UEFA Champions League Final 2022: Independent Review Findings

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris. I, too, thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing time for this incredibly important debate, and for his ongoing efforts, and those of other hon. Members, to bring these important matters to light.

I know the personal impact that these events have had, as the hon. Member rightly mentioned. Tribute must be paid to Liverpool supporters for their actions in Paris and their continued commitment to ensure action is taken. The hon. Member is right to highlight the horrible memories of that day that the debate will have brought up. I recognise my duty and that of the Government on the safety of not just Liverpool fans but football fans in general.

I add my thanks to all those involved in the independent report, including the panel. It is clear in the report that Liverpool fans were subjected to appalling mismanagement of an event that should be a highlight of any football supporter’s life of following their club. Immediately after the conclusion of the final, the Government made that very point and were clear that UEFA should launch an independent review to understand what took place. I welcome the outcome of that review, which draws on the evidence of fans who were present at the match and reflects their experiences. It should not have been needed, though.

It is clear that the mistakes that were made in organising the final were nearly disastrous. The expert panel concluded that the behaviour of Liverpool fans was a key reason that that mismanagement was not fatal. I commend their action and welcome the judgment of the report that the fans behaved faultlessly under extreme pressure and duress. As I am sure hon. Members will agree, those supporters should never have been put in to that position. It is vital that lessons are learnt from this near-disaster and that action is taken to prevent it from happening again.

UEFA has recognised that it made a series of mistakes in its handling of the event and has apologised to fans who attended. In consultation with the Football Association, my Department is in touch with UEFA to understand how it intends to respond to the review and to press for timely action in response to the report’s specific recommendations. I welcome UEFA’s commitment to implement the recommendations, its engagement with fans’ groups last week and the further apology offered by its general secretary. It is vital that UEFA continues that dialogue with supporter organisations and that an action plan is published as quickly as possible. The Secretary of State will meet with the French Sports Minister in the coming weeks to discuss the French Government’s response to the independent review.

[Alison McGovern]

I thank the Minister for what he has just said. Through him, I also thank all UK Government officials and Ministers who made themselves available on the day to deal with the difficult situation. I am full of admiration for our diplomats and UK Government officials, who responded so quickly. On that point, will the Minister explain the link between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Foreign Office? European football competitions happen all the time, and our ambassadors and diplomatic teams need to be aware of that and offer support to UK sports fans when they travel to Europe.

[Stuart Andrew]

I assure the hon. Lady that colleagues in the Department regularly engage with colleagues in the Foreign Office. In fact, in the run-up to the World cup, I met with Foreign Office Ministers and the Qatari ambassador, because we were seeking reassurances that fans would be safe when they travelled to Qatar. We have regular engagement, and I can assure the hon. Lady that we will continue to do so.

Government Ministers met their French counterparts at the time of the final, as the hon. Lady just mentioned. The meeting was to understand how the French Government intended to respond to their part in the mishandling of the event and to refute their assertions that Liverpool fans were at fault. Ministers made it clear then that an independent review was needed to establish the facts of what happened. The Secretary of State will further press French Ministers on the action that her Government will be taking in response to that review.

The Government will also reflect on the lessons that can be learnt from the horrific events witnessed in Paris last year. That will inform planning for the UEFA champions league final in 2024 at Wembley, as well as our UK and Ireland bid to host Euro 2028. The UK has a strong record of hosting safe and successful major international sporting events, and we will continue to ensure that the measures we already have in place to support safe spectator experiences continue to be aligned with the highest international standards.

In September 2019, London successfully secured the rights to host the UEFA champions league final in 2023. That was postponed to 2024 because of covid. Around the world, it will be the biggest club football match of 2024 and one of the most-watched sporting events.

High-Speed Rail

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), and I hope that I will not test his rules for us too much. I may mention the case for High Speed 2, but I hope that he will forgive me. I shall do so from a perspective that is different from that previously taken, so I hope that it will not trouble him.

I want to make two points. First, we sometimes forget about connectivity in the north, although everyone assumes that they know about north-south connectivity now. Secondly, I want not only to consider northern cities and to build on the comments of other Members, but to look at bits of connectivity that are smaller but none the less truly important. I hope that the Minister will answer my questions about those minor bits of transport connectivity in the north of England and in Wales.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on the problem that is regularly experienced by my constituents, many of whom travel by train and are frequent users of the west coast main line. The problem is not that they cannot get to London quickly enough, because they can certainly get to London quickly, although they have trouble getting to other places fast enough; their problem is that they will probably not easily find somewhere to sit comfortably. That is a problem of capacity, not speed—I can see hon. Members nodding, for which I thank them. Watching the media, I sometimes have the impression that people think that congestion happens only in the south, and that the north of England is a traffic-free zone, where people always sit comfortably on trains. That is just not the case—if only it were. The west coast main line is very crowded.

I regularly meet people from businesses in the Wirral and the wider Merseyside area who wish to grow their businesses, but the problem is that their ability to do so is partly limited by their ability to travel. I must declare an interest in that, in a previous life, I worked for two years for Network Rail, so I am not averse to discussing engineering. I know from my time there, as the Minister will also know, that we do not begin such projects by asking ourselves what the biggest piece of infrastructure is that we can conceive of to solve the problem. We should try to do the straightforward things first, and it is worth bearing that hierarchy in mind.

The rail industry has struggled with problems of connectivity and congestion for many years. One solution is to have longer trains and longer platforms, but the west coast main line has a very limited ability to do that. Another solution is related to signalling and whether more train paths can be fitted in, but that is again very limited. I well remember—this is an important point—the impact of the west coast main line modernisation project on Liverpool, particularly when it was the capital of culture and that project was at its height. We are therefore out of options, which is why we are where we are and why we are looking at High Speed 2. There is no question but that it is needed. Business men in my constituency are desperate to travel around to grow their businesses. They ask me all the time about rail fares and about the congestion from which they suffer, and we should always keep their perspective in mind.

To my mind, the case for High Speed 2 has been made, although others may still question it, but we need to consider other elements of rail in the north. I agree with hon. Members who have spoken about the value of The Northern Way and asked whether some group might be convened to look at what projects are necessary for the whole north of England. In my previous life working in the cultural sector, one of the hardest problems was building the cultural economy in the north of England, where there are very important visitor destinations in Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. The pathways between them are extremely difficult. Liverpool to Manchester is not too bad, although, given that they are only 38 miles apart, the time it takes to travel between them is not good enough, but I hope that will be assisted by electrification. However, Liverpool and Newcastle, which are two extremely important visitor destinations for this country, are not well connected, and a future priority for the Government must be to look at that.

There is a huge amount of latent demand in our economy that we should try to develop. That is true of not only the visitor economy, but other parts of the country’s economy, including the energy sector, which would be assisted by transport connectivity. At the end of the day, the transport economy is there to serve the rest of the productive economy. I might just add that I have been encouraged by the support shown for central planning in this debate, albeit tempered by the need for localism, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys.

A cross-north path is very important, not least to the people of Yorkshire, who want much better connectivity to Manchester and Liverpool.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a very good case for connectivity across the north. We have always said that High Speed 2 is not the only solution and that we should create such connectivity. Recently, I took the train from Wrexham to Leeds, which took me four and a half hours, whereas people going to London arrived in about two and a half hours. Does that not make her point?