House of Lords - Accessible Sports Grounds Bill
Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport responded to today’s debate in the House of Lords by confirming that Accessible Stadia applies to both new and existing stadiums.
The DCMS Minister went on to underline that the Equality Act clearly sets out the anticipatory duty of all service providers to make adequate provisions for disabled people. The Government stance being that the Equality Act provides sufficient legislation, with Baroness Neville-Rolfe expressing her surprise that a legal challenge had not yet been taken against a football club.
It is worth noting that Lord Chris Holmes, Equality and Human Rights Disability Commissioner, recently confirmed in an interview to The Daily Telegraph that all options remain on the table to the EHRC.
There was cross party support in the House of Lords debate regarding the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill.
The full transcript of the debate can be read on Hansard here, you can also watch the full debate again here....
Lord Richard Faulkner of Worcester introduced the debate on his Bill, saying:
“I hope very much that the Government and the football authorities in particular will appreciate the great support that exists in this House and outside for the principles underlying this short but necessary Bill. Its purpose is to create a civilised and safe environment for disabled people who want to watch sporting events at football and other stadiums. I am proud to declare my unpaid interest as a vice-president of the charity Level Playing Field, which has done so much to raise the profile of disabled sports fans and to campaign effectively on their behalf.
The Bill does so by giving local authorities a discretionary power to refuse a safety certificate to sports grounds which do not comply with the accessible stadia guidelines published by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority.”
Lord Faulkner went on to say:
“When a disabled person is denied access or provided with a lesser service, it is discrimination and exclusion in its worst form”
“If all Premier League players donated just one day’s pay, their clubs could reasonably improve their disabled fans’ facilities to meet at least football’s own minimum standards”
“It is time for effective regulation. That is why this Bill, or one drafted along these lines, is so urgently needed now”
Here is a selection of additional quotes from the debate:
Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond:
“For far too long, discrimination and a lack of disability access have tarnished football… what we see is nothing short of shambolic”
“The need has never been greater for football to discover its moral compass. It is our national sport and yet for far too long the beautiful game has been for many disabled spectators an ugly, ugly experience”
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson:
“Surely this has to be on the same page as racism, homophobia and all other forms of discrimination. When you exclude disabled people, you are being discriminatory”
“It was the fact that a really big, powerful, rich club is able to tell a family with a disabled son that they should perhaps go and support a smaller club like Stockport, which might be able to accommodate them. Those clubs do not deserve those fans, and that is why we should support this legislation”
“Some of the richest clubs are among the worst offenders in terms of access”
The Bishop of Portsmouth:
“I can only wonder, with some incredulity, why at the pinnacle of professional sport there is not the will to implement change, even where there is the way”
Baroness Brinton:
“It would be like asking a member of the Conservative Party in the Lords or the Commons to sit with Labour or the Liberal Democrats for a long debate and asking them to be completely silent for the four or five hours of a Budget debate” (On away fans being made to sit with home fans)
“One thing that I am really pleased about are the new UEFA regulations, which mean that disability access officials will become mandatory”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara:
“This is a short, but necessary, Bill… The current situation is a stain on our country and on our reputation for fair play, and it is unacceptable that those who own and run our national game continue to evade their legal, let alone their moral, responsibilities”
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (concluding the debate)
“We have heard from all noble Lords in the Chamber today the feeling that using cost as an argument is completely unacceptable, particularly in a sport where the sums of money involved are absolutely eye-watering. Therefore to use cost as a way of not making progress is not a good argument”
The full transcript of the debate can be read on Hansard here, you can also watch the full debate again here.