My Lords, when athletes choose to cross the doping line, they enter a dark and amoral underworld devoid of honesty, moral scruples and conscience. They are guilty of fraud, yet there is no sport-specific legislation in this country—unlike many other countries—to address fraud in sport. Indeed, there is no legal provision in this country’s sport for the governance of and obligations on governing bodies of sport. There is no effective provision for the prevention of match-fixing, bribery and corruption. There is no mandatory responsibility on local authorities to provide for sporting facilities, and there are no national anti-doping provisions.
My Amendment 176 addresses those who knowingly defraud a clean athlete from selection or recognition in their professional career. In any other walk of life, that is a criminal act because it is fraud. Such fraud is criminal, yet there is no sports law in the United Kingdom and no effective remedy for fraud in sport—no way of tackling the stain on the integrity of sport. As I have said before, and outlined in my petition with the support of the Sunday Times, there is no redemption for the clean athlete denied selection or winnings by a competitor who knowingly cheats. What is worse, the cheat with the chance of a long-lasting benefit derived from an enchilada of performance-enhancing drugs knowingly shreds the dreams of clean athletes with every needle they inject.
That is why, saddened by the failure of international sports bodies, to which I will return, many countries—including New Zealand, Austria, Italy, France, Sweden, Mexico and China—have either criminalised the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport or enacted legislation which criminalises those who traffic in these drugs. Germany is the most recent country to introduce legislation, proclaiming,
“a declaration of war on cheaters”.
Under its law, athletes found guilty of doping face fines or prison terms of up to three years. Those involved in supplying athletes with performance-enhancing substances could face jail terms of up to 10 years. Yet we in the UK have delayed and failed to introduce long overdue sport-specific legislation.
Even the last director-general of the World Anti-Doping Agency reflected:
“I want to pose the question: should doping be a criminal matter? It is in Italy, and we think—some of us—that the real deterrent that cheating athletes fear is the fear of going to prison. Not the fear of being stood down from their sport for a year, two years, four years but a fear of going to prison”.
He is right. Over many years, British Olympic athletes have taken the firm and uncompromising stance that those guilty of cheating should never again be selected to represent their country.
I have referred to the fact that the World Anti-Doping Agency has lost credibility, and I fear that it has. When the news of the endemic doping in Russia and the widespread doping in athletics was broken by the Sunday Times and the German state broadcaster ARD, the president of WADA said that WADA was “pleased” that the relationships with Russia,
“have survived much of the adverse publicity caused by the ARD television programs”.
He further said that he,
“values the relationship with Minister Mutko”,
and would be grateful if the Russian commissar who was reporting to him,
“will inform him that there is no intention in WADA to do anything to affect that relationship”.
These relationships have no place in the corridors of what are meant to be independent organisations overseeing doping in sport. WADA has lost credibility, and that credibility will be restored only when its leaders are truly and wholly independent and not relying on those same countries for votes to enhance their careers, for example, in the International Olympic Committee.
My amendment introduces national anti-doping provisions and, as I said in Committee, criminalises doping by setting a very high legal bar whereby an athlete has knowingly to take the prohibited substance with the clear intention of enhancing his or her performance, or with that being one of the intentions. It is also a criminal offence if a person belonging to the entourage of the athlete—for example, managers, agents, coaches, doctors—or those promoting logistical support for the athlete’s career encourage, assist or hide awareness of the relevant athlete taking a prohibited substance with the intention of enhancing such athlete’s performance—or with that being one of the intentions—to the detriment of a clean athlete and, potentially, their earning power and their career.
That was the first and most important point that I set out in the proposed amendment. It is not intended to apply to those athletes who undoubtedly by error or mistake take a prohibited substance. It is very specific to those athletes who knowingly cheat by taking performance-enhancing drugs in order to deny a clean athlete selection or a career.
The second part of the amendment came out of an investigation undertaken by the Sunday Times with regard to a Dr Bonar. Dr Bonar was highlighted at that time by being beyond the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom anti-doping agency. UKAD itself called for the powers to ensure that, instead of just being able to apply sanctions to those doctors affiliated to governing bodies of sport, they could be used against any doctor who knowingly assisted an athlete who cheated—not just 1% or 2% of the doctors in this country but doctors such as Dr Bonar, who was engaged in activities set out clearly by the Sunday Times.
The third point the amendment covers is the fact that if you put a time limit on the effect of a drug in terms of the ban you have to face, the issue of how long the drug benefits the athlete is not taken into account whatever. The key issue is that it is the athlete’s body that potentially retains an advantage in sporting performance long beyond, say, a two, three or four-year ban. For example, if a young person is knowingly
engaged in cheating at age 16, 17 or 18 and takes growth hormones—or if I had and turned out to be six feet tall, there is little possibility that I would have suddenly shrunk back to 5’6” when I was 30 or 35; I would have had a lasting benefit from those drugs. It is important that that distinction is clear, and any athlete who has faced a ban would need to satisfy the medical profession—an independent doctor appointed by the GMC—that they have no long-lasting benefit beyond the time of their ban.
The amendment proposes that a member of an organising committee of a world or European championship would be guilty of an offence if they did not take all reasonable steps to ensure that the athletes they are entering for the world athletics championships, for example, next year in London, were clean. They could do that by working with the World Anti-Doping Agency.
I have been very grateful to the Opposition, not least in the other place, who have consistently supported taking action of the form that I have outlined. I think I can do no better than quote the shadow Home Secretary, Andy Burnham—I mentioned this at an earlier stage but I think it is worthy of repetition—who stated:
“People need to be able to trust that what they are seeing on the pitch, on the track or in the pool is real endeavour and not artificially enhanced. If you are using performance-enhancing drugs, you are not just cheating the other athletes but you are perpetrating a fraud against the paying public. For that reason, there is a clear case for it to be a criminal offence. We must send the strongest possible message that it will not be tolerated in sport”—
a message which is being considered in detail by many other parliaments in the world, leading to legislation to criminalise the worst excesses—and only the worst excesses—of doping in sport.
I conclude by setting out very briefly who the victims are, because there are those who argue that this is a victimless crime. It is not. The first group of victims are the drug cheats themselves, those young athletes who, pushed to the limits by their ambition and their desire for success and its accompanying financial rewards, are driven to the most desperate of measures and the most dangerous of misjudgments. They not only pay for their use of unregulated, uncontrolled and often untested and unsafe drugs with the heart-breaking penalty of a one, two or four-year ban; it is, and has been, far worse. Doping can cost them their very lives. There should be no mistake or misunderstanding: doping in sport is dangerous and the cost of gaining a small competitive advantage can be tragically and prohibitively high. That is, of course, the nightmare scenario, and death by doping is at the far end of the spectrum. But while athletes remain tempted by the huge short-term gains from doping—for example, heightened oxygen-carrying capacity from the use of EPO—there will always be terrible risks. The public never see this most distressing side of doping, and the athlete who dopes either does not know about or chooses to ignore the long-term health problems from such drug use, including greatly increased risks of heart attack or stroke.
The second group of victims are the clean athletes, and it is they whose rights are most at risk of being trampled over by the absence of criminalisation on the
statute book. The secret drugs cheats have already callously and deliberately sought to gain selection over another athlete by taking banned performance-enhancing drugs, thereby greatly wronging and defrauding the athlete who has made the decision to stay clean and to live and train by the rules that govern sport. Honest would-be champions suffer when the chance to fulfil their ambitions is stolen from them, when Olympic medals are snatched from their grasp and when they are robbed not just of sporting glory but of all the associated commercial awards. They are cheated out of medals, recognition, sponsorship and everything that comes with being a top sportsman or woman. Those innocent athletes—foot soldiers in the fight against doping—make the sacrifices they do in good faith because they believe wholeheartedly in the importance of clean sport. We do not know if a drug cheat can ever be considered clean again; but banned athletes can still train, and even clean, they can maintain their strength, as I outlined earlier, through doping.
The third group of victims are the legions of loyal sports fans. Sporting events can mobilise the interests and emotions of millions around the globe. From the world of sport emerge national heroes, national institutions, national treasures—legends and heroes are created from sport, particularly Olympic sport, which has a unique place in the hearts and minds of the public. Fans are understandably let down when the athletes whose feats of athleticism they celebrate are exposed as drug cheats and their achievements nullified. Fans expect the Olympic Games to operate on a higher level than any other sporting event, and while it may be vulnerable to legal challenge, there is a certain sense of natural justice in the concept of criminalisation for drug cheats.
Fourthly, the victims are the Olympic Games themselves. Despite their immense success as the biggest sporting event on the planet, the Olympics still epitomise all that is good about sport and encapsulate a distillation of its very essence. The joy found in effort is taken to a new level as athletes stretch themselves to the limits of human physical ability in their quest for “citius, altius, fortius”, breaking records as they go. But the Olympic dream vanishes rapidly if the achievements won by that effort are found to be chemically enhanced and available from the nearest steroid shot.
The final victim of the drugs cheat is sport itself. I firmly believe, and have all my life, that sport is a force for good—a cultural phenomenon that transcends pure entertainment. In its purest form it is a triumph of the human spirit. It is not too far-fetched to say that the timeless and essential qualities of self-discipline, selflessness, fortitude and endurance that the best of sport inspires serve to make the world a better place. The narrative sport adds to our lives is enriching. Sporting metaphors and analogies crowd the modern lexicon. It is not for nothing that we speak of good and bad sportsmanship. The enduring, influential, pervasive power of sport in all cultures should not be underestimated.
Yet, the power of sport is undermined by cheating. It is undermined by those who defraud fellow athletes out of a living and out of selection. Its values are then tarnished, its universal language of fairness, honesty and
respect silenced. That is why I believe it is so important that we follow the examples of not just one or two, but many countries of the world in recognising that we now need finally to criminalise the worst excesses of doping in sport. I beg to move.
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