Cameron Yorston and Max Nicholls gave evidence.

For this oral evidence session, we will have until 3.10 pm. Could the witnesses please introduce themselves for the record?

Cameron Yorston:

Hello everyone, and thank you for having us. I am Cameron Yorston, a director at the Sport and Recreation Alliance.

Max Nicholls:

Hi everyone—I am Max Nicholls, policy manager at the Sport and Recreation Alliance.

Q Good afternoon, and thank you for appearing in front of the Committee; we appreciate it. I have a couple of reasonably specific questions. What are your views on the proposed changes to the Bill, particularly in relation to the change in capacity calculations, where responsible persons are now being asked to identify the number of people reasonably expected to be on the premises at the same time? We hope that you will welcome that.

Secondly, we would like to get a sense of your views on the proposed changes in relation to the addition of the “reasonably practicable” standard. Again, we hope you will welcome that change. Your sense of those two changes would be very much appreciated.

Max Nicholls:

I am happy to take that question. We certainly welcome the flexibility introduced by the change around capacity calculations, the ability to look at things such as historic attendance data and a wider range of measures that may impact how many people are on site. We have some sites in the sport and recreation sector that are quite large in their overall footprint, but which in reality have fairly few people in them at any one time. Previously, there was a concern that if a calculation based purely on footprint was to be introduced, lots of those premises could be drawn into the enhanced tier. We certainly welcome that change and the flexibility around how many people are on site based on the different criteria set out in the briefing note.

Cameron Yorston:

The answer to the second question on the introduction of the “reasonably practicable” judgment is that we welcome it entirely. I also wanted to kick off a broader point that we, and the sector more broadly, welcome the intention of the Bill, as the gentlemen before us said. I think everyone can be supportive of the principle of trying to make venues in specific sectors more resilient across the country.

I suspect you will also have heard this throughout the day. What is missing—or rather, where we still need further clarity and guidance—is greater clarity on the practical implementation of the Bill and on how, in practice, that “reasonably practicable” judgment will apply. I am more than happy to elaborate and illustrate with specific examples of where it is not clear that the spirit and intention of the Bill, and those exclusions or measures you reference, will bite in the appropriate way. There is a risk of unintended consequences.

Q What unique challenges do you foresee for community-based sports venues, such as the community boxing club in Dudley, in conducting and obtaining regular risk assessments, given the varied events types, participants and demographics?

Max Nicholls:

I will make an opening point generally on community sports venues and organisations. Across the country, we have roughly 100,000 grassroots sports clubs; as many on the Committee will be aware, these are predominantly volunteer-run, and do important work in the community to get people active and deliver community cohesion, as well as delivering all these other social benefits driven by participation in sport and physical activity.

We know that there are lots of challenges around recruiting and retaining volunteers, specifically post-covid. One common thing our members tell us is that volunteer recruitment is one of the key barriers to delivering more sport and physical activity. As Cameron alluded to, something we are keen to work with the Committee and Government on, through to the production of guidance, is supporting those volunteers in community-based organisations; we want to understand what their environment requirements are and give them as much information and guidance as possible to support them in the undertaking of their requirements.

As you say, that will look very different in different parts of the country. We represent a huge plethora of sports and recreational activities where the clubs and activities are very different. Having the flexibility to understand what is appropriate and practicable for those different organisations is important.

Cameron Yorston:

To add to that briefly, and to reiterate the earlier point, we want to avoid unintended consequences. It is quite hard as at now to envisage all the specific impacts that might emerge from the legislation, given there is clearly a need for greater clarity and guidance.

The overarching point is that we do not want to impose any potentially prohibitive burdens or requirements on volunteers who are already very stretched, as that risks reducing the provision of sport, physical activity and recreation against the backdrop of the country’s wider challenges, such as issues with public health and a struggling NHS. What we do not want to do is inadvertently reduce people’s ability to participate in sport, recreation and physical activity, because there are adverse unintended consequences to that.

Q Where premises are in the scope of the Bill, is it clear to you who the person responsible would be?

Max Nicholls:

There are some areas in which further guidance would be welcome. In a sporting context, we often have tournaments or events that are held in different venues every year: the Open golf tournament is held in a different golf club each year, for example. The interaction between the organiser of the event and the premises at which it is held is important not only from a responsible person perspective, but in terms of the requirements for the duration of the event and the rest of the year.

We would like to see flexibility where premises host an event that is classed as a qualifying event but are otherwise standard-tier premises for the rest of the year—where they understand their requirements under the obligations on standard-tier premises, but for the duration of the event only they must meet the enhanced requirements for a qualifying event. There is still some slight uncertainty about how that would work in practice, so we would welcome further engagement and clarification in the guidance.

A venue such as the Nottingham tennis centre hosts a one-week tournament with 5,000 people on site, but for the rest of the year it is a community facility with a couple of hundred people on site. We think that those are two different uses and should be treated as such, but we would welcome further engagement and clarification.

As there are no further questions from Committee members, let me thank the witnesses for their evidence.