It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) for putting the case for safe standing so clearly. This is a day for huge congratulations to all the fans who have made that case and lobbied with such passion, thoughtfulness and commitment for many years to move the debate to the point that we have reached today.
The first Middlesbrough match I ever went to was a thrilling 0-0 draw with Wimbledon on 26 October 1996. I was hooked. That was the year after the Riverside stadium opened. It was one of the first truly modern stadiums to open in the aftermath of the Taylor review and was financed by Steve Gibson, the man who more than any other has come to embody the saving of Middlesbrough football club. Why did the Taylor review happen? We all know the tragic Hillsborough story and the very good reasons why standing was abolished.
However, I returned to the Riverside a few weeks ago to meet a delegation including Middleborough’s chief operating officer, Mark Ellis, Chris Joseph from the Middlesbrough Supporters Forum, Rob Nichols from the Fly Me To The Moon fanzine and Dave Roberts, the commentator. We enjoyed a really good discussion on the pros and cons of safe standing, which are actually quite complex. Whether the club would even choose to go ahead with it, were it an option, is not a done deal, given that, in essence, the cost of a ticket would not be reduced. Only one rail seat can be installed in place of an ordinary seat, so there would probably be no change in the cost of a ticket for a fan.
None the less, this comes down to other things, including safety—it is not safe to stand in an all-seater stadium; the trip hazard of a low plastic seat in front of a fan is very real—atmosphere and the fan experience. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), it is simply not sensible to expect people in a highly passionate environment to sit down politely throughout the experience.