Football Governance Bill [HL]

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Committee (1st Day)

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee. Welsh legislative consent sought.

16:34

Clause 1: Purpose and overview

Amendment 1

Moved by

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out “the sustainability of”

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 2, 3 and 4, in the names of my noble friends Lord Hayward, Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude of Horsham. I look forward to hearing them introduce their amendments later.

I am very pleased to open this first day in Committee on the Football Governance Bill and thank all noble Lords for their evident interest in it. I repeat my thanks to the Minister for the time she has made available to me and my noble friend Lord Markham as well as to other noble Lords across the Committee. I also thank her for the letters she sent this morning following the Second Reading debate; they were greatly appreciated by all who spoke then.

It is fitting that we open this debate with perhaps the most fundamental of the issues under discussion: what will this Bill do, what are its guiding principles and what is its overarching purpose? The Bill states that it intends

“to protect and promote the sustainability of English football”.

The inclusion of the word “sustainability” in this initial purpose clause is a curious matter and the reason I tabled my Amendment 1. Why should English football be merely sustainable? Taken at face value, sustainability is a reasonable approach, and perhaps a reasonable one to take in this Bill. The Cambridge English Dictionary, which is far superior to dictionaries available from other universities, defines the word “sustainable” as being

“able to continue over a period of time”.

I would not argue against English football being able to continue long into the future—that is the reason that the Bill has been brought before your Lordships—but is that all we want from it? My Amendment 1 seeks to question and, I hope, to clarify what we are trying to achieve through the Bill. By removing the words, “the sustainability of”, from Clause 1, I am trying to highlight that the Bill should be aimed at protecting English football in toto.

As I set out at Second Reading, football has an incredibly long and rich history in this country. The Football Association was the first of its kind anywhere in the world, as was the English Football League. I spoke of the importance of heritage and how the distinct identities of each and every football club arouse the passions of so many people across the country and the globe. This strength of feeling and these passions are not best encapsulated by the limited notion of sustainability; they include something much more human and emotional, which we should have a go at capturing. Surely, through the Bill, we are also seeking to protect and promote these emotions and desires for the game.

I note that the provisions on home grounds and team colours seek to work to that effect, as do further amendments that my noble friend Lord Markham and I tabled, which we look forward to discussing later in Committee. However, if there are provisions relating to this in the Bill, why does the purpose clause at the very beginning—Clause 1—not address it? Sustainability is too limited a condition for success. If we leave it as it is, would we not condemn the regulator from the start to be inert? Would the regulator not be frozen in time and unable to look to the future and to the positive beneficial changes that could be made to the game? It is important that the regulator should have a forward-thinking attitude. It should not be merely content with the current state of football but constantly looking to drive the game forward. If it does not, this whole endeavour would be, at best, a wasted opportunity and, at worst, a failure.

That is why it is so vital to question what is meant by “sustainability” in the clause and seek to go beyond that limited and limiting definition, which risks putting the sport in a box or creating stasis. As my noble friends have pointed out through their amendments, which we will consider shortly, we could, rather than striking out words in the clause, supplement sustainability. My noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham, through his Amendments 4 and 4A, invites us to extend our focus to the success and growth of football. Those are two key goals and are important when we discuss the Bill and the game. No club would want to be frozen in time, never moving forward, eschewing new ventures or winning new glories. As has been pointed out by my noble friend Lady Brady, the many advantages of English football come from achieving the right balance between growth, competition and aspiration. Should we not look to place each of those concepts in the Bill or encapsulating them in its foundational principles? Those would give the regulator a clearer guiding path and ensure that it does not stray from the objectives that the Bill and this Parliament seek to set out.

One of the concepts that my noble friend Lord Maude mentions is growth; the Bill would stand to gain from its inclusion, focusing the regulator on moving the sport forward by growing the number of fans, the amount of revenue, the extent of viewership at home and around the world, and in other areas. I hope that this would entrench from the outset a forward-thinking vision, thereby preventing the independent football regulator from falling into the trap of other regulatory bodies, which have been blinkered in their outlook.

Like other noble Lords, I have been struck by the coverage we have seen this week from the all-party group that has looked at the work and conduct of the Financial Conduct Authority. Cross-party and cross-House concerns have been raised about the way in which the FCA has gone about its work. It is important, as we set up a new regulator, to give it clear instructions about what we want it to do and clear guard-rails about what we do not want it to do.

As I said at Second Reading, it is important that we get the Bill right. If we do not provide the regulator with the necessary tools from the outset, we would be setting it up merely to fail. That would have catastrophic consequences for the game and all those in this country who love it.

Football is, as well as a hugely enjoyed pastime, one of our largest and most popular industries. The Premier League makes up the largest share of the United Kingdom’s television exports, totalling £1.4 billion in 2019-20. Football is broadcast to over 1.5 billion people in 189 countries across the world. Through that export and shared enjoyment, it amplifies our values, spreads the best of British culture and generates hugely important economic growth for the whole nation. Football is undoubtedly a significant soft-power asset for the United Kingdom, and it is important to keep that in mind as we begin our detailed consideration of the Bill in Committee.

That is to say nothing of the millions of people who follow football here at home. To all those people in the United Kingdom and across the world, the ruination of English football would rip the heart out of communities across the length and breadth of the country. I am sure that Members of the Committee would not want that, and I hope that giving detailed thought to the purpose of the Bill and dwelling on its initial clause will be a way to lift our aspirations for it and seek a more important and meaningful goal than mere sustainability. I beg to move.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for the eloquent way in which he moved the amendment and started the important debate on this group. It is important that we take time to consider this properly, because the Bill, if enacted in this form, will create a state regulator with an ability to impose a levy to make exactions on the football clubs that make up the football leagues. It is important that the tone of the regulator is set from the beginning.

16:45

The Bill starts in Clause 1 by setting out the purpose, which is pretty important, so it is right that we should spend some time considering it properly and fully. My concern with the word “sustainability” here is that it is actually incredibly timid and unambitious as a purpose for making this unprecedented state intrusion into this successful recreational activity, which is, as my noble friend has said, at the same time an incredibly successful business that yields significant export revenue for the country and for our balance of payments.

My noble friend said he was concerned that if this remained the sole purpose of the regulator in the Bill, it might make the regulator inert. I would not quarrel with that, to be honest: I would want nothing better than for the regulator to be inert and willing to intervene only on the most extreme occasions. My fear with the Bill is that the regulator has pretty much unlimited power to expand its size. We heard at Second Reading how so many noble Lords were already canvassing extensions to the scope and mission of the regulator. Inertia is not to be sneered at in this context.

The truth is that football has proved itself extraordinarily sustainable and resilient. In the more than 30 years since the Premier League came into existence, which started an era of extraordinary growth and success for English football in the world, it has gone through the global financial crash and Covid, with footballers playing to empty stadiums across the country. It has then been through the energy crisis caused by the invasion of Ukraine, and football has not only survived but continued to flourish. Sustainability is a very unambitious target or purpose for something like English football, which has seen such spectacular growth and success. We should want at the very least to see growth and success imported into the purpose of the Bill, so that it may have a chance of encouraging the regulator to see that as its purpose as well.

Sustainability—inertia, you might call it—is timid and unambitious. Also, steady state does not exist any more. We are no longer in a world where any organisation tries to improve itself to get to the point where everything is going to be fine, and then simply potter along on the same basis. Whether it is an organisation, such as a football club, or a sector, everything is either getting better or getting worse. If it thinks it is staying the same, it is getting worse—certainly relative to its competitors. Its competitors in these circumstances are other leagues, particularly other leagues in Europe, which are equally ambitious to grow and to supplant the primary position of the English leagues at present.

There is no such thing as steady state—you are either going forwards or going backwards. The danger with the Bill as it is framed is that by aiming only to be sustainable, English football will go backwards, because it is built into the warp and weft of the Bill that the regulator will have the power to make financial exactions on the clubs. One of the clear aims is supposedly to enhance the distribution of goodies through the football pyramid, which is already very substantial, but the amount in the pot available ultimately to be redistributed by the regulator will be less by definition.

Later in the consideration of the Bill, we will need to go through in a lot of detail how the calculations are done in the impact assessment, because we suspect that the methodology employed is defective, certainly in respect of the costs of establishing and running the regulator, which will be recovered from the clubs through the levy, and the compliance costs. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that there was no consultation with clubs at any point in the pyramid about what the compliance costs for them would be in terms of the extra staff that they would have to take on and the extra burdens, which would reduce their current success. It would be very good for her to respond on that.

My concern is that if the aim is only to keep it as it is, the result, almost by definition, will be that the financial position of English football will be less good than it is at the moment. That is why it is important for your Lordships’ House to seek to import into the purpose of the Bill a more aggressive, forward-looking and success-orientated purpose than is currently there.

The kind of progress that has been seen and which is widely recognised, with the Premier League being the most successful league in Europe and the Championship being the sixth most successful, is never completely linear. There are spurts of success and there are setbacks, inevitably. Without occasional failures, there are no big successes. We all know that organisations learn more from the things that are tried but do not work than from those that are tried and do work. Of course, there have been setbacks; of course, there have been clubs that have gone into administration. Overwhelmingly, those clubs have come out of administration. Only three clubs have gone into liquidation, but all of them have been resurrected and are back in the football leagues and doing well. A number of the clubs that went into administration—which is generally, one hopes, only a temporary thing—have then risen from that rebirth into the Premier League, the top level of the pyramid.

There are bound to be setbacks. That does not mean that they are incompatible with sustainability or continued and, one hopes, renewed growth. It is odd that, when this Government constantly say that the most important thing is growth, they introduce a Bill to regulate one of our most successful industries and sectors and, in effect, say, “All we want to do is keep it going”. Where is the ambition? What of the employment that is created through football? It needs to be a lot more than sustainable.

This is an important set of amendments. It is important that we spend time working through what is involved—the tone and the colour that will be imported into this incredible success story for England. We must set out at the beginning, very clearly, that the purpose is not just to keep everything going as it is but to promote growth and success and to build on what we already have.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, before I start my comments in relation to my amendment and the others in this group, I want to thank the Minister for her kind comments at the end of Second Reading, when she said she hoped she would not need to call on my refereeing skills too often. I appreciated the thought, but when she made that comment she was probably unaware that, when I qualified as a rugby referee, the laws said that the decision of the referee was correct and final. Given that breadth of my ruling, I am quite willing to use it on any number of occasions.

At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, drew attention to our failures at national level, but, of course, this legislation relates specifically to the league clubs. In proposing amendments to the Bill in a number of places, I am not saying that everything that exists within the leagues is perfect—it is not; what I am asking in my amendments and in my probable support for others is whether this Bill needs substantial change.

I have tabled an amendment to insert “success”. I said at Second Reading that I was disappointed that there was no reference to success at any point within the Bill. My noble friend Lord Maude just referred to project creep. Clause 1 says that the purpose of the Bill is to

“promote the sustainability of English football”,

but the Explanatory Notes refer to

“the primary aim of ensuring the long-term sustainability and resilience”.

Somebody has immediately written in another element of what the regulator’s responsibility would be. There inevitably will be creep, and it is therefore important that we include some other terminology to which any regulator needs to operate.

The world of sport is changing and changing fast. We cannot, as the noble Lord, Lord Maude, said, work on the basis that one is going to have an English Football League and a Premier League, and that is fine, and it will achieve what it achieves now without any change. We see the NFL hosting matches in this country. Why is it doing that? It is because it wants to extend its footprint and income on a worldwide basis; it wants to challenge other sports. Equally, American college football has reorganised recently. If we look at tennis, cycling and every single major sport, we see that they are reorganising because they are trying to extend their footprints to a worldwide base. The IPL is a classic example of how a sport has been changed. I agree completely with what the noble Lord, Lord Maude, said about how, with the way this Bill is phrased, football will be surrounded in aspic, it will carry on, and we will protect everything; there will be no change. What will happen then is that other sports take over on a worldwide basis in terms of viewership, income, finance and therefore attention around the world.

My amendment would insert “success” in the first clause and in one or two other places. I looked at the impact assessment—I intend to return on a number of occasions to that, because to be blunt, it is not an impact assessment. As the noble Lord, Lord Maude, suggested, the figures are interesting; I would be generous to say that I think they are interesting. My understanding is that some of the clubs that were asked to give an indication as to the costs that would be involved said they did not know. I would like the Minister to indicate what detailed figures were identified by the clubs that were consulted.

17:00

I want to concentrate specifically on the impact assessment. It is a justification for the Bill. I did a word search on “success”: there are 11 occasions in the impact assessment where it is used. We might think that that is positive, but the first line of the first sentence starts “Despite the commercial success”. How negative can you get? The word is next used in a repetition of the same phrase on page 9, which starts “Despite the commercial success”. Those are the only two occasions in the impact assessment where the word could even be described as used in a vaguely positive manner.

On page 15 of the impact assessment, “success” is used as a derogatory term and on every other occasion. The third bullet point on page 15 includes:

“There are lots of examples of owners taking excessive financial risks to chase short-term success”.

That is the perspective of success that the Bill appears to be promoting, where the only possibility of success is in taking short-term risks. There are nine references to short-term risk in the in the impact assessment.

To put this into perspective, I did another word search in the impact assessment to find out how many times the word “Bury”, as in the town and the football club, was used. It is quite reasonable to refer to it, but with 11 references to success, nine of which are patently negative and the other two might be, “Bury” appears 17 times. In other words, one page in every four has a reference to Bury Football Club. That is why I say that the impact assessment is a justification for the Bill, because they do not set out to protect success. They instead refer to one of the major problems that the football industry has faced, and which has been tackled. But it is the repetition of one particular case that depresses me.

My noble friend Lord Maude has already identified “success”. If we are to have sustainability or resilience in terms of creep, words such as success should be included. Success can cover so many different fields; it could include, as my noble friend Lord Parkinson, identified, attendance, income growth, financial contribution to the economy and competitive success. There is a whole range of ways in which success should be taken into consideration in any piece of legislation.

We need to protect the business that is the Football League in all its different forms. We should be looking forward at how the football leagues can compete, not only with other football leagues but with other sports. If we do not, our football leagues will suffer and decline into irrelevance.

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend on the Front Bench, and those spoken to by my noble friends Lord Maude and Lord Hayward. I will also offer some expression of sympathy to the Government, because it is not altogether clear what the origins of this word “sustainability” may be. I suggest that they go back to the original so-called fan-led review produced by Tracey Crouch, which I have here and which noble Lords will have read. The Bill is drawn expressly from the so-called fan-led review.

I say in parenthesis that “fan-led review” seems a strange title for it, since Dame Tracey emphasises in the report that its conclusions are hers alone. Although I pay tribute to the work she did and the consultation she undertook, she received 20,000 responses and there are some 33 million football fans, but we will leave that for a moment.

I will read the very opening of Dame Tracey’s foreword as it sets the tone for the Bill as a whole and for an element that is missing from it. She wrote in her introduction:

“For those who say that English football is world leading at club level and there is no need to change I would argue that it is possible simultaneously to celebrate the current global success of the Premier League at the same time as having deep concerns about the fragility of the wider foundations of the game. It is both true that our game is genuinely world leading and that there is a real risk of widespread failures and a potential collapse of the pyramid as we know it”.


So Dame Tracey made two points. One was about the success of the game and the other its fragility and the potential failures, but the oddity of the way the Bill is presented—my noble friends all picked this up and elucidated it in their speeches—is that the first part of the Bill refers only to the fragility of the system by using this word “sustainability”. There is nothing about success in it. I suggest to Ministers and to noble Lords that some reference to success would be a better reflection of what was originally in Tracey Crouch’s report and the balance that she gave between the fragility and the success of the game—for the two, after all, may be bound up together.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing Second Reading. I feel like I am coming on at half-time into this debate, but sometimes if you come on at half-time you have a little bit more energy.

I want to address the sustainability issue, because it is fundamental to what we are trying to do. I am not sure whether any other Member of this House has been in the unenviable position I was in as a leader of a borough, when the local football club came to me and said, “We’re going to go bankrupt and go bust unless you financially support us”, which I had to do at Stockport. We offered all our support, and we did it for a reason. It is more than just a football club, as other speakers have said; they are part of the fabric of society and of communities. They are economic drivers for towns. Most of these football clubs were built in town centres. They kick off at 3 pm on a Saturday because men, predominantly, used to work Saturday morning and they would go to the football in the afternoon. As we watch global football now, we see football matches at 5.30 pm, 8 pm and 10 pm. No one cares about the supporters. When Newcastle played West Ham the other night, the last train home from Newcastle left before the final whistle.

There is a bigger picture at stake here about how you regulate and control football, so my opening comment is that the sustainability bit—the bit that says a football club must be able to sustain itself—must be core to what we are trying to do. On all this saying, “The Premier League will look after itself”, I wish people would not keep bringing the Premier League in as the golden egg. It is the Championship, League One, League Two and the non-league teams—that is your pyramid. That is part of the regulator’s job: to secure their sustainability.

I say to all Members when they go through the Bill —some things in it are quite laudable and supportable—that the aim is not to get into the situation we have got into before, where the six that were going to join the European league could have collapsed the pyramid. That needs to be stopped again. Owners buy a football club like somebody buys a yacht or a hotel. That has to be stopped, as does changing the colours a team plays in and changing the ethos of a club. That is regulation, but at the heart of it is sustainability. That needs to be woven into the Bill somewhere, if not on the face of it: sustainability absolutely must be included in the regulator’s remit.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, sustainability is an insufficient word to describe what the Bill should be trying to achieve. It is necessary but not sufficient. We need football to flourish, develop and innovate and the Bill should make that extremely clear. As I mentioned at Second Reading, I have been around a long time and remember when football was highly conservative. I remember when football bitterly resisted the notion of live broadcasting, which was completely and utterly to transform and create the modern game.

The regulator must not stop football developing, and that needs to be crystal clear in the Bill. Football needs to continue to innovate, as it has done over the last 30 years. The notion for the European super league was quite wrong and rightly kicked into touch, but there are other possibilities in the modern age for having European leagues based on merit and allowing the game to develop. Live-streaming games which are not broadcast live on a subscription service for fans would be a perfectly reasonable way to allow the game to develop. Let us ask the regulator not to stand in the way of the game continuing to improve as it has done so successfully over recent decades.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to make a few brief comments, not least because, as I have been here rather a long time, I know what is happening when speakers use the words “word search” and “dictionary definition”. It is not exactly intended to accelerate the passage of a Bill. I will be brief even if others, perhaps, were not. I remind Members opposite that this Bill came out of an inquiry from a Conservative former Sports Minister and was a Conservative piece of legislation introduced in the other House, so it is not exactly rushed. In terms of sustainability, there are a heck of a lot of clubs that would settle for any guarantee that they had a future and that the future was more secure for them.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I have great respect for the noble Baroness, but she just made reference to comments I made in relation to word search. I believed that doing the word search emphasised the point I was trying to make in relation to the amendment that I had tabled and the comments that other people had made as well.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

That is how the noble Lord saw it, and I will say it how I saw it. What I was going to say in relation to the last contribution was that, yes, we all want the football leagues—the Premier League and everybody—to flourish and be more successful, but football will be a success only if the whole pyramid can flourish and be sustainable.

I want to say a word about Amendment 10, which is just one practical suggestion that could be considered to help clubs manage their own financial stability. One of problems we have seen in football over recent years is a degree of optimism on the part of football management about what it can achieve by minimal investment. Amendment 10, which my noble friend Lord Bassam and I have tabled, suggests that regulated clubs under the Bill should meet a financial commitment to have resources for at least six months. Many businesses are under very similar obligations. Charities have to have some financial security, so it would be worth considering whether we should actually make that kind of obligation something that the regulator should look at because, unless we get the overall funding of football clubs more sustainable, the whole pyramid will not be sustainable.

17:15

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 3, and in so doing will cover a number of other amendments in the group. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that I see this as a Bill that is almost uniquely all-party. Both Front Benches are in favour of it. One introduced it in another place, albeit for another purpose; the Prime Minister at that time talked about dropping a legislative bomb in the path of a possible breakaway super league. It has morphed quite considerably since that time to take into account many other issues.

In a sense, it is a Bill of two parts, and they have not always completely aligned. On the one hand, there is the role of the regulator with regard to the financial success or otherwise of English football. We will come to what that means in a moment, because it is fairly important. On the other hand, there are the many recommendations that came out of the fan-led review. The noble Baroness and I have both been around a long time; it is about 40 years since I started in the other place, and I have rarely seen a Bill with 340 amendments tabled from all sides of the House before we got to Committee. That is because many Members of your Lordships’ House are interested in the fan-led review; equally there are those—I echo the words that she has just said—who are concerned indeed that a regulator should not diminish or damage the success of the football league on which the waterfall payments depend. The more successful that Premier League is, the better for football and the better for everything that we are looking at.

My noble friend in sport—dare I say that?—the noble Lord, Lord Mann, looked just a moment or two ago as if he felt that spending too much time on the Bill was nearly as depressing as three minutes before the end of the Swansea-Leeds game at the weekend, and some noble Lords opposite look as though that is how they feel. However, at the weekend he was awakened by a wonderful goal that led to a 4-3 victory by Leeds, which we both celebrated.

I want to focus first on the important issue of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, because it is important that we recognise and understand clearly what it stated. It said:

“The fundamental purpose of the Bill is to ‘protect and promote the sustainability of English football.’ … One must go through a series of definitions only to find that the Bill does not, after all, provide the definition of English football. Ultimately, the meaning of ‘English football’ depends on regulations to be made in due course by the Secretary of State—albeit by the affirmative procedure”.


The report stated:

“‘English football’ means ‘all regulated clubs and specified competitions, taken together’. A regulated club means a club that operates a relevant team. A relevant team means a team that is entered into, is a member of, or participates in a specified competition. A specified competition means a competition specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.


That means that the meaning of English football is deliberately left unclear on the face of the Bill that we are debating in this critical Committee. The answer will emerge only after the Bill is enacted, when the Secretary of State makes regulations to fill in the definitional gap left in the meaning of “specified competition”. As a result, the remit of the new regulator is presently unclear. The report goes on to conclude with a recommendation that

“the power of the Secretary of State in clause 2 to define ‘specified competitions’ should be removed from the Bill. Government policy is clear—that the top five leagues of the men’s professional game should be regulated. This policy should appear in primary legislation, not be relegated to secondary legislation”.

My noble friend who has just spoken from the Back Benches is also aware that, as we have discussed, there is a question of hybridity about the Bill. When the Minister comes to respond to this set of amendments, I would be grateful if she could say, first, what she intends to do to give clarity to the issue of English football and what it means in the context of this legislation and, secondly, answer the question on hybridity. Until we have answers to those two questions, we have a number of challenges. I think there is widespread agreement across both sides of this House that there should not be a whole series of major decisions left to secondary legislation. They should be in the Bill and we should be considering them in detail as we progress.

On the question of sustainability, which is key to this series of amendments and the first part of this legislation on the role of the regulator, I hope that Amendment 12 in the name of my noble friend Lord Maude commands widespread agreement across the House. It provides that football needs to continue

“to be globally competitive in relation to audience and quality … to attract significant domestic and foreign investment …. to grow economically in terms of commercial revenues, domestic and international broadcasting agreements, and asset and enterprise values”

and continue

“to produce industry-led agreements on the distribution of revenues”.

Capital will travel overseas if that is not the case. Fans will benefit from ensuring that they and their clubs see success in English football, and that success is driven by a successful Premier League.

We can debate at length how much money flows through to the rest of English football but, unquestionably, the more successful the Premier League is, the better for the fans and better for the clubs that should benefit from that. The regulator is appointed in part to opine on that relationship, so it is critically important that the regulator takes into account the success of the Premier League and of English football. Indeed, the Prime Minister is very much on that page as well. He has recently pledged to get rid of regulation: his view is that he would

“do everything in my power to galvanise growth including getting rid of regulation that needlessly holds back investment”.

So we need to explore in detail the powers of the regulator and what it is going to do—and immediately, that is a highly complex area of regulation.

The regulator that we are appointing here also has to work alongside the regulations put in place by the Premier League, the EFL, UEFA and FIFA. We have already seen what happened when UEFA came forward and said, “We don’t like one of the powers that you’re giving to the regulator”. The Government immediately said, “You’ve told us to jump—how high? We’ll remove that from the Bill”. We therefore have a highly complex tapestry of regulation and are adding significant further regulation to that. I am going to look, in further deliberations of this Committee, at how we align the work of the regulator to the UEFA financial fair play regulations.

The point that the Minister made in Committee was really about the number of Premier League clubs that have been in trouble over the years. She kindly referenced and name-checked my comment in her letter, which we have very much appreciated today. She said:

“The Noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referenced there having been ‘only seven liquidations since 1945’. For the fans and communities who bore the brunt of those failures, that is seven too many. There have also been over 60 instances of professional clubs entering administration since 1992”.


Yes, I agree that there have been seven liquidations since 1945 and seven too many, but that is nothing like the number of liquidations and insolvencies we see in society at any given time. The numbers for the country at large are substantially greater and football has been highly successful. Only last year, something like 25,158 companies went into liquidation in the country at large, with 2,827 of those being compulsory liquidations.

So I think that the success of English football has been underestimated by the Minister and by those have been compiling the arguments that, in some sense, we should not on the face of the Bill recognise the importance of growth, financial success and financial sustainability, which are at the core of the amendment that I have tabled.

With those initial comments, I will just add one other very important point for the consideration of the Committee. All the indications are that in France, which has far greater regulation, and in Germany, which has much greater regulation as well, there is no evidence that that regulation has forestalled the insolvency of some of the clubs made insolvent under those two regulatory bodies. On the contrary, it is not the regulation that stops insolvency after all. I am very happy to give way to the Minister on this. If there is a club that seems to be in financial trouble, what will the regulator do about it? At what stage will he or she intervene? At what stage will they therefore state whatever steps they feel should be taken at that point?

That is not on the face of the Bill because, no doubt, it is the Minister’s view that that should be left to regulation and it is up to the regulator. But the reality is that you appoint a regulator only if you really believe there is a serious problem and you know exactly what that regulator would do in any given circumstance. That has not been the case in either France or Germany, which are the two major case studies relevant to us at this stage. So I would echo the points that have been made. We need to make sure on face of the Bill that the regulator recognises that football should be as successful financially as possible, and that nothing the regulator does should inhibit the success and growth of the financial success of football. With those comments, I am supportive of both my noble friend Lord Maude’s amendment and, clearly, my own.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in Committee on the Bill, and obviously at Second Reading as well. I put on record my thanks to the Minister for her helpful and comprehensive letter today, which also referenced my reference to Woolworths. I think she might have misunderstood what I was saying, but we will let that pass.

I will focus specifically on Clause 1, which is the centre of this Bill: it is the cause, the purpose and the raison d’être of this Bill. As I mentioned at Second Reading, if you cannot adequately identify what the problem is that you are seeking to solve, you are very unlikely to reach an efficacious solution. This Bill—this Act, assuming it gets Royal Assent at some point—will be a living document. It will be the Government, the state, via a large regulator with unique powers, intervening in what hitherto has been a very successful commercial activity—perhaps one of the most successful commercial and business activities in the whole of our country, and certainly one that is globally very well regarded.

Therefore, it is incumbent on the Government to look seriously at the excellent amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Parkinson and to take on board some of the points raised by my noble friends Lord Maude, Lord Moynihan and Lord Hayward. The odd thing is that the Bill is drafted in such a way that it ignores some of the key points made in the impact assessment. The first page of the impact assessment contains a commitment to “improve financial sustainability”, which is in my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s amendment. However, in the Bill the wording is quite opaque and that wording does not appear.

Equally, focusing narrowly on Clause 1—which is the reason the Bill is coming to this House—I note that it seems odd that the local community is not defined in primary legislation. Ministers will say, “That’s because we need the leeway to bring forward subsequent secondary legislation and statutory instruments for unusual circumstances”. That is not an ignoble or unfair interpretation, but it is a difficult proposition to put to this Committee when we have to judge what is in front of us and not what might happen in the future in a very complex market model. So that omission is still problematic, which is why I repeat it from Second Reading. The other issue is that clubs’ fans are not defined definitively in the Bill, probably for the same reason.

17:30

I ask noble Lords to ponder two words. The first is “resilience”, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hayward. What does that actually mean in terms of the intervention into this market? The second is “local”. In the city I live in, Peterborough, many of the fans are not local: they live in Fenland, in the fen towns such as Chatteris, King’s Lynn, March and Wisbech. Are they local? They are not within the city area of Peterborough. The supply chain that supplies the procurement needs of Posh—Peterborough United Football Club—may be in London, Birmingham or Leicester. Is it local? It is just as much a stakeholder in the success of that football club as a community asset.

The point I am making to the Minister is that the wording of this clause is so loose and, dare I say, not well drafted that it will give rise to misunderstandings and potential litigation. On that basis, the Minister should take the opportunity, perhaps on Report, to come back with a much tighter wording in order for us to understand the Government’s aims and make sure that it is litigation-proof as we go forward, because we are creating an unprecedented regime.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am intrigued by the amendments from the Benches opposite because there is a degree of amnesia in some of this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, moves to strike out “sustainability” from Clause 1. I have a copy of the Bill that was introduced in another place at the beginning of the year. In Clause 1, “Purpose and overview”, it says:

“The purpose of this Act is to protect and promote the sustainability of English football”.


That is the same wording as is in the Bill before us. I say to noble Lords on the Benches opposite that this Clause 1 is exactly the same as the Clause 1 that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, would have brought to this House, had he still been the Minister and had the Conservative Party not lost the general election. So I am extremely puzzled by the approach of noble Lords opposite.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

Picking up that point, I think the noble Lord is trying to make it appear as if this is a partisan thing, but it is not. I would have tabled exactly the same amendments if this had been the previous Government’s Bill that he refers to. This is not a party-political matter at all; it is about a game that we are passionate about and that is a spectacular success. We do not want to see something done that damages it.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

The noble Lord has the benefit of supporting Horsham FC. I have the benefit of supporting Brighton and Hove Albion, and I am absolutely passionate about my football club, which is one of the best clubs in the Premier League. I would not be party to wishing to do anything that damages the Premier League, and neither would my colleagues on these Benches. We recognise, understand and appreciate that the Premier League is an institution that is more than worth supporting. It is the best in the world and we know that.

The other thing that noble Lords need to focus on in this debate is that when the noble Lords opposite were in government, they were very keen to have this legislation. A DCMS report published in September 2023 quoted the findings of a research paper that showed that there continues to be

“a widespread issue of clubs being run in unsustainable ways from a traditional financial analysis viewpoint”.

That was then the position of the party now in opposition, and I am hoping that it has the same range of concerns about our football finances now as it did back then, because it was quite clear that that was the primary motive for the legislation, and it is the primary motive for the legislation today. It is about its financial sustainability.

If a product or a good cannot be produced in a way that is sustainable, it will not be, as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, made a great song and dance about, successful. That is why my noble friend Lady Taylor and I have tabled our amendments in the first group—to focus on making sure that the Bill and the regulator that the Government are seeking to create promote the sustainability and success of our beautiful game. That is why we are here today; that is what we are arguing about and what we are so passionate about. It is for that very reason that we tabled our Amendment 10 to Clause 1.

I hope that the party opposite is not going to suffer from this collective amnesia for too long, but that it will get behind the Bill, get behind the purpose and objectives set out very clearly in that first clause—a clause that, in government, it amply supported and gave voice to. We need to get behind the Bill and make sure that it is sustainable for the future.

[Lord Mann (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in the Register of Lords’ Interests, as the elected chair of a football supporters’ group with 13,000 members. On Sunday, the weather advice was that nobody should travel in south Wales. I and 3,000 others did travel in south Wales. On Sunday afternoon, we travelled, not of our choice but because football fixtures are being changed to all sorts of obscure times. We went, and returned very late, very happily. That will not be the case at all fixtures if I wish to attend this House. In the new year, we have three fixtures that have been shifted to 8 pm on a Monday, and that does not quite balance with the sitting times of the House. I am just one fan, but there are many thousands who face that.

Imagine trying to get to Plymouth by 12.30 pm on a Sunday. That is what we had to do. It is not an easy way of life, and it is not just the bishops who are losing custom by this odd scheduling. It affects people’s ability. If there were to be an added word in here, it should be “enjoyment”—enjoyment of the game. Yesterday, one club, Manchester United, announced its new prices for this season. For a child, the minimum price is £66. That was my first away fixture, supporting Leeds United, aged five. I was lifted over the barriers—in for free—as I was at Leeds until the age of eight or nine, because that was how children were welcomed then. I did not pay to go in for the very many hundreds of matches I went to in that age span, and now it is £66. Well, it is a business.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who has good football taste, was none the less slightly awry with the example he gave in terms of liquidation, insolvency and the problems. If we take where I live—I will take Lincoln City and Notts County at random—both were about to disappear. The only reason they survived is that the supporters saved them. That is the difference between this industry and other industries. There are countless examples. If they were private sector businesses, they would have vanished.

In some cases, the fans could not do it. In 1987, as a Leeds United fan living in London with a few friends, I got a season ticket for a club called Wimbledon. It was a good choice; we got to the cup final with Wimbledon. I had a young daughter and I could not get to Leeds all the time, so a group of us went to Wimbledon in our spare time. If you are a fan of Wimbledon and your club wins the cup after coming from nowhere, you see what that does for the area and the fans, and people in south London. Then, a few years later, your club is extinguished, gone, shifted to Milton Keynes—vanished. The fans had the wherewithal to set it up again as AFC Wimbledon, and build from the bottom up, which is what they are having to do at Bury.

I almost thought that one or two noble Lords were suggesting that the state should not intervene in successful business, and I will end on this point. If we combine Scottish and English football, the most successful moment in terms of success on the pitch was around 1971. England had won the World Cup; Manchester United were the first English team to win the European Cup. Celtic had won the European Cup in 1967; Rangers were about to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup. We had the Cup Winners’ cup and the Fairs cup, and a whole succession of English teams about to take on the European Cup through the 1970s and dominate world football. It was the one moment when both Scottish and English football were at their height.

On the 2 January 1971, at a high moment, 66 people died at Ibrox football stadium. The state did very little intervening then. Then there was the fire at Bradford— I knew people who were there—when the state had not intervened sufficiently in the industry, and people died. Then there was Hillsborough, where people died. The state has intervened in the sport and the interventions, when they have been hard and focused, have been transformative. It was not the owners of the clubs who brought in the model of football with all-seater stadiums, revenue generation and corporate hospitality. I shall tell you the first club that did it. It was Glasgow Rangers. After 1971, their manager, Willie Waddell, went to see how others across the world did it. They rebuilt the stadium before anyone else did because of his experience of seeing people dying in front of him—that is state intervention.

In the balance between the fans, the state, the entrepreneurship and people’s ability to put in money—if anyone wants to put money into our club, we would be delighted because we are not trying to stop that—we want to see a slight tilt so that the fans are listened to. If we end up shifted to the bottom like the fans of Bury—I do not think we will, but you never know—the state should allow us to do something that they were not able to do; that is, for more to be done along the lines of what was done by the genius of those Wimbledon fans. It took them years to get back up. Wimbledon Football Club, having beaten Liverpool in the cup final in 1988, should have been able to survive seamlessly with their fans. That is the point of this regulation, and it is why I hope the Opposition Front Bench will be reluctant to further push this line of argument.

There are interesting issues that should be explored in getting that balance right. It will be legitimate to go into them and hold the Government to account, to question and even amend. Sustainability means that I, as a fan, will have my club in the future, whether it is badly or well run. That is what is critical about this legislation, and I commend the Government for bringing it forward.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the Committee to my interests, which are declared in the register. I want to give the noble Lord, Lord Mann, a bit of comfort in that had he been going to a Premier League away game, he would have paid only £30, because there has been a cap on the price of away tickets for the past five years.

17:45

I rise particularly to support Amendments 1, 4 and 4A. My concern with the word “sustainability” is that it means different things to different people. In the Premier League, what is sustainable for Southampton is very different from what is sustainable for Manchester City. In the EFL, what is sustainable for Stoke City is very different from what is sustainable for Carlisle. However, for rules to work, the same rules have to be applied to every club in the same league. Every Premier League club would have to abide by a common set of rules on sustainability, as would the EFL. Sustainability is not defined in this Bill; it is replaced with words such as “financial soundness” and “financial resilience”, as has been said. But both sustainability and resilience have no end state; you can always be a bit more sustainable or a bit more resilient, so it is not helpful that there is no definition.

This regulatory model has been inspired by banking regulation, with the imposition of tight controls on liquidity, cash flow and debt. Football has very few similarities to banking, where stability and safety necessarily trump all other concerns. In sport, you have to balance those concerns with the necessities of genuine sporting jeopardy, competitive tension, dynamism, ambition, risk-taking and aspiration. Those are fundamental to creating a competition people want to watch. If the sustainability lever is pulled too hard, or without sufficient co-ordination with the other regulators in the game, it is guaranteed to upset the competitive balance that drives the appeal and value of competitions.

That is why we need amendments to the Bill that would deliver a more co-operative model of regulation, with greater co-ordination between the leagues and the regulator, and stronger checks and balances to prevent overreach and overregulation. After banking regulation failed in the run-up to 2008, financial institutions were deemed too big to fail. The risk of this Bill is that it will make clubs too safe to succeed—every club might be guaranteed safety, but none will be allowed to dream. We all want regulation to protect clubs from crooks and bad owners, but we must not create a framework that protects established clubs from competition.

The debt in the Premier League currently stands at £2 billion, and I am told the debt in the EFL stands at around £400 million. This is a risky business; as the West Ham United anthem states, “Fortune’s always hiding”—I am pleased it was not hiding on Monday night in Newcastle. It is a risk trying to get promoted; it is a risk trying not to get relegated; it is a risk trying to get into the Champions League, and it is a risk trying to get into Europe and stay there. All football owners know these risks, and each one has a different way of managing, calculating, and understanding them. Some take on debt; some put in equity; some sell assets—their footballers—if the risk does not pay off, but they go again.

The problem with the idea of sustainability, which is undefined in this Bill, being the purpose of the regulator is that it can get in the way of ambition and aspiration, of calculated risk taking, and all the things that make the Premier League such an exciting and competitive league. Those are the reasons it is the best league in the world, and it is that competitiveness which drives the commercial broadcast values which are the revenues that underpin the entire football pyramid.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

I am told that EFL clubs are likely to lose around £450 million in this current football season, and I think the noble Baroness said something similar. The regulator in this Bill, which is focused primarily on financial sustainability, is surely a good thing for football regulation because it is trying to make sure that those clubs—yes, involved in the business of risk and jeopardy—are financially sustainable and have a duty to their communities, and that their activities do not risk the future of those clubs. The point of the legislation, from the previous Government and our Government, is to make sure those clubs can be sustained and not have undue financial risk.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord; he made his point very well. The Bill does not say “financial sustainability”. Sustainability is not defined. If you put sustainability above overall success, growth and the competitive nature of the game, you might have a safer league, but you will have one that no one wants to watch. You might, notionally, have a more sustainable ecosystem, but it will also be smaller, more boring and poorer. If sustainability is the number one aim of the regulator, can the Minister explain to us what she and the Government consider to be the definition of the “sustainability” of English football? Can she also explain why sustainability does not include supporting the sustainability of the success and growth of the Premier League?

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly as an impartial Cross-Bencher. In the interest of productivity, I am aware that we are still on the amendment to:

“Clause 1, page 1, line 4”—


although many of us are still discussing line 1. I will suggest a compromise. The word “sustainability” on its own is too undefined; I suggest that it should be “financial sustainability and success”—thereby combining Amendments 1, 2 and 3.

However, I do not agree with Amendment 4. On growth, I would go back to the banking sector. I know that football is a very different industry, but banking and the financial services in the noughties had the most phenomenal growth rates and we are still all picking up the tab as taxpayers. That was not financially sustainable. So my suggestion is that the words should be “financial sustainable” and “success”—those two together.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 1, 2, 3 and 4, because words matter. We have been debating the words “sustainable” and “sustainability”, but I will mention the word “unpredictable”—as was my team this weekend in trouncing Manchester City 4-0 away; a completely unpredictable result by all accounts. That is exactly what the Bill is trying to work against—if somewhat inadvertently.

Having spoken to many organisations in the professional game, I get a sense that the Bill is trying to establish a vision for the game that it does not need to. That vision needs to be left in the hands of this successful industry. That is why there is a general feeling that, when we are focusing on whether it is sustainable or on how much we are listening to fans, we are stepping in to an arena that we do not actually want to control and should leave to the people who have been so successful so far.

Many views have been expressed—including, with respect, those of the noble Lord, Lord Mann—on football’s past, but we should be cautious of looking back through rose-tinted spectacles at the history of our game. Yes, it is celebrated by fans, but the future is about innovation, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said. Whatever we say, the game will evolve—because of pressures from fans and commercial pressures. The European Super League did not succeed, but have we seen what UEFA has done with the Champions League? It has evolved again, with more games and more clubs. I am not sure that I completely understand the process it works in at the moment, but it has created a whole new league. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said, maybe the Church is losing some of its customers, but these leagues and clubs are gaining customers, eyeballs and commercial contracts that are only getting bigger. So something is succeeding and it will continue to succeed and drive the evolution of our game.

I say in conclusion that, as we go through the Bill and look at the regulator, can we say that the regulator does not drive the vision of football—leave that to the successful industry—but steps in if there is going to be significant failure? That is what a good regulator should do.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for withdrawing from the Second Reading debate at short notice because of an urgent personal matter, and also draw the attention of the Committee to my declaration. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mann, I have occasionally not paid for football tickets as a guest of the EFL and the Premier League, mainly in my former role as shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

It is right that we focus on definitions, and I should like to point out a couple of the amendments in this basket. We are saying that we want to protect the sustainability of football and are effectively or explicitly saying that football is so unsustainable that the state wants to intervene in a market to such an extent that we are going to create a new regulator—another regulator. I have been in politics for about 40 years and I have been in many debates where people often talk about the failure of regulators and regulation. If there is one lesson that I have learned from that, it is that the politics of regulation are this: you can always delegate power but you can never delegate responsibility.

What we are saying to 1.5 billion people on the planet is that we are so concerned that your weekly viewing of English football is so unsustainable that politicians, the ones who moved Clause 1 last year and the ones who are moving Clause 1 this year, are taking responsibility for your hopes, desires, heartache and disappointment every week when you watch English football. Well, in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, that is about the bravest and most courageous decision I have ever seen taken in either House of Parliament. Good luck with that.

My second point is this: I have been in another bit of the territory, trying to get the Secretary of State to define what she means by “football fan”. Whatever you think a football fan is, an English football fan—the ones I am thinking about today watch a lot of football, including the World Cup and European Championship —wants everyone in this House to guarantee that our national team will be able to play in every international competition.

The noble Lord, Lord Maude, has spoken to Amendment 6, which he has told the Minister is very helpful to the Government. On this occasion, I agree with him. This is explicitly saying to English football fans, “We will not allow our regulator to allow the rules of UEFA or FIFA to be breached such that there is a threat to England playing in future competitions”. We are not going to resolve this discussion today, but I guarantee that by the end of the passage of this Bill, this Parliament will have to say to 1.5 billion English football fans that we will guarantee that England can play in an international competition. I should be grateful if, in his summation, the Minister could reassure at least this English football fan that that will be the case at the end of this Bill.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 4, to which I have added my name. I must admit that I am slightly surprised that it seems controversial to want to make it clear in the legislation that the purpose of the Bill in setting up the new regulator is to ensure the continued success and growth of English football. That is exactly what the regulator, or part of the idea behind the regulator, is supposed to do. To achieve sustainability and resilience in the game, the regulator will need to preserve and encourage the conditions for growth and continued success. So, I do not quite understand the issues around having those objectives added to the Bill. As we have already heard, there is huge success that can be built on.

18:00

However, as I also highlighted at Second Reading, the measures in the Bill and the new approach should also be assessed against the words of the Prime Minister, who has been very clear that the key test for regulation is that it does not inhibit growth. Indeed, since Second Reading, the Government have gone even further and announced new growth-focused remits for a number of existing regulators. The Chancellor said in her recent Mansion House speech:

“The UK has been regulating for risk but not regulating for growth”.

I do not quite understand why, if this is the direction of travel that the Government are pursuing, they do not feel it is right to include growth in the purpose of the Bill, to make sure that it is a defining feature of the regulator. It seems to me that this is part of the Government’s drive, so I hope that the Minister might look favourably on this suggestion. If not, I just ask why, for this particular regulator, a specific growth duty is not relevant, yet they are applying it to numerous other existing regulators. I would be very grateful for that clarification.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I must admit that I am similarly scratching my head over how the debate seems to have gone into whether it needs to be one or the other—whether there is somehow a trade-off between sustainability and success. I am just surprised that success is not something that we would all want. I do not just mean success in terms of England playing in all the tournaments, which I hope we would all agree we want, and I do not just mean success in terms of taking on responsibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, says, for how well the teams do. We are talking about the success of the game in terms of the financial wherewithal.

I am a big believer that in life you want to maximise the size of the cake before you argue how you divide it. How do you maximise the size of the cake? Certain measures are vital to that. TV viewership is key—not just because of how much people enjoy watching the game, but that is what the media rights companies pay for. That is what is paying for the game, so why would we not want that as one of the criteria? I think the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, was absolutely correct. Why is there not room for both? Why, all of a sudden, as the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, said, has growth become something we do not want here? Surely we all want growth; the Government are saying, quite rightly, that they are all about growth. I could not agree more, so why would not we want a measure of success here in the objectives of the football regulator to have growth?

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Lord is saying, and as I have been chairing the Industry and Regulators Committee, I have heard a lot about growth. What worries me is that in one moment he and his colleagues are complaining that the regulator is going to be interfering too much, but in the next, we are hearing that the regulator should do more—it should be responsible for growth, for getting more fans and for getting more viewers. Is it more or is it less?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I am very glad the noble Baroness mentioned that. When you set the objectives of any organisation, you want to set out the balancing factors. If it is only sustainability, you can get into the lowest common denominator, because a regulator would have absolutely done its job, by the nature of what is set down, just by the survival of all the clubs. There is a very easy way to do that: just dole out all the Premier League money to all the clubs straight away. That would make them all sustainable, giving the money to all the clubs. I think we would all agree that that would be a pretty nonsensical way to do it, but that would achieve the objective. If you set only a single objective, it is very one-dimensional.

Why would you not want a regulator to take into account that the overall financial health of the game is dependent on the TV viewership? That is what drives the money. What drives the TV viewership? It is how competitive the games are—not just the top games but all the games through the league? As I mentioned at Second Reading, and as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, mentioned, we are people who have sold and bought media rights around the world. The reason why countries as far flung as Nigeria, Thailand and everywhere else will pay so much for the rights is that every game is competitive. There is a chance that Bournemouth will go out and beat Liverpool, so everyone cares about it. The Premier League does not have a God-given right to be successful. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said, many years ago, the Italian league was more successful. The difference today is that you do not have just two or three top teams, as you see in Germany, Spain and Italy. You have a whole host of teams which are all competitive in the league, so every game becomes interesting to watch.

My concern in all of this is if the only criterion set down is that of sustainability, it is so one-dimensional that the regulator could just decide to discharge its duties in that way. I hope it will not, but when it comes back to the scrutiny that we are all saying it should have, the regulator could sit here among us all and say, “Look, I have made all these clubs sustainable. Okay, too bad that the TV viewership has gone down and too bad that a load of the games are no longer competitive, so the TV rights money has gone down, but they are all sustainable, because I doled out all the money”. I do not think that is what any of us would want. I really do not understand why this should be. This is not a political point; I really do not understand the objective at all. I am literally scratching my head as to why there should be a problem with that.

That is why in our later amendments we try to put in other criteria of success. Those are designed to be the ones that are all about maximising the size of the financial pie, by making sure that TV viewership and attendance are high. People forget in all of this—

[Lord Mann (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Would he like to comment on the Premier League vote of last week? Some clubs, led by Manchester City, wanted to grow the amount of money coming into football by allowing different forms of sponsorship, which were designed purely and precisely to put more money into certain clubs—for example, Manchester City, which is obviously why it is in favour. That would obviously be growing the amount of money going into the game, as the noble Lord said. Is that an issue that the regulator should be deciding or, on his argument, that the clubs should be deciding?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I definitely do not want the regulator to be involved in every nook and cranny, but when the regulator is sitting here in front of us and we are assessing whether or not it has done a good job, to me, the only criterion is not whether all the clubs are still out there in existence. That is a pretty limiting move. Why would we want to narrow ourselves down to that measure? I do not understand why any noble Lord would not want an objective to be that TV viewership goes up or that media sports rights money goes up. I will sit down to give noble Lords a chance.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, asks: would we want a matter such as that to be decided by the regulator or the clubs? Well, the clubs made the right decision. The decision was: “We want the Premier League to remain very competitive to prevent those who have access to, in effect, unlimited funds being able to stack the odds in their favour”. The clubs made a decision that this would not become a less competitive league than it currently is.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his point. I would totally include in that measure of success, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, says, enjoyment. That is absolutely part of it, because it is the enjoyment which means that people will pay a lot of money for their TV subscriptions, but it is all about the financial health of the game.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, I know that in terms of Clause 10 and the funds for six months, the amendment is well intentioned and sounds quite reasonable. However, I have been speaking to a different Premier League chair—I am sure that we have all been speaking to club chairmen—and from one of those clubs that is very respectable. They are afraid of having to lock a lot of money into escrow for their sustainability. They said that all that this will stop them doing is investing in their team and their players. They look at their club as a balance sheet, with assets and liabilities. If the worst came to worst, they would look to sell one of their players, because they are assets. That is what businesses do; it is what clubs do. You do not need to say, “You’ve got to lock six months’ worth of money in there, £30 million, so you can’t afford a striker”. It is, “If you want to buy that striker, take the risk,” as my noble friend would say.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

Would the noble Lord agree that many other businesses have constraints on the kind of reserves that they have to have and that charities certainly have constraints on the reserves that they have to have? One of the difficulties, when many clubs go under or are on the verge of going under, is that there is a category of football creditors who have special access to any money that might be there, so lots of local businesses, as well as many fans, get really hit if things go wrong. Even discussing this seems to be alien to him. I am not saying that the wording of that amendment is perfect, but it is an area that is worthy of consideration if we are going to improve the future of clubs throughout the pyramid going forward.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The point that I was trying to make is that I absolutely agree that the noble Baroness’s amendment is well intended in terms of sustainability. I am worried that, as we all get back to the mission creep point and try to resolve all these things, we get into the law of unintended consequences. I know from speaking to a club chairman that if you put that money aside in that way, all you will do is deter their ability to invest in players. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, if we want to make ourselves unpopular in all this, it is by starting to do things that stop clubs buying players and investing. We think that VAR is unpopular today. Suddenly, you make all the clubs put £30 million to £40 million in escrow and they cannot buy those players. That would be a very brave decision for a Minister.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

Following up on my noble friend’s point, looking at the finances of some clubs, you do wonder. Would the noble Lord, who has been in business himself, tolerate a situation where he only had five hours’ worth of reserves? Nottingham Forest last year spent something like £58 million on wages but had just £25,000 in cash reserves. I know that this is not uncommon across the world of football, but is that a highly desirable state of affairs? Is that not something that we should focus on? Is it not why we want good financial sustainable regulation? That is why we have got to this point where both sides of the Chamber have accepted the need to have a football regulator.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord may be looking down the wrong end of the telescope. It is not that they have got only £25,000 in cash. You have to look at the whole balance sheet. The fact that they have a load of players who are worth a lot of money, who they could sell, means that they are fine financially. There are loads of companies out there today in positions of net debt. Most FTSE 100 companies have debt as a vital part of their balance sheet. You would be saying to them, “Oh, you haven’t got much money in your account, you’re in a net debt position”, when the value, when you look at all the assets too, means that it is in the FTSE 100 and is a very successful company. That is an example of why the whole area of us as politicians trying to get involved in setting criteria worries me. We will put things forward that are well intended but have unintended consequences. We will come on to this in later debates on the Bill.

I will finish. I hope that noble Lords understand that the reason why we have gone over time is that we have had a good discussion. It has been helpful in terms of the questions that have been asked. I would be pleased if the Minister could say why we would not want those measures of success as part of the criteria.

18:15

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

The simplistic argument is, “Well, I can just sell a player”. Actually, you cannot just sell a player. We have a one-month window in January and the end of the season. If it is mid-October and that happens, you cannot sell a player. What do you do then? That is the point. You cannot run a football club on a shoestring because it makes them competitive. That is not the name of the game. The noble Lord’s argument seems to be that if we give them all the money, they will not try their hardest anymore. That is fanciful; it is not true. Football clubs need to be sustainable. They need to be able to pay their way. I could not buy a car if I could not afford the deposit. I could not buy a Rolls-Royce tomorrow saying, “I’ll give you the deposit, but I don’t have it with me today, so give me the car and, when I do quite well, I’ll give you the money”. That is not how life works. Football is a business like every other business. The noble Lord seems to want it to run in a way that is foreign to every principle of business.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Speaking as a former chief financial officer of a FTSE 250 company, I would say that, in those examples, if you found yourself in a situation where you could not sell a player until the next window, that would be very poor financial management by the CFO, who would probably get sacked pretty darn quick if they led their cash flow into those sorts of situations. In extremis, if you needed to do that, the bank would lend the money against that because there are assets on the balance sheet that they can borrow against. Every FTSE 100 company is set up in that way. They meet their cash requirements by looking at their assets and raising debt where they need to against them.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord has sat down. I just want to make a few comments on some of the points that have emerged in a very interesting debate. The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Maude, talk about success—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

Is it an intervention?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

It is not.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)]

My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House for the noble Lord, Lord Markham, to make it clear now whether he has not completed his remarks, in which case it would be appropriate for the noble Lord to wait a moment, or if he has sat down.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

We have had a good debate. When the Minister replies, can she explain why it is not felt appropriate to have these measures of success to get the overall financial wealth of the game? I will now sit down.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thought that the noble Lord had indicated that he had finished. On success, which the two noble Lords that I mentioned talked about, the whole question seems to me to be totally subjective. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said, what is success for one club is not success for another. I suggest that for at least half the clubs in the Premier League, success is not being relegated rather than winning anything.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

Just to clarify, I said that what sustainability is for one club is different from what it is for another, not success.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

That is interesting. Someone in the debate said that we should have financial sustainability and success. I think that in this setting the two, if not interchangeable, mean very similar things.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and others, talked about the competitiveness and the jeopardy. As you can hear, although I am an AFC Wimbledon season ticket holder, I do not come from south London. When I lived in Scotland, my club was Dundee United. They were Scottish champions in 1983. Next season, Aberdeen were Scottish champions. There has been no team but Rangers or Celtic as Scottish champions in the 40 years since. That is a low bar, perhaps, but in fact only two clubs have won the Premier League more than twice in the 32 years of its existence. It is all very well to talk, as the noble Lord, Lord Markham, did, about Bournemouth beating Manchester City. Yes, it is always possible, but a club such as Bournemouth could never aspire to winning the Premier League. Only a very small number of clubs could realistically—

[A noble Lord]

Leicester City.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I am going to come on to that in a minute. Only two clubs have won the Championship more than twice. Three clubs have won it once. If you ask people how many times Liverpool has won the Premier League they will probably say four or five. No, it has won it once, the same as Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers. Of course there is jeopardy; many clubs can be very competitive within a game, but winning the league is something different.

I know that noble Lords have talked about selling television rights and said that it is a very attractive league across the world, and I accept that. However, we have to tone it down a bit on the competitiveness of the Premier League, because there are not really all that many clubs that can aspire to become its champions. That is not to disparage it, but it is just a fact of the past 32 years.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Will the noble Lord accept that since 2000 the four major leagues in Europe—Spain, Italy, Germany and England—have effectively produced the same number of different champions in each case, either six or seven?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Yes, I can accept those figures. I accept the noble Lord’s general premise, although I am not sure about Spain. I do not think that more than two clubs have won La Liga; actually, the two Madrid clubs and Barcelona have won it.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, talked about comparing England with France and Germany. I am not sure that is a fair comparison because in Germany the clubs are fan- owned. No club can have more than 49% ownership—51% is owned by the members of those clubs. There is not a direct comparison there. Yet Germany has been disproportionately successful in European competitions over that same period.

I want to move on to something else that my noble friend Lord Mann talked about— the opposition of many on the Opposition Benches. Unless I misinterpreted my namesake, my noble friend Lord Watson seemed to say that he was not in favour of the regulator having the powers that the Bill suggests. On the question of the role of the state, I thought that my noble friend Lord Mann was going to say that the Taylor report, which followed the terrible events of Hillsborough, was driven by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Quite right—I do not think anybody would object to that. There are cases where state intervention is appropriate and the only answer. If it had just been decided that we would hope all clubs produced all-seater stadiums for safety reasons, we would still be waiting for some of them.

That is one of the issues that we will probably come to later. The other one is the question of who is a fan. It is not for today, but it is very important to define what a fan is. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, talked about Peterborough and how Posh fans are spread right across the fen-lands and beyond. If you are defining a fan, it really has to be a season ticket holder, because otherwise you cannot pin them down. Manchester United and all the big clubs have fans across the world. You could not possibly consult them. I am sensitive that noble Lords will not necessarily agree with that. What about somebody who cannot afford a season ticket or who is not physically able to go to a match? I accept that, so we have to try to pin that down, and it will be one of the most difficult aspects of the Bill, because if we are going to take the views of fans into account, we have to have a means of corralling them and then taking those opinions. At this stage, I do not see how we can do that beyond season tickets.

My noble friend Lady Taylor talked about the sustainability and the success of English football, not just the Premier League but right down the system. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, talked of Stockport County. They sunk right down to level 6 in the National League North after going through some very traumatic periods, but have been able to come back up to level 3. My noble friend Lord Mann talked about AFC Wimbledon; in nine years they came from, basically, parks football to being back in in the Football League. It is natural that we tend to concentrate on the Premier League, but there has to be some understanding that the clubs below them are important. I am being opportunistic, but the Labour Government have talked about fixing the foundations. In any sense, when you look to go forward, you must have strong foundations. The foundations of English football are right down at the grass roots. I am not talking about the amateur level.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

The noble Lord references Amendment 10 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. Will that amendment not potentially embed in primary legislation an economic concept of moral hazard? It is an economic term: a situation where a party has an incentive to take risks because it does not have to bear the full costs of those risks. That is going to be on the face of the Bill for the new regime, and will be directed by the new regulator. Is that not the case?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

We will have to see how that comes out in debate. I am not quite sure what the import of that amendment is. That is one of the issues about the role of the regulator. Noble Lords, particularly on the other side of the Chamber, are seeking to give him or her greater powers or influence than intended in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said at one point that we do not need a regulator because nothing is wrong. There is something wrong, because the Premier League and the English Football League have been unable to reach agreement on the disbursement of the funds from the top level to levels below. That is one of the problems in the system at the moment.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

There is a deal in place agreed by all parties on how funds are distributed; 16% or £1.6 billion is distributed. It is also important to note that the Premier League has more title winners in the last 15 seasons than La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A, and the fewest number of titles won by one club than any other top European league over the same period, which shows it is competitive. That is why it is the best league in the world and the most valuable, and that is what we have to protect, because without that broadcast revenue the whole pyramid suffers.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I know the noble Baroness has experience with one of the major Premier League clubs but, in a sense, she has made my argument for me. The other leagues are less competitive, but I am just saying that if only four clubs can win the championship twice in 32 years, it is not spread very wide, and I would like to see it spread more widely, as many other people would—no doubt including those at her own club.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I think the noble Lord misunderstands what I meant by competitive. It is not just which teams can win the Premier League overall and, as the noble Baroness showed, more teams can win here than anywhere else. It is the competitiveness of every single game, because the value is that you have so many games that people all around the world want to pay to watch, so they are interested in watching all the games. Brentford might not win the league, but they know they are going to be competitive against Man City and Liverpool and Arsenal, and they are the games that people want to watch. When we talk about competitiveness, it means that every single game is competitive and that is what the viewership wants to see, and drives the value up of the rights.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

That point was made earlier. I would not say every game is competitive, but I take the noble Lord’s point. I do not want to say any more at this stage because it is important that we get some clarity on how we go forward after this initial debate, because there are many important sections of the Bill that we need to look at in detail. The regulator will have a role, and we have to use this to make sure that it is absolutely clear. Some of the issues raised by noble Lords are legitimate, and until we can have our debates on each of these, we cannot quite see what shape this Bill and the role of the regulator will have. I thank noble Lords for the points made, and I think there are a lot of issues that we will follow up.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, if we do not get up to Amendment 36, we have a big job ahead of us, so I am going to be very brief.

Take the BBC. The director-general, the chair and the board really try to work hard to meet its objectives. It is there to entertain, to inform, to educate—and those objectives live in the same organisation. I do not know why, in the same way, the regulator cannot see its job as one of sustainability and success as well as growth.

18:30

I used to support Manchester United, but when they sacked one of their managers I left. When I was in York, I decided to attend York City. It was a very disappointing club, but I wanted it to be successful; I wanted sustainability to be paramount and I wanted it to grow. They always remind you how they beat Manchester United in the FA Cup, but that was a long time ago.

People ask questions, but I would have thought that those three words, without putting finance before sustainability, could live together. The regulator has to ask “Is this sustainable? Is it successful? Will people work hard and succeed? Will it grow?” The little clubs all have aspirations to get into the Premier League and win the FA Cup. That is what drives them. So, please, we should not just look at the Premier League. Yes, it is important, yes, it is great, but the little clubs do not just want to be sustained—they want to grow, to be successful. So I cannot see why these three words cannot live together without qualification.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, when trying to sum up these several hours of debate, I felt at times that we were dancing on the head of a pin. Sustainability —what actually does it mean? What do the Government think it means? That is the one question I would give to the Minister. Does it mean sustaining a successful Premier League? Well, I would hope so. Is sustainability making sure—remember, this Bill encapsulates it—that those five tiers of professional football are functioning? That is what is in this Bill—five tiers of professional football. That is what has allowed the resurrection of teams which got it wrong—there was somewhere to go.

Making sure that that is sustainable means that the fans want something. I hope I never cross the noble Lord, Lord Mann, on this subject because there was a great deal of fire in the belly there; my noble friend Lord Goddard might have got close at times, but I think we will give the noble Lord that one on points. The fans want something and are hugely emotionally and physically invested in this structure. That is what is behind the Bill. Football is not another business; it is not even another sports business. It is not—and may all that is holy be thanked—WWE. It is not something that we will throw away; it is embedded in the identity of much of our society. I say that as a rugby player. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, is my friend—I will say yes to him and “sir” when he is refereeing, but only then.

So it is that that comes through. The question here is about the word “sustainability”. What do the Government envisage it is? Let us get it out here now. Where will this be backed up? Where will it be shown so that we can know what is going on? Pepper v Hart is clearly not enough here. If we can get that, we can move on, but we must remember that we do not want the Premier League to be damaged, because it provides the money for the other good things to happen. That is the balance we must achieve—or at least get close to.

We cannot guarantee that it will be the best league in the world for ever. Will there be government intervention to make sure that it is successful? That would be a strange position for many noble Lords who have spoken.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

The point is that the government regulator should not make it less successful by over- regulating, mission creep and making it so difficult to keep it competitive that it ends up having a detrimental effect.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, we come back to semantics, definition and interpretation. How do you interpret success? Is it by lack of regulation or by intervention? I do not think FIFA and UEFA would be terribly happy if it was felt that it was possible for a regulator to interpret success.

I hope that the Minister, who will have better access to this information than anybody else here—at least, I really hope she will—will be able to say what sustainability is, where does it go and what is the Government’s vision? That is what has happened here.

The Bill is about keeping five tiers of professional football functioning, with an escape route when it goes wrong, if we want to be terribly mercenary, for the top clubs. It gives a chance to rebuild and come back. That is difficult—Leeds have done it briefly; the noble Lord, Lord Mann, is smiling at me—but that is what is behind the Bill. It is not just about the Premier League, it is about the whole thing. I hope that the Minister will be able to correct—or rather, clarify—these points.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a long but I think helpful debate, particularly towards the end when the more conversational changes that Committee allows exposed some fundamental differences, if not in party politics then in political philosophy and outlook. It is very valuable that we start our scrutiny of the Bill by reminding ourselves of the differing views and hopes of not just your Lordships in Committee but the many fans whose hopes ride on the job that the regulator is being asked to do and the way in which it is being asked to do it. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, said that it felt at times like matters of semantics, but it is important to make sure that the words in the Bill are carefully chosen and that the Government’s intentions behind each of those words are properly probed. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about the Government’s intentions for the regulator and the way it will and will not carry out its duties.

I do not want to dwell too long on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton; I do not want to be accused of playing for time, as they do in football. However, I want to reassure her of the spirit in which those of us on these Benches are scrutinising this important Bill. As she said, and as my noble friend Lord Moynihan and others said, the Bill has enjoyed cross-party gestation and support. I made that very clear in my comments at Second Reading. It arises from the fan-led review led by the former Conservative MP, Dame Tracey Crouch, which was introduced to another place in the last Parliament. It has been changed by the new Government, as is their right, and we want to make sure that when it gets to the statute book it does so in the right shape and form. My noble friend Lord Moynihan noted that there are 340 amendments already tabled, and more than 100 of them are in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I think it is a strength of this House that we will look at each amendment and give it the airing it needs, and that we scrutinise the Bill and read the Bill documents as carefully as my noble friend Lord Hayward has done. I know that your Lordships will not demur from that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, set out clearly and powerfully the case for her Amendment 10, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, particularly in the exchanges with my noble friend Lord Markham. I hope that that helped bring some clarity, both to the argument the noble Baroness was advancing and counterarguments from across the House. The exchange on her amendment chimed with our concern that “sustainability” is too imprecise or insufficient a term to stand on its own. She gave a practical and useful example of the way in which the Bill might expand on how we guarantee the sustainability of football and football clubs. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was seeking a cure for amnesia, understandably. I never had the pleasure of being the Bill Minister for this Bill, but he will remember from our many exchanges when I sat on the other side of the House that I was looking forward to the Bill coming to your Lordships’ House. He will also remember that, as a Minister, I had the pleasure of taking a number of Bills through and faced keen scrutiny from him and other Members on the Opposition Front Bench, carrying out, as was their right, the Opposition’s duty to scrutinise government legislation. I hope that he remembers, as he does not suffer from amnesia, that I was always open to ways of improving Bills, including those I took through as a Minister. If he thinks I am being too careful or conscientious in my scrutiny, it is only because I learned from the best.

This is important because, as my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham said, the Bill brings about an unprecedented intrusion by the state into a sport and an industry that is a resounding success story. My noble friend extolled the benefits of inertia, and I agree. We want the regulator to be carefully constrained, but we want it to be respected and able to fulfil its duties with authority. That is why it is important that we make sure it is not backward looking, nor that it seeks simply to preserve football as it is today in aspic, but can demonstrate to football clubs and to fans around the world that it shares their aspirations for the future of the game.

My noble friend also struck an almost Schumpeterian note by reminding us that sustainability, particularly in this complex ecology of the football pyramid, has sometimes been delivered through new clubs, new tournaments and new successes emerging from the ashes of previous failures, so sustainability can be delivered in ways that may feel turbulent as we go through them. I thought that was a useful point. We want to ensure that we avoid the unwitting or avoidable failures, such as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, so powerfully set out in the example he gave, and to make sure that the clubs that matter so much to their communities are protected—they are not, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, like just any other business; they have a social purpose, which we have already well considered—but it is the nature of sport that there are winners and losers. We also have to bear that in mind as we look at the regulator and the way it will carry out its work.

We could probably save ourselves a lot of time if we heeded my noble friend Lord Hayward’s referee’s whistle and just accepted his rulings on everything. I am glad that he had gone through the impact assessment so carefully. I agree that there should be more references to success than to Bury, for instance, in the impact assessment and some of the accompanying documents.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, was right to warn about the inadvertent danger of sending the message that a sport loved by 1.5 billion people around the world is not sustainable without a new law, a new regulator or the intervention of politicians. My noble friend Lady Brady pointed out in both her speech and her interventions that sustainability can mean different things to different people and that, as something with no end state, it is very difficult to define. I think that is why we have given it so much attention in our debate on this first group.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, was very helpful in saying that sustainability is a necessary but not sufficient term. My amendment would strike out the words, not because I disagree with them but because I do not think they are enough. The way he put it was right: the regulator must not stop football developing.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, made a powerful case for adding the word enjoyment. I enjoyed not only the way he did it but also his powerful reminder of the necessity of government and state intervention in the past in football, particularly in relation to the disasters and terrible incidents that he rightly reminded us of, which we want to avoid happening again.

I was struck by the compromise from the Cross Benches from the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, and his suggestion of “financial sustainability and success”. I wonder whether the Minister will set out her thoughts on that, as well as on the point that my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park made about growth. This is something, after all, that chimes with the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the work of the Government more broadly. We want to ensure that the regulator is a growth-focused one that helps the growth not just of the game but of our economy.

This has been a long debate, but in debates on the Online Safety Act, which I had the pleasure of taking through your Lordships’ House, we spent a lot of time talking about having a declaration of purpose at the beginning of the Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, pressed me hard on it from the Opposition Benches. I remind your Lordships that we made that change and put it in the Bill because I thought it was important for the regulator to be given a clear message from Parliament and in legislation about what its role should be and how it should do it. I was glad to make that change.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, reminded us in his analogy with the BBC of the Reithian principles, which we also inserted into the Media Act—again a Bill that I took through. I was happy to amend it to make sure that that Act also reflected important statements of intent and ways of working. So I make no apology for having invited the Committee to spend some time thinking carefully, as we embark on our scrutiny of the Bill, about the role of the regulator and the message that we send through the Act of Parliament that we pass about the way it should do it.

18:45

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for raising the amendments in this group. This discussion has arguably gone into extra time, although I am assured that we have not got to the point of a penalty shoot-out—although that might be one way to arrive at a conclusion, given that I no longer intend to take up the refereeing option from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, having heard very clearly what he said.

It is clear that the enthusiasm for talking about football demonstrated at Second Reading remains strong. I am not surprised, however, given the time we have spent on this group, that my noble friend Lord Watson of Wyre Forest appears to have contributed on the next group. I will respond to his points then.

Before I get into the substance of the amendments we have discussed this afternoon, I want to make a general point that was made succinctly by my noble friend Lord Bassam: it is clear that the party opposite has very unfortunately caught an element of collective amnesia. It appears to have forgotten that it was a Conservative Party that was in government and brought forward a very similar Bill just a few months ago—a point made elegantly by my noble friend Lady Taylor. All serious parties—I include the Conservatives in that—had a commitment to introducing an independent football regulator as part of their manifesto.

Notwithstanding the length of the debate, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, made an interesting point about growth that has not been substantially covered by the notes I have. I would welcome further discussion on this point with her and am happy to meet to discuss it further.

Taking each amendment in turn, unfortunately, I have to disagree with the principle of Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and of Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham. The fan-led review, led by Dame Tracey Crouch, laid bare the facts of English football today. The review is the justification for the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked for, and the basis of the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, asked for when he asked what problem we were trying to address. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for highlighting Dame Tracey Crouch’s point that the game is both a success and fragile at the same time—a point reflected, in my view, in the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Ranger.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Mann, gave other examples of where the state has intervened in football. Although, as a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said, it is undoubtedly hugely successful in many ways and has grown substantially since the formation of the Premier League in 1992, and our football is a global export that we should be proud of, the game’s financial model is broken. Too many clubs are in financial distress, fans are not being listened to, and just a few years ago top clubs attempted to break away from the Premier League to join a European super league. That move undermined the very principles of football in this country. The Bill is designed to combat these issues, identified by the previous Government.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for Amendment 3 and for his contribution to this debate, not least for highlighting the cross-party support for an independent football regulator. In response to his point on hybridity, I think we will come on to this in a later group, but this is a matter for the examiners, not the Government. I am happy to discuss this and others points in the debate on the relevant group, which I believe is the eighth group. We will potentially come to that at some point in the near future.

Unfortunately, the Government do not agree with the intent of Amendment 3 to narrow the purpose of the entire Bill specifically to financial sustainability. The purpose of the Bill is sustainability, as already defined in Clause 1. I highlight to noble Lords that they will find the Government’s definition if they turn from page 1 to page 2 of the Bill. I hope this answers the query from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the Government’s intent in this regard. It is about a continuation of service—to continue to serve the interests of fans and contribute to the well-being of the local communities that regulated clubs serve.

I listened with interest to the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and all noble Lords will recognise her passion and expertise. I welcomed the passionate description from the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, of what the Bill is about. It is about those fans and the communities. Of course, financial sustainability is an important part of this. If a club suffers financial collapse, it cannot continue to serve its fans and community. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that this is exactly the same as any other financial club, a point echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

However, there is more to it than this. If a club’s balance sheet remains healthy but it ups sticks, moves 60 miles away and changes its name, badge and shirt colours, that is not a continuation of service either. Clause 6 sets out the regulator’s objectives, breaking down the overarching purpose of the Bill into its component parts. That is where noble Lords will see the club financial soundness and systemic financial resilience objectives, alongside the heritage objectives. That is the right place for them, and we believe this structure appropriately conveys the regulator’s aims and priorities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, asked whether all clubs in a league would have to adhere to the same rules. The regulator will be proportionate and adaptive in its approach, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach that requires all clubs, regardless of their level, to adhere to the same approach.

Moving to other amendments, I thank my noble friends Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lord Bassam of Brighton for Amendments 10, 53 and 63, which raise interesting points about how much funding is required by individual clubs in the pyramid. On Amendment 10, the Government understand that the intent is to explicitly define sustainability in Clause 1 as the ability for a club to meet its financial commitments for at least the next six months.

This amendment would also effectively seek to alter the purpose of the Bill by adding to the definition of sustainability in relation to English football as a whole. As I have already stated, we believe that sustainability is already appropriately defined in Clause 1. I have no doubt that my noble friends’ intention was to define the financial soundness of a club as per the regulator’s objective in Clause 6. However, here we do not believe that it is necessarily appropriate to define general financial soundness in this way. We believe that there are circumstances in which the ability to meet financial commitments for six months may be an appropriate measure, but it is a blunt one and may not also and will not also be the case.

It will be for the regulator to set out exactly what it considers constitutes financial soundness. We think this is the right approach. However, the Explanatory Notes to Clause 6 clarify that:

“‘Financial soundness’ is a measure of a club’s expected ability to continue meeting its liabilities and debts in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances … This will involve an assessment of a wide range of factors and circumstances relating to a club’s long-term financial sustainability and resilience”.


I hope my noble friends are reassured as to the benefits of this approach.

The Government also recognise the good intent behind Amendment 53, which is to clarify that the regulator should be concerned with the financial resilience and sustainability of English football. I hope I can reassure my noble friend that, in our view, the desired intent is already achieved by the wording of the regulator’s objectives in Clause 6, and the purpose of the Bill in Clause 1.

Care was taken in the exact choice of the wording. “Financial resilience” feels appropriate in relation to the wider football system, as an established concept regarding the ability of the system to withstand shocks. “Financial soundness” feels more appropriate when referring to individual clubs, as an established concept regarding the financial health of organisations. “Sustainability” feels appropriate when referring to the overarching purpose of the Bill to ensure a continuation of service. To repeat “sustainability” in this objective could risk confusing these concepts and how they interact. I again point all noble Lords to the Explanatory Notes, which provide more detail on these various objectives and, I hope, provide some reassurance on the points raised.

Amendment 63 seeks to ensure that the financial position or soundness of regulated clubs is not diminished relative to other, non-regulated clubs. In line with its objectives, this regulator will be tasked with protecting and promoting the financial soundness of regulated clubs. Therefore, I hope my noble friends will agree that it is not necessary to place this additional requirement on it to not adversely affect financial soundness.

Amendments 4A, 7A and 62 are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, and Amendments 2, 209, 226 and 231 are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. In response to the surprise from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, that this is included, I understand the desire to ensure that the success of English football is protected and would like to be explicit that we believe this is achieved in the Bill already. As previously stated, the Bill is largely the same, not least in the part we have been discussing this evening so far, as that published by the previous Government, in which the noble Lord served.

As part of its secondary duties, the regulator must have regard to avoiding impacts on important outcomes in football. This extends to domestic sporting competition, the competitiveness of our clubs against international clubs, and investment into football. Actively pursuing these outcomes will remain the responsibility of the industry rather than the regulator, but the regulator will avoid unduly harming them while it strives for sustainability.

On Amendments 2, 4A and 7A specifically, if, as part of the purpose of the Bill, the regulator were required to protect the success as well as the sustainability of English football, it would not be afforded the flexibility needed to solve the clear and present issues within football currently. As someone who at Second Reading admitted to supporting Oxford United—who, sadly, lost their most recent games—I feel that success would be a hard ask of any regulator.

Similarly, my noble friend Lord Mann mentioned enjoyment. I know that most noble Lords will appreciate that sometimes that enjoyment can be quite painful as well.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

It is more like suffering.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Yes, suffering—all noble Lords will suffer for their football clubs as well, at times.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I think the Minister did not quite understand. She was talking about success in terms of success of teams. The point about success that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and I were trying to make was about TV viewership, which drives the media rights value. I have not seen that anywhere else in the Bill, and I would be grateful if the Minister could say where it is addressed.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I might have been being flippant, so I apologise to the Committee. After the length of time we have been discussing this, I came up with some flippant remarks. That was not to undermine the noble Lord’s point.

Much of the success of English football has come from investment, and we do not believe the Bill will in any way deter this. Nor do we believe that the regulator will detract from the noble Lord’s point about what might be measures of success. Indeed, a stable, more certain regulatory environment is likely, in the Government’s view, to attract investors with a more long-term, prudent approach to stewarding and growing these community assets.

These amendments would require the regulator to bring into scope anything that relates to the growth of English football. This would include things such as broadcasting revenues—which the noble Lord referred to—transfer fees and sponsorship deals, alongside many other areas. Not only would this dramatically widen the scope but the regulator would be required to become actively involved in these areas, potentially causing unintentional harms when looking to advance these worthy objectives. I am sure noble Lords will agree that this is not a space we necessarily want to have the regulator interfering in.

19:00

The noble Lord, Lord Maude, asked about the development of the impact assessment. I want to reassure him that, in the development of the impact assessment, the department consulted with clubs across the leagues to understand the cost implications of the new rules. We also consulted with the leagues themselves. Our methodology for costs was in line with Treasury Green Book guidance, and we will continue to consult with the clubs and the leagues concerned.

Amendment 62, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maude, would constitute a strengthening of a duty. We think the Bill already appropriately conveys the regulator’s priorities and provides a check and balance on when and how it should intervene. While we absolutely need to ensure the continued success of our leagues, we equally do not want a regulator that is too scared to act as necessary to deliver the sustainability of our clubs.

Finally—and it is “finally”, I think, although there are several pages on this—I turn to Amendments 209, 226 and 231 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. I found his contribution extremely interesting. The prohibited competitions duty is an essential part of the Bill. The European Super League posed an existential threat to open and competitive football across Europe and threatened the heritage of English football. I can assure the noble Lord that the regulator would not prohibit a competition unless there were very good reasons for doing so, as outlined in the Bill currently. If one club is outperforming another by virtue of the fact it has qualified for a higher rank of competition and is reaping the rewards of this, financially and competitively, the regulator would not act to stop this.

We believe the addition of “success”, as per Amendment 209, to this clause would not serve any purpose, other than potentially confusing an aspect of the legislation, given that the word “success” itself is not clearly defined. As I have already mentioned, this would widen the scope—which a number of noble Lords have asked us not to do—requiring the regulator to become actively involved in further areas to ensure success. This could lead to a much more interventionist regime, and, in our view, would. I am therefore confident that the criteria in the Bill for prohibited competitions are sufficient.

Amendments 226 and 231 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, focus on the sale or use of a home ground as collateral, or a home ground relocation. For these, the regulator would be expected to consider the impact of a proposed sale or relocation on the financial sustainability of the club, through the lens of its general duties. These amendments may risk a more short-termist approach to sustainability by inadvertently pushing the regulator to look at short-term success over the long-term successes of the club. I hope the noble Lord is persuaded that this is not an approach we want to risk. For these reasons, and for the reasons I set out in relation to this and other amendments in this group, I hope noble Lords will withdraw or not press their amendments.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

May I just seek clarification? She has covered a very wide-ranging debate as quickly and reasonably as possible, and I have no criticism of the manner in which she has done that. The key debate has been around the word “sustainability”. I think that, earlier in her reply, she said that it was defined at some point. The powers to operate are in Clause 1 and there is no definition in Clause 2. If she has given clarification at some point, I will check it in Hansard, but I am seeking clarification as to whether there is, within the Bill, “sustainability”. For that purpose, the powers identified in Clause 1 do not define it, and looking under key definitions in Clause 2, it does not appear to be there, either.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I draw the noble Lord’s attention, and other noble Lords’ attention, to the first line on page 2. Even if it does not have the word “definition”, it is quite clearly a definition. It says:

“For the purposes of this section, English football is sustainable if it … continues to serve the interests of fans of regulated clubs, and … continues to contribute to the economic or social well-being of the local communities with which regulated clubs are associated”.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for her remarks and I agree with my noble friend Lord Hayward that she has covered a wide-ranging debate very reasonably. It was useful to get some of the thinking in the Government’s mind behind the way that Clause 1 is set out, and she was right to draw attention, as she did at the end, to the way Clause 2 tries to expand on this. As she knows, we have amendments down to look at that a bit further.

I am sorry that she repeated the points about amnesia. The reason I rose again to speak at some length before her concluding remarks was to reiterate the cross-party gestation that the Bill has had and the interest that is there. She mentioned that her notes gave her little to say on the points that my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park raised about growth. After a debate of this length, there was time to get a few additional notes, so I hope she might be able to write to my noble friend and the rest of the Committee on that. But I am grateful for what she said. I will go back through the official record and look at the points that noble Lords have raised in relation to Clause 1. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

Amendments 2 to 4A not moved.

Amendment 5

Moved by

[Lord Moynihan]

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 5, at end insert “within the rules laid down by FIFA, UEFA and the International Olympic Committee, relating to the autonomy of sport from government influence and control.”

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 5 and 24 standing in my name. In the spirit of cross-party support for this Bill, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, for moving my amendment so eloquently. Should the Minister be in complete agreement with him, I think we could curtail this debate immediately and place the wording on the face of the Bill, since what I was looking for was exactly what he sought—namely, to insert

“within the rules laid down by UEFA, FIFA and the International Olympic Committee, relating to the autonomy of sport from government influence and control”.

Since there surely can be nobody who does not want to see us continue to play in UEFA competitions and the World Cup, to make that clear on the face of the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, spoke to, is important.

Why is this being raised? It is being raised because UEFA has already—before we even got to Committee—raised specific concerns about the Government’s proposal to establish an independent football regulator, emphasising potential government interference in football governance. UEFA made four key objections, as I understand it. I have not had sight of the letter, but perhaps the Minister could confirm that in her response. First, it talked about the autonomy of football governance. UEFA insists that football should be self-regulated without external government influence. As I understand it, in the letter from the UEFA general secretary, Theodore Theodoridis, he stated that there should be

“no government interference in the running of football”.

The second point that he made was about the impact on UEFA competitions. UEFA warned that government interference could lead to the exclusion of English federations and clubs from European competitions, including the Champions League and the European Championships. This concern was highlighted in communications to UK officials, where UEFA emphasised the risks associated with the proposed regulator’s powers.

The third concern that UEFA expressed was on the regulatory powers and the competitive balance, which was referred to in earlier debates this afternoon. UEFA, as I understand it, is apprehensive about the proposed regulator’s backstop powers, which we will come to at a later stage of the Committee’s proceedings. Those are powers to intervene in funding discussions between the Premier League and the English Football League. UEFA argues that such intervention could disrupt the competitive balance and hinder amicable solutions within the football ecosystem. This is interesting; the point was made earlier about the comparison between the German system and the system that we have here. The reason I made that comparison was that Germany has possibly got the most regulated football in Europe in terms of what they call the Sonderweg, which translates as the “special unique past”. It is based on financial regulation and measures, including the 50-plus-one rule.

The point I was making was that the insolvency levels and the financial position of clubs within Germany and the UK are broadly similar, so it is not the regulation that impacts on that. UEFA has therefore concluded, comfortably within its own rules, that Germany, under its regulation, satisfies UEFA’s criteria. However, it raised a fourth point about licensing and club ownership. The proposed regulator would have had the authority to implement a licensing system for clubs and influence club ownership decisions based on the UK’s trade and foreign policy. That was the specific point withdrawn—removed—from the original Bill, and UEFA made it clear that it feared this could lead to fragmented governance across Europe and undermine the independence of football clubs.

These concerns that UEFA has brought forward are very serious. They would have a significant impact on our ability to play in the Champions League and the European Championship—indeed, if we apply the same logic to FIFA, in the World Cup as well. The preservation of the autonomy of football governance is therefore incredibly important. I hope we all agree that in introducing a football regulator nothing should jeopardise the autonomy of football governance and that we are within the rules and regulations set out by UEFA, which are comprehensive, as well as within FIFA’s. There should be nothing that could allow a regulator to overreach that boundary and thus disrupt the sport’s established structure.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

I agree that we want to see our clubs competing at the highest level, and the national team as well. Earlier, the noble Lord said that the level of regulation in France, and indeed in Germany, was much tougher than anything that we are going to have in the Bill. But those countries have not got into difficulties, given the regulation that they have, so I do not really see why we should either.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My point was that that is not the case. I do not want to go back into our debate on the first group, but the financial stability in the English system is no different. It is very similar to the financial stability in both the French and German systems. The levels of insolvency are, broadly speaking, the same. It is therefore not the level of regulation that is creating financial stability. If it was, the argument that we needed more regulation to create financial stability would hold water, but in practice it does not.

My point on this set of amendments is simply that if we all agree on this legislation and the role of the regulator, which is not comprehensively defined in the Bill, despite its length—the Minister has said, rightly, that we do not know the details of how the regulator will use its powers in any given situation—the one thing we can be sure about is that we do not want that regulator ever to use its powers in contravention of the UEFA and FIFA guidelines, by which we would have admission to play in European competitions and the World Cup. Should that be the case, there should be no difficulty in placing in the Bill that the whole operation of the regulator should be

“within the rules laid down by FIFA, UEFA and the International Olympic Committee, relating to the autonomy of sport from government influence and control”.

I added the International Olympic Committee because the same principles of autonomy apply, albeit that the British Olympic Association does not enter a men’s football team at present. It certainly enters a women’s football team and would wish to continue to do so. The Bill would enable, by secondary legislation if necessary, the Government to include the women’s game within the scope of this Act, as it would then be. I am thus also looking to have protection of

“the autonomy of sport from government influence and control”

in the Bill for the International Olympic Committee. For those reasons, I put these two amendments before the House. I beg to move Amendment 5.

19:15

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Moynihan for the way in which he has introduced and moved his Amendment 5. My Amendment 6, which also carries the name of my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park, has a similar effect. It would deal with the consequences if the Bill is not amended in a way that protects against those consequences. It is another way of getting at the same point—the same danger, risk and jeopardy that English football is potentially in if this is not dealt with at a very early stage.

On this business of English football having its own autonomy and not being subject to influence or control by government, we know that there are countries where football is an important activity and where national teams take part in international competitions. But in some of those countries, the boundary between where the state ends and the Government begins is sometimes unclear. It may be contended that in these circumstances, given the undoubted influence and control over English football that will come if the Bill is enacted in its current form, there will be state intervention, for sure. Is that the Government? It will be contended that this is an independent regulator.

None the less, it is a regulator appointed by Ministers in the Government. Its powers will be defined in secondary legislation drafted by the Government and if there is mission creep and scope creep, which some of us fear is almost inevitable, that will come about because of government decisions. This is a real issue; it is not scare- mongering. UEFA has written on these concerns, so when it is argued that this cannot really matter because Germany has regulated football, the fact is that that has been done in a way that prevents those concerns.

UEFA, which matters for these purposes, is not content at this stage that this jeopardy does not exist, so it has to be dealt with. The sooner that the Minister can give us some comfort that she understands how serious this is and the political danger the Government would be in if they—by lack of proper care and attention to these risks—allowed this malign effect to come about. It is very important to indicate at the earliest possible stage, which is really tonight, in this debate, that a provision which deals with this risk will be incorporated into the Bill by way of government amendment. I think that would be a great comfort to all of us.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My understanding of the exchange of correspondence was that UEFA’s primary concern was that the scope of the legislation in the Bill may go beyond financial concerns. It was entirely happy with the regulator being concerned about the finances of football, and rightly so. I do not quite see the fear that lies behind this set of amendments. Although the noble Lord is right that we need early clarification, the regulator’s purposes are clear: they are about ensuring sustainability and success, and all the rest of it, of our brilliant game. I think UEFA was just seeking clarification that it was tightly constrained around the notion of football finances.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I am a bit of a Brighton supporter myself. Tottenham is my first love; Horsham is my second; Brighton comes a very close third. I hope the letter from UEFA will be published so that we can see in exact detail what is said and therefore satisfy ourselves that the concerns will be dealt with comprehensively and finally so that there is no lingering anxiety.

I totally understand the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I wish I could be as happy as he is that there is no risk of subsequent mission creep, which is exactly the concern that UEFA raised. Some of us have raised that, in the Bill as currently drafted, there is scope for precisely the kind of mission and scope creep that UEFA seems to have identified. That is why it is so important at this stage that it should be dealt with and for it to be finally laid to rest that this concern need not be a concern.

My noble friend Lord Goodman spoke about the political risk for the Government if they come to be the people who have enacted a Bill which inflicts savage damage on English people’s expectations that their clubs will be able to participate in the Champions League, the Europa League and even the Europa Conference League, which West Ham so spectacularly won. It has to be dealt with quickly, cleanly and effectively, so that we no longer need to have sleepless nights over this.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome this group as a point of clarification and reassurance, as has been asked for. I would expect the Minister to accept this, because she has been at great pains to stress that this is intended—I do not doubt her good faith—as light-touch regulation motivated by the best of intentions. But I think that there is a real problem with this Bill that could potentially destroy football, so I want that worry at least to be taken seriously.

The examples given by the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude, were in relation to UEFA and FIFA and what damage could be done. I understand that, but I think this is a point of principle. It is really important that the Government state at this point that they believe that the Bill is not to be used as a vehicle for government interference in football. That is what they agree with, so why not put it in the Bill?

Should I just be having a moment of paranoid delusions? I spent as much time reading the amendments last night as noble Lords spent on the first group, possibly longer—i.e. it took me a long time. They are, in many instances, the vehicle for what can be described only as a wide range of political hobby-horses for people who believe that this Bill and the regulator should be asked to do things that are extraordinarily contentious, political and have absolutely nothing to do with football. The fact that they are deemed in scope of the discussion on this Bill is nerve-wracking. Consequently, this group seeks—very importantly—to state as a matter of principle that the Government should not interfere in the autonomy and independence of football in England and Wales, and English football particularly.

I want to stress, and I said it at Second Reading, that this not just because of any technical matter; it is because football came from and remains at its heart a grass-roots part of civil society. The last thing it needs is an overbearing political hand that will try to shape it into the image of the particular Government of the day. The particular Government of the day might be one that the Government trust; it might be one that many football fans trust, but imagine if it was not? We do not want the political fashions of the day to dominate football—to destroy football. I think the Minister will agree and therefore accept these amendments willingly, because it will reassure us that we are not all being paranoid about it. It will reassure football fans that the Government are doing it in their best interests rather than trying to use football as a hobby-horse to push a particular political agenda.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I want to ask the Minister to follow up on something she said in her wind-up speech at Second Reading. She said that, that week,

“the Minister for Sport had a productive discussion with UEFA and they committed to continuing to work together”.—[Official Report, 13/11/24; col. 1908.]

Obviously, it was just a reference, but I wonder whether she might be in a position to give more detail about that conversation, whether some issues raised in the letter have now been dealt with, and what continuing conversations might entail. As she mentioned it quite briefly at Second Reading, it would be great to get a bit more information if she can provide it to us. If she cannot do it now, could she perhaps write to all noble Lords to give us the latest on the discussions that have been ongoing?

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendments from my noble friends Lord Moynihan, Lord Maude and Lady Evans of Bowes Park. The important thing we are missing is the sweeping enabling powers in the Bill; I think there are 42 powers and a number of Henry VIII powers.

The Prime Minister said on 17 September in response to UEFA:

“I don’t think there’s any problem with the rules, because this is a truly independent regulator. But as you’d expect, we’re talking to UEFA, and I’m sure we’ll find a way through this”.


I reiterate the view of my noble friend Lady Evans and ask for an update from the Minister.

I am not sure if the Prime Minister has actually read the Bill. If he did, he would surely concede that particularly in Clause 11, “Football governance statement”, there are very wide-ranging powers. For instance, Clause 11(3) states:

“The Secretary of State may revise any football governance statement”,


while Clause 11(1) states:

“The Secretary of State may prepare a statement”.


In paragraph 28 of the Explanatory Notes, there are significant powers that are open to future interpretation in a court of law. This is an unprecedented situation, but the notes state that

“guidance is intended to aid the IFR in interpreting the intention of legislation and to inform the detailed development and implementation of its regime. IFR guidance to the industry should give clubs greater information about the specific requirements of the regime, including how the IFR will operate and what is expected of clubs”.

With the best will in the world, that is a very pervasive, far-reaching, enabling power for the Secretary of State and Ministers in the department to exercise. If I can beg the forgiveness of noble Lords, I am slightly sceptical. I am not quite taking the side of FIFA and UEFA, but I have some empathy with the concerns they have about mission creep and a movement from financial issues into the minutiae and technical, granular operation of different football clubs. That is why my noble friends and I are raising this issue. I hope and expect the Minister to address those concerns.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I have been in this House for 10 years this year. For eight of those years, I was on committees for secondary legislation and primary legislation. It is a little bit rich for the Conservatives to start complaining about Henry VIII powers, when I spent most almost 10 years trying to stop Ministers from across the previous Government taking Henry VIII powers at every single opportunity. I think people need to put this into perspective.

I hear what the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude, are saying. I believe they are saying it with the right intentions and from the heart. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, has opened the tin a little bit by saying that the conversation going on between the Government and UEFA is about finances but not about this.

So is there an element of sabre rattling? I do not know, but we on these Benches would like clarification from the Minister—this can be clarified quickly—on whether any of these three amendments are true, can be true or can be dealt with in the Bill. If they can, we can put this to bed quickly, but, if they cannot, there is some mileage in considering the alternatives, which are the last things that anybody wants. I do not want Stockport County not to be able to play in the Champions League in 30 years because of an oversight in this Committee one night.

Finally, can we end this love-in with Brighton & Hove Albion? You beat Manchester City once; you did not win the World Cup.

19:30

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, made a point about Clause 11. I have read it and I have also read the previous Clause 11. As far as I can see, they are absolutely identical. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, can help us, because he would have been in the DCMS at the time. Was it the case then that Ministers sought assurances from UEFA and FIFA that there was nothing in the Bill’s powers that would have offended them? If that is the case, and if Clause 11 is so important in the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, this argument is probably a bit of a non-argument in the end, because we have had that clarification and assurance through the exchange of letters that took place in September this year.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I think this is important. The last two contributions have just reminded me. I do not care what was in the previous Government’s Bill, which, to be honest, I would have stood up and argued against at that time as well.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

I entirely accept that the noble Baroness would have done that, but I was more concerned about the argument coming from the Official Opposition.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I agree, but I was going to appeal to us myself to try to tackle the Bill—which is so important in many ways—with at least a little of the spirit of what is in the best interests of football, rather than what is in the best interests of the political footballs of political parties. That is just an appeal—it might not work—because Henry VIII powers, for example, are anti-democratic and illiberal whoever uses them. I do not therefore want not to be able to criticise them in case somebody thinks that I am on the side of the Tories or that I am anti-Labour. That is not the point, surely.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I will briefly respond to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I take on board the Maude doctrine, which is that, had we had the opportunity to have scrutiny and oversight of the Bill at the appropriate moment, I would have made exactly the same points to my own Government when they were in power. So, with all due respect to the noble Lord, he is flogging a dead horse by keeping on saying that this was a Tory Bill. We are today considering a Labour government Bill on its merits and its efficacy, which is why we are debating it.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 6. I clarify for the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that there is no state regulator in France or Germany—all the regulation there is football-led—so this is something completely different.

I will raise with the Minister the alarming letter that UEFA sent the Secretary of State. In it, the warnings are spelled out very clearly, as are the concerns about “governance interference” in football. It points out that it has very “specific rules” that guard against state interference in order to

“guarantee the autonomy of sport and fairness of sporting competition”.

It states:

“If every country established its own regulator with similarly broad powers, this could lead to a fragmented, inefficient and inconsistent approach to football governance across the continent and in essence hinder the ability of UEFA and other bodies to maintain cohesive and effective governance standards across Europe”.


It goes on to say that

“it is imperative to protect and preserve the independence of the FA in accordance with UEFA and FIFA statutes”.

It warns against anything that could compromise

“the FA’s autonomy as the primary regulator of football in England”

or the ability of domestic leagues to set

“their own season-to-season financial sustainability rules”.

As the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, it gives stark warnings about the backstop power and licensing. UEFA expresses significant concerns about the backstop and stresses the importance of preserving collaboration and voluntary agreements in football governance, while cautioning against overreliance on regulatory backstop powers that could disrupt the sport’s balance and stability.

It says that the backstop threatens

“the balance of power within football governance”

and that

“mandating redistribution which affects the competitive balance in the game and wider European competition would be of concern to us”

and would

“prevent amicable solutions being found”.

UEFA says that the backstop in the current Bill should be “carefully reconsidered”.

However, despite those warnings from UEFA, the Government have made the backstop even wider and broader in scope, to now include parachute payments, which are fundamental to competitive balance. They have removed the incentives for a football-led deal, which goes specifically against the advice of UEFA. So it appears that the Government have ignored that letter and its warnings. UEFA spells out that

“the ultimate sanction would be excluding the federation from UEFA and teams from competition”.

No matter how small the Minister may say the risk is, the inclusion of this amendment will help to ensure that the IFR does not act in a way that enables such unintended consequences for football fans. That would be a huge relief.

We should be careful not to empower this regulator without fully addressing the concerns of the international governing bodies in advance. If we create even a small but ever-present risk of intervention in the future, that could put the Government, the regulator and our competitions in an invidious position down the track, especially in circumstances where the interests of English football may not align with UEFA or FIFA—for example, in the event of future disagreements on the football calendar. I therefore urge the Minister to give assurances that every single issue raised in the letter has now been dealt with to UEFA’s satisfaction, including its concerns on financial distributions and independence from government. This leverage, once granted, cannot be taken back.

It is imperative that nothing in the Bill gives the regulator powers to interfere with the rules that already govern football—which, by the way, is one of the most governed and regulated industries around. We have to comply with FIFA rules, UEFA rules, Football Association rules, Premier League rules and EFL rules—and now we have the IFR rules. We will be tied up in more red tape than a company applying for a post-Brexit import licence.

So will the Minister ask the Secretary of State to allow a full copy of the letter she received from UEFA to be put in the House of Lords Library and the Commons Library for every single Peer and MP to be able to see it, read it and be aware of its nature and tone and of the consequences it spells out, so that every Peer in this House can take that into account when they consider why this amendment is so important and so necessary?

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, I continue to be humbled by the gentle kindness and grace with which Members of this House help relatively new Members understand the list of amendments in Committee on Bills. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for helping to steer me back on course. To reciprocate the kindness, I say that I enthusiastically support his amendment and that of the noble Lord, Lord Maude.

I apologise to my noble friend the Minister for adding to her confusion. She withheld comfort on that first debate in relation to the clarity I was seeking on whether English football teams and England will be able to play in European and international competitions at the end of the Bill. I say to her that now is the time: she can end my confusion, give the clarity that this Committee deserves and end the ambiguity by saying that England and English football clubs will be playing in international tournaments, because these important amendments are trying to get that reassurance to every football fan in England tonight.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

I agree that that reassurance is essential, but the only way to get it is not through publishing the letter but through knowing that UEFA and FIFA have agreed that we would be compliant.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

On that point, I think that is the only way. We all agree that this would be such a big risk. I looked it up before the debate, because this is not just the equivalent of us scoring an own goal, it is like a hat-trick of own goals, so I looked at whether there has ever been an example of a hat-trick of own goals. I found out that the most own goals ever scored in a match was 149. We may go close even to that. There is a real point here, and it was very well made by my noble friend Lady Brady, but I really want to unpack it.

What we are talking about here is a lot more than what the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was saying about the pure financial sustainability of clubs. The concern of UEFA is:

“A Member Association may … be suspended if state authorities interfere … in such a significant way that … it may no longer be considered as fully responsible”.


The Premier League has thought very carefully about how it wants to bring in such things as parachute payments in order to, as we were talking about before, have competitiveness right the way through the game. It is to encourage those clubs—again, I have spoken to clubs about this—to invest, even though they might be in the bottom half of the table, because if they get relegated, they have that safety net. Without that safety net of parachute payments, they would not invest, so they would not be competitive.

What we are talking about here is that if we start to alter those parachute payments and the regulator starts to get involved in that, that is fundamentally altering the competitiveness of the game, so interfering in a way that I feel that UEFA, given the comments it is making, is absolutely going to say that we are overstepping the mark. To my mind, the only way to overcome that, while it is helpful to have these amendments, would be to have a meeting with UEFA—I know meetings have been had—and having a letter from UEFA clearing it, saying that this is something it is happy with and that it will not cut across it. If we do not do that, there will be a fundamental danger of what I think all of us would agree would be the biggest own goal of all.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude of Horsham for their amendments in this group and for the way they set them out. I support the reasons behind their amendments.

Amendment 5, moved by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, would add a critical provision ensuring that the autonomy of sport from government influence is respected, in accordance with the established rules of FIFA, UEFA, and the International Olympic Committee. The purpose of Clause 1, as stated, is

“to protect and promote the sustainability of English football”,

and my noble friend’s Amendment 5 would provide the necessary framework for achieving that purpose, while upholding international standards. FIFA, UEFA and the International Olympic Committee have clear rules regarding the autonomy of sports organisations and their independence from government control. Failing to adhere to these principles risks sanctions from these bodies, including the very serious sanctions that noble Lords across the Committee have set out, such as the exclusion of national teams or clubs from international competitions. My noble friend’s amendment would ensure that the Bill operates within these very clear and well-established boundaries, safeguarding England’s participation in international football.

Amendment 6, from my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham, is crucial, as it would directly protect England’s participation in international football tournaments such as the Euros and the World Cup. Again, FIFA and UEFA have stringent rules regarding government interference in football governance. The test here, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough and others set out, is not for the Minister to imagine what she or the present Government may do, but what future Governments might do with the powers afforded them by the Bill, including the very sweeping secondary powers that it sets out.

19:45

History tells us that any perception of undue government influence or interference could lead to the suspension of national teams and clubs. Do the Government truly want to risk England being removed from the Euros or the World Cup? Do they want to risk Manchester City, Arsenal or Liverpool being banned from the Champions League, or indeed Stockport County rising to the glorious heights that the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, knows it will? As my noble friend Lord Maude says, this is a very serious jeopardy and now is the moment that the Minister can allay our concerns, and the concerns of many football fans who are following the debate and are anxious about the Bill. Without this amendment, or something like it, the Government risk opening up the possibility of such jeopardies, which is something that no football fan would, I think, ever forgive.

English football is not just a domestic sport, it is part of a global ecosystem. Its clubs and national teams depend on participation in FIFA- and UEFA-sanctioned tournaments, not only for financial sustainability but for the pride and delight of their fans. The independent football regulator the Bill seeks to establish should aim to protect and enhance English football and not isolate it on the global stage. Without an amendment of this nature, clubs would, I think, be left in a position of uncertainty, torn between compliance with their international obligations and new domestic regulations that could be imposed on them through the Bill or by the independent football regulator. That conflict or ambiguity would harm clubs’ ability to operate effectively and could lead to significant financial and reputational consequences.

Just as importantly—perhaps more importantly—fans and players deserve reassurance that their clubs and our national team will continue to be able to compete on the international stage. These are the very people that the Bill has been brought forward to champion, so I hope the Minister will look favourably on these sensible and constructive amendments. I hope she will respond to the points that noble Lords from across the Committee have made and take up the invitation from her noble friend Lord Watson of Wyre Forest and seize the opportunity to give 1.5 billion fans of English football, here and around the world, the reassurance they want and a clear answer to the question that he posed. Now would be a very good time for her to answer it.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I genuinely welcome these amendments and appreciate the sincerity of the concerns noble Lords may have about the possible ramifications were the regulator to operate outside of governing body rules, including the potential ramifications for domestic teams playing in international competitions. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, noted that this threat might be alarming to fans. It behoves us all in your Lordships’ Committee not to spread unwarranted alarm and I hope it will be useful if I am able, in response to this debate, to reassure noble Lords—and, through the debate, fans—that we do not believe that there is any risk from the Bill as it stands to our domestic teams playing in international competitions. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that we definitely have the interests of fans at heart, and I say to my noble friend Lord Watson that I welcome his comments; I am not confused and nor should noble Lords be.

On Amendments 5 and 6, I assure the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude of Horsham, and my noble friend Lord Watson that there is no intention that the regulator will fall foul of UEFA’s, FIFA’s or the International Olympic Committee’s rules, or that the regulator will take any action that would lead to English club or international sides being unable to play in certain competitions, such as the European Championships.

The Government have worked closely and consulted with UEFA, FIFA and, in particular, the FA throughout the development of the Bill, and will continue to work with them as it progresses through Parliament. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, raised remarks I made at Second Reading. I can confirm that the Minister for Sport recently held a very positive and constructive meeting with UEFA, in which she reiterated that we will continue to work with it as the Bill progresses. We have listened to previous concerns and have responded by removing a clause from the previous Bill which required government foreign and trade policy to be considered when approving takeovers. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Birt, I hope I can provide assurance, in that my understanding is very clear that they have confirmed that they do not now have concerns about the Bill as it stands.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Noble Lords are listening carefully to the Minister’s words, and she says it is her “understanding”. Is it the Government’s clear view that UEFA and FIFA are happy? She said also that it is not the intention of the Bill that this would take English football into areas that might cause conflict, but I think noble Lords were probing not the intention but the risk that it might do so. Perhaps she is able provide something further in writing, but noble Lords are seeking certainty and precision in her response.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

There is nothing in the Bill that conflicts with English clubs or the English national side competing in international games, as the rules of the international bodies stand currently.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

Have UEFA told the Minister that, or is that her understanding?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

As I said, UEFA had a meeting with the Minister for Sport. My understanding from that meeting, at which I was not present, is that this was confirmed. It has not raised other concerns. If any noble Lord knows of other concerns that it has raised directly with them, please get in touch afterwards.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

We are listening very carefully to this, and it is really important. I have absolutely no doubt about the honesty of the Minister’s —or the Government’s—intentions and sincerity. The concern is that stating that it is not the intention that the regulator would do anything, or that the Bill would have any effect that would conflict with these international football bodies, is not quite as reassuring as it is meant to sound. The concern has always been the unintended effects, and the fact that, for all their good intentions, she, the Government and indeed the Prime Minister cannot bind future Governments. The regulator is meant to be independent, so there is scope for activity. Unless it is explicitly excluded in the primary legislation, there will continue to be a doubt, whatever good words we hear either first or second hand. To put it beyond any doubt, it is essential that this is in the Bill.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I can only repeat that I know that the Minister for Sport is clear that she had a positive and constructive meeting with UEFA, and that we will continue to work with it. The only other point I was aiming to make on this matter, rather than repeating what I had already said, was that when the Government say that we want to keep the Bill within its current scope, this is clearly partly to avoid mission creep, with the unintended consequence that we might then stray into areas that are problematic. When we debate subsequent groups, please note that it is front and centre of our minds that we are very clear that this Government will do nothing to jeopardise the ability of English clubs or the England team to play in international competitions, whether they are European, world-level or at the Olympics. I hope that noble Lords accept that there is no intention to do anything that will jeopardise that. The advice we have had is that this will not be the case. The engagement with UEFA is essential, and it is aimed at ensuring that there are not any unintended consequences that would damage the ability of English clubs or national teams to compete in UEFA, FIFA or Olympic competitions.

This legislation does not impose undue third-party influence on the FA, and therefore does not breach FIFA or UEFA statutes, which the FA has confirmed. In any case, there is an additional safeguard already in place in the Bill, in that the regulator must have regard to its duty to avoid any effect on sporting competitiveness of regulated clubs. For the avoidance of any doubt, and to ensure that there is no possibility of any clauses that may concern these sporting bodies, we have already taken action. As previously noted during the debate, we have removed a clause from the previous Bill which allowed government foreign policy and trade considerations to be considered when approving takeovers. The regulator will be fully independent from Government and tightly focused on the financial sustainability of the game.

On Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, I say that we are extremely confident that no powers or potential actions taken by the regulator would be in breach of the rules, and thus preclude England’s national teams from competing in international competitions. We are mindful of UEFA’s governing principles around undue third-party influence, and this has shaped how we are setting up the regulator.

I am proud that this is a Labour Government Bill that we are taking through this House, as was noted, with agreement from the previous Government. This legislation will not impact the intention for our teams to play in UEFA competitions. For the reasons I have set out, I am unable to accept the noble Lords’ amendments and hope that they will not press them.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

Just before the Minister sits down, can she confirm if she could, and would, place in the Library the letter that the Secretary of State received from UEFA, so all Peers have a chance to read it? I know the Minister stated that this was not alarming, but I think the majority of people would find it alarming.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Baroness refers to my point about this not being alarming. I do not want fans to be alarmed by our discussion. It was a private letter from UEFA; there is no intention for it to be published. I assure noble Lords that this Government will not do anything to jeopardise the FA’s membership of UEFA or the participation of English teams in UEFA competitions.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am a little disappointed by the Minister’s reply to my noble friend. An important point to bear in mind is that we are not probing just the Government’s intentions, and the Minister has been very clear that it is not the Government’s intention to put in peril English clubs’ participation in international tournaments. However, the risk is that the independent regulator—ironically, as it is more independent from Government and able to do things—could take us into areas that do jeopardise that. The Government have made some changes to the Bill to try and satisfy concerns raised about its independence from Government, and we will touch on those, but I know that they are trying to help. Can she address the distinction between the Government’s intentions and actions, and what the Bill does in bringing about an independent regulator that can, through its actions, inadvertently lead to some of the jeopardy raised by noble Lords?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

As per the FA articles of association, the FA is established to promote and govern the game of association football. This Bill will not affect the FA’s ability to do that independently without undue influence, so it will not breach UEFA and FIFA statutes as they are currently drafted. The FA gave all evidence to this effect to the Committee in the other place, during the passage of the previous Bill.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for what I am sure is a completely genuine and committed response to the many points that have been made. However, I hope she will understand that it worries this Committee to hear that fans might be alarmed by something, so we must not show it to them”.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

That is not what I said. My point was that this conversation and this debate may be alarming, and I believe it is unduly alarming to fans, although nothing in this Bill would preclude us from international games, whether that is English clubs or the national team.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am sorry, but the Minister was very clear in her response to my noble friend that the publication of the letter might cause alarm, and that that was one of the reasons why it was not to be published. If I misunderstood, I apologise to the Minister, but I would simply say that, if there is no alarm from the letter, why not publish it? Why not place the letter in the House of Lords Library so that we can review it?

20:00

I will respond to one or two of the comments that noble Lords have made. First, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, there is genuine concern about this. That concern is not about the integrity of the Government in their conversations, but about what could happen in the future under the legislation we are being asked to consider. It was absolutely right of my noble friend Lord Jackson to raise the issue of Clause 11, because the Secretary of State will prepare a Statement, and they will do so on a three-yearly basis. However, there is one opportunity when the Secretary of State could prepare a Statement on matters relating to football governance faster than that, and that is if

“there has been a significant change in the policy of His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom relating to football”.

That could easily, and rightly, be interpreted as a change in trade and foreign policy. Should that change occur, it would be in complete contrast to the objectives that the Minister has set out of it being aligned to UEFA policy, and it would be a very real concern. It may not be her Government; it may be another Government in the future who would do that—they might take a view about ownership of football clubs. The point of us in Committee is to make sure the legislation is rock solid and no longer based on intention or risk or the response from UEFA in conversation. After all, UEFA has already intervened; it came forward and said, “There’s a clause in this Bill we don’t like” and so the Government removed it, and they could easily do that again in the future.

UEFA’s policy could change, and the Government’s policy could change. So I do not see why we cannot secure our ongoing competition in UEFA events, and indeed the World Cup, by placing on the face of the Bill something that apparently we all agree on across both sides of the Committee. With that in mind, I will withdraw the amendment in my name this evening, but this is a subject we should return to on Report. It is important not just for getting the legislation right but also in the interest of the fans.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.

Amendment 6 not moved.

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.48 pm.