Tag: Alison McGovern

The comments made by Alison McGovern, the Shadow Sports Minister, on 11 January 2021.

Sport in this country has taken huge measures to ensure games can go ahead and players and fans are kept safe. But it’s clear that with cases rising across the country, this is becoming increasingly difficult. Labour has said all along that the Government should follow the science – and we implore the Government to follow any advice SAGE issue.

The speech made by Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, in the House of Commons on 19 November 2020.

I thank the Minister for sight of his statement, and for the accepting manner in which he has dealt with the pestering from me and from other Members on this subject. Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I also thank all the civil servants at the Treasury and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for their hard work on this support package for sport. That work is not unnoticed, and we thank them for it. However, as I mentioned, getting to this point has taken cross-party pestering, and meanwhile, sports are hanging by a thread.

I know that, for the Treasury, sport in the context of the UK Government’s spending is almost a rounding error. It is a comparatively small commitment on the very, very big Treasury spreadsheet, but that fact is irrelevant to how important sport is to families in all our constituencies. It plays a huge role in the life of our country and, given its place in keeping us healthy, we needed a swifter response than this. That is particularly the case when we see how sport has been messed about. In August, with eat out to help out and the Prime Minister saying that he wanted to see “bustle”, sports were told that it was full speed ahead towards the reopening in October until No. 10 executed a sharp about-turn, and since then the pace has been slow to glacial. So in order to speed things up, I would like to help the Minister with some questions that will hopefully prompt action.

In two weeks’ time, the current lockdown arrangements will come to an end, and we hear rumours of a return to the tier system. Can the Minister please clearly explain what that means for grassroots sport? There are so many people who rely on swimming, their football team, their rugby game, their running club or their round of golf for their mental and physical health, and the lack of sport is doing our country damage. It cannot go on for much longer, and that is especially true when it comes to our nation’s children, so will the Minister please tell us when children can return to training? Robbie Savage speaks for the nation when he counts down the days in frustration to when we can play sport, and we need answers.

Next, we need to know that the money the Minister has announced just now will reach sports quickly. The cultural recovery fund did not reach cultural organisations quickly enough, so can we ensure that we have no repeat of that experience? Will he commit to coming back to the House next month to explain the detail of the effect of this funding? Will it reach disability sport effectively, and will it support women’s and men’s sport absolutely equally, by penny piece? What measures will he put in place to ensure that that happens?

We live in uncertain times, and the once predictable sporting calendar has been shifted all over the shop, so will the Minister commit to keeping the situation under review? I think I heard him say that he had an open door for anyone who needed help. That is a good thing, and I welcome it. In relation to that, he has explained that these funds are in response to the cancellation of the very slow piloted return of spectators that we were expecting from 1 October. We had an extensive debate on this only last week in Westminster Hall, so can the Minister bring us up to date on that? What is the truth of the rumours that spectators will return, but only in line with the as yet unannounced tier system? There are also rumours concerning the number of spectators. Is it true that the cap will be 1,000 people? While we are on the subject of Members’ concerns, we have another Westminster Hall debate coming up next week on the governance of football, and I expect to see many Members there. If the Minister cannot give us full details of the fan-led review of football at the Dispatch Box today, I suggest that he does so next Wednesday.

Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, I know it will not have escaped your notice that the Government started this crisis accusing premier league footballers of not doing their share, and ended the summer U-turning on child poverty in response to the heroic campaigning of a premier league footballer. That should be a lesson to the Government. Sports people have been messed about month after month, and the British people want better. My final question to the Minister is this: in the face of a deadly virus, nothing matters more than public health, so where is the comprehensive plan for wellbeing right across the UK? This funding announcement today is a panicked response to a bad situation made worse by Government incompetence, and the country deserves better.

The comments made by Alison McGovern, the Shadow Minister for Sport, on 16 September 2020.

Over the last three months, Labour has constantly warned the Government of the imminent threat to local football clubs. Ongoing financial issues have been exacerbated by Coronavirus – with clubs unable to sell tickets and get fans into games.

Coordination and action from DCMS are urgently needed to avoid this happening across our country. Our towns can hardly afford to lose their local institutions after a decade of Conservative government and the shock of coronavirus.

Text of the comments made by Alison McGovern, the Shadow Sports Minister, on 24 July 2020.

The chance to get back on the treadmill or in the pool means a lot to so many people who have found it hard to keep themselves active during lockdown.

The health benefits of exercise are obvious but for many, the gym is also about keeping mentally fit and a big part of their social life.

The Tories have failed to invest in gyms, leisure centres and other services for years which shows how hollow their newfound commitment to ending obesity is.

The text of the comments made by Alison McGovern, the Shadow Sports Minister, on 16 July 2020.

Like other challenges in our country, Covid-19 has magnified the long-term structural challenges for football. The crisis has showed sports organisations are at the heart of their communities and no community deserves to lose a much-loved football club.

What happened at Wigan Athletic perfectly makes the case for why we need reform and why it cannot wait any longer.

This must be a project for the whole of the UK, so we are urging the Government to develop a framework that enables Scottish football to be included – the issues in football north of the border have plenty of overlap with those in the rest of the UK.

If the Government wants to deliver on its manifesto pledge for football fans, the first step must be to explain what fan-led means in practice, who will take part and, most importantly, when we can expect change. This must be genuinely driven by what fans want and need, from the grassroots up.

This crisis has shown cracks in so many areas of our society after a decade of Conservative governments. Football is no different.

Below is the text of the speech made by Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, in the House of Commons on 11 June 2020.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Before I say a few words on the importance of the living wage, I just want to say that the games are a massive opportunity for Birmingham, one of the most important cities in our country, and the west midlands. I pay tribute to all those, including my predecessor in this role, who have seen the Bill through its stages so far. Glasgow, Manchester, Edinburgh, London and Cardiff have all hosted the games at various points in their almost 100-year history. Birmingham more than fully deserves this opportunity, particularly given the circumstances under which the city has taken on hosting the games. I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to everybody in the west midlands who I know is working very hard to get ready for the games. It is a challenge made all the more difficult by the current virus outbreak, but I know they are working with complete dedication to make sure that, as much as possible, Birmingham will be ready for the games.

In a way, the situation we are in makes 2022 all the more important as a date to look forward to. I know that sport is only relatively important, whatever people from my native Merseyside might think, in comparison to the challenges we face as a country, but I know that many people will be looking forward to the Commonwealth games as a moment that near enough represents a return to the great sporting culture of our country. In many ways, the Bill is made more important by the current coronavirus context.​

This week, we think about our diversity as a country. It is poignant to end this week in Parliament with a Bill that will enable one of our country’s most diverse cities to host an esteemed sporting event which, as well as competition, has at its heart a celebration of that diversity. We will celebrate the games bringing together 71 teams from around the world, and it will feature 24 disciplines from across 19 different sports. Three new sports will be introduced—women’s cricket, beach volleyball and para-table tennis—and I am sure the Minister will join me in celebrating that this Commonwealth games has the potential for more female medals than male medals, and will also host a fully integrated para-sport competition. So sport can be—I stress can be, not necessarily is—an important vehicle for diversity.

With those words of introduction said, let me turn to new clause 1. This new clause is about the living wage, and I am tempted to spend a long time debating low pay in the United Kingdom, the labour market and the importance of a real living wage for people in this country, but I think that might tempt you to intervene, Madam Deputy Speaker, given the scope of the Bill. However, I just want to point out a couple of important facts and small matters of history that have led us to table this amendment.

As everybody in the House will be aware, the national minimum wage was established in 1998, and it brought about the Low Pay Commission, which set the legal minimum wage for the first time in our country and did a huge amount to protect workers from the scourge of low pay. Unfortunately, however, the problem of low pay in this country is a light sleeper; it always re-emerges. That is why the Low Pay Commission’s work is very important, and the campaign for the living wage was established to try to improve wages for people in this country.

Meanwhile, a previous Chancellor decided to rebrand the national minimum wage as a living wage. However, the national minimum wage that we now refer to, which is set by the Government, is not the same as the real living wage, and the difference is how they are set. The real living wage, which is accredited by the Living Wage Foundation, is a rate that refers to the real costs that people pay—the real challenges that people have to face in paying their rent and for food and for all the things they need in society. The difference is not nothing. The current national living wage—the so-called living wage, as we might refer to it—is £8.72, while the real living wage for the UK is £9.30. That is a big difference for those who are working and who are struggling to put food on the table, as unfortunately many people are at the moment. It is a major difference.

Whether rebranding the national minimum wage undermined the fight against poor pay in this country is a discussion that is perhaps beyond our debate, but the point remains that many of us rightly aspire to a real living wage, and the Government and all their associated arms, including the organising committee of the Commonwealth games, should use their power to raise people’s wages. Sporting events, valuable as they are in themselves—valuable as the happiness that sport brings about is in and of itself—also have an important economic power. We know that for many regional economies across the United Kingdom, sporting events play an important part. Sport not only brings fame around the ​world that drives the visitor economy, but also enables a lot of people to take up roles and create jobs that otherwise would not be there. So it is highly important that we take every possible opportunity to use sport to have a positive influence on the labour market.

As I have said, low pay is a light sleeper in the United Kingdom. It is an ongoing battle to make sure that low pay in business is not perpetuated by people who are prepared to undercut each other and make workers pay the price for their business practices. That is why sport’s positive role in improving wages is so crucial. The value must be spread as widely as possible; it must not just be held by those who host major sporting events and those who are already involved, but must also reach every single person who is involved in creating these games. We want that sense of influence over the labour market, using this fantastic sporting event, which will raise the ambitions and aspirations of so many.

That leads into my final point. I will not tempt your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by going into the many arguments in favour of the living wage that we wish we could rehearse, but we do know that there are short-term gains for the individuals concerned when their wages are raised and that there are long-term productivity gains, too. That is because people who are better paid can afford to retrain, and they can use their time in a way that helps them to get more out of the labour market over the long term.

The last time that I was aware of it, the Treasury had significant ambitions for productivity improvements in our country. I simply say to the Minister that if the Treasury wants to improve productivity in the UK, it needs to think first and foremost about those at the bottom end of the labour market, who are earning the least. It should ask itself the question, in the context of the Commonwealth games: if we raised our sights and ambitions for people’s wages, would they not have a bit more time to engage in training and development and give themselves a better chance of earning more in future, and more broadly, would it not do the right thing for our country and improve our labour market and economy? It might seem like a big ambition for the Commonwealth Games to have such a positive impact on our labour market, but I think that in sport and in everything else, ambition is nothing to be sorry about.

Below is the text of the speech made by Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, in the House of Commons on 18 May 2020.

The Bill offers more questions than answers, it has so much missing from it. We do know, given the coronavirus crisis, that ​how much someone earns is not related to how skilled they are; we have seen that with the careworkers in our country, but this Bill does not tell us anything about what the Government are going to do with that information. All we have heard so far about their immigration policy is that there will be a test that relies largely on how much people earn.

We do not know what will happen in our economy, or what the situation will be for the care sector, the construction sector, or the vital creative industries that make many of our cities vibrant and thriving. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) talked about the importance of the music sector for Manchester; we do not know where that important sector will be when the coronavirus crisis is over. It is foolish to legislate as we are doing with this Bill, in reverse; rather, we should decide what kind of economy we want to have in this country and what kind of management we want to exercise in the labour market, and then decide where our immigration policy should fit in alongside those principles. Instead, the Bill gives the Government the right to make up the rules as they go along. That is my first argument against the Bill: it gives too much power to a Department of Government that we know already makes up the rules as it goes along—the Home Office.

Secondly, the Bill is foggy on the underlying causes in this debate. People have spoken about the political mess that we have got into on immigration. Some have argued that people coming to the UK to work have been used for low-paid work, but that misses what is actually going on in our country. In fact, immigration is what happens when the shape of a country’s labour market is such that, with an ageing population, people are needed in that country who are able to do the jobs necessary to support the older and ageing population. The real question is how we manage that transition, how we create a proper skills system, so that people can get the jobs that they want, and how we have a workable immigration policy that means we can afford to support our country as a whole and provide the kind of social care, pensions and healthcare for older people that we aspire to.

Finally, I want to say a word or two on the politics of this debate. Pretty much everybody who has contributed has said that immigration is a good thing for our country, and it can be so. I am glad to hear people say that. The hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) said that the Bill would lay the ghost of the immigration debate to rest, but I have to tell him that he is wrong. The argument that underlies the Bill is as old as the hills, but as long as there are recessions and economic downturns, as long as there are economic problems in countries around the world, there will be politicians who are ready to blame foreigners. This Bill, however it is amended, and however many clauses are added, will not end that because that empty rhetoric cannot be beaten.

We have had the hostile environment and it has been shown that it will never work. There are always people ready to accuse politicians of betrayal when it comes to immigration, so I suggest that instead we concentrate on building a country where everyone is included and where there is a proper economic plan for all the people here. That is the way we will bring our country together.