Like many white water paddlers who live in England, particularly those like me who live fairly close to the border with Wales, over 90% of our paddling is generally done in Wales. A lot of the time this will involve paddling at a place like Tryweryn. Now, as most UK paddlers know, Canoe Wales (now Paddle Cymru) pays a subsidy to the Canolfan Tryweryn centre to ensure that its members can get onto the water for a hugely discounted price. Paddle UK on the other hand, despite its, let’s be diplomatic, ‘rather large revenue’, refuses to do the same for its members. This means that, superficially at least, Canoe Wales better represents the interests of paddlers like me than Paddle UK, so it would stand to reason that I should join it, right? Well no, it isn’t that simple. I can’t join Canoe Wales because I’m resident in England.
Canoe Wales (as it is still known as a legal entity) is the national governing body for paddlesports in Wales. Both Canoe Wales (Paddle Cymru) and Paddle UK (still known legally as British Canoeing) are private limited companies. As such, I believe that they could be in some rather dubious legal hot water in the way that Canoe Wales refuses membership to paddlers based in England.
In a so-called free market, consumers should be free to purchase the product that they feel works best for them. Last time I looked, both Wales and England used the same currency and were both part of the UK. By being able to join Canoe Wales instead of Paddle UK, the latter would be forced to do more for its members, for example ponying up and paying Canolfan Tryweryn a subsidy to get its members the same discount as their Welsh counterparts. If the only way Paddle UK can keep its membership up is by forcing people through a dodgy agreement, possibly in breach of competition laws, who would otherwise like to be Canoe Wales members, it should buck up its ideas and start representing the interests of its members more.
So, how could Canoe Wales and Paddle UK possibly be in legal hot water when it comes to this? Well, because they are both totally separate private limited companies. They’re not charities, they’re not social enterprises, and they’re not clubs. According to Companies House they are both absolutely, unequivocally private limited companies. As such, they are bound by anti-competition, monopoly, and discrimination laws. Now, the two NGBs might argue to the hilt about their reasons for refusing membership based upon the applicant’s resident nation, but I’m afraid that none of those arguments mean a thing or hold water if they are breaking the law! In other words, “tell it to a judge!” If the NGBs which to argue against this, they need to demonstrate and explain why and how they believe their position is legally tenable. Although really it should be up to an ombudsman to make a final decision.
Okay, so which laws am I talking about? It seems, though not confirmed, that Canoe Wales might well have an some sort of agreement with Paddle UK to refuse membership and push English paddlers to it instead. Although on that front, read the part about “Gentleman’s Agreements”. Take a read of the segment below, which was taken from the UK Government’s website concerning such things. Do any of these practices sound familiar? Do the first two pieces of anti-competitive behaviours ring any bells?
Now let’s look at some of the risk factors for both NGBs below. Take note of the first two and the last ones on the list. Again, sound familiar? Employees/directors regularly move and switch between Paddle UK and Canoe Wales, and as the only realistic options for paddlers both NGBs are very firmly placed as totally dominant in their ‘market’. I also wonder if the part about partnerships and joint buying and selling might apply to the built-in canal & riverways license that both NGBs provide as part of their membership? If you want nationally/internationally recognised qualifications, mainland UK paddlers have no choice but to join either Canoe Wales, Canoe Scotland, or Paddle UK. Except that because of the “membership rules” they don’t have a choice as to which one they’d prefer to join, except for Paddle UK, which you can join no matter where you live in the UK. However, that minor detail still doesn’t absolve it if there is any sort of formal or informal agreement between them and the other nations NGBs.
In addition to the rules above, which IMHO both NGBs would appear, at least initially, to be very blatantly abusing in plain sight, a company has to be careful about who it refuses to serve business to. A company can refuse to sell to an individual, but it’d have to give a legitimate reason for it. I’m not convinced that “They live in England” would stand up to court scrutiny as being a bonafide reason for a UK based company to refuse business to a UK resident!
I suspect that because Paddle UK will accept membership from applicants no matter where they live in the UK, the NGBs will argue that this means they are fulfilling their obligations of treating everyone equally and giving ‘choice’. However, I don’t believe this would stand up to scrutiny, because of the way in which Canoe Wales won’t reciprocate the same flexibility, particularly if there is an agreement with Paddle UK, formal or informal or even just implied, that they will refuse membership applications and force English and Scottish paddlers to join Paddle UK or Canoe Scotland instead. And, on top of that, no sane Welsh resident paddler is going to join Paddle UK if they mostly use Welsh rivers and facilities like CIWW and Canolfan Tryweryn!
In fact, that Paddle UK won’t contribute to bring the Tryweryn price down for its members, while Canoe Wales refuses non Welsh resident members almost acts as a double safeguard that reduces choice for both English and Welsh paddlers. The paddlers resident in England can’t get the full Tryweryn discount and yet are forced to join Paddle UK, keeping its revenue going, while perks like the CIWW and Tryweryn discount will ensure that Welsh resident paddlers continue to pay for Canoe Wales membership and don’t leave for Paddle UK. It might not be intentional, but the effect is the same.
So to conclude, I would like to hear from anyone who actually has expertise in the legal side of things regarding this, rather than a random person with an opinion. I would also like to know if Canoe Wales really could discontinue the membership of anyone from England or Scotland who managed to ‘get through the net’? A few years ago, I did in fact manage to join Canoe Wales despite being resident in England. I went back to Paddle UK because at the time Canoe Wales didn’t offer craft insurance. Now, Canoe Wales offers a Tryweryn discount and craft insurance, so I’d like to move back. My membership number is still on its system ready for renewal and I can still log in, except that I’ve heard it’s clamping down on non Welsh residents trying to join. There’s a great big tick box on the membership renewal page that you have to tick to say you are NOT a resident of England, Ireland or Scotland (Canoe Wales has written “NOT” in bold, too. I suspect that it would have quadruple underlined it if there was a font available to do it!) I think that Canoe Wales thinks that it gives it some sort of legal recourse to cancel membership if it discovers someone has given ‘false’ information.
But, realistically could it do it? If someone legally challenged a cancelled membership, I don’t think that given the rules I’ve outlined above, that it’d have a leg to stand on, particularly given that someone like me could show that it had previously allowed membership without complaint.
Another argument that might be put forward is that Wales is a different country to England, and that someone from the UK wouldn’t be able to join the French or Italian NGBs, for instance. However, this falls apart somewhat because Wales is still part of the UK and subject to UK law, and whatever your feelings on devolution, is still governed from Westminster at this time. It further falls apart because Paddle UK allows Welsh paddlers to join it. Even more damning is that if a UK resident paddler wanted to join the German Canoe Federation, they are absolutely allowed to do so as long as they joined one of the many canoe clubs that accept international members.
On every count, there is no good reason whatsoever for Canoe Wales to prevent people from England or Scotland joining it if they wanted to, other than to artificially protect the income of Paddle UK. In fact, it’s total madness because for people who mostly paddle in Wales, even if they live in England, they’d rather see their money going towards projects in that area! Given Canoe Wales and Paddle UK are separate limited companies and both have a monopoly in their markets, taking this action to protect Paddle UK’s income would potentially put the organisation well foul of the law.
Anyway, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this.
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