At Autumn Conference in 2008, the Liberal Democrats passed a motion backing proposals to change the regulations that prevent football stadiums in the Championship and Premier League from providing ‘safe-standing’ areas. The motion called for the Government to:
Replace any regulations requiring spectators to be seated with new regulations clearly setting out standards under which a safe standing area may be licensed.
And
Direct the Football Licensing Authority to prepare suitable guidance under which domestic football clubs, working with their supporters, may introduce safe standing areas.
Fast forward to 2014 and those regulations, that prevent football clubs from providing a safe area for fans who wish to stand to do so, are still in place.
Peter Daykin of the Football Supporters’ Federation recently described the regulations around standing at football as “utter bollocks”. I’d strongly recommend reading his blog to see just how ridiculous the Government’s position is. That these messy, unfair and logic defying regulations are still in place is incredibly frustrating.
However, recent developments have provided us with a real opportunity to deliver on that motion we passed nearly 6 years ago. Earlier this month, Football League clubs publicly backed calls to allow Safe Standing in the Championship and the Government has said it will speak to the League’s representatives on the subject. The Football League’s position is a massive blow to one of the major arguments used by the Government against Safe Standing, that the clubs themselves don’t want it. In addition to this, several Premier League clubs have now suggested they would be open to allowing Safe Standing at their grounds, Manchester United being the most recent. It can no longer be argued that there is no support from within the game for a change to the regulations.
While the Government saying they will discuss Safe Standing is a positive step, the noises from Conservative ministers and DCMS spokespeople are not quite so encouraging. If change is going to happen, it’s clear political pressure is going to have to come from the Lib Dem side of the coalition. And not just from stalwarts of the Safe Standing campaign like John Leech, who has been impressive on this issue for years, but from other voices within the Parliamentary Party.
Safe Standing is obviously not the most important issue in politics at the moment, but politics is not just about the big economic questions of the day. It’s also about the smaller, everyday things that matter to ordinary people. It’s a credit to our party that we have this policy and that we can champion issues usually ignored in politics. It would be even more of a credit if we could use our current position to see our Conference motion of 2008 adopted by Government.
Being in Government and with football clubs now openly backing Safe Standing, we, as Liberal Democrats, may never have a better opportunity to achieve this change. To quote Peter Jones, who summed up the motion in 2008, our policy is “Popular, liberal, safe, sensible.” Let’s take this chance and make it happen.
