SIR BOB MAHUTA AND SPORTING FREEDOM

Early day motion 347, tabled 13 February 2001 by David Hinchliffe (Labour). Signed by 32 members.

That this House notes with sadness the death of Sir Bob Mahuta, a New Zealand Maori, who, as a 38 year old post-graduate student at Oxford University during the 1970s was probably the first university student in Britain to be banned for life by the Rugby Football Union after playing one game of amateur Rugby League for the Oxford University Rugby League Club; recalls that his subscription to the Oxford Old Boys Rugby Union Club was returned at the time and later donated by him to the British Amateur Rugby League Association, notes his subsequent record as a leading political and academic figure in New Zealand; and pays tribute to his personal contribution in the long battle against Rugby Union's attempts to outlaw the separate sport of Rugby League.

Signatures by party: Labour 26, Liberal Democrat 3, Conservative 2, Labour/Co-operative 1.