedly. The point about the transparency of these inquiries is important: they need to take place in public, they need to be open, and the country and Parliament need to be able to scrutinise them fully.

I also agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about the need for wider action in cricket. Clause 10 of the ECB’s own county partnership agreement requires it to increase ethnic minority representation, and we need to hold it to account to deliver that. As for the question of independent oversight of what Yorkshire and the ECB are doing, the Equality and Human Rights Commission is obviously independent, and is now rightly asking questions. The Government fully support that process, and, like Members of this House, will be following and scrutinising it extremely carefully.