Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2019-07-09
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Stevenson (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this House owes a great amount of thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for his campaigning over the years on this and related issues. He sees every opportunity to bring forward yet another version of his thinking on these matters. Once again, he has shown that we have a problem here that at some point will crystallise in a way that will require us to act fast. We should be thinking hard about some of the issues he spoke about when he moved this amendment. I think we will now hear from the Minister that everything is perfect and nothing needs to change. There is a certain amount of self-satisfaction around this, because we have heard that before on other occasions. I am in no sense being critical of him; he has a good record to defend, and I am not saying that he should not do so. However, time is moving ahead of us, and we will have to start to move on. We have no specific legislation in this country to prevent one of our most important common social activities being affected by match fixing or doping. No criminal offence is created by people deciding to cause a goal not to be scored or to be scored, runs to be taken or people to be bowled out on particular balls. The only way that can be addressed at the moment is through the Fraud Act, which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned. It is long overdue for us to begin thinking seriously about the need for specific rules, regulations and laws with regard to sport So much depends on it, not just for those who bet on it, although it is bad enough when that happens. Indeed, the case behind some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, was the fixing of a cricket match, which was treated under the Fraud Act. The very faith of supporters and audiences going to watch matches will be checked if they do not think that they are seeing a fair game or fight, or if there is any sense that people are being paid on the sides to influence the outcome Match fixing and the particularities related to it are a real and present danger. Do we need to act on that in relation to Birmingham? Should we think seriously about implementing one or more of the points made in Amendment 13? We have to think long and hard about this. As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, it relates to the question of doping or the using of drugs and artificial stimulants in sport As we have discussed, there are questions about what constitutes match fixing, and what type of drugs could be considered performance enhancing or, in some cases, performance disenhancing, if that is the right word. The principle here is still important. It is an attempt to obtain a result by defrauding those who do not participate in taking drugs. It reduces people’s enjoyment in the games they watch. It is not about fair play but about those who have the ability to cheat best. Those who are caught are the ones who are stupid about this. There is now so much effective doping in sport that, as we learned in the Winter Olympic Games from the state-aided support for the Russian teams, this has gone beyond the individual and whether they achieve a better result as a result of taking drugs. When it got to that stage, it seemed obvious that the world bodies would take action. However, they have not effectively resolved this, even though there is some hope that they may still get around to doing so. In the interim, the only agencies that can operate on this are our own Governments. Action needs to happen on this in this country, because other countries are moving ahead. It is time the Government fessed up to this and began taking steps in the right direction. This may well be their opportunity.