A GAY MP has spoken of the need to tackle homophobia in sport.

Stuart Andrew, who represents Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough, described how social attitudes generally towards homosexuality were now "poles apart" from the way they were 50 years ago.

But he said sport seemed to be one of the fields where the last bit of the problem needed to be tackled.

Mr Andrew made his comments while speaking to Phil Stewart, founder of Leeds Hornets RFC about homophobia in sport.

The MP said statistics in the Out In the Field Survey were disturbingly high, and argued there was an obligation on all sports to actively look at the issue.

He said: "Sometimes it can be subtle homophobia. It seems to me this is one of the fields where we have to tackle this last bit of a problem. In the workplace, there’s a lot of work going on to tackle homophobia, in schools there is, but it seems on the pitches, it’s still a problem, so there’s a responsibility on all clubs to tackle this."

Mr Andrew believes crowd mentality could be partly to blame for the problem.

"I bet if you take these people out individually and spoke to them on an individual basis, they wouldn’t share an opinion as strong as they are indicating collectively," he said.

"Sometimes when people get together, there’s a bit of bravado, but that’s not acceptable. We’re seeing massive strides in tackling racism in crowds and football, and we need to make sure we need to do the same with all sports, in homophobia. I think it’s also about individuals who might be playing in a team – are they more aggressive to someone who might be black or gay? It’s about raising awareness across the field, really. Educating the people who are running the team, and the supporters of the teams."

Mr Andrew, who admits he is "not particularly athletic", added: "As an MP, I haven’t faced too much homophobia, which is encouraging. I do recognise the sports environment is a bit different, and that it may be an issue for some people there. A lot of the clubs that I’ve been working with in this area are keen to be part of the community. Wanting to welcome everybody, literally everybody, irrespective of what their race or sexuality is."

He added: "It’s clear that we’ve come such a long way in such a short time in terms of social attitudes. It’s about educating I suppose. There’s been such a massive change. If you think about what the country was like in its social attitudes 50 years ago than today, they’re poles apart."

Mr Andrew was asked whether schools locally were doing enough to make sure everybody was encouraged to take up sport irrespective of sexuality and race, and he said there were some pockets of excellence.

"We’re lucky in this constituency, some of the schools are first rate," he said. "The sports stuff that they do is absolutely brilliant."

He gave particular praise to St Mary's in Menston for their work in sport, which he described as "first rate."