My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, on introducing his Bill. The noble Lord deserves the respect of the whole House for all the work that he has done behind the scenes on the development of grass-roots football, for the importance he attaches to accessibility and for the care he has always given to both players and supporters, not just recently but over many decades. The House is greatly indebted to him for that work.
The noble Lord briefly referred to the 1980s in his introductory remarks. I remember, as a Minister, introducing the first review chaired by a Minister of Sport for those with disabilities. The review included the issue of access and made the vital point that we needed to make progress. One of the recommendations was that we set up a British Paralympic Association. The Secretary of State at the time was Nick Ridley, who taught me one or two things about how to handle the House of Commons. I had been going religiously to football matches as Minister for Sport, simply to be able to answer the question that the shadow Minister at the time, Denis Howell, was bound to ask the moment I got on to my feet to introduce a highly contentious Bill to address issues related to hooliganism in football. Nick Ridley, in characteristic form as Secretary of State, had asked which was the most difficult Bill due to be taken that week. He looked at me and said, “It’s yours, Colin, isn’t it? I’ll do Second Reading”. I looked at him and said, “You’re not in the least bit interested in football or sport; how on earth are you going to do it?”. He said, “I’ll definitely do it. The Secretary of State’s job is to take the toughest Bills and give the young Ministers the opportunity to shine with some rather easier material”. So up he got on his feet, with the House absolutely packed. Denis Howell, sitting opposite, intervened after about a minute and said, “I’d like to ask the Secretary of State when he last went to a football match”, to which he responded, “At Eton, under duress”. That completely defused the situation in the House of Commons and left me sitting there thinking that I was going to football matches every Saturday, irrespective of whether they are First, Second, Third or Fourth Division, simply to meet that question.
At the end of the inquiry into sports for those with disabilities, we had the usual Wednesday morning meeting with Ministers. Nick Ridley asked whether any follow-up was needed, apart from considering the recommendations. I said, “Yes, Secretary of State, we need £1 million to start the British Paralympic Association”. He just said, “Yes”, and walked straight out of the office before there were any supplementary conditions. We took the £1 million and made quick progress, which later led to us going to the International Olympic Committee to urge it to ensure that any city bidding for the Olympic Games would also bid to host the Paralympic Games. I am grateful for the comments that have been made about the work of the Olympic Board on London 2012, which was the culmination of a lot of work from people all sides of the House. It is interesting to note that everybody who has spoken in the debate, on all sides of the House, has done so from a lifetime of experience, commitment and passion on the subject. This is not a subject where people have just picked up the order of proceedings and come in to speak. I hope the Minister takes that into account as well as the fact that there is all-party support for the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner.
I have one or two observations about the noble Lord’s Bill, which I hope we might be able to look at as we make further progress. I declare an interest as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which has looked at the Bill and
will no doubt be reporting in due course, although I emphasise that I am speaking as an individual and certainly not on behalf of the committee. It strikes me that one of the issues is that the principal purpose here is to provide for greater accessibility at large sports grounds for spectators with disabilities. As drafted, the Bill relies on the definition of a large sports ground being one that, in the opinion of the Secretary of State under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, provides,
“accommodation for more than 10,000 spectators”.
As we make progress on this, it may be worth while debating whether that is too high a threshold and whether, given the objectives that we are seeking to achieve here, a lower threshold might be more appropriate for this Bill.
There is also the well-trodden difference between compliance and guidelines. Compliance and guidelines, as all noble Lords know, do not sit comfortably in legislation. Accessible Stadia, as noble Lords will all have noted, consists of some 607 pages and is an outstandingly good work. If my memory serves me correctly, the document was significantly influenced by Peter Lee, one of the unsung heroes of our time in sports administration, who does an enormous amount of good work. However, Accessible Stadia consists of guidelines, and it is quite difficult to request in a Bill that the certificate from the Sports Grounds Safety Authority confirming that a ground complies with guidelines has legal backing. Those guidelines may be amended and changed from time to time. Clause 1 clearly talks about the guidelines, while Clause 2 would add a new subsection to Section 2 of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act to say:
“A safety certificate shall contain a condition that the sports ground must comply with the … guidelines published”.
It does not say it must comply with the guidelines if they change, and we might wish to amend that to clear up that potential loophole. It is worth looking quite closely at how you have compliance and advice in one clause and then, in the next clause, seek to enact that through legal requirements.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, will be aware that I put a Bill before the House on sports policy shortly before the last election, not because I anticipated that it would go through to become law but because I hoped that, during the following five years, many of the issues that were floated in the Bill would be seriously considered as different pieces of legislation were presented to your Lordships’ House for consideration. When drafting it, I felt that the Secretary of State might be given the power to make regulations in respect of access for disabled athletes, and indeed disabled spectators, in sports venues and at sporting events if he or she thought fit, including in relation to technical specifications. I also hoped that those regulations would make sure that venue design in the future took into account all the recommendations made by the accessibility guide and the inclusive approach to the Olympic and Paralympic Games which was issued by the International Paralympic Committee in June 2013. That might strengthen part of what the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, is seeking to achieve. It might also address the question of the 10,000 threshold and the discomfort of having guidelines on the one side and making them mandatory on the other.
Those, however, are recommendations to strengthen the Bill. As for the Bill itself, and as for the work that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has put into this, I cannot but commend him very strongly. I will do everything I can to help. I know that those I have spoken to on these Benches who are passionate about sport echo the gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and to those in the House so actively supporting the Bill today.
11.09 am