The sports minister is today expressing strong reservations about calls to allow football fans to stand on terraces at premier league soccer matches.

As MPs put forward plans for "safe standing areas", Richard Caborn has told ePolitix.com that he needs "a lot of convincing" that the tragic events seen at Hillsborough will not be repeated.

Caborn, who visited the Hillsborough stadium just days after 96 football fans were killed, says he has serious concern about a return to standing at premier league stadiums.

The Birmingham Labour MP Roger Godsiff has introduced a private member's bill to give local authorities and clubs the right to decide if they would like to have safe standing areas in grounds which are currently all-seater.

Whilst the minister says he would "never close the door" on a return to terraces, he has considerable unease about the plans.

"I had the experience, on the Sunday morning after the Hillsborough tragedy, when George Howarth, the member for Knowsley North and Sefton East called me and said would I go to Hillsborough with him because some of his constituents had been killed?"

"Now when you've gone through an experience like that I don't want to go through it again; it is something that'll never ever leave me.I'm therefore in a position as a minister to say that if I'm going to bring back standing on the terraces, I would need a lot of convincing that won't happen."

Caborn said his own personal experience suggested that football fans were "twice as safe in a seated area".

Despite claims that a return to standing could prove popular with fans, he says those calling for it have still to make a credible case.

"I say to those who want to go standing, I don't think you've proved the case yet, I'm prepared to listen to you but you have to bring better evidence than you've got to date," he said.

All-seater stadiums were introduced by the Thatcher government following the Taylor inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster.

Godsiff, whose bill is currently continuing through parliament, called on the minister to consider the fact that many other sporting and social events do not use seated venues.

"Every week tens of thousands of people in the UK stand to watch Nationwide league football matches, rugby union, rugby league and horse racing. Huge numbers of young people attend gigs and pop concerts. If, however, a premiership football club like Charlton Athletic want to provide a standing area for supporters to watch their games they are prevented from doing so. The Football Spectators Bill seeks to rectify this anomaly," he said.

"The bill does not seek a return to 'old style' terracing; it does not seek to allow unlimited access to a designated standing area; it does not seek to bring back the fencing in of spectators at football matches and, above all, the bill does not seek to devalue the memory of the 96 people who died at Hillsborough."