My Lords, I thank everybody who took part in the debate. I am particularly glad that my noble friend did, as I was worried that I would be the only person on these Benches. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, will not mind my picking out his final comment about trying to make sure that people think about these things in the first place. I think that what he said might add to the Bill, which at the moment, to be perfectly honest, is purely reactive. It is about what has gone wrong. It is especially about what has gone wrong with one good idea from the Government. It tries to bring things together. I fully appreciate the noble Lord's point that, if we looked at this as a whole, perhaps half these problems would not exist and the other half would have been mitigated to an extent.
As I said, amateur sports clubs are motherhood and apple pie. The Minister talked about priorities, but we all know that this is about how you do your accountancy exercise on where the benefit will come from. The noble Lord also mentioned coaching. If you decided that you would drive this as part of the public health agenda, you would probably say that it was justifiable. In some of his responses, I heard in ringing tones words from the song by Tracy Chapman, "If not now then when?". We should be aiming towards these things and encouraging them to happen, so that we get there eventually. In the failure to respond, I just heard the tone of government; more particularly, I heard the Treasury Bench rather than the rosette that sits on it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, joined us slightly late, but I would have mentioned her when I talked about Clause 3, as it deals with something that she brought very clearly to the world's attention. I thank her for taking part. The right reverend Prelate asked us to stop looking too much in our own backyards and pointed out that the world interconnects. That is surely what a lot of the Bill is about. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, for his support, at least for the principle of the Bill.
I feel that the Bill needs a little more thought and that we should bring our minds together to polish it. I would certainly welcome an amendment along the lines suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, if only to see what the Government would say to it. I will give myself that little indulgence. All I can say is that I hope that the Bill will be given a Second Reading.
Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
Community Amateur Sports Clubs (Support) Bill [HL]
Proceeding contribution from
Lord Addington
(Liberal Democrat)
in the House of Lords on Friday, 8 May 2009.
It occurred during Debate on bills on Community Amateur Sports Clubs (Support) Bill [HL].
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Proceeding contribution
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710 c795
Session
2008-09
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2024-04-21 11:30:02 +0100
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