SPORT AND RECREATION

HC Deb 15 February 1971 vol 811 cc1510-41

7.25 a.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (West Lothian)

I apologise to the Minister for his long vigil and the fact that the debate should come on at a time when even the Minister for Sport should have had a night's rest. But the Minister will recognise that there is little prospect in present parliamentary circumstances of any kind of lengthy debate on sport and recreation during normal hours. Thursday after Thursday, some of us have been asking the Government business manager, the Lord President of the Council, for such a debate.

I will come straight to the point. The first issue, of which I have given notice, I should like to get out of the way quickly, because it is relatively unimportant.

I am the convenor of the Parliamentary Labour Party Sports Group. We have had representations from the Rugby League about the whole issue of grants. The Rugby League points out that Government grants should depend on participation in a sport which is freely open. The Welsh Rugby League has solved this problem, and there is no difficulty there. The problem is whether the English and Scottish Rugby Union should be given a grant when they persist in excluding those who have been involved in some form or another in the Rugby League. In doing so, are not the English and Scottish Rugby Union in defiance of the law?

I mention the case of a prisoner who was convicted on a capital charge. It was all right for him to play rugby football for the prison in which he was a prisoner. However, grotesquely enough, it was not all right when it came to his having played Rugby League football. I mention this case to highlight the absurdity to which this kind of situation can lead.

What steps are the Government going to take to make sure that their own regulations are implemented? If the Minister finds difficulty in answering that question this morning, perhaps he might reflect on it and write to me.

I have to declare that I have been the president, and am now the honorary vice-president, of the Scottish Amateur Basketball Association. I think that all people in minority sports are concerned about the level of grant. If I talk for the main part in my speech about football, I should not like it to be thought that I not concerned about minority sports.

Now I turn to the issues of major substance. I understand that the Minister has been Chairman for eight months of the Sports Council. There are rumours that there will be an independent chairman. I should like to record that it is a matter of regret to myself and to a number of my colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party Sports Group—not least the former Minister for Sport who would have been here, but for the hour—that the chairmanship of the Sports Council should be taken out of the Government machine. I hope that we can be assured this morning that it will not be taken out of the Government machine, because there is a large capital programme on sport and this should be answerable to Parliament. In the other place on 10th February, Lord Sandford said in answer to Baroness Burton of Coventry: And I can bear well the gentle chiding from the benches opposite, knowing that when my right honourable Friend does make his decision it will be the right one."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords; 10th February, 1971, c. 139.] There is some urgency about this decision.

On the next and related issue I should like to raise the subject of comparison with the Arts Council. On top of a grant of £11 million, the Arts Council has an extra £28 million. As one who is also deeply interested in the arts, of course I welcome this, but I cannot resist asking why more money is not available to the Sports Council. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about finance and what increase there has been in real terms.

The rest of my speech is bound up with the Report of the Chester Committee. I make no secret of the fact that the Parliamentary Labour Party Sports Group has had visits from Mr. Cliff Lloyd, the secretary of the Professional Footballers' Association, Derek Dougan, its chairman, and Terry Venables, a committee member, and in Scotland I had a long 2½ hour session with Mr. Archie Wright, the secretary of the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association, its chairman, Alec Ferguson and seven members of the committee. I am glad to learn from correspondence that before any parliamentary delegation go to the Department, the Minister himself will be meeting them.

I do not want to make things more difficult, because it is good and important that they should have a Ministerial interview, but I ask the Department to reflect on the issues such as fair representation of professional footballers. There must be some kind of tribunal for those who earn their bread and butter from football. I am not for every complaint against a referee going to a major tribunal: that would be unworkable and absurd. If a player had lawyers, one is conscious that the referee would have to have lawyers as well. Then we would have precisely the criticisms that some of us have been making of the Industrial Relations Bill, to the effect that it depends on too many lawyers.

What I would ask the Minister, the League and the Football Association to consider is whether those cases with the serious backing of the Professional Footballers' Association, should not go to a tribunal, just as an M.P. endorses cases for the Ombudsman; this would bring a real problem into manageable proportions. I am asking for the endorsement of the P.F.A. and the Scottish P.F.A. before any case goes to a tribunal. A system based on this sort of concept would be mutually agreeable to those parties who are dissatisfied at present.

I hardly want to start criticising the appointment of the committee considering safety at grounds, since Walter Winter-bottom is secretary and the Minister has appointed my father-in-law as the chairman. Without bestowing advice on them, it is clear that cash will be required. We are talking about money for the improvement of grounds, and, in terms of safety, a great deal of money will be involved.

Paragraph 452 of Chester points out that more is involved than the safety of grounds. Standards generally must be raised. This brings into question the need for super grounds consistent with the international standards of the top clubs. It also involves something about which I care a great deal, and that is ground improvements linked with communal facilities and multi-sports centres. Anybody who has been to the Real Madrid Club will appreciate that there is a tremendous potential community rôle for the professional clubs.

Chester's answer to this was the levy board. I told the Labour Minister who was responsible for sport and other members of the former Labour Government that I regretted that that Administration did not tackle the issue of the levy board. In a sense, therefore, I am asking the present Government to do nothing that I did not ask the Government of my party to do. If the Government reject the levy board concept, what is their solution? Part of the purpose of this debate is to explore the mind of the Government on these matters.

I wish that we had the same system as they have in the American Congress and some other Parliaments of being able to insert into the record a full outline of details that an hon. Member might wish to put forward. In our system I am bound, with some care, to explain precisely what Chester proposed on this aspect, otherwise those reading the OFFICIAL REPORT may make little sense of my remarks, and I regard it as important to have these points on the record.

This Committee did a great deal of work and put forward, as its key suggestion, the proposal for a levy board. It reviewed the main needs of the game and showed that some could be met with the existing resources of the various bodies concerned and that some could be suitably met only by the use of public funds. By a peculiar coincidence, the Minister of State at the Treasury is here tonight, I gather for other reasons. He might care to indulge in an early morning reflection on these matters.

Some important needs in sport are unlikely to be met, at least not at the pace and to the extent that we are convinced are desirable. In particular, there is need for improved facilities for the great mass of amateur clubs in the three countries; and as a former Olympic athlete, the Minister of State's heart, if not his mind, will appreciate this sentiment. There is need to develop grounds to provide regional stadia, so providing communal oportunities for sport. There are a number of other needs, such as coaching facilities, to which Chester draws attention.

The Committee points out that this extra money will have to come from the public, in one form or another. The spending of more public money on facilities for football is straightforward. Here is a game that provides health, exercise and pleasure for millions of players and spectators. This game commands wide coverage in the Press and on T.V. and radio. It is a topic of conversation throughout the nation.

It is indeed a national game. England's success in the World Cup and the success of a number of English clubs in European competitions, not to mention similar successes by Scottish clubs, makes it clear, if proof were needed, that Britain is closely connected with this worldwide competitive sport. Chester argues, and I agree, that it is not getting its full share of public money. We can be too easily put off by hundreds of thousands of pounds involving rather a few glamorous clubs.

Chester says: It receives less direct grant than several other sports with much less mass appeal. It receives less national help than horse racing. In its turn, sport as a whole receives much less money than do the arts from the Arts Council. Here I come back to comparisons within the Department: It may be said that when expenditure on essential services is being cut or deferred is not a good time to advocate more public spending on anything. We appreciate the need for economy in all aspects of national life. We trust, however, that the various measures being taken will remove the chronic balance of payments problem and allow the country to take full value of its great industrial and financial resources. In any case, we were asked to look ahead and do not feel obliged, therefore, to confine ourselves to the immediate situation. The administrative and financial arrangement which Chester find most attractive … is the establishment of a board financed by a small levy on the Pools. This could provide a body which could concentrate on the special needs of football and be financed from a source arising from the existence and popularity of football. The game is the basis for a considerable and profitable industry. In 1966–67 £122 million was staked on football pools, and though the Pool Promoters Association refused our request to reveal details of their accounts and their total profits there is reason to believe that after covering all expenses liberally, these profits are of the order of not less than £3 million a year. The analogy with horse racing, though not exact, is worth drawing. The Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1963, established a Horserace Levy Board responsible for assessing and collecting a levy and for applying it to the improvement of breeds of horses, the advancement or encouragement of veterinary science or veterinary education, and the improvement of horse racing. The income of the Board is obtained from two sources—from bookmakers, partly by way of a payment per office or place of business and partly according to profitability, and from the totalisator. About £3 million is thus made available annually. This statutory levy was imposed by an Act of Parliament with the general support of the House of Commons. Without drawing too invidious a comparison, horse racing may be the sport of kings but it is hardly betting apart, the sport of the masses. The levy was imposed because it was appreciated that if horse racing declined so would betting—the two are closely related. The same cannot be said of football. Nevertheless the Pools exist because there is football and because the clubs are household names. This £3 million a year to horse racing compares unfavourably with the less than £1 million paid by the Pools to the English and Scottish F.A.s and Leagues. Having regard to the needs of football, and the much wider degree of participation, whether as player or spectator, which the game attracts, we think that football is under-helped. I go back to the point once again that this idea that football is a rich game is very general but is misplaced. If it is thought that there is a great deal of money in football, that impression is gained by looking at clubs like Everton, Tottenham, Leeds, Manchester—only a handful of professional clubs. I am concerned to help those who are "rabbits", and those who enjoy playing the game.

Chester recommended: A levy of 1 per cent. should be made on the gross proceeds of all pools after the deduction of the Pool Betting tax levied by the Government. It would be levied on all football pools, not just those managed by the Pool Promoters Association. It would be easier and cheaper to levy than the racehorse levy for the Customs and Excise Department already have all the necessary information in collecting the levy of 25 per cent. made by the Government. This is a very important point. The administrative machinery is at least available.

In the year ended 31st March. 1967, some £122 million was staked in football pools out of which tax of £30.5 million was paid. In that year, therefore, the new levy would have raised £915,000. The Board of Customs and Excise estimate a 10 per cent. increase in 1967–68 so that a 1 per cent. levy should produce about £1 million. This in itself is not a large sum but it would be in addition to the money which the game already receives from this source. Moreover, we envisage that much of the new money would take the form of pump priming and therefore the beneficial effect should be much greater than the total of the levy. I have talked to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Brian Walden), who is a member of the Chester Committee. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of the pump priming rôle in the recommendation.

The Chester Committee made this recommendation on the assumption that a substantial part of the levy would come out of the profit of the pools promoters. At the moment, the pools promoters are required to publish their profits if these are in excess of 3 per cent. of their total turnover. Presumably, at the time this rate was fixed, a profit of up to 3 per cent. on turnover was not considered unreasonable. If the levy we recommend is accepted, the figure of 3 per cent. should probably be reduced at the same time, thus implying that a lower return is now desirable. Otherwise the levy may greatly reduce the odds available to the pools investors. It is my understanding that the pools were not entirely co-operative—I will not put it any higher—with the Chester Committee. In my considered view and that of some of my colleagues, it is about time that the Department grabbed this nettle and raised the whole issue in a rather abrasive fashion. Chester went on to say that The spending of the levy would be administered by a football levy board appointed partly by the Government and partly by certain representative bodies on the model approved by Parliament in the Horserace Levy Board. The Chairman of that body and two other members are appointed by the Home Secretary; two are appointed by the Jockey Club; one by the National Hunt Committee and two are ex-officio. Similarly in the cose of the football levy board we think that the chairman and two members should be appointed by a Minister"— presumably now a Minister in the Department of the Environment. I understand that it was the feeling of the members of the Chester Committee at that time that it was a matter for the Department of Education and Science.

The Committee says that this body should have no direct connection with any of the main bodies or clubs in football. The other members are more difficult to determine for unlike horse racing there are separate national bodies for association football for England. Scotland and Wales. There are also such important bodies as the English and Scottish Football Leagues. There are also other bodies which ought to have some representation. I am not going into the details of what Chester thought as to the representation. would simply say that this is something that can be argued out later. There should be a strong Government-appointed element in any football levy board.

I come now to the question of money. The Committee said: The money should be used for the improvement of facilities for association football in the three countries. The Committee doubted whether much more of a closer definition of the terms of reference was needed than that. It had already indicated the kind of need that it thought deserved outside help. This is important: But the Board should not adopt a passive role. It should take a positive and creative view of the long term needs of the game in the way of modern grounds and facilities. It should aim to stimulate new investment through the involvement of all the interests concerned —clubs, local authority, and possibly private capital. It should use its limited funds to encourage partnerships of this kind. Though its primary purpose would be to develop facilities for football some of the expenditure it would generate could be of benefit to other sports. I was glad that the responsibility for sport was shifted from the Department of Education and Science to the Ministry responsible for housing and local government. Having been P.P.S. to a former Minister of Housing and Local Government, I am certain that that Department has a tremendous potential for the good in combining with the local authorities. I hope that if a football levy board could be set up, a great deal of money would go to local authorities which, in my view, would spend it very well, earmarked for sport and not only football in particular.

I do not want to take up any more time, other than to say that it is no use going on having good intentions. Here we are faced with an urgent need for the development of proper recreational facilities in our country. We are very much behind a number of countries in Europe. It is not always a question of seeing grass that is greener on the other side of the hedge. In this case the Minister knows, I know and many other hon. Members know that what happens in other countries puts us to shame, not so much in relation to star clubs but in relation to the chance that the school leaver, who may not be very good and may have no particular talent, has of enjoying himself and developing his skill.

Many of us see sport as part of the development of the whole man or, equally as important, the whole woman. Therefore, these comparatively small sums are important. We should really focus our minds on how the money can be raised. It is very easy to say that all this should come out of an Exchequer grant, that we should not have the trouble of a football levy board. That was not the opinion of the Chester Committee. The members of that Committee had really worked out a scheme, had gone in depth—far more depth than is possible for a Member of Parliament to do—into the pros and cons of such propositions.

I think that in the very near future we should have some indication of the Government's reaction to the Chester Committee Report. I ask about Chester and about the Minister's own rôle in relation to the Sports Council. That is the purpose of the debate.

7.52 a.m.

Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot (Brighouse and Spenborough)

I do not wish to follow completely the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), except to take up one point which interested me greatly. He mentioned the American system of writing speeches into the record. I wish he would follow this practice more; he would find a hearty supporter in myself.

I have recently served on the Coal Industry Bill, and half the time of those Committee proceedings would have been saved if we had been able to follow that practice. Many hon. Members from mining constituencies made constituency speeches in that Committee, and at great length, and I would have been delighted if we could have adopted the practice of reading into the record. I feel that much more useful work could be done in this Chamber if we could adopt that system. We only have to consider the Bill which is being considered on the Floor of the House to see that a great many speeches could be written into the record, and then perhaps the Clauses on which we are now tramping through the Lobbies would get an airing. I heartily endorse that idea and I hope we can adopt it in the very near future.

Mr. Dalyell

The difficulty is that people in the sporting world who read HANSARD would not see that there was a case made unless one went at length into a report which had already been published. Therefore, I apologise for doing so, although I do not regret it.

Mr. Proudfoot

I am afraid that I cannot follow the hon. Gentleman into the technical field of sport because this is a subject which does not cross my path in my everyday life as a Parliamentarian. I come from a town with great natural amenities. My old division was half rural. My present division, although it is not one of the most salubrious parts of the country, contains parts in between the industrial areas of the West Riding which are green and there is plenty of room for people to disport themselves.

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman went on at such length about football. I have an idea, looking at my own children, that football is a little out of style with the youngsters today when they leave school. They have many facilities, most of which they provide themselves, for their leisure. I was born into a footballing era in County Durham. There was massive unemployment there, and a boy leaving school at 14 who succeeded at football really made money. A look at the list of famous footballers of the time, many of whom came from the county, will assure anyone of that. I was a football fanatic when I was a small boy. We all were, but the world has changed a great deal, and young people are looking for other types of facilities. Every local authority seems to want its swimming pool. The older people talk about needing swimming pools as providing some kind of lifesaving exercise. A marvellous Olympic-size swimming pool has just been built in my division at Spenborough. Some bits have been blown off because it is such a modern design. The young people are using this facility. Immediately adjacent to it the local council has erected a recreation centre that could almost be described as a discotheque, and this, too, is really being used by the young people in Spen Valley. Things are happening in this country in that direction.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to go on a Parliamentary delegation to watch the Kennedy Presidential election. I met an old American friend in Washington, and we took the whole delegation to an American high school football match. I was amazed by the facilities there, and so were the rest of the delegation. The young Americans rolled up in cars with streamers out of the windows. We had to pay a dollar each to watch this school football match. My friend's daughter was running a hot dog stand, and it had a good old-fashioned commercial flavour to it. I suppose that over here that kind of venture would have been called a "project", and the teachers here would have had a very different approach. The school band with the drum majorettes tramped up and down the field at every interval. Most incredible of all, the school photographic society was making a 100 per cent. film record of the match. At one end of the field one coach was on a scaffold 50 feet high. The game was not just a question of physical sport. I suppose that in our State education system we got the idea of physical sport from the playing fields of Eton, and we place too much emphasis on it. If we could link it with other activities, as happened at the high school football match that I have described, many more young people would be involved. I was a miserable ball player at school. I could not bat or bowl, but I was incredibly good in the slips. If I may boast, I once caught three men in one over. It is an odd thing to find among young people playing cricket today someone who is just a good fielder! In some respects we do not provide enough peripheral activities around sport for young people.

Young people have a very un-free-market attitude towards sport. They always want this and that facility, but they are irrational about the economics. We should try to point out to them the cost of the things they want and talk about self help. On that same delegation that I have mentioned I was taken to a place in Dayton, Ohio, where there was a recreational facility for young people that amazed me. It had its own swimming pool, dance rooms, workrooms, metal-working and woodworking facilities—an incredible array of facilities. It was all by voluntary contribution. Local industry and business had contributed towards it. Enthusiasts among the parents had got the money together and, most important, the young people had been involved in the creation of the whole thing. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will try to point the way ahead to young people who need leadership in those directions.

I thought that the hon. Member for West Lothian over-emphasised football. If one looks round the field at what young people do and if one watches television, motor-cycle scrambling is certainly not an old man's sport. I have not heard anybody suggest that it should be subsidised from public funds. The young people go ahead and do that kind of thing themselves and they do it with great verve and interest.

I found myself a vice-president of the Drag Racing Society in my previous association with commercial radio. This was a great sport with great safety, although the speeds that the young people attain in their vehicles is frightening when one thinks of standards on the roads. The machinery which they make and modify, and the things they get up to with drag racing, are incredible. They are fortunate enough to find old aerodromes on which to operate.

When I think of that—it generally takes place on a Sunday—it reminds me of my days in the Forces, when I rode a bicycle quite a lot. Before the war, the great sport for the mass of young people was the cycling club. I remember, as a boy, seeing hordes of cyclists swish past in twos on Sunday mornings and afternoons. They rode incredible distances. That was the major way of getting out from the industrial areas. I suppose that traffic, the motor car, the motor bike and the fact that everybody today is much more affluent, have put the push bike out of style.

I would be an enthusiast to see more young people take up flying in light aircraft. This has been said since the days of Hitler, yet as a country we have never been able to find systems by which to get more and more young people into the air. Gliding is obviously cheaper than flying, and I hope that gliding clubs will see whether they can bring in more young people.

We see from the newspapers how out of style football is becoming for young people. Every weekend we hear of a potholer who is trapped somewhere. During the past weekend, one lost his life. Young people do not necessarily go in for group or team sports. Team sports were the thing when I was a young man, but today many more young people partake in individual sports in which they have to prove themselves. One has only to go to the Lake District, or anywhere where there are hills, and watch the young people taking part in mountaineering.

Mr. Ronald Bray (Rossendale)

Would not my hon. Friend agree that the fundamental reason for people going into what I call the more exotic or dangerous sports is, perhaps, to relieve themselves of frustration so that they can get a sense of achievement?

Mr. Proudfoot

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. It is a reaction to a society which is over-dragooned.

Hon. Members will be familiar with an expression which is common in the North American Continent. Any article which is self-designed and not mass-produced is described as being "custom built". With much the same idea in mind, people decorate their motor cars and try to make them look different, and many of the designs appear to be inspired by "pop" artists of great individual talent.

Another very popular post-war sport is under-water swimming. It really started during the war, when skin divers were used in an offensive manner against the enemy. It has become a widespread sport, and it is still spreading. The equipment required is not cheap, but that does not seem to deter young enthusiasts from finding the money and taking part.

However, I am sure that not all the sports and pastimes in which young people want to take part are necessarily physical and vigorous. Having run a pirate radio ship a few years ago, I know quite a lot about youth. My involvement with that type of radio station brought me in contact with young disc jockeys and the youngsters who paid attention to them. To my surprise, I discovered that there were 500 pop groups at one time in the City of Hull. That will probably stop anyone going to Hull again.

My generation tends to moan that young people do not how how to entertain themselves. Probably we do not all like pop music, but the fact remains that 500 groups of youngsters got together in Hull and made their own recreation. They were creative as well. Some of them have made export earnings of millions of dollars for the country. Out of their pastime and recreation has grown an enormous industry.

Over the last quarter of a century, people have been asking what we shall do with all the leisure time that we expect to have in the future. Eminent people have worried about it, talked about it, and written about it. If they paid more attention to young people, many of their fears would be allayed. My own children, for example, need no help. They know how to spend their leisure time.

It is part of the Protestant ethic which prompts hon. Members of most age groups to say that a person who is not working is probably being sinful. However, I am convinced that today's teenagers take part in many sports and pastimes which are neither sinful nor slothful. They really know how to use their leisure, and for one, am not at all disturbed about the future, when there will be more and more time for leisure.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will look at the possibilities of self-help and that he will encourage youngsters to do more for themselves. I make only one contribution to my hon. Friend's thinking in this connection. It occurs to me that it might be possible to publish, on the lines of the Highway Code, a booklet on programmed learning suggesting ways in which young people can organise themselves.

My teenage son, for example, recently got himself elected chairman of the local branch of the Young Conservatives, much to my surprise. I did not even know that he was a member of the Young Conservatives. At the moment, he is vigorously wallpapering rooms and trying to build up an organisation of young people. He asks me odd questions. But he is breaking new ground. He might be said to be re-inventing the wheel, but he is discovering how to do it on his own.

Decimal coinage, for instance, has been taught in the Post Office by programmed learning, and young people become familiar with programmed learning at school. I should like the Minister to assure us that there will be some kind of do-it-yourself book on how to set up a small organisation, how to keep records, how to run committees and so on, a book organised on the lines of the programmed learning texts with which young people are now familiar. By this method rather than reliance on money from the State or the local authorities we could make a greater contribution to the welfare and enjoyment of our young people.

8.11 a.m.

Mr. John Cordle (Bournemouth, East and Christchurch)

I sympathise with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in your difficult job of remaining in the Chair for so long and having to hear the many different views of all who may wish to speak.

I am glad to think that this and previous Governments have made it possible for there to be a Minister for Sport. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Proudfoot), I have a young family, some having passed through their education and into their careers, and I know the value of sport in their lives. I often wonder whether the methods in our prep school were sufficiently pointed towards sport and whether they should not have provided more sporting facilities at that early stage of our lives. It is in the early part of his life that a child should be told the basic ethic of what sportsmanship may mean to his career later in life.

I remember as a child learning that little verse: When the One Great Scorer comes, To write against your name He writes not if you won or lost. But how you played the game". That is one of the prune fundamentals of life.

The emphasis in prep schools, especially the independent schools, is on ensuring that a child passes the common entrance examination, but more time should be devoted to the ordinary common sports which we know and love and which we can see profiting people so much as they grow older.

I am concerned about the growing number of affluent young people. They have far more money than we had as youngsters. There are opportunities for them to take up and use in all walks of life. If we are to overcome the increase in holiganism and some of the greater areas of delinquency, we have to find some way out of the problem for these affluent young people. No society should exploit the young, but we know that these young people are often exploited and misguided and misled. The emphasis must be on how to deal with the affluent young. A great problem of delinquency emerges through affluence, because local communities do not give enough time to considering providing facilities for the young, who wander the streets with money to burn in their pockets.

In my constituency we have a drugs problem. It is a problem which gives us a serious headache, and we are contemplating setting up a special centre to deal with young people who are strong and vigorous to start with, but who lose their zest for life when they come under the wretched influence of drugs.

I was in New York a little while ago and visited a remand centre where young people are treated, straightened out, and become good citizens again. The reason why many of them arrived at that centre was because they were not directed in any form of sport or what could be termed outside interests. We have to guide the energies of the young into constructive channels, and no doubt the Minister is giving some thought about how to do this.

Some months ago I talked about swimming pools in this House. This is a subject that arouses a great deal of interest and which provides a suitable outlet for young peoples' energies. The more pools we can provide the better it will be for our young people. We must train them in this sport, thus equipping them to deal with emergencies at all times. There is much loss of life due to drowning and in the seaside constituency which I represent an increasing amount of swimming instruction is required and given.

Many youngsters seem to be happier with "boudoir sports" rather than field sports. However, youngsters are interested in shooting and there is no difficulty in raising a number of boys to go beating. They are debarred from using a 4, 10 or 12-bore gun because it is beyond their means. Perhaps special shooting schools could be established, teaching the boys the importance of handling guns properly. I well remember Colonel Beaufoy's Shooting Homilies, at page 8, which went something like this: If a sportsman true you be, Listen carefully to me. Never, never let your gun pointed be at anyone. That it may Unloaded be. matters not the least to me. It ends up in the eighth verse: You may kill or you may miss, but at all times think of this: All the pheasants ever bled won't repay for one man dead. Perhaps we could have special shooting schools, for all levels of society. It is a sport which takes people out of themselves and puts them into contact with Nature.

Sailing is a sport which seems to be out of reach of many youngsters, largely because of a lack of facilities. If special clubs could be set up, even within the Greater London area or near it, it would be possible to get youngsters to start sailing and then to aspire to sailing in the Solent. I hope that the Minister will look at this.

The old traditional forms of sport have kept us well ahead of the world in sportsmanship and sporting achievement in sports like rugby—which has done so much for our young men—football, cricket, baseball and the like.

One sees the longing in young people's faces to participate in hunting. This is a form of field sport worth considering, and there is an opportunity for local communities to discover what it would cost to set up a riding school for the young to develop their ability. We have to think hard about how to eradicate the violence of youth today. That is a tall order but the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme is doing tremendously well in helping forward our young and giving them motivation and challenge.

Over the years, one sees the reasons for many of the difficulties our young people are facing in the legacy of two wars and the near-collapse of Christian principles, the abdication of parents from responsibility for their children.

There has to be an alternative to the family life set up by the community to provide attractive entertainment facilities for sports of all kinds. I hope we shall see this developed under this Government.

8.22 a.m.

Mr. Brian Harrison (Maldon)

I hope my hon. Friend will not expect me to follow him in his poetry quotations. If I did, I could use only one: There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight— Ten to make and the match to win—A bumping pitch and a blinding light, An hour to play and the last man in. because I hear that in Sydney Cricket Ground at the moment there is a disturbing situation with five wickets down and Snow has broken his finger; but it looks as if England has produced another bowler who can produce bumpers and this Test Match is in the bag for England.

There are two aspects of Government aid to sport which I should like to bring before the House. There is the necessity for co-ordinated Government and semi-Government authorities in providing facilities for sport and recreation throughout the country, and the necessity to co-ordinate available funds.

For instance, it seems crazy when there is a school with a first-class swimming pool which is not open to the rest of the community and when there is a swimming pool owned by a local author- ity which is not used to the maximum. There should be co-ordination between education authorities and swimming clubs to ensure maximum use of these facilities. We know the enormous cost of building swimming pools. Plans are being made to raise money for one in Braintree, in my constituency, the cost of which will be a minimum of £100,000. My guess is that there will be great difficulty in raising the funds, but if the education authority, the three local authorities in the area and the community are able to get together and a proper 25-metre pool, not a status symbol pool, is planned, something can be done. It is possible that this type of facility will be available in the foreseeable future.

Too often we say—and I have seen this happen in Colchester, near where I live—that the swimming pool must be bigger than the one in the nearest town: It must have facilities for competitions and a bigger diving pool. The diving portion of a pool is grossly under-used in almost every pool I know, and it is necessary only in a particular area—possibly in the area of each of the regional sports councils—for there to be one pool or at most two pools with adequate diving facilities to enable diving of Olympic standard to be practised and training to take place.

For every area to want big galleries for crowds which will be used once a month possibly is wasteful of administration costs and capital which is required to build the project. There would be an added incentive given for co-ordinated schemes of the right size to be carried out, particularly where swimming facilities are necessary.

Mr. Proudfoot

Would my hon. Friend say a word or two about the possibility of mass-produced, industry-built swimming pools?

Mr. Harrison

This is a point close to my heart. Several years ago I went to Cologne to look at the sports facilities there. In that city there is the main swimming pool, with diving facilities, and in the communities round about there are identical pools which are made to a standard plan with standard fittings. They can be produced industrially so that the cost can be cut. Reductions can be made in the cost of manufacture of the heating plant and even of the moulds necessary for the concrete when it is necessary to build a reinforced concrete bath, which is required beyond a certain size because the fibre pools are difficult to move and to support once they are in position.

First, the Government should do everything they can to produce the right facilities. The facilities should be fully utilised and there should be the maximum co-ordination of the authorities concerned.

Secondly, the Government should enable a certain amount of planning to be carried out by local authorities. Braintree Urban District Council, Braintree Rural District Council, Halstead Council and the Witham Council got together and decided to build a golf course. They had the advantage of a benevolent landowner who enabled them to buy park land around a big old building now used for an old people's home.

This is a magnificent site. The golf club, whose course is to be taken over for road widening, and also for further industrial expansion purposes, borrowed a considerable sum of money with the encouragement and help of the previous Government. That was two and a half years ago. It was implied, though no undertaking was given, that further loan sanction would be granted the following year in order that work might continue on making this glorious area into a proper, viable golf course.

Then what happened? The Ministry said, "Oh, no. There is no undertaking, and we could not give the loan sanction." So 12 months ago the club, in desperation, rang me up and said, "What can we do? We have mortgaged this place to the local authority and now we find that we cannot get any permission to raise more funds to go ahead and start this golf course and start bringing in revenue to service the loans which we have already raised." So a useless millstone is hung round this small club's neck.

I would ask my hon. Friend whether something can be done to see that real use can be made of this facility. It is tremendously important, because four or five local authorities have got together over this project—and that is an achievement, getting them to work together. It is absolutely essential, where small clubs or local authorities are making provision over a number of years to help to build a sports facility of one sort or another, that the Government should say to them, "You can have loan sanction"—for so many thousand pounds—" and you can have loan sanction for the same amount next year" and so on, so that some plan can be evolved so that a project will not become a millstone or a potential facility not ultilised.

I would ask my hon. Friend to consider these specific points. First of all, a way of co-ordinating the local authorities, education authorities, community sports councils, and the Government in providing sports facilities so that there is the maximum use of the resources and facilities available. Secondly, I would ask him to see if it is possible to enable people, councils and clubs, to plan several years ahead. I make a special plea that when he is looking at what provision for loan sanctions is left over in his Department at the end of the year he will consider this golf course, so that this very worthwhile scheme can be enabled to go ahead.

8.33 a.m.

Mr. Ronald Bray (Rossendale)

I have listened to the last four speeches with extreme interest, but I would presume to strike a note of caution. I am speaking not of the constituency I represent but of the one in which I live, and that is Skipton, which is noted for its potholes, adventure courses, Duke of Edinburgh's Award competitions, and the like. A difficulty which we find is that people enter these various competitions and adventure courses and exercises when they are extremely inexperienced and often ill-equipped. My family and I have had the duty of helping out no fewer than 50 or 60 entrants into these adventures. Many of them do not know or understand the environment or the weather conditions. There are many potholes in the area of Kettlewell and Starbotton and in Mossdale where four or five lads lost their lives. Now there is a move to re-open these potholes, so that these adventures can be continued.

It is said in my area, perhaps with a degree of humour, that if anyone wishes to be arrested he has only to go to the local policeman and say, "Potholes", and he will be pulled in straight away. That is because these hard-working members of a public service spend almost every weekend disentangling people from caves, cliff faces, and the like.

I was pleased, two years ago, that the West Riding County Council sent out a party of school teachers to teach themselves self-preservation. It was a worthwhile exercise, because leaders of parties of youngsters are invariably schoolmasters or schoolmistresses. These leaders are often ill-equipped to take responsibility in conditions of fog, mist, or semi-torrential downpours of rain. I have often seen leaders of these exercises come down a fell side not knowing where they were, get lost in the fog and mist, and then take some unfortunate youngsters for another six or seven miles through these conditions hoping to find the way.

I must admit that on many occasions on my own land I have been lost in identical conditions. If anyone should know his way around it is someone who lives there, or, for that matter, people who shepherd the area—and even shepherds get lost in certain conditions.

I hope that the Minister will emphasise the need for local authorities and education authorities to ensure that those leading exercises or adventure sports of any type should first acquaint themselves with the dangers and rigours which may ensue and be able to communicate that knowledge to those who in turn they train.

The police force has ample work to do in crime prevention, traffic control, and so on, particularly during holiday periods. To mobilise rescue parties of two or three members of a police force in an immediate area whose patch in each case covers 14 or 20 miles is absolutely wrong. I ask the Minister to consider whether, where rescues are made necessary through foolhardiness or ignorance, those responsible for the escapades should in some way be debited with the cost.

8.38 a.m.

Mr. John Wells (Maidstone)

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) will forgive me if I do not follow him closely in his remarks

I want to talk about the inland water-ways and the opportunities for recreation and sport for young people upon them. For three years now the waterways have been administered under their present organisation. Already there are cer- tain creakings and indications of the need for more money and facilities for young people on our waterways. There are many excellent voluntary bodies—youth clubs, and so on—which do extremely good work; but unless the 2,000 miles of the main channel are kept open all these good voluntary efforts will be lost. A major look is needed at the inland water-ways structure.

Since the present board was set up, it has had an advisory council, on which I have had the honour to serve since its inception. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) has been my colleague, almost my "pair" on this. It has done valuable work for us, but we are acutely aware of the lack of cash for the board and of certain hived off interests in my hon. Friend's Department.

The Water Resources Bill, at present before the House, unless amended, could be a grave impediment on the financial structure of the board. My hon. Friend's Department does not always look on other legislation as closely as it might to consider the interests of the board. Other nationalised industries tend to be the main preoccupation of their sponsoring Department, whereas the board is only a smallish part of my hon. Friend's day's work. Therefore, I feel that it does from time to time get shelved and pushed aside in the main preoccupations of the Department.

I would therefore ask my hon. Friend to give the closest possible attention from the point of view of this debate to the needs of the board. The board is grateful for his personal interest since he has been in office, but we need a closer look at the financial aspects of this matter.

8.42 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths)

By leave of the House, I should like to reply to the very wide-ranging debate which has been under way since 7 a.m. Very shortly, hon. Members who are up at this hour, whether as a result of a late sitting or simply because they normally get up at this time, will have swimming facilities available to them within fairly close reach of the Chamber, and there will be squash facilities as well. The swimming facilities will be in the Great Smith Street Baths, which belong to the Westminster City Council. Hon. Members will be able to use this exclusively from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesday mornings and between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Wednesday evenings. I thought it appropriate to start by telling hon. Members opposite, none of whom is here, of those who took part in the debate—

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

Hon. Members on this side, who knew that the Government intended to move the Closure, saw no reason to wait.

Mr. Griffiths

The hon. Member will no doubt make his own speech if he comes to it.

I thought it appropriate to say this because, at the end of a long night's sitting, there are few things which I should prefer to do more, other than going to bed perhaps, than to go to the Westminster swimming baths.

The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), who opened the debate, ranged very wide, dealing, for example, with grants to Rugby League clubs. The short answer is that Rugby League is a professional sport, and Rugby Union is an amateur sport, and the rules are quite clear on that. Amateur sports are eligible for grant; professional sports are not.

The hon. Member for West Lothian then raised the question of the Sports Council, and I was glad to have his opinion and that of his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell), which he offered by proxy. The Government are considering the future of the Sports Council. I undertook to its members that before any decision was made, they would be consulted. We have consulted them carefully and the Government are now considering their views and the views of all the other interested bodies. As soon as it is possible for an announcement to be made, I am sure my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will provide an opportunity for one to be made.

The hon. Gentleman then referred to the Professional Footballers' Association. As he knows, I have with great pleasure agreed to receive a deputation from the Association; and after I have had an opportunity of discussing their points of view with them, I will gladly meet the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues from the Labour Sports Group in the House. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman agrees that I should, first, meet the professional footballers.

He touched next on the inquiries into football safety and in one respect he was not quite right. There are, in fact, two exercises going on and they are separate. The first is the examination of the legal necessities that might arise in the event that the present arrangements for crowd safety are inadequate. It may be necessary to make recommendations to change the present ways in which local authorities inspect grounds. These wide-ranging considerations are now before Lord Wheatley and I am sure that we can look forward to a thorough report from him as soon as he is able to submit it.

I felt, particularly following the recent disaster and the several incidents since then, that it was not right to wait perhaps many months for the Wheatley Commission to complete its work. I felt, that it was urgent now to provide those who attend professional football matches, or whose children attend them, with some assurance that the Government are anxious about crowd safety. This is why we invited Mr. Winterbottom to make himself available at once to go to clubs where big matches are to be played during the balance of the season and to have a commonsense look at the arrangements for crowd safety.

Mr. Winterbottom is supported in this venture by a senior police officer with great experience of crowd control and by a surveyor-engineer from my Department. These three gentlemen are now making themselves available to all clubs which wish to avail themselves of their services to give some commonsense advice on the spot and to do it now, while the Wheatley Commission is undertaking its important work.

Hon. Members have spoken about the crucial question of expenditure. The hon. Member for West Lothian made a comparison between expenditure on sport and expenditure on art, and I understand the view he expressed. It has been put to me by many people in the sporting world. However, I must remind the hon. Gentleman, before he lectures my hon. Friends on this subject, that during the period of office of my predecessor—to whose enthusiasm and vigour in this sphere I willingly pay tribute—public expenditure on sport went down year by year. Indeed, it is still not as high as it was in 1964, when the former Conservative Government left office. I must, therefore, tell the hon. Gentleman that any criticisms he may have about Government expenditure on sport must be directed against the Labour Government, who cut so drastically local authority expenditure on matters that were vital for the advancement of sport.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. Proudfoot) moved the discussion away from football to a range of many other kinds of sport. He spoke of some of his own experiences. He spoke, if I may say so, very wisely in saying that today people more and more preferred to participate in sport and not simply just to watch it. This is the most important single thing that is happening today; namely, that instead of sitting in their armchairs watching television, or perhaps going to the football ground and standing there watching others at their games, today there is a revolution in sport in the sense that young people themselves prefer to participate. It is a remarkable and eloquent comparison to say that on an average summer weekend there are now more people messing about in and around boats than there are attending professional football matches on an average winter weekend. That is a dramatic change towards participation by the British people in sport.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Brian Harrison) spoke with very great authority on this matter, for he was himself for a period Chairman of the Eastern Regional Sports Council, and he did that task very well indeed. He spoke very wisely in saying that it is essential that we should get better use of our existing facilities—a point to which I shall return. I wish now only to mention his own constituency interest in the Braintree golf course. He understands the complexities, and the financial limitations, within which I have to operate, but following his remarks I can tell him that I will gladly get out the Braintree golf course file and look again to see what can be done there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells) spoke with equal authority on the subject of the inland waterways. One of the many advantages of the creation of the Department for the Environment is that it has enabled us to bring together in the same Department responsibilities for transport —which, of course, includes the British Waterways Board—as well as responsibilities for the water industry as a whole, local authorities and sport and recreation. That means that we are able to get a grip on the possibilities for recreation and sport on the inland waterways better, I believe, than ever before. I take my hon. Friend's point, and will look very sympathetically at his suggestions.

The main gravamen of the debate is that the House has demonstrated that it senses that our country is in the presence of nothing less than a recreational explosion, Mr. Michael Dower, whom the hon. Member for Small Heath knows as well as I do, has called this recreational explosion "the fourth wave". Whatever name it is given, the evidence is clear cut and overwhelming. More people, more affluence, more time off from work —these things have created a veritable tidal wave of demand for leisure activities. More people are playing sport, more people are starting playing earlier and carrying on playing longer. There is a surge to the lakes and shores. There are long queues for golf club membership. Tens of thousands of clubs are clamouring for more sports halls, running tracks and squash courts.

The Government welcome this leisure explosion. It is, we feel, a sign that the British people want not just more but better. They are reaching out in their millions for a higher quality of life. They are no longer content with a television set, a car and wall-to-wall carpeting. They want to escape, and they are right to want to escape, on occasion from the pre-package society into a world of physical contest.

I believe that this sports explosion is something that we can and should welcome as a positive good. At the same time, we must face the fact that the demand for facilities, outdoors as well as indoors, is imposing an insatiable pressure upon our resources, physical as well as financial.

We are fortunate perhaps as a country to have a large and in some ways an enviable recreational infrastructure. We are blessed with large numbers of public parks, cricket pitches, recreation grounds, bowls clubs and swimming baths. Unfortunately, a large proportion of this huge sports plant is becoming, or already has become, obsolete. Some of it, as population moves from one part of the country to another, is in the wrong place. Many of our older municipal swimming pools are cold and draughty. A large number, being out of doors and unheated, cannot be used, except by the very hardy, for six to eight months of the year, and the same applies to a goodly proportion of our public tennis courts. Being grassed and unlighted, they are out of use when it rains and during the evening hours between October and May, and too many matches must be called off.

At the same time there are in this picture some bright spots. I have seen some excellent facilities growing up. One by one I have been visiting the C.C.P.R. national centres-Glenmore, Bisham Abbey, Cowes, Lilleshall, Crystal Palace and the rest, and I look forward to the completion of the national rowing facilities at Holmepierrepoint in Nottingham.

I have been very impressed by the new dual-use centres in Nottinghamshire, the new sports centres at Basingstoke and Cardiff, and the way in which derelict land in many areas has been cleared for sporting use in Lancashire, South Wales and the North-East.

So the picture is one of more affluence and more leisure creating more pressure on our sporting resources. At the same time, it is a picture of progress with new facilities in some areas.

Mr. Dalyell

Before the Minister comes to the end of his speech could he return to the issue of money; because, after all, for nearly 20 minutes I went into detail on the main point of the Chester Committee Report, namely, a possible Football Levy Board? Also, would the hon. Gentleman go into some detail and substantiate his claim that between 1965 and 1970 expenditure on sport decreased?

Mr. Griffiths

The answer to the last point very simply is that, if the hon. Gentleman will look at the loan sanctions that were available and if he will look at the actual out-turn of local authority expenditure on sport between 1964 and 1969, he will find that it decreased all the time. It was simply one of those aspects of Government economies that had this effect. I accept at once that there was a modest increase in the National Exchequer's out-turn on sports expenditure, but the local authorities, which carried the lion's share of the expenditure, saw their out-turn go down steadily year by year.

Mr. Denis Howell (Birmingham, Small Heath)

The hon. Gentleman must know that that is not accurate. In fact, there was a considerable drop in the aftermath of devaluation and the standstill which occurred at that time, but I think I am right in saying that every year since 1967 capital expenditure on sport rose. This year it has risen by £2 million from £8 million to £10 million. In the light of that, how the hon. Gentleman can say that it has dropped very year is beyond me.

Mr. Griffiths

It is a very simple answer. The hon. Gentleman says that it has now risen from £8 million to £10 million. That shows that it is beginning to get back close to the level at which it was left by my right hon. Friends when we left Government in 1964, when it was £12 million. Those are the facts.

Mr. Denis Howell

Indeed—–12 million for Great Britain. The £10 million to which I referred was for England and Wales.

Mr. Griffiths

I should be very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman, but I assure him that his memory is at fault and that the situation is very plainly that throughout the years 1964 to 1970 local authority expenditure on sport went steadily down and that it is still nowhere near the level at which it stood when we left office in 1964.

I come to the point on which the hon. Member for West Lothian concentrated, namely the Chester Report and whether it was feasible for there to be a levy of an additional 1 per cent. on the gross profits of football pools. This is after a deduction for the pool betting levy tax. Of course, I am aware of the recommendation. I have studied the Chester Report in the greatest detail, and I recognise the attractions of finding a new and regular source of cash of this kind. I was not quite clear whether the hon. Gentleman intended to confine the 1 per cent. levy for the benefit of football or whether, as many would have suggested, it should be spread for the benefit of sport as a whole.

While we are considering this recommendation, there are one or two problems. First, there is certainly a great lack of unanimity among the football authorities. For example, the Football Association has said of this suggestion that it is the main recommendation of the Chester Committee and the association hopes that the Government will implement it. That is a clear-cut statement, which I am glad to put on the record. At the same time we must accept what the Football League has to say. It says that it is feared that a further Government levy would reduce the league's income from the pools organisations, which is based on a percentage turnover less tax. The league's attitude is that it does not want anything to do with it. It is no use trying to press ahead with these schemes if some of the most powerful bodies in football are not happy to have them. We are looking at them very carefully, but that point cannot be burked.

I must say, particularly in the presence of my three hon. Friends from the Treasury, that there are necessarily some objections from the Exchequer. When it comes to sporting matters I normally find myself on the opposite side of the negotiating table from my hon. Friends from the Treasury. The cost of such an additional levy would be borne by the punters and not the promoters. Therefore, the prize money would be that much less, which would remove a source of potential revenue to the Treasury.

A second objection is that it would be a form of indirect taxation not available to the Exchequer, and inevitably would promote similar demands by others. It would preempt taxable capacity and revenue for a particular field of expenditure, and by hypothecating funds reduce public control of expenditure.

Mr. Denis Howell

The Minister is delivering word for word the brief I used to receive from the Treasury a year or so ago. I find it as disagreeable to hear it from him as it was when I delivered it myself. All his arguments can be advanced against the Horserace Betting Levy Board. If the Government reject out of hand this proposal for a football levy board, what do they propose to do about the Horserace Betting Levy Board?

Mr. Griffiths

That is an entirely different problem. In any case, I have undertaken that we shall look at the question. My party at least will look at it responsibly, and we shall take into account a proper control of public expenditure. That is entirely as it should be.

I do not wish to detain the House for very much longer. But I must say that it is not only to the Exchequer that we should look when it comes to finding new sources of investment in sport. For example, private enterprise has an important role to play. I have seen a number of commercial sports centres, and on the whole they are good.

Another source of possible new investment is industry. With its rather extensive sports fields it could more easily make them available to the community at large.

I also mention television and radio. The British television industry gives good service to sport, not only by promoting and publicising it but by its cash payments to the governing bodies and individual teams in return for their broadcasting rights. But I sometimes wonder whether sport drives a hard enough bargain with the broadcasting media. I am optimistic that the development of local radio, especially, as I hope, commercial local radio, may open up another source of broadcasting, support and revenue helpful to local sports.

Some of the main policies must await another day, but the hon. Gentleman has done a service, even at this late hour, in raising the matter. I must also thank those of my hon. Friends who have contributed so eloquently to the debate and say that, whatever else may be said, the present Government are committed to the promotion of healthy sport in the country, but that they believe, above all, that it is the participation of the many which is more important than simply bringing on the excellence of the few.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Francis Pym)

rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Committee this day.

Mr. Speaker

Order. Before proceeding to the next business, I have an observation to make about the debate on the Consolidation Fund Bill.

Out of 28 topics originally on my list, only eight were discussed in nearly 17 hours. According to my calculations, which may be inaccurate, apart from Ministerial speeches, there were four speeches of over 40 minutes each, six of over 30 minutes each, and nine of over 20 minutes each.

The House must draw its own conclusion from those figures.