HC Deb 17 May 1973 vol 856 cc1840-50

10 p.m.

Miss Joan Hall (Keighley)

I should like to raise the question of the allocation of Government money to the Sports Council and how this is then apportioned to the sports bodies who would like financial assistance, and in particular in relation to the Steeton Football Club which is situated in my constituency and is a club of enthusiastic amateur footballers.

Yorkshire is noted for many things, not least for a keen interest in all types of sporting activity. The Leeds football team, which this year was in the final of the cup—although not the victors they put up a very good performance—and, as Mr. Speaker himself knows only too well, the Rugby League final this year was an all-Yorkshire affair, with Featherstone Rovers and Bradford Northern playing to a fighting finish at Wembley. I hope that the Yorkshire cricket team will do better for the rest of the season than it did in the opening game last Saturday.

Those are clubs whose names are familiar throughout the country. They are lively and enthusiastic, but most of them are professionals. However, as I said initially, Steeton Football Club is composed of enthusiastic amateurs, and that last point is important because since this matter was raised with me by members of the club it has made me question exactly how much voluntary sports organisations are being helped financially with Government money.

Steeton village is situated in a rural environment within the Keighley constituency. It now has more than 2,000 inhabitants and is growing rapidly for the West Riding, if not as fast as the villages in the south-eastern area of the United Kingdom. This is due to the new housing estates, and the people who are living on them are in the main working in Keighley, Bradford and Leeds.

Steeton Football Club has been in existence since 1908, and it has been on its present site since 1966. That is the Doris Wells Memorial Ground which the club rents from Steeton Parish Council on a 99-year lease at a nominal rent of 5p per year. The club started to play on this ground in 1968, after two years of hard work putting the ground in working order, and over a period of four years the average of 50 paid-up members have raised £4,000.

The membership fee is 50p per annum, and the £4,000 was raised by the extremely hard work of the members, their families and friends in any way possible, such as raffles, sponsored walks and dances. The money has been spent on providing club headquarters, which are adequate but without any frills and merely provide changing and tea facilities. The members would like to make this building more attractive both for players and for spectators, and they would also like to provide a car park, which is necessary in this day of mobility, a training area and some form of flood lighting, and to improve the condition of the ground. They believe that they would need about £2,000 to do all that.

It is important also to point out that the ground is used every night by children who live in the village, although it is a private ground, and in this respect provides a social need to keep the children off the streets and in an area where they can let off their energy in constructive sporting activities instead of, as so often happens today, in sheer vandalism. There are also discussions going on with the village school for the children to use the ground during the day for their sports activities.

The club provides two teams, which play every weekend during the season. It used to have a junior team, but the ground just could not take the amount of hard work with three teams, and this is one reason why the club wishes to have a better ground—so that it can again provide a junior team.

When the members of the club came to see me last year they said that it was not the first time they had tried to get financial assistance, but they had come up against a full stop at every comer. Naturally enough I can understand their feelings of aggrievement when, as they said to me, those who have most seem to be given more but those who have nothing get absolutely no help. In other words, the rather large, swish sports complexes seem to have Government money to help them, but a small group seems to have nothing coming its way at all.

Therefore, I took this matter up with the Minister. He kindly wrote to me saying that the Sports Council had assumed full responsibility on 1st April 1972 for decisions to grant money for sports projects. It is interesting that in 1971–72 the Government channelled to the Sports Council £3.26 million. This year the amount has increased to £3.68 million.

Following receipt of the Minister's letter I wrote to the Chairman of the Sports Council, Dr. Roger Bannister. He replied saying that the Government had decided that grants for local schemes, save in exceptional circumstances—I should like to know what "exceptional circumstances" are—should be the responsibility of local authorities.

I then wrote to the West Riding County Council, but the county council's reply was that after due consideration it had been decided that no financial assistance could be given by the county council to projects put forward by any voluntary sports organisation. I felt that this was a very sad reflection on the county council, and particularly on a Conservative-controlled council.

I also approached Skipton Rural District Council but, with Steeton being taken out of its area in the local government reorganisation, it felt that it would not be able to contribute.

I have also contacted the steering group for District 6A—now the elected Bradford District Council—which said, as is so often the case at present, that it could do nothing until the new local authority was elected. But this local authority will not start in proper business until 1974.

Steeton Football Club approached the regional sports council in Leeds last year and met its secretary, who said that there was no chance of its getting a grant but that if Steeton wanted to have a skating rink, a bowling alley or a sailing club, it could then be helped. I cannot for the life of me see why those categories should be helped but not football, which is certainly a much more widespread and popular sport.

I have described in detail the approaches I have made to show that I have left no stone unturned. But I have met a definite stone wall at every corner.

The group in question is comprised of hard-working people. I am sure they would not mind my saying that they are very ordinary citizens. They appear to be able to get no help. That is a very sad reflection at present when surely we should be giving every assistance to those who are prepared to help themselves. In this case it would be only to the tune of up to £2,000, which is nothing when compared with the amount of money that is approved in this Chamber and in local authority chambers very often "on the nod". It is a very sad reflection on a Conservative Government and the Conservative-controlled West Riding County Council, which I had hoped would have more consideration for voluntary organisations. But that has not appeared to be so.

Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary two specific questions. Is it not possible for him to try to do something to see that the Steeton Football Club could at least get something towards the £2,000 that it requires? Secondly, as my hon. Friend is a very able person, can he not give more impetus to local authorities to consider specifically the needs of voluntary sports organisations which have particularly shown by their previous hard work that they are worthy of help and consideration?

While I do not like the central Government telling local authorities what to do, in this case they certainly need to be told in no uncertain terms that in 1973 a Conservative Government feel that far more consideration should be given to voluntary groups, particularly sports groups, and that it is not good enough to say that they cannot be considered for grant.

10.10 p.m.

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

I at once congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) on the force with which she has put forward the arguments on behalf of the Steeton Football Club in her constituency. I shall try first to answer her two questions. In reply to the first, I should remind her that the Sports Council was given by Her Majesty, at the request of the Government, a Royal Charter setting it up as an independent executive body under the chairmanship of Dr. Roger Bannister. Since that time the council quite rightly has made its own decisions about how it should disburse the substantially larger sums of money that my Department has been able to provide. I am sure my hon. Friend will accept that if a Government set up an independent executive body and ask it to undertake a particular and very important job, Ministers should not compromise that independence and executive function by interfering, whether for good or bad, and telling that body what to do.

The Sports Council is an able and responsible body consisting of people from all walks of sporting life under an admirable chairman, and I have every confidence that it disburses the funds available to it in the best possible way for the overall needs of sport. I would not be prepared to seek to interfere, even if I had the power, in the council's discharge of its functions.

My hon. Friend asked whether it was possible for me to provide additional impetus to get local authorities to assist local clubs. Locally-elected authorities are responsible in the first instance to their own electorate and their ratepayers and it must be for them to judge the local needs of their areas. It would be wholly wrong for Ministers to seek to tell any local authority how it should disburse its ratepayers' money in respect of local needs.

However, I must remind my hon. Friend that when the changes in the administration of grants by the Sports Council were made by our circular 2/70, we went out of our way to put the point very clearly to local authorities, and I shall refer my hon. Friend to our later circular of 5th January 1973. In paragraph 12 we say: Local authorities have for many years had powers, e.g. under the Physical Training and Recreation Acts, to grant-aid local clubs. By many authorities these powers have been used little or not at all. I hope that those authorities in the West Riding are not among the ones who are described in that paragraph as using those powers little or not at all". I hope that the West Riding authorities will be among those in the country which will use the powers of the Physical Training and Recreation Acts to assist local clubs to the full. It is, however, a matter they must determine for themselves.

My hon. Friend will notice a little later in the same paragraph: In the past local sports clubs could receive a grant from central funds of up to 50℅ of the cost of a scheme with a maximum of £10,000. Then we say: Local authorities …will wish to keep this new factor in mind and consider what share of resources should be allocated. My point is that the responsibility rightly rests with the local authorities, and I hope—and I go no further than that—that both the district authority which will be taking over, I understand, from the Skipton rural district and the new county authority, which I understand will be the Bradford metropolitan area, will consider the implications of the circular and will have regard to the needs of all the local clubs, including the Steeton club mentioned by my hon. Friend, when they come to decide how best to allocate the resources available to them. I understand from the West Riding County Council that it is prepared to allot up to £5,000 to assist any local club which has been the object of assistance from a district authority. Perhaps that has been the difficulty. It seems that the district authority has not been willing to contribute and that the West Riding County Council was not willing to contribute either.

Miss Hall

No doubt all the facts which my hon. Friend has given are true —in fact, I know that they are. When he goes round the country—I am sure that he goes to other areas besides the West Riding—I suggest that he asks local authorities what they are doing for voluntary organisations. I am a great believer in the personal touch. Such an approach might help to give some of the voluntary organisations a little more of a fillip. One of the troubles in the past has been that the local authorities are involved with the rather larger organisation. To be frank, some of the councillors are rather old and do not realise the changing social needs of the younger generation.

Mr. Griffiths

If it should be the case —and I am not in a position to comment —that some councillors are elderly or, as my hon. Friend implies, not closely in touch with the needs of young sportsmen, the remedy lies not with me nor with the Government but with the electorate which puts the councillors into office. I must stress to my hon. Friend that it would be best if the club were to approach the district authority.

I wish the very best to my hon. Friend's constituents. I appreciate that the present district authority will go out of exist-ence and that there will be another one. However, the club must make its approach to that authority. I hope that it will do so in collaboration with the local education authority.

I understand from my hon. Friend that there was the prospect of dual use of the sports field concerned and that if assistance can be obtained from the local education authority the children will benefit greatly. If there can be a combine of other sports in the area—not simply football but many other sporting activities which might be able to share in the facilities provided at the club—and if contact is made with the regional sports council, it may be that a scheme can be put forward of a wider character than the present scheme which would be more likely to attract support from the district authority, and thereafter the county. In some circumstances, if the scheme provided a larger than local need, it is conceivable that there could be support from the Sports Council.

I urge my hon. Friend to get a group of different sports together, to link with the education authority and then to go back to the district authority and to urge it to follow the principles set out in the Government's circular.

Miss Hall

The Minister may be interested to know that the village cricket ground is next to the football ground and that there is land which was left as a memorial ground. That land could be used as a tennis court. A number of football club members come from Keigh-ley and are not village members. Its members come from the surrounding areas.

Mr. Griffiths

That is a good thing. I stress that it does not make sense for the cricket team and the football team to have facilities in different places and to have different car parks and showers. They must combine to reduce their overheads. In that way they will benefit from mutually used facilities. I am sure that in a combination they can do better.

I was glad that my hon. Friend spoke a little more widely about the situation of sport in Yorkshire generally and mentioned one or two famous clubs.

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Leeds United on a splendid season, although the club did not win a trophy, and in offering the club all good wishes for even greater success at home and abroad next year.

Perhaps I might comment on the ending of this season of football. It is going out like a lion with a great deal of drama and dash on the field although I am sorry to say with deficits and decline on the terraces and in the boardroom. We saw the dash in Sunderland winning the FA Cup—perhaps that was the best shot in the arm that English football has had for many a long year. All four of the division championships were won by Lancashire teams—Liverpool in the first division, Burnley in the second, Bolton in the third and Southport in the fourth. Then there was the win by Liverpool over München Gladbach and the resounding victory of Leeds over Arsenal.

At the end of the season the two Charlton brothers will be retiring from the playing field. I am sure that the House will wish them well in their new posts. Thus the 1973 season comes to an end with drama and dash although the overall situation of football gives cause for deep concern.

Attendance is sharply down and many clubs—in fact most except a few at the top—are no longer paying their way through their footballing activities. Everyone, including my hon. Friend, who takes a great deal of interest in these matters, has his or her own theories about the reason for the decline. I have no doubt that the televising of football reduces the gates. There is the motor car, which gives greater mobility and takes away from town centre football grounds many people who have a greater range of opportunity for spending their Saturday afternoons. The movement out to the suburbs also has an influence on the reduction in gates. There is the sad evidence of bad behaviour and violence not only in the stands but on the playing field itself. Above all, there is the shift from watching to participating.

Generally speaking, the spectator sports such as horse racing and football— possibly even cricket—are suffering from a decline in attendances. Simultaneously, and perhaps more happily, the participation sports in which people play rather than watch—for example, golf and bowls —are thriving. That is especially true of three types of sports.

First, water sports. There are perhaps twice as many people "in and about boats" on Saturday afternoon as there are on all the football terraces. Water sports are thriving—above all fishing.

The court games, too, such as squash, badminton and tennis are thriving, largely, I suspect, because midde-age sport is growing and women are joining in. There is also a great increase in risk-exercise sports such as rock climbing, sky diving and sub-aqua diving. The young, in particular, seem to enjoy an element of danger in their sports.

Sport is no longer a matter of watching other people but of taking part oneself. The Sports Council has described this as "sport for all". It is in this connection that football has its difficulties.

The challenges before English football today are, first, the need to improve the game to make it more entertaining for those who watch it.

Secondly, there is the challenge of Europe. Britain has an unrivalled reputation in European football, yet there is a need for one of our great governing bodies to move into the European scene and to take a grip on the international organisation of fixtures, transfers and discipline so that all the European football teams operate more harmoniously together.

Third, there is a need to redevelop many of football's expensive city centre stadia so that multi-purpose sporting activities can take place there. In almost every great city the football ground occupies valuable real estate, but that real estate stands empty, producing no revenue, for six days a week for up to 20 weeks of the year. This is not a sensible way to manage a valuable asset.

Therefore, the time has come when more and more football clubs will have to find ways and means of joining other sports—particularly indoor sports, such as bowls, badminton, or other court activities—and of developing within their grounds or under their new stands sporting activities which people of all ages can enjoy during the evening or, for example, in the case of the elderly, in the afternoon. In this way the ground can be used for six or seven days a week for 52 weeks of the year, thereby providing revenue which football so badly needs.

It was in this connection that I mentioned the attractive little club in Steeton in my hon. Friend's constituency, and I should like to see it getting together with other sports in the area. It no longer makes sense for each sport to organise itself without regard to other sporting activities. The Government wish to see dual use of our educational facilities, such as school playing grounds. I am sure that other facilities in the public sector, such as sports grounds belonging to the Armed Services or the nationalised industries, should also be brought more into community use. We want to see our natural resources, in particular our water resources, used more effectively for sport. The voluntary spirit of local people can do a great deal to make this possible.

The Government have provided the Sports Council with substantially more money, most of which is now used for the larger-than-local schemes. I believe that to be right because this is national money coming from the national taxpayer. If that were to continue to be provided at the local level, I am afraid that many local authorities would simply sit back and provide very little themselves. This is borne out by experience.

Since we changed the rules and gave the Sports Council independent executive authority, focusing its funds on the larger-than-local-schemes, the local authorities, far from dropping their investment, as was feared, have generated an enormous increase. Whereas in the 1960s local authority provision was at a rate of £4 million to £6 million a year, under the present Government it has reached a figure of £18 million or £19 million—and this year more than £20 million—in addition to a further £11 million provided through the educational account. Therefore, there has been a real increase of local investment through the local authorities in terms of sporting facilities.

I very much hope that the West Riding, having heard the eloquent speech of my hon. Friend, will take note of the rapid increase in other parts of the country in local authority expenditure on local sport, may see the force of her argument and will see fit to provide some of the facilities for which she is pressing on behalf of the Steeton Football Club.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.