Grassroots Football

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Crausby]

Those pitches cost money, and the only source of honestly available money is the Premier League’s billions. If we do not deliver the number of artificial pitches necessary, we may well destroy our seedcorn for the premier league.

I end by quoting Bill Shankly, who once famously said:

“Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”

I think Bill Shankly only applied it to Liverpool FC, to be honest, but I apply it, as we all should, to the grassroots game.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I blow the whistle for half-time and call the Minister to respond.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby) for securing this important debate, and to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) for their important contributions. Along with many parliamentary colleagues, the hon. Member for Bolton North East has been a vocal advocate for grassroots football for a considerable time. I reassure him that I, too, want a vibrant sports sector that encourages participation and provides opportunities up and down the country.

Apart from the health and social benefits of sport participation, sport is vital to raising aspirations in young people, and it has the ability to transform lives. Through Sport England, we are committed to delivering community sport, including football, and the many programmes tackling barriers to participation in sport. The youth and community sports strategy, announced in January 2012, committed £1 billion of investment to community sport to 2017. The strategy is led by the national governing bodies of sport, which will receive nearly £500 million of investment for 2013 to 2017 to deliver year-on-year increases in the number of people playing sport.

The latest active people survey figures from December 2013 show a long-term trend of sport participation increasing, which is very good and is what we want. There are now 1.5 million more people playing sport once a week than when we bid for the Olympic games in 2005, participation among disabled people is at an all-time high and more women are getting involved, which is beneficial in closing the gender gap. I am absolutely determined to see that progress continue.

Football is, of course, an important part of that picture, and the Government’s support for grassroots football is strong. Sport England is directing significant levels of funding at the sport to boost participation via the national governing body and through other direct investments in programmes and facilities. Between 2013 and 2017, the FA will receive £28.4 million from Sport England for delivering against its whole sport plan.

Football remains one of the biggest participation sports in the UK, with more than 1.8 million people playing the game on a regular basis. However, there has been a sharp fall of more than a quarter of a million participants in the last year, so clearly something has to be done. Several hon. Members have noted today the £1.6 million of lottery funding that Sport England has withdrawn from the FA’s whole sport plan funding, as a result of the decrease in participation. I want more people to get involved in all sport, and I am pleased that Sport England is committed to working closely with sports governing bodies to make that happen. However, we have to get results from the £500 million of public money that is invested through those bodies. If their plans are not working, it has to be right that Sport England invests some of the funding in other ways.

However, there will certainly not be a financial loss for grassroots football. Instead, Sport England will reinvest that £1.6 million to create a grassroots “city of football”, working in one place to create a range of new opportunities to encourage more people to play football regularly. Sport England will also share with the FA the insights that are gained, to help the FA continue to grow the game across the country. To date, that model has proved successful in an intensive year-long pilot in Bury, which has looked at ways to break down barriers and to get the town’s women and girls more active and involved in sport. I look forward to there being similar exciting innovation in developing the football city.

Although innovative opportunities can increase the appeal of, and participation in, all sports, high-quality facilities for community sport remain absolutely essential in supporting football. The hon. Member for Bolton North East referred to the importance of such facilities. I am very pleased indeed that Sport England has invested more than £80 million of Exchequer and lottery funding in facilities for football during the past three years. It has also been working very hard to protect playing fields, to fund the Inspired Facilities programme, to fund iconic facilities and to improve existing sites.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the undeniable impact that the winter’s floods have had on sports facilities in affected areas. I am sure that he has already read about this in newspapers and various statements, but I am pleased that we have been able to respond to the flooding with a £5 million Sport England fund to support affected sports facilities.

We also invest in the Football Foundation, which the hon. Gentleman referred to, along with the Premier League and the FA. The new grassroots fund will improve existing facilities and create new pitches across the country, including the invaluable astroturf pitches that the hon. Gentleman referred to. I absolutely agree with him that such pitches are brilliant at maximising the capacity of various grounds, and the contribution made by the Premier League, the FA and ourselves amounts to more than £100 million during the next three years. I hope to see many more 3G pitches constructed.

Of course, that shows that it is not only the Government who are investing in and funding expertise in grassroots football. The FA invests approximately £40 million a year to support its national game programme, most recently implementing the outputs of its youth development review. Typically, the FA spends a further £15 million a year on projects that benefit every tier of football, such as the FA’s Respect programme, which aims to improve the conduct of participants and spectators right across the game.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to the contribution that is made by the Premier League. The Premier League is investing £56 million a season between 2013 and 2016 on community-focused projects and facilities, and as he will know, the constituent Premier League clubs often deliver significant programmes in their own local communities, independently of the FA’s collective action.

I will make a further point about the contribution that is made by the Premier League. I just want to clarify to the hon. Gentleman that during the next three seasons, it will redistribute more than £850 million in total to help to strengthen football below the top tier, which includes solidarity payments to support the 72 clubs in the Football League and the 68 clubs in the three divisions of the Football Conference. Those payments are partly ring-fenced to support the work of those clubs in their local communities. I know that such work is very important to the hon. Gentleman.

With regard to the question of whether any more can be done, let us see what can happen. I am open to discussing new ventures with the FA and the Premier League. However, I believe that they are already making significant contributions of their own accord, which should not be underestimated.

The hon. Gentleman also rightly referred to the fact that some local teams cannot afford the fees that local authorities are charging to use various facilities. That issue is of concern to me; I am aware of it and I am investigating it. I had a meeting with the FA this morning and raised the matter again. I know that the FA and Sport England are working hard on that issue, which has to be dealt with. All sorts of ideas are being considered, one of which is encouraging the county football associations to work much more closely with local authorities to manage community sports budgets. Ultimately, however, that arrangement sounds perhaps a little ad hoc, so some new model of ownership of sports facilities may need to be looked at. However, I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I will work closely with others to establish what can be done to deal with that important issue.

I hope that hon. Members will see the considerable sums of money that the Government and the football authorities are ploughing into football right across the country. In my opinion, the outlook remains very bright indeed for opportunities to participate in football, and I am pleased that the Government play a big part in that process.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I am afraid that there is no injury time in Adjournment debates, so I will have to suspend the sitting until 2.30 pm.