Sport hits hat-trick in Private Members Bill ballot

Three of this year’s private members’ bills relate directly to sport and recreation. Each year 20 MPs are drawn from a ballot and given the opportunity to propose a piece of legislation. Whilst these bills rarely make it onto the statute books, they do raise parliamentary interest in the issues they address.

Sharon Hodgson MP has placed the ‘sale of tickets (sporting and cultural events)’ Bill, which aims to curtail the activities of ticket touts, who often deprive genuine fans from tickets whilst reselling these at vastly inflated sums, with no return for the organiser. Her decision to do so is thanks to CCPR’s campaigning.

However, the first Bill on the ballot that could benefit sport and recreation is the ‘daylight saving’ bill placed by Rebecca Harris MP. This Bill would seek to advance the clocks by one hour throughout the year, thus ensuring lighter evenings which would benefit active travel and outdoor sport during winter months.

Finally the ‘sports grounds safety authority bill’ placed by Jonathan Lord MP, aims to empower the Football Licensing Authority to provide services to other sports. CCPR will need to scrutinise this bill to ensure that the proposals are simply to allow the Authority to support other sports – rather than to impose unnecessary regulation on other sports.