§ Mr. Jeremy Hanley (Richmond and Barnes)The few extra minutes taken by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development on the important and moving previous debate were willingly donated by lovers of chess as their contribution to Sport Aid.
This debate on the noble sport of chess is the first in the history of Parliament — a surprising fact when one recognises that it is the only game legally able to be played in the Palace of Westminster, and indeed one for which a room and equipment are specifically provided in the midst of the main Chambers of state.
It has been said that chess is a game of kings and pawns, played by kings and pawns alike. Indeed, many right hon. and hon. Members have struggled in a friendly and competitive spirit across the tables next to the Smoking Room. It seems appropriate, therefore, for my annoyingly talented opponent on many occasions late at night while waiting to vote — my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) — to share the time allocated for my contribution in a spirit of companionship and understanding fostered by this game of chess.
Indeed, about a year ago my hon. Friend and I approached the then Minister with responsibility for sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane), to ask if he would support a proposal that the world chess finals should be held in the United Kingdom. His reply was that since chess was not a physical sport, it was not covered by his portfolio, and that it was, in fact, the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science. We were referred to the then Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), about whom I shall say a few words later. I warmly welcome to the debate his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden).
Not a physical sport, said the then Sports Minister, and indeed it is not a game that requires physical prowess. In fact, it cuts across physical barriers and can be played by men, women, the old, the young and even the handicapped with total equality. Yet, only a week after the Sports Minister had made that statement, a headline in The Times announced that the then world champion, Anatoly Karpov, had had to retire from the world chess championship as he was physically exhausted. It may not take brute strength to play chess, but the effort and concentration required by the greatest players in a world chess championship match the exertion of any sportsman in the world.
Chess cuts across racial, sexual and cultural barriers; it encourages logical and independent thought; it fosters a disciplined mental approach and, furthermore, schoolchildren and students who play chess have been proven to attain even higher academic standards than they might otherwise have achieved. Chess develops capabilities for pattern recognition and is therefore an excellent training ground for the development of the related areas of computer studies and mathematics. In that respect, chess helps English students to compete with the Japanese and the Americans in this vital technological area.
Chess is an in expensive and easy activity; it requires little space and modest equipment and can even be played on the move, while travelling on trains and planes, 684 between strangers with no linguistic connection. I first learnt the game while working abroad, and it proved to be an absorbing and fascinating diversion, filling the boring evenings away from my family. I wish to pay tribute to my teacher, mentor and friend. Mr. Mervyn Frankel of Jersey, whose patience and good humour have given me a love of chess that will remain with me all my days.
But chess is not just a game; it bears an international significance. As it is the Soviet national sport and is highly popular in the rest of eastern Europe, British excellence at chess is assisting in creating cultural and personal ties with those areas. One might even suggest that it plays its part in assisting detente. Indeed, the importance of chess to the Russian people is perhaps based on the belief that prowess at chess is seen as tangible validation of a nation's or institution's intellectual status. The pride that the Russian people feel at possessing the world champion can clearly be seen, but as with all good chess players they are good losers too.
I wish to deal with the state of chess in Great Britain, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West will deal with the international context.
It is staggering fact that only 15 years ago the United Kingdom had no grand masters, the highest level of chess achievement. Britain was so lowly that we finished in the C-finals of the chess olympics—the third division. Since then, the change has been dramatic. On a patient and ever-growing basis, the improvement in our nation's fortunes has been second to none. England won the team silver medal in the last chess olympics held in 1984 and the English team won the four individual gold medals in the same event. England now has 10 grand masters—Tony Miles, Ray Keene, Michael Stean, John Nunn, Jon Speelman, Jonathan Mestel, Murray Chander, Nigel Short, James Plaskett and Harry Golombek. That is a roll of honour.
In 1985 Nigel Short became the first English player to qualify for the candidates' tournament, which is the play-off for the world individual chess championship. At 20 years of age Nigel has a realistic chance of challenging for the world title itself within the next 10 years. He is already among the world's top 10 players, the other nine of whom are all significantly older than he is. By his pleasant and pleasing manner he is an inspiration to young people and is rapidly becoming a sporting superstar, such is the growing interest in chess.
Indeed, interest in the world at the tensions, the intrigue, the international competitiveness, the skill and the drama of chess must have been recognised by Tim Rice and his colleagues from Abba when they wrote the new musical "Chess". There is no doubt that it will introduce to millons of people who have no direct experience of the game, the thrills and delights of the sport, and perhaps even foster an interest in it.
Britain is second or third in standing in the world and we have been given a unique recognition by the international chess fraternity in being able to hold the first half of the world chess championship later this year.
I shall leave it to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West to inform the House of this remarkable honour to Britain. It is the first time that two Soviet grand masters have consented to play for the title outside Moscow, let alone outside the Soviet Union. It is the first time that the world championship finals have been held in a western European capital since 1910, apart from the momentous occasion in Reykjavik. This is also the 685 centenary match which will, when associated with the premier of the musical "Chess", make London the focus of the chess world in August.
It would not be right to finish my contribution without recognising the efforts of those who have brought Britain's chess to its current high standard. The grand masters—the international ambassadors of British chess — and particularly Raymond Keene, OBE — are the driving force behind Britain's position in world chess, and certainly owe their position to their own skills. But the encouragement given by education authorities, particularly in Inner London education authority, and the funding from many private companies and other organisations such as Lloyds Bank, Kleinwort Grieveson, National Westminster Bank, Acorn Computers, the London Docklands Development Corporation, Foreign and Colonial, Duncan Lawrie — who sponsors the English olympic team — Halpern and Woolf and the Department of Education and Science, all help in this valuable activity. Chess publishers such as Batsfords are regarded as the best in the world.
I could not end my contribution without asking the Minister whether he will consider additional funding for further developments in British chess.
§ Mr. Clement Freud (Cambridgeshire, North East)The hon. Member has compiled a full list of sponsors. Will he bear in mind that the Reykjavik world championship was saved by Mr. Jim Slater, without whom it would not have taken place?
§ Mr. HanleyI willingly recognise that. Indeed, when I visited Reykjavik I was pleased to see that the table upon which the world championship was played, and signed by both Fischer and Spassky was in a place of honour in the national museum. I willingly pay tribute to Mr. Slater for his generosity.
I hope that the Minister will consider additional funding, in spite of the generosity shown by his Department in the past, for further developments in British chess. His predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for City of London and Westminster, South now Minister of State, Treasury, with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), now the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the present Minister and Westminster Council all helped to secure the world chess championship here in London, following the passing of the GLC.
I ask that we should increase the contribution to the general running costs of the British Chess Federation, the Scottish Chess Association and the Welsh Chess Union. We should like to see national chess centres and our most ambitious project would be to hold the world chess olympics, which would require a gross budget of £1 million.
I submit that the Department of Education and Science has already seen rewards for its encouragement of chess. It is an investment which is capable of producing high returns. Only last year five young schoolchildren from the Inner London education authority challenged an all-party team of hon. Members. It says a great deal for the ability of our young—and perhaps something about the quality of Members of Parliament—that the 10 and 11-year-olds beat us 3–2. It would not be fair if I did not end with a confession that I was one of those who lost.
§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)Order. Does the hon. Gentleman have the consent of the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) and the Minister to take part in the debate?
§ Mr. SternYes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) concluded with a reference to the match between the Tower Hamlets schoolchildren and the House of Commons and I must admit that I was more fortunate in that match, because I drew—with an eight-year-old who gave me the hardest game of my life!
My hon. Friend rightly referred to chess as the Soviet national game. Anyone who visits Moscow, Leningrad or any of the other great cities of the Soviet Union will see the permanent chess boards in the parks, frequently set up under cover, and see passers-by attracted by the magnet of the games being played all the time on every board.
The strides made in this country towards making chess perhaps our most successful widely played sport receive little recognition. We have come far, but we have a long way to go to make this country the international chess centre that it deserves to be, bearing in mind the quality of our players.
In 1983 we hosted the semi-finals of the world chess championship; in 1984 the match between the USSR and the rest of the world took place in docklands; in 1985 we staged the Commonwealth championships; we are now seeing the conclusion of the Kleinwort Grieveson Ltd. United States-United Kingdom chess challenge and in July and August we shall be hosting the first part of the world chess championship.
Without wishing to flatter my hon. Friend the Minister, I feel that it would be wrong to allow the debate to pass without paying a warm tribute to the sterling work done by him and his Department to make sure that the world chess championship can go ahead. The groundwork was done by the GLC, but, because of legal problems, if the chess community had not raised the matter urgently with my hon. Friend and if he had not made it a priority to get action within days, we would have lost the championship. The chess community is delighted that my hon. Friend acted with such speed.
If we are to develop as a world chess centre, further opportunities and problems will be landing on the Minister's desk. The most immediate problem is posed by a proposed new clause to the Finance Bill. The clause rightly introduces taxation on the earnings in the United Kingdom of entertainers, artists and sportsmen., but because of the east European tax systems, we may be uniquely disadvantaged in playing host to most of the world grand masters in international competition. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will liaise closely with his Treasury colleagues to ensure that an incidental effect of the clause is not to make this country an unattractive haven for world chess championships, which are so east European dominated, and that he will ensure that the clause provides for an adequate harmonisation of tax provisions throughout the rest of Europe and the Americas so that at least Soviet chess players are not significantly worse off playing in Britain than when they play elsewhere.
There are opportunities as well. One proposal, which may arise following the elections to the chess governing 687 body, the Federation Internationale d'Echecs, is that the centre of administration of world chess should be this country, and the docklands has been discussed. I would not at this stage ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to commit either funding or governmental efforts, but I ask him, in view of the inevitable problems that will emerge from such a proposal, to offer ready access through his Department to FIDE, should it decide to come here, to ensure that it is given every co-operation from what is effectively the sponsoring Department of chess.
There are two needs with respect to tournaments. First, it is necessary to restore the Hastings tournament to its traditional place as one of the world's leading tournaments. Secondly, it is necessary to find a replacement tournament for that previously sponsored by the GLC as the annual grand masters' tournament. We require sponsorship. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes referred to a number of sponsorships that have already taken place, including the modest efforts by my firm in sponsoring in two weeks' time the first Halpern and Woolf London open chess tournament. However, more sponsors are needed. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will see it as one of his roles as Minister to provide every encouragement to commercial and professional firms and companies to sponsor a sport in which this country is already successful and in which even greater successes are open to us.
One matter that must be considered, especially by the Department of Education and Science, is the fact that the number of grand masters who are coming forward are almost exclusively male. Many years ago, when I was taught chess by my late father, it was accepted that women in chess were inferior. There was a women's world chess championship because it was recognised that the standard of women's chess could not compete with the standard of male chess. All that has changed, but there is a disparity between the sexes, and that can be most easily removed in the schools. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will seek to involve all our schools so that opportunities to play chess are available in schools, regardless of sex.
For many years, two of our traditional universities—Oxford and Cambridge — have operated discrimination against chess players by offering only a half blue for chess, whereas a full blue is offered for the more traditional sports. I hope that, if my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has any influence in this regard, he will use it to encourage universities to place chess in its rightful position, as something at which this country is extraordinarily good.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. George Walden)My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) is today making history. Those of us who know him would expect no less of him. I have not been able to check his claim that this is the only debate on chess in the history of the House because, as is so often the case, the truth can only be established at disproportionate cost. According to the more recent memory of the computer, which goes back only five years, my hon. Friend is making recent history at least. On history, we must, of course, 688 remember that in 1972 two ivory chessmen were found in the Soviet Union and could be dated back to the year 200 AD. As the game reached Britain only in 1255, that may account for some of our more recent results. As my hon. Friend pointed out, chess is much more than a handy source of metaphors for East-West relations, and more than a source of income for the talented authors of the highly successful West End musical. Perhaps uniquely, it is at once a highly popular and highly intellectual and demanding game. I almost said sport, but my hon. Friend will be aware of the profound implications of these subtle distinctions.
I repeat the tribute that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes paid to the achievements that are increasingly being made by British chess players in the international arena. The growing strength of our top players has elevated our status throughout the world. I wish the English team every success at the 1986 Olympiad, to be held in November and December this year, and hope that it can once again repeat its achievements of 1984, and take the silver medals—or, still better, beat the Soviet Union into second place. Our achievements in the world individual championships are also considerable, and we are not lacking either in the youth events, where no fewer than four world titles have been gained in the past decade.
I know that the British Chess Federation has played a significant part in enhancing our position within the world of chess. It has encouraged the study and practice of chess in the country, and has promoted national and international tournaments and matches. In addition, it has developed strategies for bringing our successes more to the attention of the public and for meeting increasing demands for BCF services and information from the public and from its own grass roots membership.
As my hon. Friend pointed out—I was afraid that he would stray on to the subject—the Department provides modest support for the BCF through an annual grant from our adult education budget to assist with administrative costs and with the expense of sending British players to international tournaments. Grants have funded the federation on a regular basis since the mid-1970s. In that time, our grant has increased, from an admittedly modest base, by about 115 per cent., which brings it to £35,500 for the current financial year.
Of course, we should like to encourage the BCF to extend its activities by the provision of additional central funds, but I need hardly remind the House of the priorities that face us, particularly in adult education, where unemployment is such a worry. However, we have been able to agree to changes to the basis of funding which allow the BCF to introduce a computerised national grading scheme without an overall increase in funds. The current membership of the federation stands at about 12,000. I am told that an estimated 40,000 play chess on a competitive basis, while market research suggests that there is a total of 2 million to 3 million players in the country as a whole. I believe that that puts it pretty well on the same level as angling. Clearly, we shall wish to encourage the BCF to increase its income from subscriptions by increasing its membership, and I understand that the introduction of the grading scheme represents a significant step in the direction of attracting new members.
I concur with what my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond and Barnes and for Bristol, North-West (Mr. 689 Stern) said about the importance of chess in schools. Chess clearly helps to promote a logical approach to problems, clarity of thought and the ability to formulate strategies under pressure. But I am sure that my hon. Friends will understand that, due to the constitutional relationship between the Department and local education authorities, we can only give our encouragement and blessing to any efforts to develop the game in schools.
I turn briefly to the world chess championships to be held in London and Leningrad during the summer. Naturally, I share my hon. Friends' delight that the difficulties associated with the funding of the event have now been resolved. It would be churlish — and churlishness is one thing that the House never forgives—not to mention that the initiative came from the GLC. However, I would add that one good act does not justify a pantomime.
I am sure that the contest will generate immense public interest, and will attract even more people to the game. Obviously, it will be a great boost to the London tourist trade. More than 6,000 people are likely to attend the tournament during the five weeks of the London leg, with a large overseas contingent expected.
I wish every success to the championship, and congratulate the British chess world, especially the British Chess Federation and its supporters, on giving us the opportunity of being so close at hand to what has the makings of an exciting final.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West raised a series of points. On the question of the tax system—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. Mr. Dubs.