Boxing Clubs and Social Mobility

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Martin Vickers

Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I am pleased to respond to this debate and I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Daly) for securing it. Given his family’s heritage in boxing and the experience of boxing that the hon. Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan) has, I am anxious to get my response to this debate right. The contributions made by Members from across the Chamber this evening show the importance that the House places on support for grassroots sport and, in particular, boxing clubs. Members have rightly mentioned the many volunteers and coaches who give up a tremendous amount of time. Many of our sporting facilities would simply not exist if it were not for people giving of their time and sometimes their own money in support of the work they do. I was interested to hear about the experiences of Mr Jelley. I was also pleased recently to visit a boxing club in Bradford to see for myself the tremendous work that was going on there, particularly with people who perhaps felt that they were overlooked in terms of their opportunities. I hope to talk more about that shortly.

All Members will agree that these clubs provide people, wherever they may be in the country, with fantastic opportunities to lead healthy lives, unlock their potential and make new friends in life. The Government are committed to ensuring that everyone, no matter what their background is, has the opportunity to participate in sport. To make that possible, Sport England has, since 2019, invested more than £12 million into boxing, including £2.3 million-worth of support to boxing clubs during the covid pandemic. Like all sports, boxing has the unique ability to unite communities and connect people to those who otherwise would never have crossed their paths. The examples that we heard from colleagues from Northern Ireland particularly articulated that well.

Big fight nights, such as December’s Tyson Fury v. Derek Chisora or last October’s Savannah Marshall v. Claressa Shields, create exciting moments of sporting theatre. But beyond the drama at the elite level, sport has the ability to unlock potential by giving young people essential leadership and resilience skills. Throughout the debate, we have talked about the important contribution that sport makes to social mobility. Social mobility, just one of many areas in my portfolio, is one on which I am particularly keen, because unlocking people’s potential early on in life is a great thing for us to be able to do, and makes sure that we get the very best out of young people for their lives ahead.

Research commissioned by Sport England shows that for every £1 invested in community sport there is a return of £4 of wider social and economic value. That is why, as a Government, we are committed to ensuring that everyone across the country has access to high-quality provision. Last year’s active lives survey shows that, between mid-November 2020 and mid-November 2021, just over six in 10 adults—28 million—achieved 150 minutes or more of activity a week, with those from lower socio-economic groups and deprived areas more likely to be less active. We know that opportunities to participate in sport are not equal across the country, which is why we are working with Sport England to provide direct support to the organisations and communities in the areas that need it the most. Over the past 12 months, 19.2% of Sport England’s local level investment has been for projects in index of multiple deprivation 1 areas.

We recognise that we need to maintain progress in this area. This year, as my hon. Friend alluded to, we will be publishing a new sport strategy that will set out how we will continue to support people, no matter who they are or where they are from, to enjoy the benefits of participating in sport. For me personally, dealing with issues around community inclusion, bringing communities together and providing access to sport for women and girls will feature heavily in that sport strategy. It will also concentrate on addressing current disparities in participation, supporting children and young people and ensuring that everyone has the facilities that they need to be active. Helping to ensure that those from hard-to-reach communities get opportunities to play sport is something that matters to me personally, and I look forward to working with Members across the House to make progress in this area. I see grassroots sport as being key to achieving many of those ambitions.

Sport, and in particular sports such as boxing, can also play an important role in tackling youth violence, and can have a transformative impact in prevention and early intervention work with children at risk of offending behaviour. During the summer, I spent a few weeks as the prisons Minister. On a visit to a young offenders’ institute, I spoke to two individuals who, sadly, did not have the opportunities to which we are alluding. I saw that their lives now will be spent primarily in the criminal justice system. These were two particularly articulate young people and it struck me that, had they been given an alternative path to go down, they might be contributing to our society, saving our public purse a great deal of money.

Last November, the Ministry of Justice announced a £5 million sport fund to deliver “Sport for Crime Prevention” programmes. This funding will deliver grants to around 200 local projects, which deliver targeted support for children considered to be at-risk of entering the justice system due to identified need or additional vulnerabilities. The projects funded through the programme will build on some of the fantastic programmes that are already being run by community boxing clubs across the country, and I thank them for that. Schemes include the Clink to Club programme, which provides transitional support and guidance on the benefits of boxing and mental wellbeing for inmates at Brixton and Bronzefield prisons before they are reintegrated in their local communities and club.

A number of Members have also approached me about the impact of energy bills on clubs, and my hon. Friend was right to mention some of the facilities in which they operate. I recognise that this is a challenging area for those clubs. That is why we are working very closely with the sector to support it through the current challenges, with boxing clubs eligible for support under the energy bill relief scheme and its successor programme.

My hon. Friend referred to white-collar boxing. The safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is always absolutely paramount. Although there are always risks associated with participating in contact sport, it is important that robust measures are in place to reduce the risk of major injuries and health issues. We urge all boxing event organisers to work with the sport’s governing bodies to ensure that robust competition standards are in place to protect the safety of those who are taking part. I understand the issues that my hon. Friend was talking about. He asked for a meeting to discuss them further, and I am more than happy to oblige him in that request.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his comments. May I draw his attention to the Trin Centre in Cleethorpes, whose boxing academy is overseen by Andy Cox and an excellent team of volunteers? To return to the issue of sustainable funding for these organisations, could the Minister give an assurance that he will do all he can to ensure that it is much easier to get continuity of funding once an initial grant has been established? These organisations spend so much time having to complete forms and it is a complicated process. If he could do anything to streamline that process, that would be very welcome.

[Stuart Andrew]

Before I was elected to this House, I worked in the charity sector, so I know how complex many of those forms are and how long it takes to fill them out. That is an area I am keen to look at. I have regular meetings with bodies such as Sport England, so I will be sure to arrange to discuss that at my next meeting with them.

Sport has real power to change lives, as evidenced particularly well by colleagues across the House this evening, not just through the benefits it can have on an individual’s health, but through the role that local clubs can play in fostering relationships and breaking down barriers in communities. That is why this Government are committed to ensuring that everybody has the opportunity to benefit from playing sport and physical activity. We will continue to work to address the disparities in opportunity, both through Sport England funding and through our upcoming sport strategy, recognising the important role that sport plays in many of our communities.

Finally, I recognise the huge contribution that many of these clubs provide in the community activity to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North alluded. During the pandemic, many sporting clubs up and down the country really stood up and helped the communities in which they are based. They make a huge contribution and are more than just sporting facilities and sporting clubs; they are intrinsically at the heart of the communities in which they serve. For that I thank them, and I also thank all hon. Members for their time in this important debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Martin Vickers

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T9. Planning applications have a major impact on communities, but too often communities feel excluded from the decision-making process because they are unaware of the procedure for the local plan. Could Ministers ensure that, in the planning reforms they bring forward, they will make changes so that communities can take an active part from the beginning?

[The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is one of the key ambitions of the measures being introduced in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. We want there to be opportunities for communities to influence and comment on emerging local plans, and we will make sure that those powers are enhanced and that the planning system is digitised so that it is easier for people to engage, because local people need to decide where the local housing should be provided.

Business of the House

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Martin Vickers

Thursday 10th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

It did not take long for me to disappoint someone, did it? However, it is a pleasure to see the hon. Gentleman’s cheerful face in public and live.

The hon. Gentleman made a point about the Procedure Committee. Let us be frank: we are not in the full lockdown position that we were in when remote voting was taking place. Remote voting also had its issues, with Members of this House having issues connecting. I can honestly say to the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) that, as Whip, I know full well how hard it was to get some of my flock connected to the system. The system we have is working as best it can in difficult circumstances.

The hon. Gentleman then came on to the issue of the internal market Bill—again, SNP Members cannot help themselves but peddle the myth that we are having a race to the bottom. Nothing could be further from the truth. We want to take this opportunity, as an independent sovereign country, to go around the globe seeking the best trade deals that we can get. As for this constant gripe about a power grab, there are 70 competences coming from Brussels back to the United Kingdom, many of which will go to Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. This is not a power grab. If anything, it is a power surge for the devolved Administrations. I would like to confirm that we will, of course, be seeking legislative consent from the devolved legislatures and will continue to work closely with them to understand and respond to any concerns that they have.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

In my capacity as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on freeports, I welcome recent reports that an early designation of freeports is likely, perhaps as early as the Budget. It would be helpful if those that are submitting bids, such as Immingham in my constituency, had a clear idea of the timeframe and when an announcement is likely to be made. Could we have a statement from the Secretary of State outlining the position?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituency, and I know that he will do everything we can to ensure that his constituency is at the top of the list. I will, of course, ensure that his question is put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I will come back to him as soon as possible.

Children’s Cardiac Surgery (Glenfield)

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Martin Vickers

Monday 22nd October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

It is a pleasure once again to take part in a debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) on securing the debate.

I feel like something of an intruder, coming from the remote parts of Lincolnshire to this east midlands event. I rise to speak because many of my constituents’ children and grandchildren have received treatment at Glenfield and Leeds, and I have campaigned with my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) for the retention of the Leeds unit. We have centres of excellence and we want to retain them. My constituency is at the end of the line and somewhat remote, so the geography of where people receive life-or-death treatment is of particular concern. We joined the campaign for the Leeds unit and heard from parents how the distance to the life-saving unit has made a big difference. Cleethorpes is 80 miles from Leeds and 90 miles from Leicester.

The alternatives suggested to my constituents—in Newcastle—have been a significant factor in the opposition to the proposed changes. We already feel remote and out of it. I do not want to be frivolous, but if, for example, some of my constituents were involved in an accident, Humberside police would attend and summon an ambulance from the east midlands, which would then take them to Grimsby hospital, which is administered by the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. All these factors give people a sense of unease, and a sense that they are at the end of the line and do not matter. It is essential that we ensure that services are as close as possible to the people.

Parents will go to the ends of the earth to take their children to emergency treatment, but as a national health service we have to ensure that services are, wherever possible, as close as possible to the centres of population. We need to bear in mind the need to have centres of excellence, which, as the clinicians constantly tell us, means more and more concentration, but remoteness will mean that these proposals are unlikely to be achieved.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. The Safe and Sustainable review found, from its own independent advice, that patients in his constituency would not travel to the units that would be kept open under the proposals.

[Martin Vickers]

My hon. Friend is right. I think it was proposed that the likely number of operations taking place in Newcastle would be 403. That will not be achieved, because people in Cleethorpes and northern Lincolnshire will not travel to Newcastle; they will look for alternatives. With doubts being cast on the centre at Birmingham, inevitably, if Leeds and Glenfield closed, people would gravitate south rather than towards Newcastle.

We have heard expressions of concern about the process of consultation, and there is no doubt that the view that the consultation was flawed is widespread. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey drew attention to that in an Adjournment debate a few weeks ago. I appreciate that the Minister said, in an intervention, that the review was by clinicians. The problem is that clinicians always tend to want to gather together in more and bigger centres of excellence, and our constituents want as local a service as possible.

I hope that when the Minister and the Secretary of State make their decision they will consider other aspects. The expertise of the professionals is important, but access to services is also important. The last thing that people want is a decision that comes from a review by people they do not know and about whom they are doubtful—expert opinion—at the best of times. They want the Secretary of State to weigh up all the factors, not just the expertise. Parents and grandparents of children who have received treatment from these units know, from personal experience, the care and attention that they provide, and they fear being shunted away.

We have centres of excellence. Please, Minister, do not rubber stamp a review that wants to close them. Consider, first of all, the children who are treated by these centres.

health

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Martin Vickers

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

I am grateful for that intervention, which brings me on to exactly that point. The review’s decision said that 25% of Leeds, Wakefield, Doncaster and Sheffield patients would go to Newcastle, when its own evidence said that they simply would not. Funnily enough, if 25% of those patients go to Newcastle, guess what? Suddenly, 403 patients a year will have surgical operations in Newcastle, which is just three more than the magic figure of 400. I do not believe that that 25% will exist, so Newcastle will miss the target of 400 operations, which is a key plank of the whole review.

We have heard about how public opinion has been discounted. A petition signed by more than 600,000 people was brought down to Downing street. That is an enormous number for one region, yet the review counted it as just one response. On the other hand, 22,000 text messages received in support of Birmingham were counted as 22,000 separate responses, which is blatantly unfair.

One of the most important issues is the co-location of services. What has impressed me about the Leeds unit is that it is part of the Leeds children’s hospital. All other surgeons get there within minutes, if needed. We are asking our patients in our constituencies to go to Newcastle, where all other services are some 3 miles away from the heart surgery unit. That is simply not acceptable and goes against the advice of the key recommendation of the Bristol inquiry, which was backed by the British Congenital Cardiac Association. The inquiry said:

“For these services at each centre to remain sustainable in the long term, co-location of key clinical services on one site is essential.”

It is important that we do not forget that.

The fact is that, allowing for patient choice and without the flow of patients from the populous areas of Yorkshire, as evidenced by the PricewaterhouseCoopers research, Newcastle will not reach the target of 400 surgical procedures. In 2010-11, Leeds delivered 336 procedures against Newcastle’s 271.

The impact assessment also showed that the options that included Leeds would have fewer negative impacts and that option B, which included Newcastle, would be particularly damaging for paediatric intensive care in Yorkshire and Humber.

It is also important to ask why Birmingham was chosen because of its density of population and Leeds was not, given the fact that we have a high south Asian population who, statistically, are more likely to need the service. As we have said time and again, doctors should go where the patients are, not the other way around.

Sheffield parents whom I have met at the unit travel three times a day to visit their children in hospital, because they have other children at home. We have to think about the impact this has on families.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work on this issue. His point about distance is particularly relevant to my constituency. Cleethorpes is about 85 miles from Leeds and the parents will not travel to Newcastle, so it will not reach that figure of 403.

[Stuart Andrew]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the support that he has given to the campaign by meeting his own constituents who, he is right to say, will not travel to Newcastle. His comments further highlight the ludicrous nature of the decision.

I have presented the problem, so what is the solution? I recognise that the review is independent of Government, but we have to tackle the problem—it will not go away, because we as Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Humberside MPs will not let it. Our view is that the review could happily be implemented elsewhere, that both Leeds and Newcastle should be kept open and that a decision on their future should be delayed until April 2014. That would provide an opportunity for patients and parents who require the services to exercise their constitutional right to patient choice and to determine which centre they wish to access. By the end of that period, each centre would have to demonstrate that they were fully compliant with all the standards set by the Safe and Sustainable review.

This solution would amount to only a one-year pause. Given that legal proceedings are likely to take place, there will be a one-year pause in any case. The reconfiguration of all children’s heart surgery centres in England is not due to commence until April 2014 and a decision taken at that time on Leeds and Newcastle could be implemented in 2015. The definition of a centre that delivers a sustainable service is that it should have a minimum of four surgeons, so if, after the one-year pause, commissioners did not think that the Newcastle unit had a sufficient work load, the Leeds unit could explore how it could provide support in conjunction with Newcastle.

If either of the centres did not meet the standards, it would, frankly, let itself down. This solution gives them the opportunity to provide the services that families are so desperate to keep. There are many benefits to the solution: it would avoid the risk of a costly judicial action from supporters of either unit, which could sink the review in its entirety; it would give Leeds and Newcastle the opportunity to demonstrate their compliance with the safe and sustainable standards, which is what we all want; it would allow the less controversial decisions made by the JCPCT to proceed elsewhere in the country; and it would show, frankly, that the Government are listening to the concerns of the 600,000 people who signed our petition, and I am sure that the public would respond accordingly.

I know that this is not an easy decision, but there is a great deal of concern and anxiety in our region. I hope that the Government will not just give us the line that this is a review independent of Government, but acknowledge that there are serious concerns and great anxiety among our patients and families, and that it is time to look at the issue in detail, to listen and to act.