BBC Regional Politics Coverage

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Without being too controversial and repeating the debate we had for three years over Brexit, it could be argued that the BBC and the media generally were very London-centric, and that is why the result was different from the one expected here in London. It is not only its representing views but its representing political views that is sometimes found wanting.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, which is incredibly important. I am a great defender of the BBC and will happily defend the licence fee. I feel strongly that one of the things the BBC gives us that would be lost in its absence is regional accountability—the ability for people to find out what is happening in their local area, so that they can hold their politicians to account. The BBC risks losing that if it carries on in this way, so I support the hon. Gentleman’s argument. Does he think we should say to the BBC that if it wants to continue to justify the licence fee, it needs to protect the things that are precious about the BBC?

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. Most of us—especially as we represent an area over the years—have a very good rapport with our regional BBCs. Not only do they hold us to account, but we can feed stories and things that matter to our constituents into them. These regional programmes would therefore be a great loss. Let us imagine trying to achieve that in a London-centric system—it is bad enough feeding in what we want from our given areas with our political parties sometimes, and it would be even more difficult with the BBC. It would be a huge loss, and once it is lost, it will be very difficult to regain.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) for securing this debate. The level of interest that there has been shows the desire across the country to protect this incredibly important institution. He was encouraged by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) to lead the campaign by setting up a Zoom call for us all to contribute to, but it seems to me that he has created a sort of face-to-face Zoom call that might be familiar to some of us who were here before the coronavirus era. It is a way for us all to get into the same room and discuss this, and that is great.

Taking up the challenge set by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), I think it is incredibly important to recognise the contribution that the BBC makes in my area, not just with “Sunday Politics”, but also with radio stations such Radio Sheffield and Radio Derby and, of course, to recognise the broader role of local media such as the Derbyshire Times and Peak FM, which ensure that, as local Members of Parliament, we are held to account and that we can communicate with our local communities and be on the receiving end of some wise and frank advice from our local constituents about the issues.

It is incredibly important for our democracy that we are not just 650 people here to serve our parties, but we are people here to serve our local communities, to hear about local issues, to be asked about those local issues and to respond to those local points. That is the role that “Sunday Politics” plays, and there is no way that a politics programme for England would be able to do that. The idea that the issues that my constituents care about in Chesterfield and the local issues in the north-east or in Cornwall are all the same is just nonsense. The local holding to account that “Sunday Politics” does is incredibly important.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that now is a particularly bad time for the BBC to be considering this move? We heard in the previous contribution about devolution to metropolitan mayors, and the like, which needs extra examination. Our response to covid has, in large part, been led by our county councils and second-tier councils, as well as by local resilience forums. Those bodies are increasingly powerful, and increasingly relevant to our constituents and the population of the regions. Now, more than ever, the BBC should be focusing on that issue, and not withdrawing from it.

[Mr Perkins]

I could not agree more. Coronavirus has brought into sharp focus the need for a local response, given the extent to which local areas are experiencing a global pandemic in different ways. In London, coronavirus hit hard up front, and there were then regional variations as it went on, and differences in local responses. Local clinical commissioning groups responded differently regarding testing and the availability of personal protective equipment, and the public must be able to learn about such issues locally, and to scrutinise and question their politicians about that response. Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and been asked to respond on a national basis, but politicians must also be held to account for what is happening in our local areas with testing, PPE, care homes, and all those sorts of things.

[Graham Stringer]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend is as sad as I am, but over recent weekends, I have switched on the Parliament channel, and people can see coverage of virtually all the general elections there have been since television started covering them. One really interesting factor from those BBC archives is that the swing across the country in 1955 was almost uniform. In 1959, commentators were shocked when there was a slightly smaller swing to the Conservatives in the north-west—it was a big change. The four countries of the United Kingdom are increasingly diverse. Does my hon. Friend agree that that means there should be more regional coverage, not less?

[Mr Perkins]

Once again, I absolutely agree. I think it was Tip O’Neill who was credited with the phrase, “all politics is local”, and in the last general election we saw that more strongly than ever before. I represent Chesterfield, an area that, as long ago as 2010 when I came to Parliament, was surrounded by Labour seats, but there has been a big change in our area. Similarly, in the cities there has been a change in the opposite direction. I am very conscious of that point, and as colleagues such as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) know, in areas where there is perhaps less representation from one party, it is particularly important that people still get to hear a voice from the Labour party, or, in areas where Labour is strong, a voice from the Conservative party. I think that “Sunday Politics” does that, and it is important to ensure that in areas where one party is in the minority, that voice is still heard in a local dimension.

As Member of Parliament for Chesterfield I have both the privilege and the slight irritation of being straddled between two areas. The majority of my constituents watch the Yorkshire version of “Sunday Politics” and regional news, but we are also covered by the east midlands region, and different people in my constituency watch different programmes. Because of that, when I have been on the two separate programmes, I have been minded of how different they are, and how they reflect the different issues that exist in West Yorkshire at one end, and Northamptonshire at the other end of the east midlands coverage. That gives me a strong sense of how different those areas are.

I would not say that my constituents appreciate my appearances, but they certainly respond to the appearances I make and appreciate that local coverage.

I noticed that the “Sunday Politics East Midlands” Twitter account has now been taken down. Someone at the BBC has made the decision, while the review is apparently still ongoing, to take down that account, to which people could go and see the coverage produced by the “Sunday Politics East Midlands” team. Recent such programmes have brought a local dimension to national stories: we hear a lot about HS2 on a national basis, but we have been able to debate what it means locally in the east midlands. Areas of the east midlands such as Chesterfield, Derby and Nottingham will be served by HS2, whereas in other areas HS2 provides a blight but will not provide a service. There is a perspective that is different from the national debate about HS2.

If “Sunday Politics East Midlands” disappears, I worry about how the people of the east midlands will learn about the latest prediction from the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) as to when the scrapping of HS2 is going to be announced. I do not know how they would ever find that out. Every six weeks or so, the hon. Gentleman comes on to tell us that it is about to be cancelled. I worry how people would find that out without the “Sunday Politics East Midlands” programme.

[Steve Brine]

I enjoy the hon. Gentlemen’s contributions; he is a big thinker on these matters. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I am fortunate to be a member, is currently holding a big inquiry on public sector broadcasting. What the hon. Gentleman and everybody else is saying goes to the heart of the question of what we want a public sector broadcaster to be. Do we want hundreds of thousands of pounds to be spent on salaries for small, niche programmes on national network television? Do we want a commercial entity such as Radio 2 to be financed by the taxpayer—by our constituents—on penalty of going to prison if they do not pay? Or do we want the sort of coverage that the hon. Gentleman is talking about? Ultimately, as we lead up to the charter review—I am sure that the Select Committee’s report will feed into that and into Ministers’ thinking—the debate is really about what sort of public sector broadcaster we want to have, is it not?

[Mr Perkins]

It absolutely is. I am conscious that local media—particularly radio—are very much under threat. I have previously mentioned Peak FM, which has been a great, small local radio station in my area. It has recently been taken over by Bauer and its programming is going to go to the east midlands. We are now told that a traffic jam just outside Corby is local news; that makes no difference to people in Chesterfield. As the local dimension of the private sector media increasingly diminishes, there is an opportunity for the BBC to say, “Look, this is what we are great at. Of course we are going to compete on a national basis with national programmes on a Saturday evening, but this is what is special about the BBC.” It will lose that at its peril: if the BBC loses programmes such as “Inside Out” and “Sunday Politics”—if it loses that sense of its ability to influence things locally—it will rue the day and we will all be the poorer for it.

Other Members, particularly the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, have mentioned the extent to which there is a sense that if something happens in London, it is national news—that if there is flooding in London or riots in London, we should all care about that. We all know that when we have flooding in different areas, it gets much more difficult to get local coverage. I entirely accept the point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) about London having local news too, but for many of us who are more distant from London, there is a strong sense that what happens in London is given greater import than what happens in our areas. We are going to have the local elections in 2021, and we all know that what happens in London will be seen as national news. The London mayoralty is of course an important national post, but there are elections everywhere, and it is important that those elections are covered too. I do not think that will happen if these programmes disappear.

I could say other things, but I shall end my speech there because many other Members wish to speak. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton for securing this debate. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will give a really strong assurance that the strength of feeling in this debate will be conveyed to the BBC, and that it will be conveyed in the strongest possible terms just how crucial these programmes are to our constituents.

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[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is absolutely accurate, and the questions from the local journalists are often far more difficult for the Minister to answer because they are focused on the issue at hand. They do not have any of the Westminster aspect to them; they are straightforward questions. Those journalists are doing what journalists should always do, which is to ask us the questions that the listener or viewer at home wants them to ask. The journalist should be putting the question that the person at home, looking at the screen or listening to the radio, has in their head to the people making the decisions. If they are doing that, they are absolutely doing their job properly.

My final point is about some of the subjects covered, which I think the hon. Member for Chesterfield also touched on, as did my hon. Friend for Tiverton and Honiton. I will pick two examples. The first, which was a little while ago—well, it seems like a long time ago, but it wasn’t really—is flooding, which impacted different parts of the country in different ways and was something that sadly we experienced ourselves in my county of Gloucestershire. That is one set of circumstances when local reporting is at its best—when journalists get out into communities and report on the aspects of the issue that really matter to individuals.

I also agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about the coronavirus outbreak, two aspects of which are worth noting. The first is that the huge amount of very locally focused responses in our communities—through local resilience forums, county councils, district councils, volunteers, and town and parish councils—has been covered in local media outlets, including the BBC, in a way that it simply would not have been, and has not been, in national broadcasting.

[Mr Perkins]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the local context has been different. What is also different is local accountability, because councils have decisions to make about the local response to coronavirus, and politicians have to answer for those decisions, whether they be council leaders or Members of Parliament. That is the other dimension to the point he is making.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for that spot-on intervention, which leads to my final point, about one of the things that we will now be focused on. The Prime Minister tomorrow will announce further moves, I hope, to enable us to get our economy back on track and functioning. One of the important ways to facilitate that is through the test and trace system, which is starting to be up and running, and that is being dealt with not just by the NHS nationally. There is also an important local component, in that locally based, locally employed and locally accountable directors of public health will be responsible by the end of this month for putting together a local outbreak plan to deal with the inevitable local outbreaks—I say inevitable because we have already seen outbreaks in our country and others, whether in specific localities or specific businesses. That will be absolutely critical in getting the country functioning again while keeping people safe, and those outbreak plans will be locally developed, by locally accountable officials and councils.

That aspect is important, but when the inevitable outbreaks of coronavirus happen, it will also be really important to have quality journalism to report on what has happened in a non-sensationalist, factual way, so that local people know what is going on, what the facts are, what is being done to keep them safe and what they need to do to keep themselves and their communities safe. If we were to get rid of that local reporting and accountability, the country and our communities would be the poorer for it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton should be thanked for his wisdom in securing this debate, but also for brilliantly planning it to occur on a day when he would have a little more time than is often available in an Adjournment debate, thereby ensuring what I think will be quite a full debate. I hope the powers that be in the BBC watch BBC Parliament, which is another very valuable service delivered by the BBC, listen to the clear cross-party message—that should sound an alarm with them—from both main political parties and some of the smaller parties, and think very carefully about whether, come September, they should bring back BBC regional coverage and protect it in the months and years to come.

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[Mr Whittingdale]

I agree with my hon. Friend, which is why I am grateful to him for having applied for and obtained this debate, because I have absolutely no doubt that the BBC will be watching it and that it will take account of the strength of feeling that has been expressed from all parts of this House. I am talking not just about the current affairs programmes, but also about the “Sunday Politics” show. As the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) pointed out, it was only last week that more than 100 of the industry’s most well-known figures, including Sir Lenny Henry, Stephen Fry, Fern Britton and Ken Loach, signed a public letter to the BBC to express their concerns over the future of these programmes and the impact that their withdrawal would have on the communities that they serve. These are programmes that have brought us first-class investigative journalism, and they are at the very core of public service broadcasting. One of the signatories of the letter was Samira Ahmed, who many of us will know having been subjected to questioning by her on the “Today” programme. She wrote:

“I was proud to be part of an Inside Out investigation for BBC Leeds that dared to tackle difficult issues around race and exploitation in the Rotherham Grooming Scandal. Now more than ever we need honest, fearless journalism that is rooted in the long-term expertise and professionalism of BBC journalists who know their local communities.”

     I agree with the  hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) that the BBC is one of the most recognised and trusted brands across the world and that it produces some of the best TV and radio across the globe. As the Prime Minister put it, it is an institution to be cherished. Whether it is the recent drama on the Salisbury poisonings or the documentary following the work of the north-east ambulance service, the BBC lies at the heart of our public service broadcasting system, producing world-class content that serves to stimulate our interest, broaden our understanding, and help us to engage with the world around us.

That understanding of the world, and the BBC’s role as our national broadcaster, has never been more important. As we emerge from the crisis caused by coronavirus, we find ourselves at a time of increasing mistrust and facing an almost daily battle against misinformation. In that world, where “fake news” has had to be added to the dictionary, it is vital that the BBC upholds the values and standards we have all come to expect. The public should be able to turn to the BBC for transparent, impartial, reliable news and current affairs.

That applies just as much, if not perhaps even more strongly, in regional and local coverage, which is the focus of this debate. In the past few months, UK audiences have been turning back to television news. In the last week of March, 79% of UK adults watched the BBC network and regional news on television—up 20% on the previous month. Since the outbreak of coronavirus, the 6.30 pm regional news programme on the BBC has often been the most watched programme on television on any given day.

BBC local radio has also played a very important role. For instance, the BBC local radio “Make a Difference” campaign, which allowed a number of people to call to ask for help, support or advice and reassurance, received over 1 million calls.

[Mr Perkins]

Given the statistics that the right hon. Gentleman has outlined about the success of this output, what does it say about the BBC’s priorities that it would even consider getting rid of these incredibly popular local programmes that are of such importance to people, at a time when it continues to make the other decisions that it does about the kind of output it has?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I fully understand why the hon. Gentleman regards that as a mistake by the BBC, and it is one that I personally would agree with him about. I will go on to set out why I think it is right that we ask the BBC to think again.

As my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Warrington South said, the royal charter sets out the public purposes of the BBC. One of these is:

“To reflect, represent and serve the diverse communities of all of the United Kingdom’s nations and regions”.

It goes on to say that the BBC

“should offer a range and depth of analysis…so that all audiences can engage fully with major local, regional, national, United Kingdom and global issues”.

Regional news and current affairs programmes are at the very heart of this particular public purpose. First, they fulfil a vital role in providing local content, which helps to sustain local democracy. A number of Members have made the point that that is becoming particularly important as we look at devolving more power to regions and local communities. It is essential that that takes place and that, at the same time, people who are holding that power are held properly to account. We all know that many of the issues affecting Plymouth will be completely different from those that impact on Hull, Devon or Coventry. It is important that all those different issues are aired properly and that politics does not seem to be only about Westminster—or, even, the London bubble.

People also want to know that they are heard, especially those from ethnic minority backgrounds and in diverse communities across the UK. They need to know that the issues that matter to them matter to us all, and they need the opportunity to engage in balanced debates and participate in the conversations that shape their daily lives. It is only through broadcasting those kinds of stories and conversations through regional TV or local radio that we can build the true picture of British life.

The second area of vital importance for local news and current affairs programmes, which has been referred to by several hon. Members, is the extremely important role they play in forming the next generation of skilled journalists. Without that training ground, some of the best known names in broadcasting today would not have had a start.

I will say a few words about each of the different areas of regional programming that the debate has covered. First, on the regional political coverage, the weekly regional political show plays a vital role in highlighting issues that may be of huge local importance but will probably never make it on to the national news. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who is no longer in his place, pointed out, those shows are often the only opportunity that Members of Parliament have to go on television to talk about the issues that affect them and their constituents. In my region, the “Politics East” programme, with which my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) and the hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) will be familiar—as, of course, will you, Madam Deputy Speaker—does an extremely good job in covering political developments in the region, as well as the debates that we have here on issues that are relevant to the region. If a Member from a particular region obtains an Adjournment debate on an issue that is of extreme importance to his or her constituents, we can look to the BBC’s regional political show to at least give it some coverage.

The idea that a single politics England show could somehow substitute is wholly unrealistic, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) pointed out. The population of the east of England—from which you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I come—is over 6 million. That is more than the population of Scotland, yet Scotland is served by its own channel, BBC Scotland, which was launched in February 2019, and includes a huge amount of coverage of Scottish issues. That is not in any way wrong—it is as much a part of the BBC’s public purpose to provide that programming as it is for any other part—but it does seem to illustrate why it is mistaken for the BBC to provide that amount of coverage of the Scottish nation while diminishing, and almost removing, the equivalent coverage that takes place of the 11 regions of England.

I turn to the current affairs programme that the BBC provides, “Inside Out”. As has been pointed out by a several hon. Members, “Inside Out” has carried out a number of in-depth investigations of huge importance, many of which went on to become national stories, but probably would not have done so had it not been for the initial investigative journalism done by “Inside Out”. The example of the working practices of Sports Direct has already been mentioned; Samira Ahmed drew attention to the Rotherham child grooming case; and there was a recent programme about the impact of smart motorways. All are hugely important stories that, one has to suspect, would not have ever been revealed had it not been for the work of the journalists on “Inside Out”.

At a time when powers are being devolved to a more local level, it is all the more important that the scrutiny that a programme such as “Inside Out” provides is carried out. That is particularly reinforced given what is happening to other local media, as several hon. Members have mentioned. It is the case that both local newspapers and local radio are under tremendous threat. Sadly, we have seen a number of local newspapers shedding journalists or, in some cases, even going out of business, and that has made the BBC’s task of scrutinising and holding local institutions to account all the more important.

Local news production shows the BBC’s unique value compared with strong national and international competitors. The choice available to viewers is growing, with new entrants such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Disney. That makes it all the more important that the BBC focuses on the role of providing public service broadcasting, which will not be provided by those commercially oriented, market-driven companies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) questioned the future of the licence fee and rightly said that one of the principal justifications for the licence fee is that it funds a broadcaster which provides programming that otherwise would not exist. That has always been at the heart of the purpose of the public service broadcasting landscape, and particularly the BBC.

The BBC is uniquely privileged in that it receives public funding. It has been protected against the hurricane that has hit the rest of commercial media as a result of the loss of advertising during the covid crisis. The BBC has a protected income, and in that climate, it is all the more important that it continues to provide public service broadcasting. My view, and the general tone of this whole debate, is that regional political and current affairs coverage is at the heart of public service broadcasting.

As I say, it is not for me to tell the BBC how it should deliver the public purposes or use the money given to it through the licence fee, but I believe that regional news and current affairs are of great importance, because they are vital for our democracy, they help to train future journalists and they help the BBC and other public service broadcasters to remain relevant in this changing media landscape. I am confident that the BBC will have been watching this debate, and I hope that it will take account of the feelings and views expressed by all Members and decide to continue—indeed, strengthen—its regional political and current affairs coverage.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the financial effect of the covid-19 outbreak on professional football; and what steps the Government are taking to support football clubs during that outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Oliver Dowden)]

Football clubs form an integral part of this country, and it is important that they are given as much support as possible during these difficult times. Ministers and officials in my Department are engaging with football governing authorities about how they can access Government schemes—many have done so. I welcome the Premier League’s announcement that it will advance funds of £125 million to the English football league and national league, to help clubs throughout the football pyramid. In addition, I have personally been in talks with the Premier League with a view to getting football up and running as soon as possible, in order to support the whole football community. Of course, any such moves will have to be consistent with public health guidance.

[Mr Perkins]

I am sure that many people will be delighted to hear what the Secretary of State had to say about football getting going again, particularly with Sheffield United’s ambitious European campaign in full flow. He is absolutely right about the impact on the professional game. Many lower league clubs and clubs across the football community have done incredibly important work in their communities over this time, stressing the extent to which they are community assets rather than simply businesses. Can the Secretary of State say anything about what can be done to protect those lower league and national league clubs, which face unprecedented problems at this moment in time?

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question; he raises an important point. The first thing we can do is help get the premier league up and running again, because that will then help release resources through the rest of the system. We have already seen the £125 million support that has been made available, and in addition to that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working with Sport England. They have £195 million for sport and physical activity, including a £20 million emergency grant for clubs and community assets that are in trouble.

Football Attendances: VAR

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered VAR and its effect on football attendances.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, particularly as it is so difficult to get the opportunity to speak to a Sheffield Wednesday supporter about football at the moment.

I confess that it feels somewhat incongruous, as the country’s attention is focused on the coronavirus crisis and football has come to a stop, for Parliament to debate a non-life threatening matter such as video assistant referees and their impact on football attendances. I have been attempting for several weeks to secure a debate on this subject in the fortnightly ballot; it is somewhat unfortunate that the debate was finally drawn in this of all weeks.

The coronavirus crisis is both a medical and economic crisis, and the financial health of our national game is an issue that should matter to us. Football—particularly the Premier League—is one of the nation’s key economic and cultural exports, and anything that affects the Premier League’s popularity and esteem matters. Although we all accept that there are more pressing matters, there will be a day when coronavirus is in the past and we will turn again to the normality that makes life rich, varied and enjoyable. I hope that those watching at home will accept that debate is being held in that spirit and that taking an hour or less to discuss the impact that VAR has had on football will not in any way diminish the Government’s preparedness to tackle the coronavirus crisis and to take the necessary steps to support businesses and people through it.

There seems to be almost universal agreement that the way that VAR is currently used in the English Premier League is bad for football. Opinion is less uniform on whether it is a good idea done badly or just a bad idea. During my speech, I intend to make the case for the abolition of VAR, while also looking at some of the steps that could be taken to improve it if the EPL, clubs and the wider game insist that it is here to stay and can only be reformed rather than abolished.

To explain why I believe that VAR should be abolished completely, I must start by explaining what I see as football’s enduring appeal. There is a reason why football is the most successful, the richest and the most widely watched and played sport in the history of our planet. Football’s appeal is in both its simplicity and its accessibility. Wherever someone may be in the world, if they have something round and two rocks for goalposts, they have a game. Until very recently, no matter the level, football’s core rules were the same. Whether in the local park, where more people play than watch, or at Celtic Park in front of 60,000 people, football was football.

Alongside that simplicity, football’s unique selling point is the rarity of the goal. A goal can be a thing of beauty—a thrilling movement that builds to a crescendo with a thrilling release—or it can be workmanlike and brutal, with the ball forced over the line. It can be fortunate, freakish or amazingly simple and, sometimes, it can even be comical and farcical. The goal can be controversial, a moment to delight and bring a nation together in a shared explosion of joy; or it can be tragic, as an entire ground and nation clasps their heads in their hands in perfect unison. No other moment in any other sport is so special as the moment in football when a goal is scored. However that goal is scored, it is rare and important, and because of its rarity and importance, it matters and it is celebrated.

That moment, which is the fundamental ethos of what it means to love football, is the moment that VAR interferes with. We are robbed of that moment of simple joy or despair by a faceless man sitting in an industrial estate in south-west London, miles away from those who really care. All the fans can do is wait for his dreadful, often imperfect, verdict. The wild, breathless celebrations are halted by the dreadful, purple appearance on the big screen of the words “checking goal”. Sometimes celebrations that have been under way for 30 seconds or more are placed on pause as two sets of fans stop and stare at a screen that offers them nothing but the fact that uncertainty now reigns.

In a sport that thrives on being played without delay, that uncertainty can last for three minutes or more. The chant about VAR is so commonplace that there is not a single premiership fan who could not instantly sing it. If VAR offered flawless decision making I would still say that it was not worth it, but it does not even do that. When VAR was introduced we were promised that it would overturn clear and obvious errors, but it has become a farce.

For a toenail offside, 30 seconds before a goal was scored—and after a three-minute delay—Sheffield United’s goal at Tottenham was ruled offside. Arsenal scored a goal at Old Trafford that was uncontested by the Manchester United defenders because the linesman’s flag had gone up several seconds before the goal was scored. West Ham fans celebrated their last-minute equaliser at Bramall Lane for a full 45 seconds before there was even a suggestion that it might be called into question. I must confess that that last-minute disallowed goal brought me momentary pleasure, but even as we celebrated the goal being disallowed a part of me mourned what we had all lost.

I have explained why I do not want VAR in football, but even if it must be tolerated, so much is wrong with how it is being delivered. First, the technology is applied to offside decisions on the basis of where one player’s most prominent limb is in relation to another player at the specific moment when the film is frozen. A millisecond either side of that, however, and the player might have been onside. The technology is imperfect in terms of the exact moment when the ball was kicked. VAR is overruling goals on hairline decisions with a technology that is not good enough to deliver the level of precision that it pretends to offer. A camera that is not in line with the offside line is used to overrule a decision by a linesman who was, accepting that arbitrary lines drawn on a screen provide an accurate description of who was furthest forward by a millimetre.

I guarantee that if VAR, this dreadful stain on the beautiful game, continues long into the future, fans will look back in 20 years and laugh at the technology on which we currently rely to determine whether someone was offside. VAR has exposed the gap between our expectation of players’ performances and those of referees. When a striker skies a shot over the bar or a goalkeeper lets the ball slip from his grasp, fans on his side are willing to view that error in the context of the overall performance, but no such allowance is ever given to the referee. That thirst for perfection in decision making—a product of the pundit era and the enormous investment in technology by Sky Sports and others, designed to improve our enjoyment of the game—has driven us to the soulless VAR experiment.

For years, the coverage of every match, and of every post-match managerial interview, has included a section on the decisions that the referee made or the manager’s view of whether the referee was any good. It turns out that managers whose teams lost usually thought that he was not. We all became used to that as part of the background music to every match. Now the focus has shifted from whether the referee was right to whether VAR was right. Every week, the football headlines are not about the performances of the players but about the decisions made and the technology.

In attempting to justify the success of VAR, the English Premier League’s note to me in advance of the debate informed me that a decision was overturned in only one in every three matches, as though that should show me how little it was intervening. Far from it. If VAR is correcting so few decisions, what problem are we trying to solve? It has ruined a lot more goal celebrations for me than that, and not just those that are overturned. Even the celebrations that ultimately are not in vain are not the same because fans wonder whether what happened was something that would be called into question. The spontaneity that is so crucial and endemic to football is lost as a result of VAR.

VAR is also changing the way that football is played, refereed and watched. It is changing the decision making to the detriment of the fairness of the sporting contest. Linesmen are instructed not to flag for offside unless they are absolutely sure, even if they believe it is offside. A linesman in an EFL Championship game who would flag for offside, because he thinks it is, will in the Premier League allow the game to carry on because it was close, giving an unfair advantage to the attacking side. This can lead to a load of football that is a waste of time, because ultimately a goal is disallowed or to an offside player winning a corner or a free kick that then leads to a goal that should never have happened, because the linesman thinks that he was probably offside anyway but did not give it, because he was correctly following the edict not to flag for a marginal offside. When I think about the difference between the fan experience in the Premier League and the Championship, I almost envy you, Mr Betts—but perhaps I would not go that far.

If VAR is to continue, changes are needed both to the rules of the game and VAR’s operation if it is going to be anything other than a drag on the appeal of a hugely successful product. Most crucially, the offside law needs reviewing. New referees and linesmen were always taught that if a player is level, they are onside, as the rules state. In real time, that made sense, but in the VAR era, there is no such thing as level. It now means that if, at the moment that the screen is frozen, one player’s toe is a millimetre beyond another player’s shoulder, the goal is disallowed. That is not what the offside rule was designed to outlaw and it needs rewriting, because it is spoiling the sport’s simplicity, which is so important. We need to return to the original principle that if the majority of two players’ bodies are basically level, the striker is considered to be onside.

Secondly, fans must be involved in the process, as other sports manage, with the pictures that are being viewed by the referee also available for fans in the stadium. Thirdly, the referee is the referee and he should view the original pictures. If he is certain that he has made a clear and obvious error, only at that moment should the decision be altered. Finally, a clear and obvious error should mean precisely that. If it takes someone three minutes to work out whether something was an error, it was not clear and obvious. In cricket, there is “umpire’s call”, which means that a degree of latitude is given, meaning that they stay with the original decision to allow for the uncertainty in the technology and the decision that is made. That should be adopted in football so that fewer hairline decisions are overturned and fans can once again celebrate a goal, knowing that unless there is a clear and obvious error, there will be no change to the decision.

I am pleased to have brought this important matter to Parliament. The title of the debate refers to the effect that VAR has on football attendances. That was partly because the Table Office considered football attendances to be a matter that the House was allowed an opinion on, while the rules of football were not, and partly because the evidence is that VAR is reducing football fans’ enjoyment. A YouGov poll showed that 67% of fans who watch football felt that VAR had made watching football a “less enjoyable” experience. Can anyone imagine any other industry introducing, at great expense, an innovation that its paying customers said made its product worse, and then, instead of scrapping it, reacting by doubling down on it and claiming that it was progress that we all had to get to enjoy?

I do not like the principle of VAR. I hate the implementation of it. It professes a precision that it does not deliver. It makes the game our children watch a different sport from the one they play. It changes the way that football’s rules are refereed and it makes obsolete or unworkable rules that made sense with on-field referees in the pre-VAR era. The beautiful game is diminished by VAR, and I say “Scrap it.”

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) for securing today’s debate and for the contribution he has made today, and for those of other Members, including the hon. Members for Glasgow East (David Linden), for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara), and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) and of course the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin).

I very much appreciated, as I am sure everyone did, the professional tone in which the hon. Member for Chesterfield introduced the debate, given the circumstances. We obviously take the coronavirus situation extremely seriously, but football fans around the world also need to look to the future, as he said. We need something to look forward to, as well, and the hon. Gentleman explained that he has been trying for the debate for a considerable time. I recognise that these are slightly unfortunate circumstances, but he explained very well.

Football clubs are the heart of local communities. They have unique social value and many enjoy a rich history. Our football competitions are the best in the world and some of our greatest assets. The top tier of domestic competition, the premier league, is one of our most important soft power assets. It is the most watched and supported football league in the world, with matches broadcast to more than 1.3 billion homes in 192 countries. Part of what makes it the most attractive league in the world is the stellar quality of its competition, and we want that to continue. However, I must be clear: it is down to the premier league and its clubs to decide the rules of their competition—not the Government and, I am afraid, not even the Sports Minister. I may have a view, but I am afraid I have no such control. This year, the premier league decided to introduce the video assistant referee, commonly known as VAR.

Since the first introduction of VAR to English football, in the FA cup third-round tie between Brighton and Crystal Palace back in 2018, it has been much debated in pubs, football clubs and homes across the country. I am sure that that debate will continue. The premier league continues to deliver a fantastic experience, and the introduction of VAR does not seem to have hampered attendance, which is tracking at a record 97.5%, as the Leader of the Opposition—[Interruption.] Maybe one day! As the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), said. That is great capacity for this season, and builds on seven consecutive previous seasons in which utilisation has been above 95%. VAR does not appear to be reducing fans’ appetite to turn up to support their team. That healthy picture is reflected in all professional leagues: attendance at the English football league has reached its highest levels in 60 years.

[Mr Perkins]

We should be a little careful about those statistics. The vast majority of fans at premier league games are watching via season tickets. It is a hard habit to break, and no one is suggesting that they will leave in their droves, but if 67% of those watching are saying, “This is making my experience worse,” simply saying, “Well, they’re still turning up,” is not good enough.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about the level of enjoyment in the games, but the key thing is attendance and people watching. That is a metric we need to pay careful attention to. The passionate way in which he articulated the emotional impact of scoring a goal and the potential disappointment with the delays on the VAR, I understand, but we can all remember times when we passionately disagreed with a terrible decision. We should not forget such circumstances.

More than 18 million people made their way to league fixtures during the 2018-19 season, the highest figure since 1959. Cumulative attendances across the championship, league one and league two broke the 18 million barrier for a third consecutive year, with the average gate across all three divisions eclipsing 11,000.

The EFL Away Fan Experience Project, which was launched for the 2016-17 season, is a prime example of the work of the football authorities to improve fans’ experience at matches. The EFL is not only focused on those fans attending the game, though. Its new iFollow service offers fans the chance to watch selected live games and to enjoy audio commentary from matches across the EFL, meaning that games remain accessible to those who may have moved away from the area or cannot make it to matches with their physical presence.

It is great to see that the game is going from strength to strength in this country. The football authorities are engaging with fans to improve their matchday experience and the record-breaking attendance implies that that is working. They continue to do a great job running their respective competitions, and it is right that any decisions over their rules, including the future use of VAR, should rest with them as custodians of the game. Again, I am not convinced that fans want the Sports Minister to decide on such things, or on the offside or the handball rule.

Attendance at top-tier football games is important, but it is also vital for games at a local level. Frequently, grassroots games are being called off owing to a lack of available or adequate facilities. The Government have therefore committed to investing £550 million in grassroots football facilities in support of our bid for the men’s 2030 World cup. That will help to improve facilities all across the country, meaning that by 2030 every adult and child, in every community across England, will be no more than 15 minutes away from a quality pitch.

That investment will build on the great work already done by the Football Foundation, a charity jointly funded by the Government, the Football Association and the premier league. Since its inception in 2000, the Football Foundation has delivered £495 million towards developing and creating new facilities.

The premier league is doing great work with children across the country through its Kicks programme. Kicks offers young people, often those most at risk of getting involved in antisocial behaviour, regular and constructive activities delivered by respected club staff.

Football forms a significant part of many of our lives, and the game is giving back to communities right across the country. I am grateful for today’s wide-ranging discussion about the beautiful game. Football is an important part of this country’s history, and the Government are committed to investing in the grassroots game to ensure it can continue to be enjoyed by all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Perkins]

I am somewhat nervous now, Mr Betts!

I thank those Members who have contributed. I appreciate that, as everyone has said, there are other matters that concern us, but the case that I have made over the course of my speech remains my view. I also welcome the comments that other people have made about the ways in which VAR can be improved; I accept the likelihood that there will be reform to VAR and, hopefully, improved engagement with fans and spectators rather than abolition, which is what I would prefer.

On the subject of attendance, the demands of the public are not to be ignored. As someone who has attended football matches for 40 years or more, the popularity of football is not what it has always been. There have been times when it was a very different experience, and we should not take for granted the successes we have had. It is incumbent on those who are in charge of the game to understand what they have and why their product is so successful, and to preserve and safeguard it. When the people who put in the money to make that product so successful urge them to change direction, they should take that seriously.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered VAR and its effect on football attendances.

Free TV Licences: Over-75s

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment, for the reasons that she has given, and the answer to her second question is yes.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is clear from the Secretary of State’s answer to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) that the Government made a promise in their manifesto, but knew at the time that it was not theirs to make. The Secretary of State has said that he is disappointed with the BBC. Will he clarify whether, during those discussions with the BBC, it ever promised the Government that for the foregoing period of that settlement it would retain free TV licences for all pensioners?

[Jeremy Wright]

I was not present at those discussions, but it is very clear, is it not, that if someone wants to know roughly how much the financial obligation they are taking on will be, there are ways in which to establish that. One would assume that the BBC carried out exactly that exercise, and therefore knew what it was taking on when it made the agreement; hence the disappointment that I have expressed today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I think that is highly likely.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

We are blessed in this country to have—

[Mr Speaker]

No, no: Question 13.

[Toby Perkins]

Good point.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is about tennis.

[Mr Speaker]

It is okay; the hon. Gentleman will get his second serve in a moment.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

13. What assessment he has made of the correlation between the number of professional tennis tournaments played in the UK and the level of domestic participation in that sport.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Jeremy Wright)]

Mr Speaker, I know that you would not want to miss out on any information about tennis. The Lawn Tennis Association continually reviews the number of professional events held in this country with the international tennis associations. As the hon. Gentleman knows, Britain has the world’s greatest tournament, Wimbledon, and also hosts the Association of Tennis Professionals world tour finals, which will celebrate its 10th year being held at the O2 later this month. We continue to encourage participation in tennis, with more than £9 million given to the LTA between 2017 and 2021 to encourage more participation.

[Toby Perkins]

As I was saying, the Secretary of State is absolutely right to talk about our world-class tournaments, but at challenger and future levels, we have far fewer tournaments than the other major European nations. Holding tournaments right across the UK is an important part of the participation strategy, so what more can the Secretary of State tell us about what he is saying to the LTA about getting tournaments held throughout the country at that lower level?

Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I would be delighted to do so. My hon. Friend is quite right to draw the House’s attention to the World Rugby Hall of Fame, which is one of the many excellent attractions in the United Kingdom. There was William Webb Ellis, of course— no relation, which may surprise you, Mr Speaker. The Government are committed to boosting UK tourism, particularly outside London, and the Discover England fund does that. I would be very happy to visit or to meet my hon. Friend at any time.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

13. For the entire country to benefit from sports-related tourism, it is important that there is a fair distribution of cricket, for example. Half of all the test matches between 2019 and 2023 will be in London, meaning that Trent Bridge will not get an Ashes test in either of the next two series. Will the Minister sit down with the England and Wales Cricket Board, tell it to go back to the drawing board and make sure that we all benefit from world-class cricket, not just London.

[Michael Ellis]

The sports Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and I do care a great deal about this, as does the Secretary of State. The reality is that we want to get as many events as possible outside London and across the country. We are always looking to do that, and we continue to do so.

Draft Gambling Act 2005 (Amendment of Schedule 6) Order 2018

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 General Committees

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.

I want to follow up on some points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West a few moments ago. I do not have any objection to the proposed amendments to schedule 6, but I share my hon. Friend’s view that this may be a decent opportunity to take a slightly wider look at questions to do with gambling, particularly when we consider which sports are and are not involved, and how widespread betting and gambling are these days. The context for what I am saying is that, if we were not paying full attention in Committee, we would be able to use a betting app to bet on sporting events anywhere in the world. It is also a question of the breadth of the gambling available in such circumstances.

My hon. Friend referred to Joey Barton’s comments about footballers betting on other football matches. While that may be against the rules, and it may be entirely understandable that the Football Association would rule it out completely, it is at least a case of people backing their judgment in an honest matter of skill and knowledge about the event and what will happen. I note that the Tennis Integrity Unit is among the organisations in the schedule. Tennis is a sport that I know a good deal about, and gambling on tennis has had a great deal of attention. I wonder about the responsibility of the Gambling Commission and the betting companies for the integrity of the sport.

I could go on to my phone and bet on whether there will be a deuce in the fourth game of the second set of a match somewhere in eastern Europe between players who may have travelled halfway across the continent to play in a match where they will win £100 in prize money. It does not take a huge amount of imagination to understand why a player might be tempted by the suggestion: “Couldn’t you just see your way, in the fourth game of the second set, to try to make sure it is a deuce?” That would not even be about risking winning or losing: if it got to 40/30, he might put a double fault in. There are temptations attached to something as random and minuscule as that, in the context of a sporting contest when players are playing for very small amounts of money.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West mentioned the example of netball. Team sports are obviously more difficult to fix, but there are sports—table tennis was mentioned—where it is possible to make individual bets that are obscure in relation to the outcome, and to raise a lot of money on a minor thing. We have heard about footballers deliberately kicking the ball out for a throw-in in the first 10 seconds of a match, or defenders, perhaps, agreeing to give away a corner in the first five minutes. Such things are where betting is going now. It is all very well for the Gambling Commission to say, “We have had a big bet on a certain outcome and then it has come to pass so we want to pursue that person,” but where is the responsibility on the Gambling Commission and the betting companies in terms of the types of bets they are taking? We have the review into fixed odds betting terminals for totally different reasons, but where is our responsibility as legislators to say, “There are certain types of gambling. We should look at how some of these bets are happening and consider whether they are in the best interests of the sport and the industry”? Will the Minister say to what extent the Government are considering the scale and kind of betting that is going on? Many of us like to have a little flutter on sports, but we should consider the extent to which some of those bets are in the best interests of those sports.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cardiff West for standing in for the hon. Member for Tooting. She was kind enough to contact me directly to let me know that she was unable to make the Committee this evening and that the hon. Gentleman would be trying to fill her incredibly high stilettos. He has done an amazing job for a Monday.

I remind the Committee that I take gambling harm incredibly seriously. I think all Members from all parts of the House know that, and it is why we published the gambling review. Colleagues have raised important issues that are contained in the review, whether that is fixed odds betting terminals, advertising or online gambling harms. Those are all matters that I cannot comment on specifically today in relation to the order, but I stress again that I take the issues seriously. We are considering the outcomes of the consultation on the gambling review, on which more will be said in due course.

[Toby Perkins]

Will the Minister clarify whether her review will have an opportunity to look at things such as the integrity of sporting events and the kinds of bets that are allowed by the gambling companies, or is it looking purely at harm to punters?