Rugby and women's sport gets their own MPs

Government is important to our game - not only because it is (one way or another) the source of a sizable amount of the funding that girls and women's rugby receives - but also because it can make things happen by applying pressure in the right areas. There's nothing that concentrates the mind of sports adminsitrators more than Members of Parliament taking an interest in what they are doing. 

And now - as well as our own Oliver Heald (who has dropped in to see us on a couple of occasions) - there are two other MPs who will be paying particular interest in girls' rugby over the next year. 

Mark Lancaster, Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North East will be the "MP for rugby union" this season, "examining the work of the RFU and RFUW in depth this season". He has attended the Nations Cup last month and had a meeting with Rosie Williams, and is planning to attend some future RFUW events as well as his local community coaching team. He'll also probably drop in on the odd RFU event as well.

Mark, who was elected in 2005, seems more a cricket and soccer man, but has begun to take an interest in rugby over the past year - asking a minister how many people play the game, for example - and he does occasionally drop in on his local rugby events, such as the (men's) Olney 7s. How much he knows about girls and women's rugby at grassroots level is debatable, so if you want to drop him a line to educate him about the problems and challenges of your game as you see them why not write to him here.

Barbara Keeley, Labour MP for Worsley (which somewhere near Manchester, apparently), will also be interested to hear from anyone as she will be shadowing the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, who have been mentioned on this blog before (lots of excellent, well researched, reports that no-one ever seems to read). 

Barbara was also elected in 2005 and has been pretty active in Parliament championing both girls and youth sport - demanding to know, for example, what the government is doing to increase the number of girls playing sport, how many girls take part in sport, and the importance of competitive sport in schools. She does seem very well informed about girls and women's sport in general - but maybe less about challenges specific to rugby union (she's a bit of a rugby league fan). If you want to educate her about the game you can drop her a line here.

All this is part of a scheme run by Sport England which links 16 MPs with sports or sporting bodies that they have chosen themselves - so they should be genuinely interested in any information they receive.