I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new call list system and to ensure that social distancing can be respected. Members should sanitise their microphones using the cleaning materials provided before they use them and respect the one-way system around the room. Members should speak only from the horseshoe and may speak only if they are on the call lists. This applies even if debates are under-subscribed. Members cannot join the debate if they are not on the call list. Members are not expected to remain for the wind-ups. Members in the latter stages of the call list should use the seats in the Public Gallery and move on to the horseshoe when seats become available.
I remind hon. Members that there is less of an expectation that Members stay for the next two speeches once they have spoken. This is to help manage attendance in the room. Members may wish to stay beyond their speech, but they should be aware that doing so may prevent Members in the seats in the Public Gallery from moving to seats on the horseshoe. This room has capacity for 20 people. I ask Members to bear that in mind.
That this House has considered e-petition 552036, relating to spectator attendance at football matches during Covid-19.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. This debate comes at a time when England is just days into a second national lockdown and as the country continues to grapple with a significant public health crisis. Painful and frustrating as these measures are, there is broad understanding from the public that the restrictions are in place to help save lives and protect our national health service from the unprecedented pressures of the coronavirus pandemic.
I want to be clear right from the beginning that the petitioner Ashley Greenwood, the English Football League and all fans and clubs I have spoken with believe that we should not reopen football stadiums any time before 2 December 2020. I thank Ashley Greenwood for starting this petition, which has gathered nearly 200,000 signatories across our nation. When I checked over the weekend, Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, which I am proud to serve, had the fourth-highest number of signatories to Ashley’s petition of any constituency across the United Kingdom. Although I question Ashley’s team of choice—his beloved Sheffield United—I cannot fault his passion and desire to see fans back in stadiums.
When I spoke to Ashley before this debate, what I loved most was how Ashley reminded me that football is more than just a game of tribal loyalty. It is a game that allows family members to bond, new friendships to be created and local cafes and pubs to thrive on a buzzing match day. Ashley reminded me that the 2012 Olympics was about creating a legacy for participation in sport, which up until now has been booming. However, as time passes, the future of our game is at real risk.
It is no exaggeration to say that the English game teeters on the brink of catastrophe. Away from the glitz and glamour of the premier league, cushioned by billions of pounds of TV revenue, the stark reality is that many EFL clubs find themselves in a financially unsustainable position. Away from the much-publicised world of multimillion-pound player transfers, the most eye-watering of which would fund most of the clubs in league two for the entire year, the outlook is bleak. The survival of many EFL clubs depends on the oxygen of match day revenue. The very least we could do is give them a fighting chance by allowing spectators, albeit a reduced number of them, back inside football stadiums. For Port Vale football club, that would mean 4,000 fans in a stadium that can accommodate 20,000. This is eminently achievable in a safe manner.
Before I bring in Seema Malhotra, I have been asked whether Members who are not on the call list can intervene, as was the practice before covid-19. The answer is no, you have to be on the call list to speak. I understand there is one Member waiting outside to come into the room. The spare seat at the front is for the Opposition spokesperson—she has indicated that she is coming, but she is in the main Chamber at the present time. I hope that clarifies things.
We have until 5.30 pm. I do not like imposing time limits, and I hope Members will do the divisions among themselves. If anybody goes over, I will impose a time limit, so I hope people will be disciplined. I call Seema Malhotra.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) on securing the debate, and I am pleased to be able to say a few words.
Football spectator attendance is an issue that has meant a huge amount across the country, with almost 200,000 people having signed the petition to call for spectators to be able to attend matches. The debate shows how football is much more than just a sport; indeed, it brings people and communities together. My local team, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), is Brentford football club, which has been right at the heart of supporting our west London community and young people throughout the pandemic.
I welcome the contribution of the English Football League and the constructive way in which it and others have engaged in the debate about football spectator attendance. It recognises that we all want fans to be able to return to stadiums as soon as it is safe to do so, and that the current situation is a result of the pandemic. In partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, the EFL has developed a stringent set of ground safety protocols that could result, initially, in around 25% to 35% of stadium capacity in use. Importantly, social distancing can be maintained and the protocols are fully compliant with NHS track and trace. Football is also one of the most heavily regulated areas of crowd management, which means that clubs have considerable experience of handling and dealing with crowds in all different circumstances.
There has been concern that the Government’s treatment of football and of other businesses has been inconsistent. Instead, football should be seen as a standard bearer for how businesses could continue to operate responsibly and in accordance with Government guidance. Football needs a clearer road map from the Government on how football fans will be able to return to grounds when and where it is safe to do so. An ability to plan now could result in fans returning more quickly, particularly in lower-tier alert areas, following the end of national restrictions.
I think it would be sensible and help hon. Members if I impose a formal three-minute time limit from now. I call Julian Knight.
4:48 pm
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). I am most impressed that he managed to get Bovril into his speech. Recently I visited my local football club, Solihull Moors—I draw colleagues’ attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—to see its preparations for behind-closed-doors matches, testing and, I hope, the return of spectators at matches soon.
Spectator sports are the beating heart of our communities and football clubs, in the national league, the EFL or any other tier, and a fundamental part of our national fabric. So many teams depend on ticket revenues and now find themselves in dire straits. If football bodies do not come together soon for the good of the game, there is a risk that 10, 12 or even 15 EFL clubs go bust. What is more, 10 EFL clubs are at risk of not making their November payroll. By comparison, just 17% of Chelsea’s revenue comes from ticket sales and, as we know, the Premier League has a £9 billion TV deal at the top of the game.
Nobody wants to see that happen, but I fear that we are not exploring all the options available to us that could not only allow spectators to return to football matches, but see other revenue-generating activities take place. Solihull Moors, for example, benefits significantly from selling hospitality and corporate packages, so it is not just a matter of bums on seats or even the equivalent of the prawn sandwich brigade, but of allowing all types of spectators to return to football stadiums.
The key to seeing fans return to football is not just reducing covid numbers but increasing our testing capacity. We need smart solutions: the expansion of rapid testing, temperature checks, deep cleaning and social distancing. Venues can never be 100% covid-secure, but they are doing all that they can, and there is always risk in life.
I have heard from clubs up and down the country. They have invested significant sums in getting covid ready. Over the summer, my Committee heard from Prenetics, a testing company that works extensively with sports teams to ensure they can return to matches behind closed doors. Now it and other testing providers are looking at how rapid testing can be used to even greater effect.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North said that football was being treated differently from the arts. I understand that, but I will make certain points in the brief time that I have. First, no arts organisation that I know runs on player wages with 108% of turnover. No arts or cultural organisation that I know has a £9 billion TV deal. Also, such organisations have not just spent £1.2 billion in a transfer window. The National Theatre puts its stuff up for free on YouTube. The Premier League voted 19 to 1 to put pay-per-view TV at £14.95, perhaps encouraging people to go to one another’s houses. The money is there in the game. It would be an absurdity for taxpayer money to bail out those clubs. They have to come together now.
I pay tribute to Bath City Football Club. Bath is a city known for its rugby, but we have a thriving football club in the national league, and, since it has been in community ownership, it has gone from strength to strength, particularly because of its very strong community engagement. May I say, in the company of many men here, the women’s team is doing very well? The Bath club has become a community asset. Unlike the big clubs, it depends entirely on the income that it gets from fans coming to the matches on a regular basis.
As we have heard today, football is about bringing the community together and having fun. Even if it is socially distanced, it is possible. Indeed, the club had prepared very well over the summer to bring spectators back into the stadium. It is quite a big space that is not always full, and it could easily have managed that. It was particularly disappointed when it could not bring spectators back. The club is grateful for the financial support that it has received, but the game is not the same without the spectators. Football clubs are in a different financial position from the cultural sector. I understand that, but there has been a marked difference. I have been to four different cultural events, but not a single sporting event, and that is difficult to explain to people who enjoy sports more than cultural events. We have to recognise that.
I had a discussion with our local director for public health, and he says that the main issue is the uncontrolled spaces. Organisations and classroom teachers can control their spaces, but anything outside the classroom or a venue becomes an uncontrolled space, and that is the crux of the matter. The Government need to put their minds on the issue of travel. Although a survey found that most fans travel by car or on foot, it is important that the Government look at organisations such as STIG, the sports technology and innovation group that has been put together. It could be very helpful in assisting the Government to understand how fans travel to and from sporting events.
The covid crisis has demonstrated that clubs in leagues one and two are community clubs. Without members of the community attending matches and supporting the club, the club cannot continue. We do not have to be Lord Sugar to recognise that a business with no revenue but that has costs is a business that will fail. That is the predicament that community clubs have been in.
In the summer, the Government wanted football to return. We were told that it was good for the morale of the nation and a sign that we were coming out of covid. As part of their return, Football League clubs made it very clear that they would need financial support and fans back in grounds. Here we are in November with the Football League back and the premier league back, but there are no fans in the grounds and there is no financial support package. The consequence is that community clubs are bleeding to death. They have burned through any reserves that they had and any cash that their owner could put in to try to keep them going.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) said in his excellent speech, club owners have to find £400 million. One of the ways that they are doing that at the moment is by not paying their taxes; so far, there is £80 million in uncollected taxes from Football League clubs. While the Government may not wish to bail out football clubs, effectively they are doing so through the tax system and by not pursuing them for tax debts, so they already have a liability.
Rick Parry, the chairman of the Football League, has said to me and to colleagues who are here today, and to other colleagues elsewhere, that without a financial package of support, clubs will go bust before Christmas. There will be up to 10 clubs that will not make their payroll in November, and we need to think about what kind of support will be there. Those football clubs have survived the first world war, the great depression, the second world war and deindustrialisation. Are we going to let them die because of covid, with the impact that would have on local communities? I remember visiting Gigg Lane and Bury about this time last year and meeting a lady—a pensioner who had supported the club all her life. She said, “There are lots of challenges we have in this town, but we had the football club, and now that has been taken away from us as well”.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
As others have said, football is an important part of our national psyche and it is a regular fixture of the week for many people. My husband and two close friends are season-ticket holders of different football clubs, so I know what football means to fans. However, I was particularly struck by the stories about some of Brentford Football Club’s fans. Woody is a young Brentford fan with Down’s syndrome. When football was taken away from him in March, he struggled, to the extent that his hair started to fall out. Huge credit must go to the Brentford players, in particular Woody’s favourite, Ollie Watkins, who left Brentford for Aston Villa earlier in the year but still took the time to go and visit Woody after he left the club, to see how he was doing.
The directors of Brentford have been playing their part in keeping the family of fans going, by making calls to some of the older fans in particular to check in for a chat and to see if they need any help. Marcus Gayle, a former player who is now a club ambassador, popped in to see a fan, Anthony Talbot, to take him a new shirt and brighten up his day, after he heard that Anthony was missing his football to the extent that his health was suffering. The football community at Brentford have also got together to help raise money for Jamie Powell, who is a lifelong Brentford fan with a rare cancer, so that he can go to Boston for life-saving treatment.
The club narrowly avoided going into administration in 2002 and was then taken over by a supporter-led trust. When I was a Brentford ward councillor on Hounslow Borough Council, I saw at first hand the amazing community response and effort to keep the club base in Brentford, and I persuaded my colleagues on the council to loan the fans the half a million pounds that they needed at that time, which has since been paid back. We realised how much the club meant to the borough and to our community.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for introducing the debate. The Bluebirds, Barrow AFC, are more than a football club—they are the backbone of our community. In June, they were promoted to the English Football League after 48 years away—they had a phenomenal season. Now, they are really in the doldrums when they should be celebrating. They are facing a significant loss this year, and it would be worse if their supporters had not stuck by them and bought season tickets for matches that they cannot now attend.
As my hon. Friends have explained this afternoon, football was one of the first industries to close and it may well be one of the last to restart. Our communities need them to restart. They are more than football clubs; they are significant local employers and they are community hubs. The Barrow AFC Community Trust delivers physical activity, leadership and core skills to local schools. As a result of the lockdown, it is now also at risk. It is no exaggeration to say that the Bluebirds, just like all my colleagues’ clubs, carry the spirit of their towns and communities on their shoulders. When we talk to Levi Gill, the CEO of the Bluebirds, he is explicit that they do not want a bail-out; they want to stand on their own two feet. They want to reopen, and they want to do that safely and in a covid-secure way. They want to see the fans brought back in. The trust and the club have put a huge amount of work into this. They were buoyed by the successful trials elsewhere and they were ready to go as soon as the Government gave them the go-ahead.
The fans are able to watch matches online, but that is a pale shadow of getting back into Holker Street and seeing a match at first hand, of reconnecting with the club and the community. For many people, their health, mental and physical, goes hand in hand with being able to follow their beloved club, especially now, in these really trying times, so I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister is able to work closely with clubs such as Barrow AFC to come to a result, at the end of the current lockdown, that keeps people safe but allows clubs and communities to stand on their own two feet with pride once again.
I apologise to the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley): I have gone one out of order on the call list.
5:02 pm
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As a result of keeping fans away from stadiums, EFL clubs will require £400 million of funding from their owners to keep them afloat this season, because the pandemic and associated restrictions have decimated their revenue streams. Very soon, some clubs in the EFL will be unable to pay their bills. They will be unable to pay the wages of their players and of their staff. When this happens—and it surely will without significant intervention—the integrity of the EFL will be compromised, and with it the future of our national game.
I am delighted that the Chancellor’s furlough scheme has been extended until March next year. However, this is of limited use to football clubs in the championship and leagues one and two, which need to have most of their staff working to ensure that these businesses can function safely and to enable professional football matches to take place. These are clubs that, since March, when professional football was first suspended, have operated on a shoestring. The absence of match day revenue—the lifeblood of clubs in leagues one and two of the EFL—is strangling businesses that have also been deprived of crucial hospitality revenue for nine months. Colleagues across the House with professional football clubs in their constituencies know only too well the value they bring to their communities. It is therefore a horrible injustice that clubs that have risen to challenges presented by the pandemic and rallied to the rescue of their communities are being treated so shabbily.
For example, the city I represent, Stoke-on-Trent, has two professional football clubs. Heritage brands employ more than 600 staff, who play a key role in the life of tens of thousands of local people. Port Vale and Stoke City are as important to families in the Potteries as local delicacies like oatcakes and lobby. Indeed, if anyone wishes to understand the value of football clubs to their communities, they need look no further than league two club Port Vale in my constituency of Stoke-and-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. With no match day revenue since March, unable to bring in any money from hospitality or events, the club’s owner and chair Carol Shanahan OBE oversaw its transformation into a genuine community hub. The concourse was converted into a warehouse. Club staff became volunteers and a massive team effort, in conjunction with local children’s charity the Hubb Foundation, saw Port Vale community hub deliver more than 170,000 meals to families in need across Stoke-on-Trent. That work, I am proud to say, continues to this day as the second lockdown bites.
The work of Port Vale community hub was the single most significant contribution of its kind to the families in my city, and it came from a football club that has been crippled by covid restrictions and has to date lost out on an estimated £1.5 million in revenue. I say to right hon. and hon. Members that that is the power of football in our communities that I know; colleagues from across the House will be able to tell similar stories about how clubs in their constituencies have played a blinder in helping local communities up and down the land.
I believe that the Government’s current position on the return of fans to professional football is muddled, inconsistent and inherently unfair. Despite the fact that football is one of the most heavily regulated areas of crowd management, with rigorous covid safety measures and a successful pilot programme under its belt, the sport is still, unfathomably, being treated differently from other industries.
The EFL, in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, has developed stringent ground safety protocols that reduce the number of supporters allowed inside stadiums, respect the rule of six and social distancing, and are fully compliant with NHS track and trace requirements. On top of that, the Edinburgh University study on the pilot schemes conducted at clubs such as Cambridge United showed that fans are willing to bend over backwards to be welcomed back into stadiums. Well over 80% of respondents said that they would hand sanitise regularly, socially distance and wear a face covering if required. Seriously, what more can fans and clubs do?
This unfairness is killing lower-league EFL clubs. Under the covid alert tier system, businesses and restaurants, theatres, cinemas and retailers are able to welcome customers into indoor venues for hours on end, yet professional football is prohibited from having a reduced number of fans in stadiums, socially distanced and wearing face coverings while sitting outside. That is, frankly, baffling to anyone who follows and understands the game, and is a source of huge anger and frustration to supporters who want to help their struggling clubs and are being prevented from doing so.
To date, the Government’s response to the crisis engulfing EFL clubs has been in marked contrast to their response to other industries that fall under the DCMS remit—the £1.5 billion funding package for the arts, for example. However, I do call on the Premier League to step up and do its bit. Its TV package is worth £3 billion, I believe, and it is the largest spender in this summer’s transfer window, paying out £1.26 billion. I implore it to dig deep in its pockets. I know that this is an unprecedented ask, but these are unprecedented times.
Businesses are being asked to stay closed, at the risk of never reopening. Our NHS and care heroes are going above and beyond to keep people safe and alive. Teachers and students are under pressure to catch up on months of lost face-to-face learning. People have been told to change the whole way they interact with one another, and the Government have spent over £200 billion so far to tackle the global health pandemic. I do not think it unfair to expect the Premier League to work with the EFL and come to a fair deal that will ensure that the heartbeats of our local communities live on.
Life in 2020 has been tough for so many people. We have heard about the awful impact on people’s mental health of sustained lockdowns combined with job and money worries and fewer and fewer options for leisure activities. Football is a release valve for so many people. They live for Saturday afternoons: the camaraderie on the terraces, a pie and a pint or a steaming hot Bovril, and the shared experiences of their religion with their family and friends. We simply have to bring that back, because not only would it make a huge difference to fans’ wellbeing, but it may also dictate whether some clubs make it through this most trying of years.
If the stated position of the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), is that the whole fan journey—from home to venue—must be considered when discussing the return of fans to football stadiums, such fears can be alleviated because the 13,000 respondents to the Petition Committee’s survey and the University of Edinburgh study demonstrated that the overwhelming majority drive or walk to games, meaning that they can make their way in a covid-secure manner.
In summary, I place on the record my thanks to Rick Parry, chairman of the EFL, Carol Shanahan, co-owner and chair of Port Vale, Angela Smith from the Stoke City Supporters Council, Mark Porter from the Port Vale Supporters Club, and Port Vale’s safety officer John Rutherford, who has 30 years’ experience in game safety and is a former chair of the Football Safety Officers Association, for their time and contributions before today’s debate. The EFL and clubs across the country have done everything they can to prepare for the safe return of fans, and it is time for the Government to press play, not pause, on those plans when the lockdown ends. Up the Vale!
I mentioned the contribution of clubs to our communities—a point also made by many of my Labour colleagues, including the shadow sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who will attend the debate. During lockdown, Brentford FC Community Sports Trust delivered more than 1,000 activity packs to children and families, supported more than 100 young carers who were shielding, ran virtual youth clubs and provided mentoring support. I thank Jon Varney and others for their leadership during this time.
Most of all, what makes football special is the fans. Not only are they the life and soul of football, creating electric atmospheres on match day; they play a vital role in boosting teams and players, and sustaining clubs financially. The absence of fans over the past eight months has been crippling for many clubs and lower league teams. I know how disappointing it was for Brentford fans in my constituency of Feltham and Heston to be unable to see their team’s last ever games at the old stadium last season. I am particularly concerned about the challenging few months that Brentford FC faces, particularly when it has just invested in its new stadium, which now sits empty.
The financial pressure on local clubs is growing, and the Government urgently need to provide clubs and fans with some clarity and listen to their needs. In September, I raised that in the House and described how Brentford had been working closely with its local safety advisory group to develop appropriate safety protocols and social distancing measures to allow around 5,000 fans—about 20% of capacity—to attend.
Clubs have been working in innovative ways to bring fans safely back into football grounds. The English football league, the premier league, the women’s super league and the women’s championship have already staged 11 successful test events, showing that matches can be delivered safely. It is imperative, and the foremost priority, to protect public health, but as we look to the future the Government must also acknowledge that clubs require urgent clarity on plans to reopen stadiums. A big challenge facing them is the uncertainty and difficulty in planning without clear guidance and direction.
Although Brentford has persuaded 94% of season ticket holders to freeze their tickets for now—I thank the fans for doing so and for their support—we know that that is not sustainable and will put the club in a difficult position for next season without further Government guidance. We need a clear road map for fans to return, in line with other sectors, once the second national lockdown comes to an end. I ask the Minister to consider working closely with local safety advisory groups in doing so.
Hopefully, after the lockdown, people will be able to enjoy their sporting events again. I speak today particularly on behalf of Bath City Football Club, but I know that I speak on behalf of all sporting events across my city and across the country, so let us make sure that the Government get this right and look particularly at how fans travel to their sporting events.
I cannot believe that my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport wants to be the Minister for Sport who presides over the death of community football clubs; I cannot believe that that will happen and I cannot believe that the Government will do nothing. However, as a consequence of there being neither a deal nor a support package in place, what is happening now is that any staff who can be let go are being let go. The things that do not bring in any revenue will be the first to go: youth academies, women’s football and the community outreach programmes to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North alluded. These things will be cut back until the club bleeds to death and has no cash left. At that point, it can go cap in hand to the Government or to the football authorities.
We need a deal now. We have not asked Netflix to bail out the arts, so I do not think we should say that it should be entirely down to top-flight football—the commercial big boys—to bail out the whole game. The Government wanted football back, the Government supported football coming back and the Government need to help, if only with a tax holiday, to enable these clubs to get through the next few months.
The 18-year relationship that I have had with the club at the end of my road has taught me that we cannot and should not forget that clubs such as Brentford thrive because they are at the heart of their community. I am talking about the generations who watch games every Saturday, the new fans who move to the area, the countless hours of work done by the club and the local community, the support for the businesses that survive and thrive and the jobs that they create, because of the fans, home and away, who come for matches. Football is a real power for good in our society, and at times like this it is something that we should support and bring back to our stadiums as soon as we can.
We have important points from the operations team at Brentford. They have been working with the safety advisory group at Brentford to ensure that the new stadium can be safe, and they need to be respected by Government and work hand in hand with Government to ensure that fans can come back to matches as soon as possible.