New sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe has announced a drive to expand the campaign against drugs in sport.

He is to involve the Home Office in a clampdown on the trafficking of banned drugs used in sport, and his Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) officials have already met senior police officers to discuss anti-doping.

The Minister also praised anti-doping efforts by UK Sport and the international cycling union UCI ahead of today's start of the Tour de France in London.

The Bradford South MP said: "I welcome UK Sport and UCI working together to take a hard line on anti-doping ahead of the start of this year's Tour De France in London. Cheats have no place in sport. Young people have to be able to look up to their sporting heroes safe in the knowledge that they are clean.

"I will be working hard on tackling this issue and will be talking to my ministerial colleagues in the Home Office about how we can clamp down on the trafficking of substances banned in sport, particularly with the London 2012 Olympic Games on the horizon."

DCMS officials have now met representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers to look at ways in which information on the abuse of prohibited substances in sport could be shared between enforcement agencies and UK Sport, and vice-versa.

Further discussions are to take place later this summer.

When Mr Sutcliffe was appointed Sports Minister by newly-installed Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week, he admitted that it was his dream job and greeted the news in time-honoured style by saying: "I am over the moon."

He continued: "It is the job I always wanted. It is totally unbelievable. I am shocked and I keep thinking I cannot believe it. If there was any job in Government I ever wanted, it was this - sports minister."

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