House of Lords

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Monday 17 March 2025

14:30

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of London.

Overseas Companies: UK-registered Subsidiaries

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

14:37

Asked by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they provide support or advice to companies domiciled overseas who have set up a UK-registered subsidiary through which to bid for public sector work.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)]

My Lords, before answering the noble Lord’s Question, I wish everyone celebrating a happy St Valentine’s day—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

Wrong day. I wish everyone a happy St Patrick’s day.

The Government provide guidance on GOV.UK to companies seeking to engage in public sector work, including those domiciled overseas which establish a UK-registered company. Additionally, the Government encourage open and fair competition in public procurement, and UK-registered subsidiaries of foreign companies are treated in the same manner as domestic businesses.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his Answer. I agree that it is essential that transparency is key to all of this, especially in the defence and security sectors, where I am sure the Minister would agree that a level playing field is absolutely necessary. However, are the Government aware that some non-UK enterprises with only a token presence in the UK seek defence and security work here, and that some of those firms are domiciled in foreign states which actively exclude British companies from competing for contracts under that state’s control? What assurances can the Minister give that British contractors are not the victims of such unacceptable commercial discrimination?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. The UK’s international obligations require us to treat suppliers from other countries on an equal footing with UK suppliers in procurements which are covered by trade agreements with those countries and under WTO arrangements. The requirement for fair and open competition is a two-way street, as it gives UK suppliers access to public procurement opportunities overseas, which is worth close to £1.3 trillion. If the noble Lord has a particular case in mind, perhaps he could speak to me, and I will refer it to officials in the department.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, noble Lords will recall that, when the Covid pandemic broke out, the contract for setting up local testing services was given to two multinational companies, one of which had its headquarters in Miami. Not surprisingly, it put an awful lot of the local testing sites in the wrong places because it had no local knowledge. In awarding public contracts, can the Government be sure that they take issues like that into account? Can they ensure that companies which have most of their work overseas have a proper presence and pay the appropriate level of tax in this country?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. If we have a free trade agreement with a particular country then we have to follow international obligations by allowing foreign companies which have got an office registered in the UK access to public procurement. Obviously, following Covid, the Government are committed to using every means possible to recoup public money lost in pandemic-related fraud and contracts that have not been delivered. The Government are determined to ensure that we go after any contracts that have been committed to under some kind of fraud case. The Government have appointed Tom Hayhoe to be the Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner, and he will use every lever to go after any such fraudulent contracts.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from the initial Question, what assistance can Ministers give to British-registered SMEs in procuring public sector contracts?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for the question. It is important that SMEs have fair access to public contracts, which drives economic growth and the strength of public supply chain requirements. All central government departments, including executive agencies and departmental bodies, must set a three-year target for direct spend on SMEs from 1 April this year and a two-year target of direct spend for voluntary, community and social enterprises from 1 April 2026, and they have to report this annually. This is good news for SMEs.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, further to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, as the Minister knows, I have raised on a number of occasions the question of what action is being taken by the Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner to recover money from those people who defrauded the Government during the Covid epidemic by providing equipment and other supplies that were not used, and particularly those who used the VIP lane. Members of Parliament and Members of this House were involved in that. We need action quickly; what action has been taken?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. As I mentioned in my earlier answer, the Government have appointed Tom Hayhoe as the Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner. He will work across all government departments and will draw on the expertise of the Public Sector Fraud Authority, the Government Commercial Function and the Department for Health and Social Care, and will use every means possible to recoup public money lost in pandemic-related fraud and contracts that have not been delivered.

There is evidence to suggest that our standing within international public procurement has been diminished because of what happened during Covid. I assure my noble friend that the Procurement Act 2023 has improved and strengthened public procurement and will prevent all VIP lanes in the future. Section 42 of the Act will ensure that public contracts awarded via direct award will be for only a limited time.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, on the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, about value, for any country that we have an FTA with, regardless of how restrictive its domestic procurement laws are, we have to afford it full access under our liberalised procurement laws. This is a concern. The Minister said he would be very happy to look at this, and I am glad he would. I had an amendment to the then Procurement Bill under the previous Government to try to prevent this, but it was knocked back by the previous Government. If the Minister has an open mind on how to resolve the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, could it include looking again at the amendment I tried to persuade the previous Government to adopt?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

What a question. I am afraid I was not in the House when what is now the Procurement Act was going through. Nevertheless, we will bring the noble Lord’s concern to officials in my department.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, following my noble friend’s Question, does the Minister’s department have a list of countries in which UK companies are not allowed to bid for public procurement projects? What conversations are the Government having with these countries’ Governments?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that point. The Procurement Act 2023 allows, for the first time ever, the Government to have a list of companies that are debarred from submitting bids for any public contracts. That said, there has always been an exclusion list of companies that have committed fraud or anti-competitive practices. This is done by each individual department. Companies bidding for this will be told that they will not be successful because they are excluded from contracts. We have come a long way from exclusion to debarment, and this list is now in the early stages of being compiled.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister satisfied with the criteria deployed in having companies available to tender for public sector work, bearing in mind the failure of a number of leading companies over a number of years that appear to still be available to tender on the Government’s list?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

That was probably before the Procurement Act. Under the Act, companies that have been excluded will not be allowed to bid for any government contracts. Any companies found to be bid rigging will be debarred from bidding for any public contracts. We have come a long way. The Act has just come into force. Let us allow the Act to take its place and ensure that, whoever bids for the contract, they do so with the value for money that the Government are looking for.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, is the issue of companies domiciled overseas which have set up a UK-registered subsidiary likely to feature in the upcoming potential trade talks with the United States of America? If so, what will the UK Government’s position be?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

As I said in my earlier answer, if there is a free trade agreement with a particular country and it is a member of the WTO, we cannot prevent any other companies that are domiciled overseas with a registered company bidding for public contracts. Likewise, we would not want British companies to be debarred from bidding for international contracts, which amount to around £1.3 trillion.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, why is Fujitsu still being allowed to bid for government contracts when it has made no substantial contribution towards the costs and hardship that it caused as a result of the Horizon scandal?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

The noble Lord is trying to tempt me to answer a question that is beyond the scope of this Question. The contract that was awarded to Fujitsu is not a new contract but a continuation of a contract. I do not have the details before me, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord.

Primary Healthcare Facilities

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

14:48

Asked by

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to accelerate the construction of primary health care facilities to facilitate patients moving from hospital to community care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to fixing the front door of the National Health Service. This includes working with providers to deliver the primary care infrastructure required to enable a neighbourhood health service. We have already taken steps, including providing over £100 million of capital funding in 2025-26 to upgrade GP buildings—the first dedicated national capital fund for primary care since 2020. Spending plans for future years will be confirmed later this year.

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for that helpful answer. The limited capacity of GP premises, as highlighted in the Darzi report, is hindering the service’s ability to meet growing patient demand for face-to-face contact with the general practitioner and the primary care team, as well as obstructing the move to community care. Therefore, I have two specific questions for the Minister. First, will the Government make primary care infrastructure a priority when the very welcome new housing developments are being planned? Secondly, will the Government encourage the use of existing community premises, such as community centres and village halls, which could be temporarily adapted for primary care purposes until sufficient, purpose-built centres are available?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I can assure my noble friend that we are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to raise the importance of primary care provision in the planning process, as my noble friend has highlighted. That is to influence the direction of local plans, as well as maximise contributions from developers. We very much support using existing community spaces, which is a creative solution to deliver primary healthcare services, and we are exploring through the 10-year health plan how to further support the integration of services into the wider public estate to improve access. Indeed, we will consider all solutions, including the ones that my noble friend highlights.

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. The Minister will, I am sure, agree that, beyond physical infrastructure, one of the most important impediments to ensuring that there is effective integrated care between secondary and primary care settings is the question of regulation—professional and institutional regulation—which is quite different across those institutional boundaries. What plans do His Majesty’s Government have to look at the question of regulation to improve integrated care as part of their broader review of the delivery of healthcare in our country?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right to highlight regulation. Of course, there are many other aspects beyond physical infrastructure: for example, the use of technology, which also supports the subject on which we are speaking. All these matters are being considered as part of the 10-year plan and I am sure we all look forward to that reporting.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a network of community hospitals which survives? Will she therefore use some of the funds to ensure that these community hospitals remain in place, so that, after a stroke or treatment, patients will be made fit to enable them to return home?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

There are indeed many aspects of community care, as the noble Baroness refers to in terms of community hospitals. I emphasise that we are moving towards a neighbourhood health service, with more care delivered locally to create healthier communities, to spot problems earlier and to help people stay healthier for longer. It is of course up to local health systems to decide how best to serve their local communities, and services will vary according to where they are across the country.

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, as part of the shift from hospital to community, what specific plans do the Government have to set up more walk-in diagnostic centres and polyclinics as a way of allowing quicker and easier access to joined-up healthcare for patients, giving them greater control and reducing current pressures on GP surgeries and hospitals?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

We will be providing further details in the national implementation programme, but I can say that neighbourhood health guidelines have already been published to help ICBs, local authorities and health and care providers to continue to progress neighbourhood health. We will trial neighbourhood health centres to bring together a range of services, and others that the noble Baroness refers to, to ensure that healthcare is closer to home and that patients receive the care they deserve when and how they need it.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, we know that the Government are keen to encourage more investment into our national infrastructure—which these Benches welcome. Given that, what conversations are the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury having with pension funds and other funds on investing in neighbourhood primary health and care facilities, and indeed in other parts of our system of health and social care?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Although I cannot give a specific answer to the noble Lord on that point, I will be happy to look into it. As I mentioned earlier, in our discussions with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government we are, for example, looking at how we can lever greater contributions from developers who are working on new developments, where they will be providing much-needed health services and infrastructure. So we are taking a creative approach because we recognise the need to do more.

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend referred to creativity and the noble Baroness on the Lib Dem Benches talked about facilities in the community. Well, in Doncaster, we are already ahead of the game, as Mayor Ros Jones has worked with the local health community to provide a “health on the high street” facility, which will not only reduce pressure on the hospital but make it easier for patients to access services and, crucially, help regenerate the city centre. Will my noble friend join me in congratulating Mayor Ros Jones on this initiative, but also work with the local community to address the issue of urgent repairs that are still needed at the hospital?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am very pleased to congratulate Mayor Ros Jones on this initiative, as I would be pleased to congratulate such initiatives up and down the country. My noble friend is right to talk about the great benefits to local communities, which I myself remember, as will my noble friend, from the previous Government, in terms of walk-in health centres, which made a huge difference. To the point about repairs to the local hospital, it is vital, if we are to create the right NHS going forward through the 10-year plan, that we repair and rebuild the healthcare estate, which has a very considerable backlog maintenance bill after years of underinvestment. That is why the Chancellor confirmed extra investment for the backlog of critical NHS maintenance and repair upgrades.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that success depends on quite sophisticated co-ordination of different services employed in different organisations? That includes not just community nurses but home helps, specialist hospital-type equipment, the whole range of adaptions to property, and the like. Can the Minister assure the House that these things will be properly considered as we go forward to try to improve the movement from hospital to the community?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I certainly agree and can reassure the noble Lord that this is the case. I know that your Lordships’ House will have heard me speak previously about the very considerable investment that the Chancellor committed to in the Budget to provide adaptions for people’s houses in order that they could be cared for at home. I also say to the noble Lord that integrated care systems infrastructure strategies have been developed, which will create a long-term plan for future estate requirements and investment, while community health services also provide for planned and urgent care close to home, including clinics, care homes and, to the point raised by a previous noble Baroness, community hospitals.

[Lord Turnberg (Lab)]

My Lords, the biggest problem is the shortage of GPs. We are losing them faster than we are recruiting them. What plans do the Government have to increase the number of general practitioners?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am glad to say that recently, as my noble friend will be aware, we concluded the annual consultation on the GP contract and the committee voted in favour of the contract for the first time in four years. That will provide a way forward in terms of strengthening provision, prevention and the integration of services, which I hope will lift morale and the attraction to being a GP. We want to see consistent growth. There are now over 1,000 more full-time equivalent doctors working in general practice compared with January 2024. We have committed to training thousands more GPs across the country and recruiting over 1,000 newly qualified GPs through an £82 million boost to the additional roles reimbursement scheme.

Media Freedom Coalition

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

14:59

Asked by

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the work of the Media Freedom Coalition in protecting journalistic freedom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have been proud to continue to protect and promote media freedom internationally, particularly through the Media Freedom Coalition. I attended the fifth anniversary of the MFC at the United Nations General Assembly —UNGA—in September 2024. Since July 2024, the Media Freedom Coalition has continued to call out cases of concern globally with UK support. The coalition has undertaken an evaluation of its work, and we will work with co-chairs and the secretariat to ensure that the Media Freedom Coalition continues to evolve and grow.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I recognise the Minister’s response. He will recognise too that in 2019, when the then Foreign Secretary and I set up the Media Freedom Coalition with 21 members, we ensured that the membership increased to 51 by the end of 2023. Can he give an update on the current membership and the support and funds being extended to protect journalists—122 journalists and media workers died last year—and in support of the high-level legal panel so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I congratulate the noble Lord on his efforts. He is absolutely right. From 2019, he and I worked closely in supporting media freedom, and I continue to do so. We are absolutely committed to building and extending the coalition, as I tried to do at the General Assembly of the UN. The current co-chairs are Germany and Estonia. We are working with them to develop the membership.

I stress, as I did last week in New York and at UNGA, extending the voice of media freedom to the workers, particularly journalists. We are working with the International Federation of Journalists and the NUJ in this country to ensure that it is not just government voices but the voices of civil society that are focused on protecting freedom of information and media freedom.

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, what specific measures are His Majesty’s Government taking in response to the serious escalation in the harassment of and threats towards BBC Persian staff by the Iranian authorities, including the journalists who are based here in London and their families in Iran?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness knows, from the beginning we have been focused on this, making very strong representations. We have been working with the Home Office to ensure that there is no intimidation of those journalists who are residing here, as well as ensuring the protection of journalists in Iran. She raises a really important point. This is why the media coalition is so effective in ensuring that a range of countries add their voices.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm whether the Government are considering cuts to the BBC World Service grant as part of a reduction in overseas development spending?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I cannot confirm that, actually. The important thing is that we value the BBC World Service and have increased funding, with an uplift of £32.6 million in 2025-26, taking the total contribution from the UK Government to £137 million. We want to ensure a longer-term sustainable future for the BBC World Service, which will be done through the charter review. Where those elements of ODA are concerned, that is part of the spending review, but the noble Lord is being a bit premature here.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I chair the high-level legal panel which advises the international coalition of nations referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad. I thank the Minister for his attendance at the United Nations General Assembly with us all, promoting the strong sense that democracy depends on there being free media. Unfortunately, disinformation is one of the real challenges. What is being done about the retreat from this arena by USAID? Media freedom is being curtailed in a lot of places in the world where journalists are trained. What is the United Kingdom doing to replace those efforts in its work on soft power?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. Media freedom is absolutely part of this Government’s missions, particularly economic growth, because transparency is needed for that, as well as for climate and security. Media freedom plays an important part.

We are aware that the American Government have made significant changes to the US Agency for Global Media and related agencies such as Voice of America. I come back to how much we value the BBC World Service as it continues to provide impartial and accurate news to global audiences. I stress why it is so vital: it is a trusted voice. It is not the voice of the UK Government. I hesitate to use the term “soft power”. It is an independent voice, trusted globally, and we value that very much. We will monitor developments in relation to the USAGM and review carefully with the BBC any impacts on the World Service.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, further to that, the Minister and the House know that countering mis- and disinformation, especially in hostile environments, is a key part of our national security and defence. Over the last five years, the UK has committed over £500 million in this regard, all scored as official development assistance. On 7 March, the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Development, gave an instruction that all new funding programming is now paused in advance of the spending review. Can the Minister say, at the very least, when it comes to this key part of our national security—countering mis- and disinformation—whether this funding will be protected?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has announced a strategic vision for spending on defence and security. This has the impact on ODA that the noble Lord has mentioned, but the Government are absolutely committed to a significant development role. We will make detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used. We will work through this, as part of the ongoing spending review, on the basis of various factors, including impact assessments. I will not predict or predetermine what that review will undertake, but I have been very clear in my responses about the importance of media freedom to our security.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, press freedom in Syria was severely limited under the Assad regime, when many journalists were imprisoned for years, if not decades. What steps are Ministers taking to engage with our international partners to promote press freedom in Syria following the fall of that reprehensible regime?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

As the noble Lord knows from previous responses, we are working with all our allies, particularly those neighbouring Syria, to ensure that the new Government in Syria are inclusive and allow a range of voices to be heard. Obviously, you cannot create a new independent media service simply from the ground, but the important ingredients of that—I come back to my original response—are how we develop free speech, freedom of association and, particularly, freedom of religion and belief. These are all ingredients that create the conditions for media freedom, and we are working very closely with our allies to ensure that that continues in Syria.

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that in the general context of media freedom, plurality in its own way is just as significant as freedom, narrowly defined?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

That is correct. We are absolutely committed to the plurality of media freedom. We are supporting a programme that supports local media facilities in a range of countries. The noble Lord is right: a range of voices is necessary for proper media freedom, and that should be ensured.

Violence Against Women and Girls

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question

15:09

Asked by

[Baroness Levitt]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in implementing a strategy to prevent violence against women and girls.

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Baroness Smith of Cluny) (Lab)]

The scale of the issue of violence against women and girls is such that this Government are treating it as a national emergency. We will publish a new strategy setting out how we will halve violence against women and girls within a decade, and we hope to publish this before the Summer Recess. Recently, we have taken important steps, including embedding domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms in five police force areas, under Raneem’s law, and funding a new national policing centre for violence against women and girls and public protection, to improve policing response.

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank my noble and learned friend for her Answer. Does she agree that unmarked cars displaying flashing blue lights should be restricted to the absolutely necessary? I declare an interest because, in my former role as a judge, I have dealt with cases of men being stopped in cars that turned out to be fitted with blue lights. Can she explain what steps the Government will take to ensure that women are not fooled into stopping for a car which is not a genuine police car, particularly at night?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

My noble friend raises a very pertinent and distressing question for women, as she says, particularly at night. There are two parts to this answer; the first is on what the Government are doing and the second is on “What should a woman do tonight?” Should individuals be concerned if they are approached by a lone officer or someone in a car that they find suspicious, either because it is displaying blue lights that may or may not be authentic or because it is an unmarked but genuine police car, it is entirely reasonable for that woman to seek reassurance that the person is acting legitimately, and I would expect any officer receiving such a challenge from a member of the public to understand why it is being made and to do what they can to provide reassurance. This remains an issue of huge concern, and the Government will be addressing it through the work of the Angiolini Inquiry. Part 1 of the inquiry reported in February 2024, and we are committed to implementing the 16 recommendations made. Part 2 of the Angiolini Inquiry will look at the role and effectiveness of police initiatives to make women and girls safer when interacting with the police, and I feel sure that this Question will be addressed in that part.

[Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)]

My Lords, if the Government are to succeed in their strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, they must not treat online violence in isolation. How are the Government seeking to tackle the rise in misogynistic influencers who are normalising VAWG among young men?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises another pertinent issue. As she is aware, we have created a new offence in the Data (Use and Access) Bill to criminalise the creation of a purported intimate image, otherwise known as deepfake images, of an adult without their consent or a reasonable belief in their consent. That partly addresses the issue she raises, but it is a bigger issue of education and how we talk to our young people, and that starts in schools. It is essential that online misogyny and online pornography is tackled when they are at a young age and that we have the right messaging. That is part of cross-departmental approach to the strategy that is being written at the moment, where we involve all departments because we need to tackle the issue from a young age on.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

The case of Kyle Clifford, who was a follower of Andrew Tate, has been mirrored by many other crimes that have involved the actual killing or abuse of women. Is it not time that we start to consider this in the same way that we consider terrorism? Had Kyle Clifford been a member of ISIS, that would have been a huge story. Andrew Tate’s influence is now across 80% of all young boys at school, and yet nothing seems to happen about saying that this needs to come up to the level of Prevent, although the same sorts of crimes are resulting.

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

I think the noble Baroness’ comments reflect my comment, indeed my opening sentence, which is that this Government are treating this as a national emergency. On online safety, we are working with Ofcom to ensure that the Online Safety Act is implemented quickly, and Ofcom is already enforcing duties on publishers of pornography. Services within the scope of the Online Safety Act must take action to tackle illegal pornographic content, and the strategy we are working on will take into account all these issues and bring a holistic approach to them.

[Baroness Burt of Solihull (LD)]

My Lords, the domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid welcomed the Labour Government’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. However, it also urged the Government to address the funding gap of £232 million that domestic abuse services are experiencing right now. As violence against women and girls offences constitute more than one in six of all offences reported in Britain, how will the Government halve domestic violence against women and girls if those charities are £232 million short before we even start?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

It is vital that we work with the third sector on the strategy and that the Government work with other public bodies and with the private sector. That is why we are engaging across the sector to ensure that the new cross-government approach and strategy is effective. On funding, we have spent £20 million on domestic abuse and stalking perpetrator interventions and £17.4 million on victims services, including national helplines and specialist services, which is an increase of £3 million from the last financial year. There is an additional £27 million to strengthen policing and wider criminal justice system responses and £2.47 million on prevention and early intervention to help stop these crimes happening in the first place. We will be working in the coming weeks to finalise our wider budget in support of the strategy.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, one of the principal examples of violence against women and girls in recent years was the grooming gangs scandal. While we are disappointed that the Government chose not to establish a full statutory inquiry into this issue, Ministers have now commissioned a rapid three-month audit led by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. Can the noble and learned Baroness confirm when the audit’s findings will be published and when we can expect to see the Government’s formal response to it?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

I regret to tell the noble Lord that I do not have the date when it will be published, but he can be assured that the utmost attention will be paid to it, in line with our attitude towards all these issues, which, as I described, are a national emergency. The bigger issue that the noble Lord raises is a crisis of confidence in policing; that will be central to the strategy that we write, because we know that the police response to violence against women and girls has not been good enough to date. Victims must feel confident in the police’s ability to handle their case. That is why we have already taken steps by embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms and by also seeking to create dedicated domestic abuse teams within every police force, so that these things never happen again.

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, the most recent Femicide Census notes that cases of older women who are killed and subject to extreme sexual violence are often seen as not newsworthy. The charity Hourglass, which works to reduce the abuse of older people in the UK, has experienced an increase in calls by 50% over the last two years. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that older women are not forgotten in the development of their strategy?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

It is vital that every woman and child in the UK is included, and that is why we are taking a cross-departmental and cross-sector approach, so that all information, including from the third sector, is captured and fed into the strategy. The Home Secretary has already announced a package of reforms to improve confidence in the policing process, which will go to the heart of some of the issues that are being raised. Much stronger training on violence against women and girls is being offered to police officers, and options are being developed to interact with other bodies that have specialist knowledge. We will integrate that into the strategy.

[Baroness Bousted (Lab)]

My Lords, 95% of boys watch pornography before they are 18. This can lead to greater acceptance of sexual harassment and violence against girls and women. By July this year, sites offering pornographic content must have in place highly effective age-enforcement action. Is the Minister confident that this deadline will be successfully met, and that children, girls and women will be protected?

[Baroness Smith of Cluny (Lab)]

The Government are resolute in their commitment to keeping children safe online. I have already mentioned some of the actions of Ofcom. Services in scope of the Online Safety Act must take action to tackle illegal pornographic content, and Ofcom will be able to take robust enforcement action against companies that fail to comply.

Mental Health Bill [HL]

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Order of Consideration Motion

15:20

Moved by

[Baroness Merron]

That the Bill be considered on Report in the following order: Clauses 1 to 3, Schedule 1, Clauses 4 to 23, Schedule 2, Clauses 24 to 39, Schedule 3, Clause 40 to 56, Title.

Motion agreed.

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (General) Regulations 2025

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Neonatal Care Leave and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2025

Motions to Approve

15:20

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 20 January be approved.

Relevant document: 16th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 10 March.

Motions agreed.

Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Approve

15:21

Moved by

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 15 January be approved.

Considered in Grand Committee on 10 March.

Motion agreed.

Mortgage Prisoners Inquiry Bill [HL]

Order of Commitment discharged
Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Order of Commitment

15:21

Moved by

[Lord Sharkey]

That the order of commitment be discharged.

[Lord Sharkey (LD)]

My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Unless, therefore, any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.

Motion agreed.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Report stage
Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Report (2nd Day)

Relevant documents: 8th and 16th Reports from the Delegated Powers Committee

15:22

Schedule 5: Mandatory licence conditions

Amendment 31

Moved by

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough]

31: Schedule 5, page 99, line 11, leave out paragraph (ii)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, along with the other amendment in the name of Lord Jackson of Peterborough to Schedule 5, is intended to remove the equality, diversity and inclusion provisions of the Bill.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 31 and to support Amendment 33 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. The amendment seeks to remove the explicit reference to EDI—equality, diversity and inclusion—in the Bill by way of a compulsory obligation in the independent football regulator’s corporate governance statement.

I do not wish to rehearse the arguments made in Committee, when the Minister, I gently suggest, did not fully engage on this issue. I am nevertheless grateful that her letter of 15 January to my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea—who, incidentally, has done excellent work on this issue—was more helpful and at least tried to put forward a partial rationale for this part of the Bill. As your Lordships will know, this is an additional duty and encumbrance from the Bill put forward in the last Parliament. To that extent, it does not have the support of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition.

I want to say at the outset that it is important to treat everyone in football with fairness and equity; I believe that is good business as well as morally the correct thing to do. That is why we have a strong existing regulatory and legislative regime in this country, to ensure compliance with the basic tenets of decency, fairness and equality. But I oppose the compulsory and draconian imposition of an EDI obligation on football clubs for a number of reasons. It is heavy-handed and diverts resources from excellent existing community engagement initiatives that have developed organically over the last few years in grass-roots football. It is costly, bureaucratic and divisive, and I believe it under- mines community cohesion. It will impose unnecessary costs on a majority of smaller clubs whose financial health is precarious, and on which the onerous provisions will weigh heavily.

It will encourage diverse and divisive litigation and the intervention of third-party groups such as Stonewall, and will result in cases such as that of the football fan Linzi Smith, banished from Newcastle United Football Club for expressing her own lawful and reasonable gender- critical views online and questioned, in my opinion, in a disgraceful Orwellian fashion by Northumbria Police, for which it was forced to issue a belated and grudging apology. These proposals will chill free speech, cause the proliferation of ideological training schemes and undermine women’s sex-based rights in their workplace.

The Minister prays in aid a study by McKinsey into EDI and improved corporate decision-making but, as she knows, McKinsey’s 2018 study Delivering Through Diversity has been comprehensively critiqued and discredited by Green and Hand’s March 2024 paper published in Econ Journal Watch, which demolished its empirical evidence base and methodological assumptions, specifically on reverse causality, narrow focus, opaque data, quartile bias and global versus US scope of the research. Other academics, such as Alex Edmans of the London Business School, have similarly echoed Green and Hand’s robust and rigorous refutation of McKinsey’s studies. It is noteworthy that the Minister does not in her letter, or previously in this House, reference any other generic EDI research in respect of its efficacy, nor any on football specifically or wider sport. Perhaps she will address this issue in her later remarks.

There is a reason. Green and Hand’s headline finding was that EDI policies did not harm profitability, but there was no evidence that it helps it either—a rather important issue, given that the Wall Street Journal estimates that, globally, businesses will spend $15.4 billion on EDI next year. Where is the evidence that an EDI duty will, as the Minister has stated, “make clubs more sustainable” and ensure “good corporate decision-making”? Really?

The penny is finally dropping. Last week, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority ditched their plans to impose costly and bureaucratic diversity and inclusion regulations on the financial services sector, which the FCA’s own impact assessment estimated would cost £561 million to set up and £317 million in recurring annual expenditure. The fans and wider public agree. In May last year, Policy Exchange found that, by 50% to 14%, people agree that businesses have become too concerned with taking political positions on contested issues, while 75% of people believe that companies should prioritise hiring on merit, regardless of race or gender, rather than hiring to create a diverse team. Of course, they are right: 40% of Premier League footballers are non-white—on merit.

I assume that both the Prime Minister and his adviser, Morgan McSweeney, read those polls and media coverage too. I am heartened by reports today that the most senior leaders in government are considering prioritising growth and economic prosperity rather than overregulation and virtue signalling, and are giving serious thought to ditching the IFR. Perhaps the Minister will offer her views on that issue.

Does anyone really believe that fans clamoured for the mandatory reporting of data on race, gender and sexuality when Bury FC went bust in 2019? The proposition is ridiculous. We need to trust our football clubs to do the right thing within our current laws. Regulation for regulation’s sake will only hasten the demise of our world-beating football success story. For those reasons, I beg to move.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, puts his case very high. He says that this is draconian and heavy-handed, will lead to ideological training schemes and is even Orwellian. His case is simply not made out. The EFL in its briefing to noble Lords says on corporate governance:

“The EFL supports the inclusion of equality, diversity and inclusion provisions within the corporate governance code of the Bill. The EFL’s equality code of practice is already mandatory for member clubs and this approach is a logical extension of existing arrangements that will ensure high standards are maintained”.

15:30

It therefore appears that EFL clubs do not have the same concerns that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, has expressed to us. I simply point out that the corporate governance statement requires no more than that the club explains what action it is taking to improve equality, diversity and inclusion. As I understand it—and the Minister will say if I am wrong—it imposes no substantive requirements of any sort. It is a provision purely intended to provide information as to what a club is doing, if anything. I, for one, would be very interested to know—and I am sure many other people would be, particularly the supporters of particular clubs —what they are doing. This amendment is inappropriate, unnecessary and has no basis whatever.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, in his amendment and speak to my own in this sphere. These amendments aim to remove the requirement for clubs to submit EDI statements to the independent football regulator detailing their plans to improve, as we have heard, equality, diversity and inclusion policies. This requirement was added to the original Bill by the Government and, in my view, is unnecessary and burdensome and could act as a Trojan horse for politicising clubs in ways that would be divisive.

As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has just explained, it is a duplication of work that is already done by many clubs. The Premier League and the EFL already require their clubs to do work in this space to comply with the EDI standards of those leagues. Can the Minister therefore explain whether the expectation is that they need to more or to do EDI differently and what does “improve” comprise? Perhaps the Minister can elaborate on what she envisages will trigger sanctions for non-compliance. What would non-compliance look like?

This especially matters for all those clubs that this Bill will regulate beyond the Premier League and the EFL—all those National League clubs that operate on the tightest of margins with very small staff and volunteer teams. Think of the sanctions: clubs could face the IFR publication of a censure statement and/or the requirement to appoint an external EDI professional, and they do not come cheap. Clubs could face financial penalties or, ultimately, suspension or revocation of their operating licence, so there is a cost to pay and a lot of pressure to comply that could well generate substantial financial and time burdens on clubs.

All the evidence shows, across a multiple of institutions, that EDI regulatory regimes often divert scarce time, attention and resources away from the core mission and priorities of organisations. They also tend to expand their remit because one of the most obvious ways that regulated organisations prove their EDI credentials is through ever-more elaborate, flashy guidance documents, mandated training programmes, unconscious bias workshops and so on. It is a perfect example of a well-meaning policy that grows and proliferates, an exemplar of self-fulfilling mission creep. It was recently revealed, for instance, that Oxford University now employs 59 staff in EDI roles—a 20% increase since 2022—at a cost of £2.5 million a year before pensions and benefits. This seems baffling, given the dire state of university finances.

However, such concerns about EDI’s bureaucratic and financial burdens are not confined to a few of us here. As we have heard, last week, two regulators made similar points. The Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority announced their decision to abandon plans to impose diversity and inclusion rules on financial firms. Surely this must give the Minister pause for thought. It is surely not too late to consider deferring this section of the Bill to consider such adverse outcomes, and to consult on specifically this issue with stakeholders, fans and so on.

If we listen to the debate within the financial services sector, it is instructive. Wendy Saunders, a partner and head of financial services at Lewis Silkin, said that it was a huge relief that the FCA was no longer proceeding with its diversity and inclusion proposals, which she said

“would have imposed unwarranted costs on firms without delivering clear benefits”.

Instead, the regulators in financial services will limit their role to voluntary industry initiatives—I am not opposed to that. Surely such a voluntary approach is appropriate for football too. Requiring the new football regulator to impose what other regulators admit is too burdensome is not proportionate.

My key question to the Minister is still: what problem is this measure as a solution to? We heard in Committee and since that there is a concern about the lack of diversity at clubs’ senior management level. There is little evidence, however, that EDI—whatever its good intentions as a theory—will resolve this problem in practice. I would be reassured if the Government elaborated on how they envisage that EDI policies will operate in relation to HR and employment in individual clubs, because EDI has a very poor track record of improving workplace culture—the opposite is often true.

Last week, Trevor Phillips wrote an insightful comment piece in the Times entitled:

“There’s a better way than DEI to fix prejudice”.


In it, he warns of the way that EDI policies can stir up resentment and competitive victimhood that will do little but cause conflict in workplaces. He says that DEI programmes

“increasingly appear not to be aimed at making the workplace a better, more productive environment but a modern-day inquisition dedicated to damning white men merely for their existence”.

Meanwhile, at King’s College, members of staff were told that they could not get promoted unless they signed up to the whole of the university’s EDI initiatives, including taking part in activities run by Stonewall, an organisation now considered so controversial that it has been largely ejected from activities in Parliament and Whitehall. EDI training at Imperial College includes:

“How to be a White ally”.


Staff have been asked to agree that they have white privilege. I just want to know whether the Minister envisages that as a productive thing if it happened in clubs. Is that what she thinks EDI in clubs will look like? It certainly looks like that in many organisations. Does the Minister see the dangers of this introducing a contentious and politicised agenda into clubs’ culture? Although EDI is often framed as fostering better decision-making, in reality it often reinforces groupthink in workplaces.

I am just worried that this seemingly small part of the Bill will unintentionally drag football clubs into murky political territory. I note that there is a judicial minefield here. For example, if clubs chose to set quotas to fulfil their EDI requirements based on people’s protected characteristics, would that not open up the gate to biological males who identify as women being able to play in women’s sports? This is such a political and ethical topic, and noble Lords see all the controversies that the FA is involved in here—the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, spoke so passionately about this in Committee.

I am not suggesting that noble Lords have to agree with my sex-realist gender-critical views on this, but I urge the Government at least to wait for the judgment by the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, which relates to the definition of a woman and how a trans woman fits in under the Equality Act. Is there a danger that EDI provisions could unintentionally open clubs up to being challenged in the courts and make them subject to spurious litigation in this area?

In fact, over the weekend, we found out that one of the biggest girls’ football leagues in the country, West Riding Girls Football League, is being threatened by the Football Association with being shut down for refusing to allow boys to play in its matches. Last week, an emergency meeting was held by organisers of the league, which has at least 6,000 under-18 girls playing across more than 300 teams by the way—fantastic progress with girls in football.

At that meeting, managers voiced their concerns that allowing boys to play would open the floodgates and was a massive threat to the girls’ game. Parents are looking to take their daughters out of the league, with girls themselves saying that they will give up if boys join, and the FA’s response is that “this is part of our inclusion and diversity strategy”.

Your Lordships do not have to agree with me. The Minister may dismiss these concerns as all a bit culture wars-y, even a bit Trump-ite. Nothing could be further from the truth. So to reassure the Minister, I would like to call on one of her Cabinet colleagues as an ally. Wes Streeting told a Macmillan Cancer Support event: “There are sometimes some really daft things being done in the name of EDI, which undermine the case. For example, there was one member of NHS staff who was merrily tweeting a job ad online, saying that part of her practise was anti-whiteness”. As Wes Streeting said, “What the hell does that say to the bloke up in Wigan who is more likely to die earlier than his more affluent white counterpart in London?” He concluded that the real issue of inequality that affects working-class people is not addressed here, and called for the ideological hobby horse of EDI to go. I agree. I think we should drop it from the Bill, which does not mean that we should not fight tooth and nail for equality and fairness in all walks of life.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is rather an odd one. Apparently, we are in favour of equality but not in favour of doing much about it. A reporting strategy on what we are doing to improve equality and diversity does not strike me as terribly onerous. Indeed, if we are doing something that comes under the “expletive silly” category, we will know if it is reported. I suggest that we are trying to build a little monster here—build it up so as to have something to knock down. There are real battles to fight; let us wait for those.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I shall speak to Amendment 34 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Parkinson. This was the subject of much debate in Committee, where there was a united feeling that we want clubs that are well run, with good governance, and that are sustainable. Wherever possible, we want a regulator to be light touch.

My amendment would encourage the use of independent non-executive directors to help in that regard and put it in the code of practice. I freely admit that having independent non-executive directors is not a guarantee of good governance, but most of us would agree that having impartial experts as part of a board is generally a good and sensible thing to do in any organisation. Members on all sides of the House supported this in Committee. I know that the Government are generally supportive of this proposal, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on how we can best help to make it happen. I believe that this would be a sensible move towards good governance.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I should like to counter some of the nonsense that we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, who moved the amendment against equality, diversity and inclusion.

The EFL, which represents 72 of the clubs affected by the Football Governance Bill simply says this:

“Our equality code of practice is already mandatory for member clubs, and this approach is a logical extension of existing arrangements that will ensure high standards are maintained”.


That says a lot. If you go to any football ground on most weekends, as I try to do, you will find messages of persuasion and inclusion to ensure that football plays its part in guaranteeing that the game becomes more inclusive and that its workforce is diverse.

During the early debates in Committee, I suggested that the business of football, outside the players on the pitch, could do with looking at this issue some more, because the workforce more broadly is not as diverse as it should be, certainly at senior management levels and director level. We need to encourage that better, and in some ways the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Markham, about independent football directors, may play a role in that as well, because that provides some flexibility within the senior echelons of management.

Only 4% of managers in the professional game are from non-white backgrounds. Given that some 45% of the workforce—the players on the pitch—are black or from a minority group, something is clearly not working in how the business is developing, and we should do all that we can to address that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick: this is a non-sensible amendment that we should rigorously oppose.

15:45

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, although I am mindful of the rules of debate on Report, I am sure that noble Lords will understand if I preface my remarks with a short, two-hour encomium to Newcastle United, congratulating them on their victory in the Carabao Cup, their first domestic trophy in 70 years—that is longer than the living memory of any of my relatives. That is an area on which I know the Minister and I are in full agreement. I am mindful that other noble Lords were present at Wembley yesterday and hoping for a different result, so I shall not go on about it, other than to say that I hope that anyone who had the pleasure of being on the London Underground yesterday was as delighted as I was to see all the lads and lasses there with smiling faces and will join me in sending hearty congratulations to the Newcastle fans, who have waited so very long for this moment.

The Government’s new corporate governance provisions have, I think it is safe to say, received considerable attention during our debates on this Bill. My noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough has just set out the concerns of many on these Benches very powerfully, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, has echoed them and added her own concerns.

I have been very clear throughout the passage of the Bill that we on the Opposition Benches are not persuaded by the changes the Government have made to the Bill, compared to the version we put forward in the last Parliament. As I said in Committee, we do not believe that the additions the Government have made in this area are necessary either. The Bill already has strong corporate governance requirements, mandating a corporate governance statement as part of the licensing process, and that is in addition to the rules already enforced by the Football Association and competition organisers.

Regardless of whether one believes that prescribed EDI policies would improve the operation of clubs and football in this country—and as we can see from the short debate we have had again today, that is by no means a settled view—clubs already have to comply with similar rules and, in many cases, voluntarily go further. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, alluded to some of the work they do, and my noble friend Lady Brady mentioned it in more detail in our debate in Committee. Mandating further policies and action to promote equality, diversity and inclusion is, therefore, a clear example—we think—of unduly onerous regulation which has little to do with financial stability. The Minister has been clear throughout our scrutiny that this is intended to be a sustainability regulator.

Our concern is that placing new EDI duties in the Bill and, therefore, tasking the regulator with concocting rules to that end would increase the risk of mission creep, which we have all been very concerned about. We are clear that this will end up meaning more, not less, regulation. At a time when the Prime Minister is promising to clear out the regulatory weeds, and the Chancellor is writing letters to regulators asking them to promote economic growth, we should be aiming for fewer regulatory burdens, not more.

I shall say a few words about Amendment 34, which my noble friend Lord Markham outlined the case for, which relates to independent non-executive directors. We had a strong cross-party exchange on this topic in Committee, when amendments to the same effect were tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Blunkett. They were evidently satisfied with the Minister’s response, so they have not brought them back, but I am glad that my noble friend Lord Markham has tabled his. I am very grateful to the Minister for taking the time to discuss this issue with both of us, as I believe she also did with a number of other noble Lords who raised it in Committee. She kindly copied us in to the letter she sent to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, about it, but I look forward to any further reassurances she is able to give on Amendment 34.

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

I join the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, in his congratulations to Newcastle United, and I offer commiserations to Liverpool and its supporters. Good football is always a joy to watch, but only one side can win; I feel for those who put in all their effort and did not go away smiley-faced.

I want to address one of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, in relation to reports in the media this morning. The noble Lord should be mindful of the old adage that you should not believe everything you read in the newspapers. Your Lordships’ House has heard at length during the Bill’s passage that too many football fans have been left with nowhere to turn when faced with reckless owners, financial mismanagement and threats to their club’s very existence. That is why the Government remain absolutely committed to introducing an independent football regulator to put fans back at the heart of the game.

We had extensive discussion on the topic of equality, diversity and inclusion in Committee, when a number of noble Lords opposite aired their considerable concern over what is a very standard addition to almost all corporate governance codes. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, will not be surprised to know that I do not agree with them. The Government have not changed our view that equality, diversity and inclusion is a key part of good corporate governance. Research has shown that diversity on boards and in organisations promotes better governance, decision-making and transparency, all of which in turn contribute to improved financial sustainability.

We heard in Committee about the vital work that the industry is already undertaking in this area. The regulator will look to work co-operatively with other stakeholders, to draw on the expertise of the sector and to add to industry initiatives through the code. As with fan engagement, this will be a statutory baseline.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, referred to the Green and Hand report, which was forwarded to me —I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, for that. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, noted the findings of Green and Hand regarding McKinsey studies into the relationship between EDI and corporate performance. I recognise that the assessment refutes the link between ethnic diversity and financial performance. However, it remains my view that the relationship between diversity and improved corporate performance is well established and accepted beyond the studies of McKinsey alone. For example, both the Financial Reporting Council and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants acknowledge this relationship. Clubs that already champion equality, diversity and inclusion will not have an additional burden placed on them, other than having to periodically report on these things.

My noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton outlined a number of issues that remain within the game. Under the corporate governance code, clubs will simply be required to explain how they are applying the code and what action they are taking on equality, diversity and inclusion—nothing more. As suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that does not feel onerous, but it is a helpful and transparent measure, in the Government’s view, and I refer noble Lords to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. As I have said previously, the regulator is not going to prescriptively micromanage each club’s board, or set targets and quotas on EDI. That is not the role of the regulator, and would be a significant burden on both the regulator and clubs.

Turning to Amendment 34, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Markham, I thank the noble Lord for this amendment and for his engagement on this, along with a number of other noble Lords. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Knight, who has been a strong advocate on this issue and has met me to discuss it. I wrote to him about it, as the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, mentioned, and I would be happy to lay a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.

As I outlined in the letter, we are fully in agreement with the principle of independent non-exec directors. We recognise that they can greatly improve decision-making, provide independent scrutiny and drive up corporate governance standards. This supports the regulator’s objective of better financial soundness, stability and decision-making for football clubs. However, while we agree with the principle, we do not feel it is right to include this detail in the Bill. We do not believe that the Government should be writing the corporate governance code, or making detailed recommendations on how a club’s board should operate. Indeed, no corporate governance code is written in primary legislation; this helps ensure flexibility and future-proofing.

We are setting up an independent, specialist football regulator, which will have in-depth knowledge of the unique challenges of football club governance. It will be for the regulator to then develop, consult on and ultimately publish this code. This approach enables consultation with industry, including clubs, which is essential to ensure that it is appropriate for the football industry and that it can be adapted in the future to reflect best practice. However, I again assure noble Lords that we fully expect the regulator’s code to include detail and guidance on independent directors. This is the norm for all corporate governance codes, and we do not expect the regulator’s code to be any different.

I think there is broad agreement on the importance of independent non-exec directors, and I thank noble Lords across the House for the interest shown in this issue. I hope that the reassurance I have provided will satisfy any concerns that INEDs will not be included in the corporate governance code. I therefore hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments for the reasons I have given.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate, particularly the thoughtful remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. I will briefly correct the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I have not tabled an amendment that is against EDI; it is against a compulsory and costly duty enshrined by the corporate governance document in the Bill. That is a separate thing. I am disappointed that no noble Lords, except the Minister, actually engaged with the evidence that both the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and I have put forward.

There is one point that I would challenge the Minister on. Once again, despite being challenged in the letter from my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, and by me today, she has yet to come forward with any alternative to the McKinsey study showing evidence that EDI improves the bottom line in business, let alone the football world. That is a very important issue.

The Minister was right when she said we have had a good and lengthy debate on this issue over many weeks, both before Christmas and this year. Notwithstanding that, I do not think she has answered the specific questions we have raised. On that basis, I would like to test the opinion of the House.

15:57

Division 1

Ayes: 182

Noes: 237

16:08

Amendment 32

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

32: Schedule 5, page 99, line 36, at end insert—
“(ca) how the club contributes to the economic and social well-being of the local community with which it is associated,”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment makes a club’s contribution to the economic and social well-being of its local community part of its corporate governance.

Amendment 32 agreed.

Amendments 33 and 34 not moved.

Clause 21: Discretionary licence conditions

Amendment 35

Moved by

[Lord Grantchester]

35: Clause 21, page 14, line 6, at end insert “, and
(ii) if the club has a women’s team, ensure the club will meet, or will continue to meet, any licensing criteria applicable to the women’s team and its relevant competitions.”

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I propose Amendment 35 in the name in the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, to which I have added my name. I declare my interests as a former director of Everton Football Club. I am now chair of its memorabilia trust and a small shareholder.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, apologises to the House that she cannot be here to move her amendment, as she is chairing a three-day social care conference. The dates and timings of commitments can present difficulties with the scheduling of legislation. If she were here, she would have reflected that the women’s game has come a long way and now has a recognised pathway for women and girls to progress beyond recreational football enjoyment to elite participation. The pathway now crosses national structures to successful European clubs, where there will be more opportunities to progress for less football-friendly nations.

The success of the Lionesses in recent years has been a great, positive beacon in the sport, encouraged by the FA’s strategies Inspiring Positive Change and Reaching Higher. There has been a 56% increase in women and girls playing football and a 14% increase in schools offering equal access in sport and PE for girls. There is so much more that is needed in schools to improve female health and well-being through sport.

This Bill has been a long time coming to fruition. I have not spoken much on the Bill as I am in total agreement with this improved version that will tackle, from a fan’s perspective, all the shortcomings in the top leagues, rather than leaving problems exposed, as would have occurred in the previous Conservative Government’s legislation.

This amendment is simple. It is correct that there are powers in the Bill for the Secretary of State to expand the remit of the IFR into the women’s game. Right now, the focus needs to be on embedding the IFR into the men’s game appropriately. However, the women’s game remains vulnerable. Kaz Carney’s report, Raising the Bar, achieved an agreement that the women’s game would like to develop on its own terms separate from the men’s, but that it needs protection. Separate, yes, as audiences differ, and it is more diverse and family-focused, with a different culture and even refreshments at games, but it needs protections, as women’s football needs so much investment in standards and facilities.

This season, for the first time in the WSL, all the teams are teams with a men’s Premier League club providing that investment. Kaz Carney’s report understood that if the top clubs do not believe in women’s football, it will not thrive. However, dependence on the men’s team is fundamentally problematic. When Reading was in financial trouble, it made a decision to cut support for the women’s team and disbanded it, leaving all its female players without their club. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, provides the example of Thornaby FC, which also disbanded the women’s team, which was saved after a public outcry, with an indignant Lily, then aged seven, declaring:

“If girls want to play football, you can’t just not let them”.


I applaud the restructure of the FA-controlled competitions into two top divisions, with a separate league structure under the leadership of Nikki Doucet. The Premier League has come forward with a £20 million interest-free loan to nurture this development. With the simple Amendment 35, women’s football development, while dependent on funding from the men’s game, will be independent in its operations and protected from the vagaries of the men’s game. Whether it develops along US lines, where there are independent funders and stand-alone teams, is to be seen, but the point is that women’s football can develop how it wishes to.

Can my noble friend the Minister give assurances that women’s football will be protected in this legislation? Can she confirm that the women’s football game will be assessed in all “state of the game” reports so that the Secretary of State may be advised whether problems are emerging that could require the scope of the IFR to be expanded? Is my noble friend the Minister able to give any indication of what conditions or circumstances might give rise to such considerations? How can this come about so that, should there arise concerns and problems in the development of and outcomes in women’s football, there would be a recourse of referral to the IFR? I beg to move.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and thank him and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for their hard work on this issue and for highlighting its importance. I have just one question that I would like to put to the Minister. In looking at the regulator’s remit, it is vital that care should be taken that there are no unintended consequences for the women’s game, such as clubs disinvesting in their women’s teams as a method of meeting sustainability obligations when alternative measures are available. I should be very grateful when she comes to summing up if the Minister could answer that point.

16:15

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

We support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I have had a long conversation with her around the state of the women’s game and the lighter touch in the Bill on aspects of women’s football. In essence, it runs parallel and there needs to be some cognisance of that. There needs to be an understanding of that in the Bill. It may come through the reviews that are going to come forward, but I would just like it acknowledged somewhere that women’s football is emerging, developing and encouraging young girls and young women to play football and sport, which helps the NHS and everything else. There should really be some cognisance from the Government that there should be a line in this Bill that acknowledges and supports the noble Baroness’s objectives.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, has just said, and we are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who has spoken up for the women’s game from Second Reading all the way through the Bill. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, for moving the amendment today on her behalf. We touched on this a little when we were looking at the thorny question of putting in the Bill the types of competitions, leagues and so on that would be covered, where we ran into the problem of not wanting to make this a hybrid Bill, but we were interested in the consultation that would be needed if the women’s game were to come under the scope of the Bill and the regulator. So I am grateful to the noble Lord—and the noble Baroness, in her absence—for returning to this today.

I shall speak to my Amendments 36 and 95, which have been put in this group. My Amendment 36 seeks to ensure that the regulator has power to restrict funding from sources that it deems

“harmful to the interests of the United Kingdom”.

This is intended as a slightly softer approach to the duty now removed from the Bill to have regard to the foreign and trade policy of His Majesty’s Government, which we discussed during our first day on Report. Rather than providing for the regulator to consider the Government’s foreign and trade policy, my amendment focuses on conduct it considers harmful to our national interest, allowing the regulator to interpret that as it wishes and, crucially, independently from the Government of the day, as we know that UEFA and others are very anxious that it should.

My Amendment 95 reflects some discussions that we had in Committee in which there was cross-party support. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Watson of Invergowrie, spoke at that point in favour of the suggestion that the Secretary of State might make regulations for Part 3 to come into effect only at the end of a relevant football season, rather than partway through. Clearly, there will be burdens on clubs that will have to comply with the new regulatory regime and it would be easier and simpler for them if they were able to do so at the start of a season. So I have brought this matter back in the hope that again it will receive some cross-party support. It is intended as a constructive suggestion and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I will add just two comments, the first on Amendment 35 on the women’s game. It is plainly at a very sensitive stage of development and we would all wish to encourage that development. My concern is that including Amendment 35 might perversely deter some clubs from investing in women’s football, and that would be most unfortunate indeed.

In relation to Amendment 36, to which the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, just spoke, this is an exceptionally vague provision: the idea that the regulator should have power in relation to discretionary licence conditions where there is

“conduct which it reasonably suspects to be harmful to the interests of the United Kingdom”.

This would be very difficult to apply and would lead to all sorts of probably legal arguments on what this means. In any event, it is a power that would be given on the basis of reasonable suspicion. That is most unfair to the clubs concerned, because there might be a reasonable suspicion that is not justified. As always, I declare my interest as a practising lawyer, partly in sports law, acting in particular for Manchester City in current disciplinary proceedings.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson, Lord Goddard of Stockport and Lord Moynihan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling amendments, and my noble friend Lord Grantchester for moving, in her unavoidable absence, the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.

I welcome in particular the opportunity to discuss the women’s game and to set out the Government’s position on it, not least in relation to this Bill. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, was keen to have a debate on the women’s game and frustrated that we did not have one at earlier stages, so I am sorry that she could not join us. However, I hope that I can give all noble Lords who have spoken in support of the women’s game the assurance that the Government really do want to see women’s football in this country thrive.

Recent years have seen incredible growth in the sport, catalysed by the amazing success of our Lionesses. I know that all noble Lords are hugely proud of their achievements. We understand why there is an interest in ensuring that women’s football is accorded some of the same protections that the Bill would deliver for the men’s game. As someone who was not allowed to play football at school, I am delighted that my nieces take it absolutely for granted that they are, so this is an area that I personally want to see grow and thrive.

My noble friend Lord Grantchester spoke passionately in favour of the women’s game. We agree with the independent review of women’s football that he noted, and which was expertly chaired by Karen Carney. As my noble friend stated, that review recommended that the women’s game should be given the time, space and opportunity to grow and govern itself. So, while there are some shared features, the problems facing women’s football and men’s football are not the same. The Government are in regular contact with the Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd. We are confident that it will be able to implement the structures, processes and regulations to drive the sport forward. Where appropriate, this can involve taking learnings from the men’s game and the regulator.

I reassure my noble friend that, as with all regulation, the scope of the regulator will be kept under review. As it is not intended in the first instance for the regulator to cover the women’s game, the “state of the game” report will consider only matters in scope of the regulator. However, if appropriate in the future and following proper consultation, the regulator’s remit could be extended to include women’s competitions via secondary legislation.

To expand slightly on why we are not at this point intending to regulate the women’s game, it is by its own admission at a different stage from the men’s game. It is still in a start-up phase, needing significant investment and growth to achieve its potential. The men’s game, by virtue of being a more mature commercial product, has no issue with growth or investment. Its issue is that it spends unsustainably, accumulates debt and cannot keep the massive revenues that it raises within the game. Therefore, neither the Government nor the women’s football industry believes that statutory regulation is the correct approach to helping women’s football at this stage.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, alluded to issues that might be prevented. I will refer to the specific example of Reading Football Club. I do not want to assume that the noble Lord was referring to it as an example of where the regulator might have helped. Currently, the women’s game is not intended to fall within the regulator’s initial scope, so the regulator could not have directly prevented funding to Reading Football Club Women being cut. However, importantly, it would have been able to address financial problems at the men’s club, which may have averted the issue. So it is an indirect benefit, potentially. It would also have had access to information that it could have shared, only in certain specific circumstances, with the authorities in the women’s game. This might have allowed them to identify and react earlier to an issue and protect the women’s team. So we are confident that the authorities responsible for governing the women’s game will be able to implement the appropriate protections to prevent a future similar scenario to that which happened in Reading.

Amendment 36 would allow the regulator to stop a club accepting funding that it reasonably suspects to be harmful to the interests of the United Kingdom. I know that protecting football from wider harms is important to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, as it is for us all. I agree with the intent and thank him for his engagement on this. However, it is not for a football regulator to judge what is harmful to the interests of this country; indeed, this is what the UK’s financial sanctions regime is for. If there is an oligarch or bad actor with connections to a hostile state acting against UK interests, they can be sanctioned. That would automatically stop a club receiving funding from the party in question. Sanctions can be imposed for a whole range of reasons, including in the interests of national security.

Beyond this, the Bill already provides protections against wider harms. The owners’ and directors’ test, for example, will look at the fitness of a club’s owners and officers, including sanctions, and whether the individual has been prevented from entering the UK. This seeks to protect English clubs from unsuitable owners or officers. In conjunction with the power to restrict funds suspected to be connected to serious criminal conduct, this will help to ensure that clubs are protected from harm.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, for his Amendments 38 to 41 and his continued engagement on the Bill. I have written to the noble Lord on some of the points he raised on discretionary licence conditions and the commitments in lieu process, and I am happy to lay a copy of this letter in the House Library for other Members of your Lordships’ House to access as well. As I outlined in that letter, we feel that it is appropriate for competition organisers to have a formal opportunity to intervene on a financial issue if they could achieve the same goal in a more effective and less burdensome way. This commitments in lieu process encodes the light-touch and collaborative approach that we have discussed at great length in your Lordships’ House.

The Bill as drafted allows clubs ample opportunity to make representations about proposed financial discretionary licence conditions. As part of ongoing supervision by the regulator, clubs will be made aware of what potential action the regulator may take to improve the clubs’ standards. However, if a competition organiser proposes a commitment that the regulator believes would solve the issue in a quicker, more effective or more proportionate manner than the regulator’s proposed licence condition, the club should not be able to veto this.

I turn to Amendment 95 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. We understand the intention of this amendment, and we agree that the regulator should avoid any burdens or disruptions that may be associated with mid-season licensing of clubs, including the risk, albeit remote, that licences are refused mid-season. As currently envisaged, once the regulator is set up, it will make rules around how and when clubs need to submit their applications. The noble Lord’s amendment would prevent the entirety of Part 3 being commenced until the period between seasons. For example, if the regulator were ready to start preparing clubs for licensing in September in a given year, it would have to wait until the following May before it could do so. We want clubs to be able to prepare their application and engage with the licensing process early to avoid a rush and high burdens in the relatively short window between seasons. This amendment would prevent that.

By contrast, if commenced properly, there will be a substantial onboarding time for clubs, and the regulator will not have to process 116 applications in a short space of time. The noble Lord’s intention of avoiding mid-season disruption can be achieved through a careful commencement of Part 3. We intend to delay commencing the Clause 15(1) requirement on clubs to have a licence until all clubs have had the necessary opportunity to obtain one.

On Amendment 96 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, I understand that the noble Lord’s view is that the Secretary of State guidance on significant influence and control is integral in providing certainty for the industry, and that it must be produced in a timely manner. That is why, last week on Report, I committed

“that the Secretary of State’s guidance will be produced before clubs are required to identify their owners who meet the definition of having significant influence or control”.—[Official Report, 11/3/25; cols. 626-27.]

I would like to reiterate this commitment and reassure the noble Lord that it would be superfluous in this instance to make this amendment. Additionally, I remind the noble Lord that the House made its view on the definition very clear when it voted against Amendment 7. I hope he will agree that it would be an inefficient use of the House’s time to discuss this issue any further and will take reassurance from the commitment I have already made.

I turn finally to government Amendment 37. A number of noble Lords have raised concerns regarding consultation requirements and discretionary licence conditions. We are making a change to the consultation requirement that the regulator must satisfy before submitting a request to the Secretary of State, to amend the scope of discretionary licence conditions. We were confident that the previous drafting would have captured clubs and competition organisers, but we have listened to concerns across the House about this not being stated explicitly. Therefore, we have brought forward this amendment to put this beyond all doubt and address those concerns. As a result of this amendment, the regulator will now be required in legislation to consult all regulated clubs and each specified competition organiser in this process.

For the reasons I have set out, I hope the noble Lords will not press their amendments.

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this little debate on this group of amendments. Although I would have welcomed a little further development from my noble friend, I certainly understand her response. I also understand the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to which I respond merely that if a men’s club does not believe in women’s football, it certainly should not invest in it. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 35 withdrawn.

16:30

Clause 22: Scope of powers to attach or vary discretionary licence conditions

Amendment 36 not moved.

Amendment 37

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

37: Clause 22, page 15, line 14, leave out “such persons as the IFR considers appropriate” and insert “—
(a) all regulated clubs,(b) each specified competition organiser, and(c) such other persons as the IFR considers appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the IFR to consult clubs and competition organisers, in addition to other persons it considers appropriate, before making a request to the Secretary of State to make regulations amending the types of discretionary licence condition set out in clause 22(1), (2) and (3).

Amendment 37 agreed.

Clause 23: Procedure for attaching or varying financial discretionary licence conditions

Amendments 38 to 40 not moved.

Clause 24: Commitments in lieu of financial discretionary licence conditions

Amendment 41 not moved.

Clause 26: Part 4: overview and interpretation

Amendments 42 to 44 not moved.

Clause 27: Duties to notify IFR of prospective new owner or officer

Amendment 45 not moved.

Clause 37: Matters relevant to determinations

Amendments 46 and 47 not moved.

Clause 46: Duty not to dispose etc of home ground without approval

Amendment 48

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

48: Clause 46, page 38, line 39, leave out “carries on an activity” and insert “takes any step”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment corrects a drafting inconsistency in clause 46.

Amendment 48 agreed.

Clause 49: Duty not to change crest, home shirt colours or name without approval

Amendment 49

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

49: Clause 49, page 40, line 27, leave out from “to” to end of line 28 and insert—
“(a) any emblem or crest of a relevant team operated by the club, or(b) the predominant home shirt colours of such a team,”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment adds a reference to a team’s “emblem” alongside “crest”, to avoid confusion with the heraldic use of the term “crest”.

Amendment 49 agreed.

Amendment 50 not moved.

Clause 53: Duty to pay a levy

Amendment 51

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

51: Clause 53, page 43, line 19, at end insert—
“(8A) If levy rules make the provision mentioned in subsection (8)(b), they must provide—(a) for the rate at which interest is charged not to exceed an annual percentage rate of 5% plus the Bank of England base rate,(b) that the IFR may charge interest at a rate determined by the IFR that is lower than the rate that would otherwise be applicable under the rules, where the IFR considers that appropriate, and(c) that the IFR may disapply a requirement for interest to be charged, where the IFR considers that appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment caps the rate of interest on late levy payments that the IFR may provide for in the levy rules at an annual percentage rate of 5% plus Bank of England base rate and gives the IFR discretion to charge a lower rate of interest or no interest in particular cases.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to a package of government amendments: Amendments 51, 78, 86 and 88. I will speak to other amendments in this group in my closing remarks. The government amendments follow constructive discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Markham, who proposed an upper limit on interest that can be charged by the regulator on missed levy payments. Our amendments will impose a limit of the Bank of England base plus 5%. We believe this strikes the right balance between deterring non-payment and preventing undue burden. It also provides greater internal consistency within the Bill; the rate used for this upper limit is the same applied to missed financial penalty payments. With this amendment the regulator will maintain the discretion to set the interest for missed levy payments and could therefore set it lower than this cap or disapply it entirely. I hope this satisfies the noble Lord’s concerns on this issue, and I beg to move.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 52 seeks to reverse one of the more surprising changes to the Bill. The previous Conservative version stated that the regulator must consult on all changes to the levy rules. This seemed fair and proportionate. If the regulator is to change how it charges the levy or how much it wishes to charge, it seems pretty reasonable that those who will bear the burden of that charge are consulted.

The changes introduced by the Government provide that the regulator does not have to consult if it considers those changes to be minor. The issue is that the definition of “minor” is to be determined by the regulator. What would happen if the regulator tries to claim that somehow a change is “minor”, but other interested parties do not agree? Is there not the possibility here for the regulator to skirt around important consultations by simply claiming that the changes it is proposing are not significant enough to warrant discussion? The problem here is that this could create endless discussions about what warrants being termed “minor”. Surely it would be far simpler for the regulator just to consult on all changes, as was the case in the previous Bill.

Separately, it is welcome that the Government have accepted the principle that interest charged by the regulator on unpaid levy charges should be capped by the legislation. This was an amendment that my noble friend Lord Parkinson and I tabled in Committee. At the time, the Minister said that

“setting the rate of interest charged on non-payment of the levy is an operational decision for the regulator, which needs the flexibility to charge interest at a rate that deters non-payment”.—[Official Report, 18/12/24; col. 337.]

We disagreed with this assessment at the time. Although it is right that some flexibility is needed, it is not right that the regulator should be the one that sees fit to charge whatever it thinks is right. I am therefore very pleased that the Minister has changed her mind on that matter and brought a government amendment to this effect.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 55 and 56. I received a satisfactory reply on the four amendments from the previous group, which I submitted to the Government and the Minister. I also submitted Amendments 55 and 56, but I did not quite get such a full support for them, so I think it is worth explaining to the House what they are—plus a slight history lesson.

The Minister’s statement in the debate on 16 December 2024 set down the clear intent that the regulator should have primacy ahead of all competition organisers:

“I want also to stress that the regulator will not stop the leagues imposing their own competition rules so long as they do not conflict with the regulator’s regime”.—[Official Report, 16/12/24; col. 40.]


The then Government’s consultation response document noted:

“The Regulator will set the legal baseline for regulation in areas within its remit. There may be scope for industry bodies to layer on top, but the Regulator would coordinate with these bodies to ensure that any additional rules were supportive of the regulatory approach and objectives. This means that industry bodies will need to be receptive to working with the Regulator to potentially streamline and adapt their existing rules, to allow for a coherent regulatory landscape that minimises burdens on clubs”.


However, this is not reflected in Clause 55(6), which requires only that the competition organisers “consult” with the regulator. That is not what was previously said.

Through discussions on the Bill, we have seen that the level of co-operation of competition organisers has varied, so it is not satisfactory to rely on their good will to resolve regulatory conflicts. Indeed, recent Premier League consultations have resulted in a legal spat with the Professional Footballers’ Association, the EFL, the Government and FIFA, and various disputes with the Premier League executive. The proposed amendments aim to ensure that the regulatory system is clear and coherent and avoids the confusing overregulation of rules. The IFR can act as an important safeguard.

We have seen a number of recent legal cases that have demonstrated deep flaws in some of the competition organisers’ approach. For example, the Premier League lost a case to Leicester City, where Leicester was held to be a member of neither the Premier League nor the EFL, due to poor and contradictory drafting of Premier League rules. That was a report from the Appeal Board.

Of even greater concern, the Premier League rules on associated party transactions were found to have been illegally introduced to advantage one set of clubs over another, and to have abused a dominant market position. As a result, three years of those rules were held to be void, as though they never existed, and there are more damages claims to come. These rules came about because of rushed processes. The panel noted that they had not been subject to proper analysis or examination before introduction:

“There does not appear to have been any discussion or analysis as to how such an exclusion would affect the effectiveness of the PSR, and the principle of sustainability of club finance which underlies the PSR”—


the profit and sustainability rules in competitions. That was from a judgment in favour of Manchester City, which additionally found that:

“Nor was there any evidence that the PL had in fact carried out any analysis as to the impact of the shareholder exclusion on different clubs and to seek to justify such an exclusion”.


Many of these difficulties have come about because of the inherent conflict in the regulated entities—the clubs—being the ones that set the rules. Clearly, the independent regulator will be able to act on that. It will act effectively to regulate the financial sustainability of English football and undermine its entitlement.

The proposed amendment is targeted at financial and business regulations; it leaves sporting regulations completely untouched. It is of no benefit to anyone in the game for there to be rushed, ill thought-through or illegal market regulations, from whatever source. It will benefit all to ensure that the IFR can act with quality checks on future attempts by competition organisers when they attempt economic market regulation. The Premier League has clearly demonstrated that it is not good at economic market regulation; in doing so, it has ended up costing the Premier League and its constituent clubs tens of millions of pounds in legal fees and dislocated activities.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Markham, in relation to Amendment 52 on consultation. As noble Lords will know, Clause 54 requires the regulator to consult persons including all regulated clubs before making, amending or replacing levy rules, and consultation is a vital component of fairness. However, Clause 54(2) says that this obligation

“does not apply in relation to amendments to or replacements of levy rules if the IFR considers the changes to be minor”.

The noble Lord, Lord Markham, is absolutely right: it is not for the regulator to determine whether changes are minor; it is for those who are potentially adversely affected. Consultation on matters that the regulator may consider to be minor is no great impediment. If the changes are in truth minor, as perceived by the regulated clubs, the consultation will not take very long and will not involve any great effort by the regulator. I hope that the Government will accept Amendment 52 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Markham.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Lord Goddard of Stockport, for their amendments.

Amendment 52 from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, would require the regulator to consult every regulated club, as well as the Secretary of State, the Treasury and others that the regulator considers appropriate, for minor changes to the levy rules. As noted by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the Bill is currently written so that consultation is not needed for minor changes to levy rules. This is intended to allow the regulator to make immaterial amendments or corrections without excessive bureaucratic burden. In the Government’s view, the amendment would add a layer of unnecessary process.

There is no need—and, I imagine, no great desire—for clubs to be made aware of every typographical or grammatical error that the regulator wishes to correct. I note the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Markham, in his support for the amendment, and I can assure noble Lords that clubs will be properly consulted on matters that affect them. For all changes to the levy rules that constitute material changes, the Bill already requires the regulator to consult, amongst others, every regulated club.

Moving to Amendments 55 and 56 from the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, I completely understand the intention behind these amendments. A right of approval for the regulator over relevant competition organiser rules would enable the regulator to clearly maintain authority on matters within its remit and to manage any potential duplication or conflicts. However, the Government are firmly of the view that competition organisers should be free to implement their own rules autonomously. As membership organisations, they should be free to set rules on their members in pursuit of their own objectives, which are likely to be broader than the regulator’s.

Overreach by the regulator into the rules of competition organisers risks the kind of scope creep that UEFA has warned against. We are confident that the regulator will be able to work with competition organisers to manage any interactions between their rules and its own regulatory system without the need for an approval or veto power. As a result, we do not think the regulator needs the power to require additional information from competition organisers here either.

On the specific points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, the regulator will put in place the necessary minimum standards for all clubs in scope with statutory powers to enforce and maintain these standards. This would be business regulation of football clubs setting the statutory baseline they must meet to operate as football clubs in this country. Beyond this, competition organisers are free to set membership requirements on their member clubs. If they wish to layer additional requirements or processes on top of the regulated statutory baseline, they will be free to do so, providing that they are consistent with the law. Of course, it would be in no one’s interests to have unnecessary duplication, so we would perhaps expect the competition organisers to focus on other objectives and leave sustainability in this regard to the regulator.

In light of these points, and others, raised, I hope that the noble Lords will recognise the risks associated with their amendments and will be content not to press them as well as to support the government amendments.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Before the Minister sits down, I refer her back to the answer that she gave to my noble friend Lord Markham and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. When I was chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, I had notification from the Treasury about a change on tax rules that it considered minor. The Treasury expected it to go through with no contest, but the brewing industry went berserk because the Treasury was unaware of the implications of what it was proposing. That is precisely what appears to be the case regarding the comments from my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick: it cannot be for the regulator to judge whether something is minor or major, because it may well be unaware of the implication of what it is doing for one club or another, or for a group of clubs in one form or another. I find the Minister’s answer surprisingly inadequate.

16:45

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I am sorry that the noble Lord finds my answer inadequate. I am happy to give further reassurance to noble Lords by asking the shadow regulator for some examples of what type of change it may see as minor.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her comments, but I think it is the feeling of a number of noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and my noble friend Lord Hayward, that it cannot be right in principle that the regulator gets to be judge and jury on what is or is not consequential, particularly as it does not have the full knowledge that the clubs might have. The regulator might think it is minor, but it might make a real difference to the clubs. Therefore, at this point, we are minded to test the opinion of the House when we come to Amendment 52.

Amendment 51 agreed.

Clause 54: Section 53: consultation and publication

Amendment 52

Moved by

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

52: Clause 54, page 43, line 38, leave out subsection (2)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the regulator to consult on all changes to levy rules.

16:47

Division 2

Ayes: 196

Noes: 229

17:00

Amendment 53

Moved by

[Lord Addington]

53: After Clause 54, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to prevent advertising and sponsorship related to gambling in English footballEnglish football must not promote or engage in advertising or sponsorship related to gambling.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment prevents regulated clubs and competitions from promoting or engaging in gambling advertising or sponsorship.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, we debated this amendment on the previous day on Report, and I should like to press it to a Division.

17:00

Division 3

Ayes: 74

Noes: 339

17:14

Amendment 54 not moved.

Clause 55: Duties to notify and consult the IFR

Amendments 55 and 56 not moved.

Amendment 57

Moved by

[Lord Markham]

57: Clause 56, page 45, line 32, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
“(2) In this Part, revenue received by a specified competition organiser is “relevant revenue” if—(a) it is revenue received as a result of the sale or acquisition of rights to exploit the broadcasting of football matches included in a competition organised by the specified competition organiser, and(b) it is not revenue that the specified competition organiser distributes to a club by virtue of a team operated by the club being relegated from a competition organised by the specified competition organiser.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and the other amendments to clause 62 in the name of Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, prohibit parachute payments from being included in the distributions of revenue resolution procedure.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 57 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Parkinson, and I will speak also to Amendment 70. In Committee, we talked at some length about the importance of parachute payments, with my noble friend Lady Brady really bringing home how important they are to clubs. For promoted clubs that know that there is a big threat of being relegated for the next season, they give them the confidence to invest in new players and build the strength of the club. They are able to make that financial commitment only because they have the security of parachute payments behind them. Likewise, any clubs in the bottom half of the table, when we get to this stage of the year, are looking over their shoulders: were it not for parachute payments they would not be looking to make investments in the January window but thinking more about selling rather than recruiting players.

As mentioned on previous occasions, the fundamental reason that the Premier League is the most popular and richest league in the world is because every game is competitive. If we look at other leagues, whether it be in Italy, Spain, Germany or France, we tend to find two or three good teams and a lot of other teams which are, if it is not too unkind to say so, also-rans. A lot of games, as a result of that, are just not competitive in the same way, whereas we know that in the Premier League, every single game is competitive and capable of a surprise. That is because the bottom clubs invest in players to make it competitive, knowing that they have that safety net there. It is that that ultimately brings in the big bucks, in terms of the rights bids that fund the whole game: broadcasters around the world want to know that they will have good games week in, week out, and that is what parachute payments allow.

It is probably put best by Paul Barber, the well-respected Brighton & Hove CEO and deputy chairman: the relative comfort that parachute payments provide to Premier League clubs, especially those newly promoted, means that owners are more willing to commit funds, knowing that if the worst happens and relegation occurs, clubs have support to adjust to a very different reality.

I am aware that the Bill does not require the regulator to consider parachute payments. I know the Minister has made this point before, and we understand it, but the fact does not negate the risks. That is not to say that the current system of parachute payments is not without faults—no one is saying it is perfect—but it is true that every major league club has a similar parachute-type mechanism in some shape or form. That is why we feel the need to ensure that parachute payments are not part of the regulator’s remit, as in the original Bill put forward by the Conservative Government. It is very important.

On the tiny chance that the Minister does not accept Amendment 57, I have also tabled Amendment 70 as a compromise. Amendment 70 states that if the regulator does include parachute payments within the scope of revenue distribution, a final proposal cannot abolish them entirely. The intent is to give a greater degree of certainty that parachute payments will not be disregarded in their entirety. It acknowledges the regulator’s right to consider them if it believes it is necessary, while also ensuring some level of security.

Competition organisers would be able to propose a reduction in parachute payments if they so wish, but could not do away with them altogether. This is fundamentally important to clubs, which often invest with three-, four- or five-year business plans. That is of course exactly what we would want reputable, well-run clubs to do. We want them to invest on the back of a certain set of circumstances and economic conditions and not expect some major parts of that—namely, the parachute payments—to be potentially withdrawn mid-way through.

I believe that this is in keeping with the Government’s stated intentions and I know the Minister does not envisage parachute payments to be abolished. If that is the intent, why not give us greater guarantee of the fact by putting it in the Bill? Although I would prefer parachute payments not to be considered at all, I am under no illusions as to the parliamentary arithmetic. Therefore, in the likely event that they are to be included in the Bill, we have tabled Amendment 70 as a sensible and measured compromise that does not deviate from the Government’s stated policy.

On the small chance that the Minister does not accept my Amendment 57, I hope that she will find herself able to accept the compromise that we have put forward in Amendment 70. I strongly urge her to look favourably on such an amendment in the spirit of consensus, which I know noble Lords in this House respect. If she is able to accept Amendment 70 or give an undertaking for Third Reading, I will not divide the House on Amendment 57 but, unfortunately, if she does not accept what we think is a very sensible compromise, we will have no option but to divide. I beg to move.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it might be convenient to give our opinion on this matter, which is very straightforward. Parachute payments are a system that is in place for today and not set in stone. This is an ongoing process, and the situation will change with the Bill. There is the suggestion that parachute payments are a great drop down and land with a heavy thump. Hopefully, we will raise the ground up a bit or have some cushioning in place. Having one system built in for ever goes against the purpose of the Bill.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my interests, as declared in the register. I support my noble friend’s amendments, which would remove parachute payments from the backstop.

I hope it will assist the House if I explain why I am so concerned about the inclusion of parachute payments within the definition of relevant revenue. It is not because I believe that the parachute system is perfect—I really do not. It is not because I believe that the precise level or design of parachutes should be fixed forever or protected from scrutiny—I do not. Nor is it because Premier League clubs are insensitive to the aspirations of clubs throughout the pyramid—we are not. We all share the same common goal: a thriving, dynamic, sustainable football ecosystem from top to bottom. It is because the backstop mechanism as it has been designed is so fundamentally unsuited to addressing the issues of parachutes.

The previous Government’s backstop was badly flawed, enabling a binary choice between two proposals, one of which must be selected in its entirety. That was highly unusual and posed significant risks. However, that mechanism could have just about been tolerable because, by isolating solidarity or voluntary payments as the sole issue for resolution, the backstop at least delivered a binary choice between two numbers. That is a judgment the regulator could reasonably make. I remind noble Lords that the levels of solidarity are explicitly linked to parachute payments in the existing distribution agreement between the Premier League and the EFL. One can be used to smooth the potential rough edges of the other, which is what the previous Bill correctly recognised.

However, the expansion of the Bill’s scope to include parachute payments transforms the backstop entirely. It is no longer about determining quantum, but now forces a judgment on the wholesale redesign of football’s financial architecture. It has become a choice, not between two numbers but two fundamentally different systems and it is substantially more legally and financially risky as a result.

The crucial thing to appreciate is the connection between the now systemic nature of the backstop and the position of the EFL. The EFL’s chair has called parachute payments

“an evil that needs to be eradicated”

—not reformed or adjusted, but eradicated. When we combine that system, a binary process, with the open agenda of one of the two parties, we create an absolutely intolerable risk. The backstop offers no capacity for careful calibration or fine tuning, which I would be wholly supportive of.

There is no part of this Bill that allows the regulator to make a reasoned, balanced judgment. It creates a binary, “winner takes all” approach, with no room for nuance but plenty of room for poison pills and final damage. It enables a proposal from the EFL that would level down the bottom half of the Premier League, rather than genuinely elevate the entire football pyramid. Surely, we want a mechanism that delivers both a strong Premier League and a strong EFL, rather than a zero-sum game.

The Government have made their political choice on the backstop, but I believe that they did so without the full understanding of its implications for the delicate ecosystem that sustains football at all levels. If we are to avoid serious, legal and economic consequences for football over the next few years, the Government would be well advised to now address the serious problem they have created. If they are not prepared to revisit the decision on parachutes, my amendments on how the IFR should make its final decision offer a constructive path forward that would benefit the entire pyramid. The proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, offers an alternative. There can be no doubt that change is needed.

We all want the same thing—financial sustainability throughout English football—but the starting point must surely be a shared recognition that we cannot achieve this by dismantling the very mechanisms that have made English football, from the Premier League to the National League and beyond, the world’s most successful ecosystem.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by reminding the House that the Bill will not abolish parachute payments or change the architecture in the way that has just been suggested. When the noble Lord, Lord Markham, talked about the need to have confidence, so that clubs can invest in new players and have confidence in the strong club structure and financial position, he mentioned only the Premier League. He did not refer at all to the rest of the football pyramid. The Bill needs to make sure that we have sustainability, not just of those clubs in the Premier League, but of the whole English football pyramid. It is important to bear that in mind because, while parachute payments may have a place—as most people have acknowledged, certainly at the moment—there is no doubt that the level of parachute payments is such that it distorts competition in the Championship. I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, when we were in Committee, whether she would acknowledge that, and she declined to comment.

If we look at the actual figures involved, there is no doubt that the current arrangements distort competition. At the moment, clubs that are relegated receive, in year one, £48.9 million. Other clubs receive £5.3 million. The redistribution that is often talked about from the Premier League to the EFL does not help all the clubs in the EFL equally. It distorts competition, which is something we should bear in mind when we are talking about parachute payments. Although they may help a few, they do not help the sustainability of the whole pyramid, as they could—and should—if we had a fairer system of distribution.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

I support the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, especially after Saturday’s result between Bolton and Stockport County—thereby hangs a tale.

I was following the thread from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, really well until he mentioned that every game is competitive. Ipswich Town supporters would not agree with that this season. The evidence suggests that is not the case. If we look at leagues across Europe, they have jeopardy. There are last games of the season where relegation and promotion come to the edge. It is not the be-all and end-all.

It is right that you need a fairer distribution than this endless three up, two down, three down, and that money needs to go further down the pyramid to encourage further clubs to be able to compete. It looks as if the three that came up this season are going to go down. If that continues to happen, it will have a detrimental effect on the Premier League—it must have. It gets more and more difficult every year to sustain. The Brightons and the Bournemouths have burst through, as have other teams, and they are managed really well. But there are unintended consequences if we do not look at these things in totality and just isolate them. If we say, “Leave the parachute payments alone—everything is all right with it”, that is not making progress, and we need to make progress. That is why we need to look at this within the bigger picture. It is not in the Bill but it needs looking at.

17:30

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will add just a couple of comments to those from my noble friend Lady Taylor. The issue for me is the distortion of competition. In each of the last seven seasons, two of the three clubs promoted from the Championship have been in receipt of parachute payments. This year it could easily be three: Burnley, Sheffield United and Leeds.

Its meaning in the longer term is that the Premier League becomes a closed shop. Clearly, parachute payments are having an impact, because this process has been going on for a long time and it has got worse. I am not saying we should get rid of parachute payments —far from it—and neither does the legislation. Nobody on our Benches wants to see that. But, clearly, the “state of the game” report will have things to say about the impact of parachute payments.

Any sort of fair and reasonable assessment of where parachute payments have been made in the last decade and more would suggest that competition is being badly distorted. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, is right: they are affecting the shape of our game, and that means that the Brightons and Bournemouths of this world will find it harder to break through the glass ceiling that is there at the moment. For that reason, we should continue to include parachute payments within the remit of the independent football regulator.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, let me make one final point to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam—

[Noble Lords]

The noble Baroness cannot speak again on Report.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Lord Markham, for tabling these amendments, and the noble Lord, Lord Markham, for speaking to them.

As discussed in Committee, the Government fully acknowledge that parachute payments are a significant part of football’s financial landscape. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, made clear, this is part of the current landscape. However, it is precisely because of this importance that the regulator must be able to consider them as relevant revenue for the purposes of the backstop, especially if they are proven to be destabilising. How else could the regulator possibly make a fully informed and effective decision without a complete picture of football’s finances?

Amendments 57, 75, 76 and 84 all attempt to remove parachute payments from consideration under the backstop. They also remove the power for the Secretary of State to amend the definition of relevant revenue, preventing them ever being included in the definition of relevant revenue in the future.

In our view, these amendments are fundamentally short-sighted. I hear the concerns from the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, but we heard a very different alternative view from my noble friends Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lord Bassam of Brighton and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport. Clearly, it is disputed within your Lordships’ House. If the effects of parachute payments are risking the sustainability of the wider pyramid, the regulator must have a lever to address the issue.

These amendments make the definition of relevant revenue less flexible, less able to address the changing landscape of football’s finances and, overall, less effective. The current power in the Bill allowing the Secretary of State to amend the definition of relevant revenue is balanced, requiring substantial consultation with the relevant leagues. Removing this instead leaves us with a static definition that is likely to become outdated over time. For the reasons I have set out, I ask the noble Lords not to press these amendments.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the Minister and all noble Lords for their comments. It has become clear in this heavily truncated debate, but taking on the major points that we spoke about in Committee, that all noble Lords care passionately about what we are trying to do here, and that between us we are all trying to find what we think will be the best solution for football overall.

My concern and the concern of my noble friends and many others is that if you damage the competitiveness of a lot of those Premier League games, it will result in less money being paid in media rights to the Premier League, which will mean less money to all the clubs in the pyramid. That is the real danger that we are talking about here.

To directly address the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, around the closed-shop nature of the Premier League, only five clubs have been in the Premier League for the whole of its existence, so that is not a closed shop, and 55% of all the clubs have been in the Premier League at some point.

Although the Minister’s comments were not unexpected, I believe that the previous version of the Bill that was presented by the then Conservative Government was better than the one before us today, and one of the major reasons for that is the changes around parachute payments.

I regret that, although the Minister understands the importance of all the amendments, she is not minded to accept our Amendment 70 as a genuine attempt to reach compromise and consensus on this issue. That means that the regulator can still, if it considers it correct, abolish those parachute payments in their entirety, which I truly believe would have a significant impact on the game and damage all 92 clubs. As a result, I am afraid that I am not satisfied by Minister’s response and, as I indicated earlier, I would like to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 57.

17:37

Division 4

Ayes: 183

Noes: 234

17:48

Clause 57: Applications for resolution process to be triggered

Amendment 58

Moved by

[Lord Birt]

58: Clause 57, page 47, line 5, leave out “following conditions” and insert “conditions in subsections (3) to (6)”

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, in truth, my family, unlike that of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, does not have to look back 70 years to find any trace of silverware, but I congratulate him and Newcastle on a thoroughly deserved victory yesterday.

If anybody doubts the intensity of fans’ feelings about their clubs, they should have been with me last night on a Tube train, where we were packed like sardines. For some reason, all the Liverpool supporters had gone home and I found myself in a carriage completely composed of Newcastle supporters. The sheer joy was manifest, as well as the sweetness and kindness of the Geordie nature, including taking pity on a disappointed Scouser.

Amendments 58, 59, 64, 65, 67, 72 and 77 in my name, and in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, together define a wholly new process for determining fund flow from the Premier League down to the EFL in the event that the backstop measure is triggered. A wholly new approach is needed because the current process defined in the Bill is in almost every respect unfit for purpose. I will touch on why as I explain the alternative proposal that I and my colleagues place before your Lordships today.

Step 1 in the negotiation process that we have designed is the amassing of evidence in the “state of the game” report to inform the negotiation about every material aspect of the English game, including evidence about all the circumstances affecting the health and effectiveness of clubs in the major English leagues, including: a breakdown of their sources of revenue; how they invest and manage their finances; the balance between their equity and their debt; and evidence of how the English league performs financially and on the pitch compared with other European leagues. This is not an exhaustive list. Evidence should be the first building block of a sophisticated fund flow negotiation. Yet the Bill as it stands does not mandate an up-to-date “state of the game” report to begin, or to form part of, the backstop process.

Step 2 in our design is the appointment of a panel of three, experienced in mediation and arbitration, to manage the negotiation between the Premier League and the EFL. With all parties in the room, the panel would interrogate proposals and ensure that all relevant issues are surfaced, explored and bottomed out.

Step 3 would establish clear criteria against which the panel can assess the proposals coming from each league. The criteria that we lay out in our amendments include: maintaining the global appeal and competitiveness of English football; ensuring competitive balance within individual leagues; enabling well- managed clubs to rise up the football pyramid without risking financial instability; and ensuring long-term investment in stadium and facilities. Remarkably, the Bill as it stands is all but devoid of criteria to apply to determining the appropriate level of fund flow down the English leagues.

Step 4 is a process of binding arbitration spread over 100 days, with proposals from both leagues presented in defined stages. For example, after 75 days both sides table their final offers. If no agreement is reached by day 85, the panel makes the determination and announces it before day 100. In the original Bill, negotiation was planned to last only 28 days, a wholly inadequate timeframe for such a complex and critical negotiation. Also, in the current Bill, if the two sides fail to agree, a completely different group, the so-called expert panel—uninvolved in the process up to that point and with no exposure to the dialogue and debate thus far—must choose between one of the two deals; this is the so-called binary mechanism.

The expert panel cannot amend, adjust or find middle ground. In practice, for both leagues it is a game of Russian roulette. I guarantee that the binary mechanism in the Bill will incentivise gaming, not collaboration, compromise and the building of consensus. Seasoned professionals steeped in mediation and arbitration shake their heads in disbelief when this process is explained to them, not least because this is not a negotiation between two remote monoliths; rather, it is between two sides of the same family, where each year, in the top two leagues, six clubs out of 44 move from one side of the family to the other.

Our proposal for the backstop process is based on up-to-date evidence, the application of clear criteria, pro-longed dialogue and challenge, and a final determination by wholly engaged mediators if agreement is not reached. None of these factors is present in the current Bill.

We can applaud the remarkable success of the Premier League but I am not blind to the problems in English football. I trust that regulation will address them. For example, there are strong arguments for parachute payments. We have just heard some of them. However, the competition within the Championship needs to be assessed. There are good arguments for increasing the quantum of solidarity payments flowing down from the Premier League to the Championship but how those funds will be invested—in stadia, for instance—needs to be identified. Fund flow also needs to be considered in the context of how the Championship is managed.

In the last season for which data are available, the top club in the Championship had revenues five times greater than the bottom club—not a recipe for fair competition. In 2021, Championship clubs spent 125% of their revenues on wages, which is not a sign of good management. One-third of the teams that are currently in the Premier League were promoted from the Championship in the past 10 years. This is evidence of the system working. However, Burnley has been promoted to and relegated from the Premier League three times in the same period. The reasons for the recent yo-yoing of clubs up and down between the two leagues need to be understood.

I cite these examples to illuminate the complexity of the issues that the regulator will have to address, and which should be an integral part of that process for determining fund flow down the leagues. I hope that these examples also illustrate that a far more sophisticated backstop process is needed to address them than is contained in the Bill.

The fingerprints of both main parties are on the design of the backstop process. I hope that both will recognise that there is a far better way. I beg to move.

[Lord Burns (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, on Newcastle’s win yesterday. As a season ticket holder of Sunderland in the late 1950s, I had to live through the humiliation of Newcastle winning three cup finals, in 1951, 1952 and 1955. I got my own back when I got to Wembley for the finals in 1973 and 1974. In 1973 Sunderland beat Leeds and in 1974 Liverpool beat Newcastle—rather convincingly. Putting aside my advancing years, I have to say that yesterday I was supporting Newcastle and delighted with them, probably for the first time in my life.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, has explained some of the problems in the proposed final offer mechanism in the Bill and has presented an alternative proposal. I do not propose to go into the details but want to make some general points and emphasise the extent to which the criteria for any decisions on the distribution of revenues must be much broader than has been indicated so far.

During the debate, many noble Lords have reminded us how our integrated football pyramid is a very important part of our football arrangements; hence it is essential that the leagues work closely together. This is crucial. It is crucial when it comes to negotiation, particularly about the distribution of revenue. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said, we are dealing with two parts of the football family. Indeed, over time, many teams will move between the leagues. We therefore need a constructive mechanism to resolve differences that will work over several periods in the future.

The main point I want to make is that whatever process is in place, the criteria for making the choice between final offers should be as clear as possible and it should be relevant to the issues facing the football pyramid. Amendment 72 seeks to provide additional clarity on this. I too am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, for the number of meetings that we had to discuss this, at which she listened very carefully.

18:00

Given the commercial success of English football, it is inevitable that deciding on the distribution of revenue will be difficult and complex. There are many factors that are relevant to this decision, and, generally, they are interrelated. It is not easy to simply state one or two factors upon which decisions can be taken. Clearly, the distribution should protect the overall financial soundness of clubs. Much of that task of maintaining financial stability is down to the risk appetite of the clubs themselves, taking account of their access to capital. It is right that well-managed clubs should prosper. The likelihood of financial failure increases when organisations take excessive risks, and I welcome the emphasis in the Bill on prudential management.

However, I doubt that this can be achieved simply by passing more money down the pyramid. It has to be done in a much more structured way. We need to see competitive balance within and between the leagues, so that fans can watch attractive and competitive football. We want the Premier League to continue to thrive financially and for its clubs to be successful in international competition, but a successful pyramid surely means that clubs should also be able to move successfully between divisions without creating life-threatening financial crises.

As we have seen in recent years, an additional source of risk is that when there is too great a disparity between the financial rewards in one league relative to another, one gets strains and stresses. Getting the right balance between the leagues will be crucial in reducing risk. Decisions of the panel will have to be analytical, balanced and well argued. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, pointed out, they need a good database from which to work and to interrogate this really closely.

My own experience both as a regulator and being on the receiving end of regulatory decisions is that clarity of the regulator’s remit is crucial, particularly when it comes to decisions on issues that can be challenged in the courts or tribunals. My worry is that, as it stands, the Bill is not sufficiently clear about the criteria to be used, particularly if the panel is eventually forced to decide between two final offers. In the amendment, we have tried to set out more clearly some of the factors that we suggest should be considered and the data that should be monitored over time.

For many of us, it is evident that there are issues to be debated about the present state of the game. Without being dragged too far into the detail, there are some stresses and strains in the pyramid today. On the positive side, several smaller clubs with limited spectator revenues are now performing well in the Premier League, and we continue to see remarkable attendance rates at matches and television viewing figures. Matches, as has been said today, are generally finely balanced. Despite this, it remains very difficult for all but a few Premier League clubs to make an impact on the top six positions of the league. For the second season in a row, it is likely that the three promoted teams will be relegated after one season in the Premier League; and, as last year, the combined number of points of the bottom three teams could be heading very close to a record low. These are signs that the competitive balance is moving in the wrong direction with regard to individual leagues and the Premier League as relative to the Championship.

In the Championship, there are concerns about increased dominance of clubs which are in receipt of parachute payments. These are clearly designed to protect relegated clubs financially, but they also give the appearance of the Premier League favouring its own members. The consequence is that parachute payments are harming the competitive balance of the Championship and making it more difficult for other Championship clubs to be promoted. In addition, the high wages in the Premier League—the consequence of the League’s commercial success—are putting additional strain on the finances of Championship clubs which are not receiving parachute payments but find themselves competing in the same labour market.

None of this is easy to correct without the risk of creating adverse consequences elsewhere. The expert panel, or whoever will make this decision, will require all the analytical help it can muster, along with very clear criteria. This is a complex challenge. The amendments, which I support, are seeking changes to the mechanism for finding agreement on financial distributions that are less adversarial, less combative and based on clear criteria that can be monitored over time.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to add my name to this amendment. I am not going to venture into the world of football, coming from the nation from which I do. But I want to draw on my experience of dispute resolution, where I have spent most of my life.

I do not need to add to what has been said about two of the essentials of dispute resolution criteria: principles and evidence. That has been done by the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Birt. I will make five points, drawn from my experience and that of many others, about a dispute resolution process.

First, and most important, is the examination of the subject matter of the dispute that will arise if there is no settlement. If one looks at what is in the Bill and the process that has been selected, I accept that it is seen to work in the context in which it is used for settling a baseball player’s salary, a tariff rate or some kind of price or rate, but it is not fit for the purpose of what this is designed to deal with, which is a careful, calibrated and, above all, fair evaluation of the distribution of substantial sums of money. Everyone has said so far that this has to be fair and careful; the final offer resolution system used in the context I described does not do that.

Secondly, experience has shown that the best panel for dispute resolution is where one party chooses one arbitrator, another party chooses the other arbitrator or member of the panel, and the experienced lawyer chairs it. There are two reasons for that. First, the ability of a party to appoint gives that party confidence in the tribunal—it is constituted by that party’s assent. Secondly, I fear that there may be a misapprehension as to the role of a lawyer. The point of having a lawyer as chair is that he is experienced in guiding a dispute resolution process; it is not legalistic, though some may think so. I can assure noble Lords that if you have a highly contested dispute overseen by someone without experience—as I regret is likely to be the case if one gets to dispute resolution in this—disaster ensues.

Thirdly, it is important to bear in mind one other point. Even if after expert mediation you cannot reach a resolution that is acceptable to both, you must recall that there will be a loser and a winner; and the loser has to live, in this particular context, in a good long-term relationship with the victor. That is particularly important where the dispute is not the price of something, or who is right and who is wrong, but what is a fair distribution. For a decision to be seen as fair by the loser, which is particularly important if you are a decision-maker because you want the loser to feel he has had a fair process, the panel must be able to reach its own independent judgment and not be bound by one or other of the offers that are on the table; and ex hypothesi, it will be the offer of the winner that has triumphed, and that will not be seen as fair.

Fourthly, experience of businesses where there is outside investment shows how important it is for a dispute resolution process that affects the business to be seen—and it is perception here that matters—to be based on a fair process and the independent judgment of the panel that resolves the dispute, and not the kind of Russian roulette process, as I think it has been described, in the Bill. Applying that experience, it seems to me that the procedure for dispute resolution, in the context we are talking about, will encourage investment.

Finally, there must be a safeguard. The Bill has a safeguard in one sense: there are the procedures in Clause 81 and 82 and Schedule 10 for a review. However, what this amendment has is a fine-tuned procedure, which is must more precise and very limited.

It seems to me that, if you look at those five highlighted points, the only conclusion you can come to is that the procedure in the Bill as a matter of dispute resolution is not fit for purpose, whereas that which is in the amendment is.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Birt. As I said in Committee, I believe that the binding arbitration model that his amendments set out is unquestionably better than the proposed backstop mechanism in the Bill currently. In particular, Amendment 72 fills a glaring hole in the current process: that is a transparent and clear set of criteria against which the expert panel in this process will make its decision.

It is clear that the noble Lord and his colleagues have thought very deeply about their proposals and have tabled a comprehensive package of amendments. Indeed, their contributions have shown a breadth of experience and expertise that they have brought in developing them. Therefore, I very much hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister will accept these amendments, and her colleagues in the other place can use the passage of the Bill to finesse and improve them if the Government are concerned, for instance, about certain elements of drafting. I commend these amendments to the Minister and hope she will look on them favourably.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I offer support for the broad approach of the noble Lords led by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who have tabled the amendments in this group. I do not agree with every element of the proposed new process, but I appreciate that this idea, to replace the current mechanism with a structured commercial arbitration process, would be a substantial improvement on the current flawed and high-risk process —a process designed largely by the previous Government and not a mechanism recommended by the fan-led review. I believe these amendments would deliver a better process for the EFL as well as for the Premier League—better for all of football—because they would make the backstop process more transparent, more predictable and therefore lower risk.

In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, made an incisive and compelling case for change, as did the noble Lord, Lord Burns. He has done so again today, demonstrating the virtues of balance, nuance and good sense—all qualities that are excluded from the operation of the existing backstop process. The current backstop mechanism is fundamentally flawed. For example, the 28-day mediation process amounts to little more than mandating a conversation between parties, and of course then the parties have to go back and discuss those conversations with their clubs, which takes a lot longer than 28 days. It also creates no structure to identify areas of compromise, nor does it establish proper incentives for genuine negotiation. It does not even require both parties actually to make a proposal, so neither party’s position is flushed out. In practical terms, it means we might as well jut skip directly to the final decision.

The current process will leave the expert panel examining two highly divergent proposals, which will come out of the blue, with no arguments properly aired ahead of that decision. By contrast, the amendment before us introduces significant advantages. First, the three-person panel, with two representatives selected by both the Premier League and the EFL alongside an independent chair, mirrors successful approaches used throughout football arbitration. Crucially, the same panel would make the final decision, having heard all the arguments throughout. Secondly, an extended 90-day arbitration period would allow for proper engagement rather than the perfunctory approach currently proposed. Thirdly, and crucially in my view, the requirement for structured offers to be put forward, scrutinised and then defined, introduces a dynamic entirely absent from the current model.

18:15

By identifying areas of compromise and providing feedback, the panel would progressively narrow the scope of disagreement. By the time you reach the final decision point, many contentious issues will have already been resolved and taken off the table. What is particularly attractive about that stronger structure is that, even if the Government retained a binary final offer process, it would already have significantly de-risked such a decision by narrowing down the points of contention.

This would address one of my major concerns with the current backstop: that it could enable wholesale changes to financial structures that sustain the entire football pyramid, against the will and the interests of one of the parties. Clearly, to maintain the growth and success of English football, we need a system that delivers evolution, not revolution.

I do have some reservations. For example, the criteria for making the final decision are too prescriptive in my view. Similarly, I do not agree with some of the revisions to the “state of the game” process, and I do not believe it should be up to the regulator to decide how long the parties should be able to contract for. However, in the end, the current process is so flawed that we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The core process outlined by the noble Lords’ amendments would represent a substantial overall improvement. It is a proven, knowable process; it is fairer and would reduce legal, political and economic risks.

The health of the entire pyramid matters profoundly to all of us, which is why we need a mechanism that respects its complexity, not one that is reductive, crude and intolerably risky for both sides. I hope these amendments and the debate they are encouraging can be an important step in creating a process that is fairer for all sides, more balanced in the outcomes it delivers, and more respectful of football’s intricate financial architecture, as well as the rights and interests of all parties.

[Lord O'Donnell (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. I should declare my interest: I am passionate about football. Wembley has been mentioned, and I remember my first trip there was in 1968 to see my team, Manchester United, win the European Cup—alas, that may not happen again for a while. Like the noble Lord, Lord Birt, my former boss, I was at Wembley in 1973 and 1974; unlike him, I was playing, but it was not quite the same crowd, because it was the Oxford v Cambridge match, but I was there.

I will not repeat all the excellent arguments of the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Burns, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, but I support them all. We are now observing the Government having issues with regulators, saying they are not taking due account of growth. I think this tells you, when setting up a new regulator, to think very carefully about what you want them to consider. These amendments go into detail about that; that is absolutely important, because the current process has this absurd system where there are two numbers and you have to choose one. When they are trying to work out the right balance, they need to take account of these factors, and these factors should be made clear.

There are two aspects to this. The first is to make things clear. The second is: if you want fairness and competitiveness to be really important, you also need guidance about trade-offs. In my experience dealing with regulators, those are some of the most difficult issues—that is where politics gets involved—so we need to be clear what we are asking the regulators to do, what they should be doing and what they should be referring to others.

We need clarity on the role of the regulator, guidance on inevitable trade-offs and, ultimately—I agree with many here—we need fairness. We must keep the Premier League at the pinnacle of the global game. If we succeed in that, then Premier League clubs will repeat Manchester United’s 1968 performance and win the European competitions.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by asking the Minister, when she responds to this debate, to identify specifically whether she intends to accept the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and others now or to change anything for Third Reading. I believe that we need absolute clarity of the position both for this and future debates.

I suggest that the Minister should look at the people proposing this amendment. This is not some party operation: we have a former head of broadcasting organisations who, as he identified, spent his time negotiating the original football broadcasting rights; a former Lord Chief Justice; a former senior civil servant; and a current senior lawyer. It is important that the Minister asks herself why it is impossible for her and her team to accept the carefully considered and detailed amendments that we are debating.

When I spoke at Second Reading, I identified a willingness to consider the proposal as it is in the Bill because, unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, I have faith in people, other than just lawyers, able to take an impartial decision. I speak, as I have identified previously, as somebody who has spent many years negotiating with trade unions—and I use the word “with” deliberately, as I was across the table from them. I always regarded it as a failure if we did not get to an agreement between management and the trade unions.

I have considered what we are talking about carefully. I have not discussed it with my colleagues, but have looked at my industrial experience and asked myself whether the proposal put forward by the Government or that put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, is better. There is an inherent misunderstanding of what we are talking about here. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, identified, we are not talking about two sides. Earlier today, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to the different levels of the competition—the Premier League, the Championship and the lower leagues—so it is not a question of one versus the other because, as sure as eggs are eggs, once you get into the discussion about allocation of resources, you discover that there are not two sides and a pendulum that swings from one direction to the other. There is a series of different interests all the way up the league table to the absolute top. Therefore, you cannot ask us to accept a process that awards to one side or the other, when there are not in fact two sides but several sides, which will respond very differently depending on where they are in the league structure in any season.

I started by asking the Minister a very serious question, which I will repeat: can she please give a very clear indication to the Chamber of what the Government’s view is of the very serious, excellently drafted and well-debated proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and others?

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to say a few words, because the whole House acknowledges that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, is trying to be constructive here. He, with his colleagues, has produced some incredibly detailed amendments, and that is partly what concerns me. I am not saying that there is no merit in his approach, but I think that some of the conditions are potentially overburdensome.

Will the Minister remind the House of the purpose behind the backstop? As I understand it, the backstop was there to encourage parties to come together, discuss the situation and try to reach agreement. That is so important, because we have had the absence of agreement in recent years because, I think, of the stubbornness of one party.

I therefore worry that the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and his colleagues are overprescriptive. He mentioned several of the problems that exist in football today, such as the level and unsustainability of players’ wages and the need for stadium improvements. All are relevant and important to those of us who are concerned about the future of football but, if we are going to be prescriptive about what comes in at that last stage, we may get into difficulties. I hope that the “state of the game” report, which he mentioned and which is extremely important going forward, will deal with some of these issues.

I would like to agree with the noble Lord that all of football is two sides of the same family, but I am not sure that that has been the experience of the last few years in the negotiations between the Premier League and the EFL. It certainly is not a balanced debate or discussion in terms of their powers. I understand the noble Lord’s wish to have levels of arbitration, but we must be careful not to cause delays or take the pressure off parties to come to an agreement between themselves.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I added my name to my noble friend Lord Birt’s series of amendments and thank him for the time and effort that he has devoted to producing them. I also thank the Minister, the Bill team and the Secretary of State herself for the amount of time that they have devoted to discussions with me and many other noble Lords on this complex topic of the distribution of revenue and the resolution process.

I entirely support what has been said today by my noble friends Lord Birt and Lord Burns and by my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas: a formidable forward line—the Pelé, Messi and Bobby Charlton of this debate. I will add a response to the concerns that some noble Lords and perhaps the Minister have about these amendments, which have been expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and are in the briefing to noble Lords from the EFL. There are two main concerns that need to be addressed.

First, there is a concern that we have agreed that the Bill is to be light-touch regulation when we have a complex series of amendments here—and they are complex. My response is that the distribution of revenue and the resolution process are complex matters. We are addressing the distribution of millions of pounds, which is vital to the financial stability of clubs outside the Premier League, and this money is to be extracted from Premier League clubs. The mechanisms for that process have to be effective and fair. They need to set out how this is to occur in detail and by reference to what substantive principles. As has been said, with all due respect to those who drafted this Bill, the current provisions lack proper detail on evidential basis and procedures that are adequate to ensure a fair result, and they do not contain the substantive criteria that are required. Yes, we could regulate this important matter in a much simpler manner, but the detail is absolutely vital in this context to ensure efficacy and fairness.

The second criticism that has been made is that expressed by the EFL in its briefing document. The EFL is worried that the Birt amendments will result in an invasion of lawyers—as they put it, “in particular, expensive lawyers”, God forbid—who will be briefed by the Premier League. The EFL says that it will not be able to compete. As the EFL has expressed this concern, it needs to be addressed in this debate.

18:30

I of course declare my interest as a lawyer and, on a good day, an expensive lawyer. Speaking from 45 years of experience as a practising barrister, I would say to the EFL that expensive lawyers are not necessarily the most effective lawyers in a particular context; other counsel are available. It is also important to note that the issues in dispute in the present context are not legal issues. We are concerned with an assessment of the appropriate sum—based on the football factors set out by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, in his Amendment 72 —if the mediation phase, where lawyers are completely useless, does not produce a result. That result will depend less on legal expertise than on solid football experience: in particular, the needs of the non-Premier League clubs. This is a context where expensive strikers will be less effective on such a muddy pitch than experienced defenders.

If the noble Lord, Lord Birt, is going to press his amendments to a Division today, he will certainly have my support—but, like the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, who made what I thought was a very wise intervention, I hope that we will not get to that stage. I hope that the Minister, having thought about this matter and having listened to this debate—she has always engaged with what has been said on this Bill during the course of these debates—will feel able to tell us today that this is a topic on which she and her officials would like to think again. I hope she will tell us that, as it is such a difficult and important topic, she wants to see whether the Government, on reflecting further on the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, might wish to improve the Bill by incorporating at least some of those amendments and bringing back a further amendment at Third Reading.

In light of the debate that we have had, I hope the Minister will think that that is an appropriate step to take today. In my view, that would be in the interests of what we are all seeking to promote: the interests of football.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I will just add a penny’s worth. In the Bill, there is a backstop. Let us remember the history: the backstop was brought in to sort out the trade agreements after Brexit, and how Brexit would operate in Northern Ireland. Few people understood what a backstop was, and that was part of the trouble. We had to find a better way than what the backstop suggested.

Listening to the wonderful words of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, as well as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Burns, I hope noble Lords will forgive me for saying that they sounded to me very much like what Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13. The Corinthians were fighting among themselves. Who was better? Who had more gifts? “I’m for Paul”. “I’m for Apollos”. “No, I’m better than you are”. And Paul says, “Okay, fine. Let me show you a better way”. He talks about love. He talks about faith. He talks about hope. That was the better way.

What is being proposed by these noble Lords is a better way—a better way of resolving disputes that have to do with football. As I said before, football clubs are tribes. They think theirs is the best. Of course, we have to congratulate Newcastle. I live in that part of the world. I shouted a lot, even though I was watching on television, and lost my voice in the process. Football clubs have a tradition and a history; they are tribes. If you give them a backstop, you may be there for I do not know how long. The dispute resolution that has been recommended would be a better way of doing it.

Since we are doing regulation as a new thing, which has not happened in this country before, people need to have confidence that what you have written is not another sham rock on which this ship will find itself broken apart. A backstop sounds good but, in practice, I am afraid it has not worked so far, because everybody abandoned it.

So, I urge the noble Lord the Minister—she may feel “No, I haven’t got the authority to oppose this”—that it would be much better, when you come to respond, to say that you will take this amendment away and bring it back again at Third Reading. She may still reject it then, but it would be worth giving this some thought. It would help the House not to go through a system of rejecting every amendment. I have voted against some amendments because I was not sure they were helping the Bill—but if this one is pressed to a vote, I will definitely vote for it. But I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that that is not the better way. The better way would be for the Minister to take it away and have a think about it so that, at Third Reading, it will come back.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard a great deal of eloquence. This is a subject where there has been an almost seductive charm coming at me. There has also been the novelty of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, applying for a pay cut; that is beyond belief.

What has always struck me is that this is a complicated process, where you have a big beast and a smaller one. The Government’s attempt has been to bring this forward. It may not be the most elegant solution but, let us remember, it is supposed to stop you getting there.

We have had years of this. Anybody who has been following this Bill, waiting for it to come forward, has had years of people not agreeing. We have had years of entrenched positions, of people thinking, “Oh, you have to have us as the greatest league in the world, otherwise it doesn’t work”. No—you have to be profitable. You cannot guarantee that the Premier League will be in a dominant position. That is what competition is. You have to have something that works, where people have to come together and talk.

Is the Government’s solution better than the one from the noble Lord, Lord Birt? I think the thump of hard reality is something we need. I will quote the noble Baroness back to her. I said that all sport tends to suffer from people sitting in darkened rooms, talking about themselves to themselves. The Minister said, “No, in this case, it’s people sitting in darkened rooms refusing to talk to each other”.

That is something I have carried through on. We have had people defending entrenched positions and people saying, “It is not fair”. They have changed over the course of this long debate. The first people to really irritate me were those in the EFL, two or so years ago, when they started on this. There has been no compromise here, no movement and no understanding of the family. If it is a family, it is in a soap opera somewhere.

So the Government’s position is the one that I would prefer, although I would not say that I am terribly happy with either. I look forward to what the Minister has to say. At the moment, I am slightly more in favour of what the Government are bringing forward.

[Lord Stern of Brentford (CB)]

My Lords, I rise as a supporter of AFC Wimbledon, a noble club, the great romantic story of the 20th century in British football—a club that was stolen, and a club that restarted and reinvented itself. That is the spirit that football is all about: the local clubs, with local supporters. Those clubs need protection, and they need to have it explicitly stated that they and their interests will be carefully considered. That is why I support this amendment. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the criteria set out in proposed new subsection (3) in Amendment 72. That is what would give the lower-league clubs the protection that they need. The people who hire the young people we train are dependent on those revenues and on support in this kind of way. I urge noble Lords to support this amendment.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Over many days and probably 300-plus amendments we have discussed many points, but in my opinion this is probably the most important and significant of them all. Unlike any other regulator, this set of clauses gives this regulator the power to take money from one part of the organisation and give to another. You do not see a regulator being able to take from Severn Trent and give to Thames in the water industry, or from Barclays to NatWest in the banking space. Without doubt, this is the most important thing that we are talking about here: giving power to a regulator that is unheard of in any other domain.

I must admit that I was taken aback by the Government’s suggestion. Again, in all this there is no doubt that everyone is trying to get the best approach and that we all sincerely want what is best for football, but I hear the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, that the pendulum mechanism really is untried in this domain. There is a real risk of gaming and, as mentioned, Russian roulette.

Instead, as an alternative, we have here a very thoughtful approach—maybe not put forward by a Pelé, a Bobby Charlton or a Messi, but put forward by a former BBC director-general who dealt with many media sports rights; a former Lord Chief Justice; a former head of Ofcom; a former head of the Civil Service; a former Archbishop of York; a distinguished economist; and a distinguished and sometimes expensive sports lawyer. I think we would all agree that we probably have a Pelé, a Messi and a Charlton of this subject matter before us today, and that we would be very wise to take on board all the comments, knowledge and vast experience that they bring.

That is why for me the key question was put by my noble friend Lord Hayward: whether the Minister is willing to consider this further. I know that she has spent a lot of time on this subject, as have the Secretary of State and other Ministers, and we are grateful for that, but it is worthy of further time, given the importance of what is before us today. I request that this be brought back as a commitment at Third Reading.

I am nervous that we will just get an undertaking that this will be considered, because of course it still needs to go through the other place, and we know that the other place has a large government majority without the benefit of the learned Cross-Bench Peers we have heard from today. I will listen carefully to the Minister’s words and the response to them from the noble Lord, Lord Birt, but I note that any Peer is able to divide the House. From our side, if we do not feel we have the undertaking that this will be brought back at Third Reading, we will seriously consider dividing the House.

18:45

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Birt, Lord Pannick and Lord Burns, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for tabling the amendments in this group. It is indeed an impressive team, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, stated. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Birt, for his considered engagement and persistence, and for the time he spent considering ways in which we could improve the backstop process for the good of football, which is what the Bill is intended to provide.

I am grateful for the contributions from other noble Lords co-sponsoring the amendments and other noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House who have contributed to debates and engaged constructively during discussions and during this debate. We have had a series of productive meetings exploring some of the aspects of the model that were not discussed in detail in Committee.

If I may give a personal view, as someone who has learned a huge amount through the passage of the Bill and been on an incredibly steep learning curve, I think it is unfortunate that the tone and nature of the debate in Committee at times prevented these sensible discussions taking place on the Floor of your Lordships’ House. However, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and others, as they have raised a series of important questions that have helped to inform our government amendments in this area. I genuinely appreciate his and other noble Lords’ time and expertise. I particularly appreciated how the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Burns, viewed the draft legislation with the regulator and the regulated in mind, using their considerable relevant experience to provide fascinating and useful insights.

We have heard the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, with his experience in dispute resolution. The IFR needs effective tools and, as the noble and learned Lord said, the tools and the approach should be fair and careful. I add to his point that they also need to be seen to be fair.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked for a specific commitment. While I recognise his concerns, we do not think it would be possible to reach an agreement before the conclusion of Report or Third Reading in the Lords. Our current position is that, while we are sympathetic to the intent of the amendments tabled by the noble Lords and the constructive way in which they have engaged, their approach differs significantly from existing drafting. We therefore do not think there is enough time to conclude discussions on these important differences at this stage or before Third Reading. We kept the model—

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the Minister for answering as she has, but implicit in what she said is that the Government might find a way to introduce amendments when the Bill goes to the other place. Can I please seek clarification as to whether that is what she intended to say, or whether that was just something that would take it further down the road?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The only commitment I will give is the one I have in my speech. We do not think it is possible to reach an agreement before the conclusion of Report or Third Reading in the Lords. Our current position is that while we are sympathetic to the intent of the amendments, they differ significantly from the existing drafting.

As I started to say, we kept the model chosen by the previous Government. This model is intended to create the right incentives. A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Taylor, spoke of the intention behind the current model. The final offer mechanism is designed specifically to address unequal negotiations between parties with power imbalances such as those that naturally arise in the football industry. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, said it was designed for people not to get there. It is actually designed not to be used.

The process as it stands in the existing legislation heavily incentivises reasonable proposals, since an unreasonable proposal has a very high chance of rejection when compared to a more sensible competing offer. We must maintain this incentive—

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

If I may, I will get through the points and finish; I am happy to give way if I do not answer the noble Lord’s point.

Our objective is to ensure that the backstop effectively pushes leagues to co-operate—the point that I think my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton was driving at. This was, and remains, the rationale for the existing drafting and model adapted by the previous Government, and in the Bill brought back by this Government to your Lordships’ House.

Alongside this, we want to ensure that the model is light touch—to echo a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—low cost, flexible and has a clear process. In considering strengthening the model, we must also ensure due consideration, and that appropriate engagement with the relevant stakeholders takes place.

We recognise the intent of the proposed amendments in supporting these objectives, including how the process is triggered, how mediation is conducted and how a final decision is made, including the criteria for a decision. I know that the noble Lords’ proposals have the best interests of football at heart and are based on the huge amount of experience of all those who have signed the amendments. The department will continue working to ensure that the backstop delivers the right balance and the right result for football. This is our shared goal.

I understand that the noble Lord may still wish to divide the House, given that I cannot give a firm commitment at this stage or commit to bringing something back before Third Reading. But throughout the Bill’s passage and consideration of amendments in the Commons, we are very happy to engage with the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and noble Lords who have signed up to his amendments, as well as with other noble Lords with an interest in this area, with the hope of reaching a more amenable compromise before Royal Assent. With that in mind, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

If I may, I will make what I hope is a helpful suggestion. The Minister mentioned the lack of time ahead of Third Reading. It is my understanding that it is within the Government’s power to delay Third Reading in order to give sufficient time for this. Given that one of the previous amendments said that we would not put forward measures that would have an impact during a season, and given that we all accept that this legislation will not be passed before the beginning of the new season, there is no practical difference in terms of timing and what that will mean. We have a real opportunity here, which will not have any timing impact on football but will give us the opportunity to seek the better way mentioned before.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

There are currently no plans to move the timing of Third Reading in your Lordships’ House, but I commit to ongoing discussions with the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and others, who have been extremely considerate in the time they spent discussing their concerns about the current model with me, the Bill team and others. We wish to continue those discussions in the spirit I described previously.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

St Paul, Messi—the compliments have been flying around. For the avoidance of any doubt, despite having two of the leading lawyers in the country on the team, no fees were paid during the preparation of these amendments.

I have to say that if was not a party to this debate, I would have been sitting listening with my jaw dropping open at the quality of the contributions from right across the House. I am genuinely grateful to everybody who spoke—without exception. Forgive me if I particularly mention my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas. If I had been the Minister, I would have said, “I am going to give up straight away”, because his arguments were so completely devastating and convincing.

I am surprised and disappointed by the Minister’s response, which I had not expected. As she knows, I had no desire to divide the House. I had hoped, given the strength of the arguments she has heard, that she would adopt a more conciliatory and supportive line. I ask her, if she does not mind, recognising that time is not on our side and the Bill is going to go to another place: is she willing to accept my colleagues and I and others from around this House having a meaningful debate about the re-engineering of the backstop, in line with the arguments heard from all over the House today? It is possible that I am not clear on what it is that she is saying.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I apologise to the noble Lord if I was not clear. I am very keen to continue to have ongoing debate and dialogue with the noble Lord and his co-sponsors of the amendment, in a similar vein to the conversations we have had up until now. I apologise if I did not make that clear in my speech. That is absolutely the intention, but unfortunately, I cannot commit to bringing something back before Third Reading.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

Obviously, I do not expect the Minister to commit, but she has always been very generous in the past at inviting people in for talks. Let us be honest, there have been some changes to the Bill, although not many. Does she think there is a reasonable chance that we can fundamentally re-engineer the backstop process?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I am really sorry but I cannot commit to that, but I can commit to the ongoing discussions.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

I am afraid that I do not think the Minister gives me any choice. I will test the opinion of the House.

18:56

Division 5

Ayes: 175

Noes: 207

19:07

Amendment 59 not moved.

Amendment 60

Moved by

[Lord Markham]

60: Clause 57, page 47, line 32, leave out “five years” and insert “the applicable period (see subsections (7) and (8))”

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, I must admit that this group of amendments feels a bit “after the Lord Mayor’s Show”. I rise to move Amendment 60 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. This amendment reintroduces the ability of a competition organiser to contract out of the backstop. This was in the previous version of the Bill, introduced by the last Government. It permitted the leagues the opportunity to come to a mutual agreement to opt out of the backstop mechanism for a longer period of time. To me, this seems entirely sensible, because of course the whole point of a backstop agreement is for it to be a backstop. Clearly, if the leagues have already reached an agreement—and clearly both want to opt out of it all—by definition you do not need a backstop, because an agreement has been reached. So my question is: why should the leagues not be allowed to do that?

Our Amendments 60 and 61 would also remove the short-termism introduced in this version of the Bill, allowing for a flexibly and mutually agreed opt-out mechanism that would be longer term—beyond the five years, if need be—to create the stability required for long-term partnerships. Again, it is commonly known that clubs, leagues and commercial organisations can often decide and come to better deals over a longer- term period, because often the people paying the money are prepared to pay more to get the certainty that a longer period of time gives. So allowing a period such as 10 years instead of five can often lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.

Again, I do not know why we would want to be prescriptive in all this and not allow competition organisers—in this case the Premier League and the EFL—to have the flexibility to come mutually to those agreements. Clearly, they will do so only if they think it is in the interests of both parties, so I do not know why we would wish to deny them the opportunity to reach such a long-term partnership agreement. To me, that is what we should all be about: trying to encourage co-operation between the leagues, instead of being prescriptive, setting out things they cannot do and saying, “No, we’re not going to let you reach an agreement between yourselves”. For those reasons, we propose our amendments, which hopefully are very sensible. I will listen with interest to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to a number of amendments in my name in this group, but first I lend my support to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson, which would allow the parties to contract for longer than a five-year period. I remain surprised that the Government believe that two consenting parties should be actively disincentivised from ever contracting for the long term by the automatic availability of a dispute mechanism. This cannot be about fairness, transparency or sustainability; it is about turning the backstop into a ratchet, ensuring that no long-term agreement between the Premier League and the EFL, no matter how mutually beneficial, can ever provide genuine stability or be truly relied on.

The EFL, in its briefing for today, says that it would oppose these amendments because they would

“incentivise a larger league to try to coerce a smaller league into a longer agreement that suits its strategic objective over those of the other league, using its financial muscle”.

In one sense, that is right. Basic commercial logic means that the Premier League would be prepared to pay more, to be more ambitious, to do things like selling the EFL’s international rights, which it has asked us to do, and to offer a fixed percentage of pooled revenues, which is the EFL’s big idea, if it enabled long-term certainty. The same basic logic suggests that shorter-term deals will therefore be less ambitious, result in less of a partnership, deliver less regulatory certainty, offer less in subsidy and therefore be less beneficial to both sides. Let us be in no doubt as to the EFL’s positioning. The Government’s support for its agenda is delivering for the EFL clubs in communities and constituencies across the country.

My Amendment 73 introduces what I would call a new “funder assurance principle” into the backstop process. Unless there were compelling reasons not to, this principle would require the regulator to select the Premier League’s proposal if—and only if—that proposal fully meets the IFR’s objectives. This is not about giving the Premier League what it wants; in this scenario, the league would be giving away billions of pounds of revenue in a forced redistribution process. No one could describe that as a win for the Premier League. This principle creates powerful incentives for the league to continue to step up to the plate, but it does so while offering some security and certainty, reducing the intolerable risk of a disruptive, damaging and extreme proposal being selected. That is what is so difficult—legally, financially and political—about the crude and binary backstop process.

My Amendment 74, which could be seen as an alternative position, would place property rights at the heart of the decision criteria. It would simply require the regulator to recognise, and have particular regard to, the fact that mandating the distribution of revenue constitutes an interference with property rights. This is not a controversial principle; it is the cornerstone of our legal system. It is, in fact, language taken directly from the Secretary of State’s ECHR memorandum to the Bill.

I hope that, given how extraordinary this backstop process is, the Minister will not object to putting the most ordinary of safeguards as a statement of existing law into the Bill. It is surely important for the IFR to be reminded of the public law principles that it must have in mind when taking property from one party and transferring it to another.

19:15

My third amendment introduces essential conditionality into the process. This is where I ask all noble Lords to reflect particularly carefully on the implications of the backstop mechanism. The amendment would require recipient clubs to demonstrate how any funds received would directly further the primary principle of the IFR—protecting and promoting the sustainability of English football. The amendment highlights a critical reality that has been largely overlooked in our debates. Any funds transferred through the backstop will inevitably come with strings attached.

Taken together, these amendments would create a backstop that respects fundamental property rights while ensuring football’s sustainability. They will provide certainty that when the funder fully meets regulatory objectives, their rights and interests are respected. They would ensure that any redistribution of funds serves its intended purpose through proper accountability mechanisms. I believe that they would deliver fair, effective and sustainable outcomes for the entire football pyramid.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, for tabling these amendments, and the noble Lord, Lord Markham, for speaking to this group.

On Amendments 60 and 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, the five-year timeframe is critical to the effective functioning of the backstop. A set timeframe gives the industry certainty that the regulator can intervene to end the deadlock between the leagues if they cannot agree for an extended period. In addition to this, due to the imbalance in bargaining power between the parties in this case, we do not want to allow a situation in which a league could be coerced into a much longer agreement that essentially renders the backstop unusable.

On Amendment 69 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, Clause 61(5) is intended to function as a protection for the interests of relegated clubs, ensuring that final proposals take into account the disproportionate impact that removing or reducing parachute payments will have on them. The amendment would broaden the provision out so that final proposals consider the financial sustainability of all effective clubs, not only relegated clubs, but that change is unnecessary. Final proposals must already address the financial soundness of clubs and the financial resilience of English football as a whole. To be chosen, a proposal must advance the regulator’s objective. Of course, parachute payments may affect the overall balance of leagues, but relegated clubs are the most directly affected. That is why they need the specific protection that the current clause offers.

On Amendment 71, as the House will know from our debates over the past months, the sustainability of English football is at the heart of the Bill. I understand the noble Baroness’s intent, but the sustainability of English football and advancing the regulator’s objective are already explicitly at the heart of the backstop. Clause 7 already requires that, as far as reasonably practicable, the regulator must exercise all its statutory functions in a way that is compatible with the purpose of the Bill. Of course that includes the backstop, and it would not be appropriate to require leagues to set out how their clubs would spend the disputed funds, nor to implicitly require the regulator to approve exactly how clubs spend funds. That would be overly prescriptive and disproportionate.

As I have set out before, concerns surrounding potentially reckless spending by clubs are already addressed in the financial regulation provisions in the Bill. These measures will ensure that clubs have appropriate resources and controls in place to manage their financial risk. For example, clubs will be required to provide up-to-date financial plans, backed by appropriate financial resources, which will be stress tested. This is the most appropriate way to address how clubs spend their money.

The noble Baroness’s Amendment 73 would require the funder’s proposal to be chosen by default, as long as it met a minimum level of consistency with the principles in Clause 62. However, the fundamental aim of the backstop process is to bring balance to a negotiation between two parties where one has significantly more bargaining power than the other. That means impartiality is key and no party can, or should, be favoured.

On Amendment 74, we understand the concerns regarding property rights, and I take this opportunity to reassure the House. The provisions relating to distributions allow for interference with property rights, but that interference is lawful; it is proportionate and in accordance with the law. Most importantly, any interference would also be in the public interest. The backstop can be used only in limited circumstances where a clear issue has been identified. For a proposal to be chosen, it has to be in line with the regulator’s objectives; there is, therefore, no situation where the proposal chosen is not in the public interest. This is set out in more detail in the ECHR memorandum that accompanies the Bill. We are confident that the current drafting of the Bill, as well as the requirements of the Human Rights Act, ensure that property rights must be respected.

I move on to the government amendments in this group, Amendments 68 and 89. We have listened to the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and fellow Peers that it is imperative that financial sustainability of relegated clubs is protected under the backstop. We argued in Committee that this protection was already implicit in the Bill, but these amendments put it beyond doubt. If the backstop is used to resolve questions relating to parachute payments, the leagues must address the sustainability of relegated clubs’ finances in their final proposals. We hope that that clarity will ease the concerns of clubs that face relegation.

With regard to Amendment 62, we want to ensure that our policy intention is clear. The backstop is intended to be a last-resort power, only to be used if another regulatory intervention would not achieve the same result. We have therefore tabled an amendment adding a requirement to the list outlined in Clause 59(2) covering the considerations that the regulator must take into account before triggering the backstop process. This new requirement ensures that the regulator must consider whether any of its other functions would achieve a similar result before approving an application to trigger the backstop process. This change demonstrates clearly that the backstop will be used only if other regulatory interventions would not solve the problem.

Amendment 63 requires the regulator to outline any findings in its most recent “state of the game” report that it considers relevant to the question or questions for resolution. The regulator must outline this in its notice to trigger the backstop process. We have always been clear that we expect that the “state of the game” report will play a crucial role in the decision-making process for the backstop. However, by tabling this amendment we have made this commitment explicit in legislation. This will give clarity to the leagues as to how the findings of the report could shape the backstop process. It will also provide reassurance in the Bill that the “state of the game” report will be published before the backstop process can be triggered. The findings of the “state of the game” report will be crucial evidence to inform the regulator’s decisions, including those made as part of the backstop process.

Finally, on Amendment 66, we acknowledge the concerns raised by Peers, most notably the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Lord Burns, both in your Lordships’ House and in meetings since Committee, that the current drafting of the Bill has a hard deadline that puts an automatic end to the mediation phase. While it is important that the backstop process comes to a timely conclusion, we understand the concern that parties may be timed out due to the statutory deadline for the mediation phase being triggered. To be clear, we do not want the mediation phase to come to an arbitrary conclusion if further useful discussion could take place. The Government would strongly prefer an industry-led solution, and we hope the mediation phase will facilitate this, so we have tabled an amendment to allow the mediator to request a single extension of the mediation process, up to 28 more days. This will allow for productive discussion without extending the process unreasonably.

For these reasons, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, and I ask for your Lordships’ House’s support on the government amendments in this group.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

First, I thank the Minister for the points that she has made, and particularly the government amendments, which show in a number of places that the Government have been listening to the points raised in Committee. We are grateful, as all those things help to progress and make it a better Bill.

At the same time, it is a shame that the Minister is unable to accept Amendment 60. It still seems strange to me that, when the Premier League and the English Football League have mutually reached an agreement, we are saying that they are not allowed to do it—because the word “backstop” implies that a backstop should come in force only when the Premier League and the English Football League have not agreed. Here we are saying that we are going to set preconditions on what the EFL and the Premier League are able to agree. That all remains strange to me, and a mystery as to why the Government should not be supportive of allowing the Premier League and the English Football League to come to an agreement.

I turn to Amendments 69 and 71, spoken to by my noble friend Lady Brady. It seems entirely reasonable to ask clubs to put down what they plan to spend the money on. Again, it seems entirely reasonable that, when we are talking about wanting to ensure sustainability, the clubs receiving or making the bids for large amounts of money as part of redistribution should need to make a case that the things that they intend to spend the money on are towards a long-term sustainable model in terms of investment in the club and the infrastructure of the facilities there. Again, it seems strange to me that it is not something that the Government or the Minister would say was entirely in keeping with the intention of what we want to try to do on this. As a result, I believe that the Bill would be better off for the inclusion of these amendments, but I regrettably withdraw my amendment at this stage.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.

Amendment 61 not moved.

Clause 59: Decisions by the IFR on applications under section 57

Amendments 62 and 63

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

62: Clause 59, page 48, line 34, at end insert “, and
(c) considers that the question or questions for resolution could not be resolved within a reasonable period of time by the IFR exercising any of its other functions under this Act.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the IFR to consider whether the question or questions for resolution could be resolved by the IFR exercising any of its other functions before deciding to trigger the resolution process.

63: Clause 59, page 49, line 8, at end insert “, and
(iii) any findings in the IFR’s most recent state of the game report that the IFR considers relevant to the question or questions for resolution.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the IFR to include in the notice under clause 59(5) the findings in its most recent state of the game report that it considers relevant to the question or questions for resolution.

Amendments 62 and 63 agreed.

Amendments 64 and 65 not moved.

Clause 60: The mediation stage

Amendment 66

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

66: Clause 60, page 50, line 6, at end insert—
“(6A) The IFR must extend the period in subsection (6)(b)—(a) if requested in writing to do so by the mediator, and(b) by such period as is set out in the request, which may be up to a further 28 days.(6B) The period in subsection (6)(b) may only be extended once.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the IFR to extend the mediation period by up to a further 28 days if requested to do so by the mediator.

Amendment 66 agreed.

Amendment 67 not moved.

Clause 61: Final proposal stage

Amendment 68

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

68: Clause 61, page 50, line 27, leave out from beginning to “require” in line 28 and insert “Where a notice under subsection (3) sets out a question for resolution that relates to relegation revenue (within the meaning given by section 62(3)), the notice must”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires specified competition organisers to include in their final proposal the explanation described in clause 61(5) where there is a question for resolution that relates to relegation revenue.

Amendment 68 agreed.

Amendments 69 to 72 not moved.

Clause 62: Distribution orders

Amendments 73 to 77 not moved.

Schedule 9: Sanctions

Amendment 78

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

78: Schedule 9, page 116, line 13, leave out sub-paragraph (3)
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment removes the definition of “Bank of England base rate” in order for it to be moved to the definitions clause.

Amendment 78 agreed.

Schedule 10: Reviews

Amendment 79

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

79: Schedule 10, page 117, line 36, column 1, leave out from “the” to “mentioned” in line 37 and insert “taking of any step”
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment to clause 46 at line 39.

Amendment 79 agreed.

Amendment 80

Moved by

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

80: After Clause 85, insert the following new Clause—
“Armorial bearingsNothing in this Act is to be read with prejudice to the powers of the Kings of Arms in regard to armorial bearings.”

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 80, which relates to my favourite topic of heraldry, has already been debated. At the end of that debate on the first day on Report, the Minister very kindly agreed to a further meeting with me and with the College of Arms, which took place this morning. I am going to move my amendment in order to allow the Minister to say what she took from that meeting. On the basis of what I expect her to say, I will not be pressing this to a Division, but I look forward to hearing her.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, for sharing his expertise and enthusiasm on this topic in your Lordships’ House, and for the opportunity to respond on this point. I thank him and the College of Arms for their time earlier today. Before he confirms whether he is going to divide the House, I reiterate that it is the Government’s intention that nothing in the Bill is to be read as superseding or impairing any prerogative powers of the Crown in relation to coats of arms, whether exercised directly by the King or on his behalf by the Kings of Arms. I guarantee that something to this effect will be added to the Explanatory Notes to this clause.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, particularly for all the time that she has spent on this niche but important issue. I am also grateful to the Bill team for their meetings, including the one we had today with Norroy and Ulster King of Arms. With gratitude, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 80 withdrawn.

19:30

Amendment 81

Moved by

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe]

81: After Clause 89, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: cost of complianceWithin one year of the day on which section 15 of this Act comes into force, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a review of the financial impact on regulated clubs of complying with the provisions in this Act.”

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to move this amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Maude. I will also speak to my own amendments, Amendments 91 to 93, 94A and 94B, which are consequential on the Government’s Amendment 90. What all these amendments have in common is that they are all about post-legislative review. To explain them, I go back very briefly to when, in Committee, I tabled a sunset clause suggesting an independent review that would report to the House, with a power to recommend that the regulator either continue, continue under certain conditions or cease to operate. While I am not at all sure that there was a consensus for the sunset clause, there was very clearly a consensus across the Committee for better post-legislative review.

On that score, I am delighted to see government Amendment 90, because it contains, to my mind, some of the key objectives I was seeking to put forward in the sunset clause. If noble Lords read the clause that the Government have tabled, they will see that it sets out a review, it sets out that the objectives of the regulator will be reviewed, and it will even be seen whether the regulator’s objectives remain necessary. This is a very big concession by the Government. If the tone of debate on Report has been better than in Committee, I think it is partly because the Government have moved on several very important elements, one being growth and another being this. I gather that it is extremely rare to put a post-legislative review of this kind into a Bill, and I think the Government should be congratulated on that. I read it as an escape clause for the Government. In the event of the regulator going wrong, there will be this fundamental review, so I think the Government are being prudent in so doing.

My amendments to government Amendment 90 simply seek to ensure that the review is carried out by independent persons—the same sort of independent people I named in the sunset clause—who would then report to the House. My noble friend Lord Maude’s amendment specifically proposes an examination of the financial effects of the regulator on clubs, because he fears they will be damaging. Once again, I am very grateful to the Government for their Amendment 90 and I wait with interest to see what the Minister will say in response to these amendments.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to thank the Government for Amendment 90. It is the sort of thing that improves a Bill, improves the ongoing process of a Bill and means that it is not just dead when it finishes going through its parliamentary life. There probably should be far more of these in legislation, so I thank the Government.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 94D and in so doing echo the welcome that the House has given to the Minister on introducing Amendment 90. Amendment 94D focuses on the role of the FA and recognises that when the 2023 White Paper was written and supported by both sides, it expressly backed delegation as a good idea. We understand that the shadow regulator would also welcome the ability to both formally and informally delegate functions to competition organisers, especially around first-line areas such as monitoring and administrative elements of licensing.

My amendment does not require the Government to do more at this stage than recognise that, following the review of the Act, if that report concludes that the regulator’s objectives could be achieved more effectively by delegating an IFR function to the Football Association, at least on the face of the legislation, that would be possible. As I say, it recognises that in the White Paper the Government saw merit in sharing or delegating regulatory responsibilities in certain circumstances. It also begins to address the current complete severance of the umbilical cord between the role of the FA, as the national governing body of football in this country, and the contents of this legislation, and goes at least one step towards addressing the fact that it is imperative to protect and preserve the independence of the FA, not least in accordance with the FIFA and UEFA statutes. We know that legislation that compromises the FA’s autonomy as the primary regulator of football in England would be non-compliant with these statutes. This amendment at least opens the door a little to the FA undertaking its role as the sole regulator of football, which has otherwise been stripped bare by the other clauses.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise, rather unusually, to congratulate the Minister. I think this amendment is very important. I am not going to congratulate the shadow Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, only because he has been congratulated all night on Newcastle’s win, and I think, “Do me a favour; it’s not him that did it”. Anyway, I wanted to get that out and about.

We have heard some genuinely fine speeches in Committee and even on Report—some of the best I have heard since I have been in the Lords. Just today, the speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and his colleagues, by the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and by so many others were passionate and reasoned, with oodles of evidence, and so convincing. But sometimes the speeches have felt a bit more desperate, as though we were banging our head against a brick wall, tearing our hair out, with a tone of, “Is anyone listening? Do the Government understand the genuine concerns about this Bill? This is not just people messing around for sectarian reasons”. So I think it is important to acknowledge a couple of glimmers of hope.

Government Amendment 18 from the other day, saying that the IFR needs to have regard before it imposes any restriction and must consider whether it is necessary and whether a similar outcome could be achieved by less burdensome means, defangs a lot of the things that worry me about the Bill. It at least gives the regulator pause. Yet some of us, especially after today’s debate, are still very nervous about unintended consequences, anticipate trouble ahead and genuinely worry about what is going to happen to a game that has all the jokes about Newcastle and its fans and what it means to them. Imagine a whole nation being disappointed by this Bill if it does not deliver as they think it will and, not only that, damages the game that they are so passionate about.

Amendment 90 is very important. It is important to assess the extent to which the objectives intended have been achieved. I think, though, that it is important that the Government are not just allowed to mark their own homework there. It is one thing saying that there is a review, but who the reviewers are and the form of that review seem rather key questions.

It really is incredible that in the Bill we have a review that is going to ask whether the objectives remain appropriate after a few years; in other words, the objectives of the regulator can be completely changed. What is more, it asks whether those objectives could be achieved more effectively in another way. My answer now—before a review—is yes, which is why we do not really need the regulator in the first place. At least someone somewhere is asking that question.

This matters, and I think it shows that the Government and the Minister have been listening. I therefore urge the Minister to listen now to the smaller amendments in this group that enhance what the Government are trying to do with a little bit more detail. Will she accept this amendment as we finish Report and say, “Yes, I have listened, and we are not going to be an overbearing, overweening supporter of a regulator that will destroy football. We are going to do our best not to do that and will accept these amendments”?

[Lord Norton of Louth (Con)]

My Lords, I will stick to what I know about, and for that reason I will make no comment on football. I too commend the Minister for bringing forward Amendment 90 in response to the debate in Committee. This is a wholly positive development.

As I said then, the House of Lords Constitution Committee in its 2004 report Parliament and the Legislative Process recommended that Bills, once enacted, should be subject to post-legislative scrutiny—a recommendation endorsed by the Law Commission. In 2008, the Government accepted that Acts should normally be reviewed three to five years after enactment, with reviews sent to the relevant departmental Select Committees in the House of Commons.

Since then, not all Acts have been reviewed. Practice in recent years has been somewhat patchy. Some departments have been good at reviewing Acts, others not so. I commend those departments that have undertaken thorough post-legislative reviews and have made Written Ministerial Statements when they have done so.

The Minister said in a recent Answer that some Acts were not reviewed following correspondence with the chairs of the relevant Select Committees. I am not sure how the chairs will know whether or not a review is necessary if they have not carried out a review. This is something I may pursue. However, I am keen to commend those departments that do undertake post-legislative reviews, and I especially welcome this amendment that puts the review on a statutory basis. There are precedents, but not many—as my noble friend Lord Goodman indicated—so I am delighted that we have another.

In essence, the amendment reproduces the normal practice for a review, although it goes a little further in prescribing a draft report and stipulating bodies to be consulted, which constitutes a significant concession. Given that, the amendment is to be welcomed, and I hope it will be emulated by other departments.

I have sympathy with the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Goodman; I can see why he wishes to commission a report by an independent body. I suspect the Minister will point out that bodies can carry out reviews if they wish to anyway and doubtless will.

As far as the amendment goes, I think it is to be wholly welcomed. It is a very good development, and it is very positive in showing how the Government have responded to the debate in Committee, which shows the value of this place. I hope the message will go out to other departments to follow suit.

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have tabled amendments asking that Parliament should fulfil its role of scrutinising regulators across the board. I am glad that, in this one respect, my noble friend the Minister has taken that on board with this particular regulator in terms of the review that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has just referred to. Very often, the problem has been that Parliament itself has not been proactive enough. This amendment ensures that Parliament will have to take some notice.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly touch on a subject I raised at length in Committee and which we have not touched on at Report: costs and compliance. The Minister, very helpfully—I say “very helpfully”, but I am going to add a “but”—wrote to all relevant noble Lords on 6 March. I have a feeling that this is just the sort of thing that will come up for review once the IFR is in operation.

19:45

On costs, I know that what is identified in the letter of 6 March is merely an indicative possible route. But in itself I can see the potential for costs of any number of hours of legal time being employed to argue what proportion should be allocated to what division, particularly the indication that the six highest-revenue Premier League clubs will be charged more than other Premier League clubs. That is an interesting concept.

There are two other elements I will touch on. First, on page 2 of the letter, it says:

“The IFR is expected to take a club’s specific circumstances into account to relieve potential burdens where possible”.

That regulators will take specific circumstances into account is a new concept to me. Surely the broad principle of a regulator that it will treat people in one category in exactly the same way. I realise that it may vary from the Premiership to the Championship and down to the National League, but the letter implies that there will be specific circumstances taken into consideration. I will be amazed if that is actually the case.

Secondly, I do not understand the distribution of full-time equivalent burdens for the larger clubs and smaller clubs. I think it will come back in one form or another.

My final comment is on the observation in relation to the burden. On the third page, the 6 March letter says

“we anticipate these additional activities are expected to be shared across several roles and levels of seniority”

in the higher levels of the pyramid. However,

“further down the pyramid, a club secretary is most likely to undertake these tasks associated with compliance”.

It seems to me that it is the same burden but there is no difference in terms of the size of the club. It says that work will be taken away from a group of people in the larger clubs, but they are already doing work. It is not as though you are dealing with it by moving the problem to somewhere else. It does not happen like that in business, and I am seriously concerned about the approach that appears to be implied: that the compliance costs and burden will be put on somebody who can do it because they have the time. In business, if you do not have the time to do it, it is an extra cost and an extra burden.

When we come to the operation of the IFR, I have no doubt—as I indicated in my comments in my previous contribution—that the views of clubs will vary enormously depending on their level. At that point, they really will start fighting and employing lawyers.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is right that the congratulations that have been coming my way for Newcastle are entirely misplaced. However, I am sure that the cross-party support the noble Baroness and I gave them on the first day of Report buoyed the team and their success, but it had nothing to do with me. But I can reassure noble Lords that my uncle Barry was probably the person cheering the most loudly at Wembley last night.

I also agree with all those who have welcomed the Government tabling Amendment 90. In Committee, there was cross-party support for looking at how this will all work in practice, from those who are keen to see the regulator up and running swiftly to those who are more sceptical. We had support from the chairman of the Hansard Society and my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, who watches legislation very carefully. I join the welcome expressed to the Government for bringing forward Amendment 90.

My noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe has argued throughout the passage of the Bill, from Second Reading onwards, that greater oversight and post-legislative scrutiny would be needed. I therefore hope that the Minister will look at the further helpful amendments that the noble Lord has tabled today, arguing that it would be better for an independent body to conduct the review of this independent regulator. Again, my noble friend has been very constructive in the points that he has raised.

Amendment 81, tabled by my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham, which leads this group, covers the same area that my noble friend Lord Hayward has just touched on in his contribution: the cost of compliance with the new regulatory regime. Clearly, since the Bill that was brought forward in the last Parliament, we have seen new things such as increased employer national insurance contributions, the increase in the minimum wage and the further costs to business that will be coming through the Employment Rights Bill. The financial position of smaller clubs takes place in an even more difficult economic environment. We on this side of the House remain concerned that imposing a levy and further regulatory costs on top of these will likely make clubs less financially sustainable, not more.

My noble friend Lord Hayward points once again to the impact assessment, which does not account for the increased costs of hiring. It says that clubs will have to hire more staff to comply with the extra regulation but does not consider that those extra employees will cost more now than they would have done even when we first looked at the Bill. This is particularly severe when it comes to the smallest clubs in the National League. The general manager of the National League, Mark Ives, and the chief executive of Dagenham and Redbridge, Stephen Thompson, have both warned of the potential for the Bill to create onerous consequences for National League clubs which are not only financial but bureaucratic. Mr Ives said:

“We are concerned about the costs … The expectation of how much it is going to cost clubs at a National League level is a huge concern—it may be a small amount of money, but it is a lot to the clubs”.


National League clubs operate with a very small number of staff, with many in Mr Thompson’s words working on only

“two or three people and some volunteers”.

There is a real risk that some of these smallest clubs will struggle with the further burdens that are placed upon them, so I hope the Minister will look at these amendments.

My Amendment 94, which is in this final group, seeks to ensure that the review takes into account the effect of the regulator’s activity on ticket prices. We had a good debate on this during our first day on Report and indeed a Division which was very conclusive, so I will not say anything further about that issue other than to thank the Minister for all the engagement that she has given during and since Committee, ahead of Report and during our two days on Report. We are all very grateful.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for his amendments and for speaking to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, and other noble Lords who have spoken during this short debate.

In Committee, Peers across the House raised the topic of evaluating the impacts, efficacy and success of the regulator. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in particular, for his expertise and time in discussing the topic despite his complete lack of interest in football. I have sometimes found that those noble Lords who have an interest in the details relating to legislation or a regulator come at this topic with a slightly different perspective, which is really helpful, and I welcome his contribution tonight. I am keen to continue discussions on this and other topics with noble Lords across your Lordships’ House—although I must admit that I am quite pleased to be reaching the end of Report.

We agree that it is good practice for the impact of regulation to be monitored and evaluated post-implementation. I am grateful to noble Lords across the House for welcoming government Amendment 90, which will require the Secretary of State to carry out a review of the operation of the Act and its impact on the industry. This must be completed no later than five years after the full commencement of the licensing regime. Among other things, the review will look into whether the regulator has been effectively achieving its objectives or whether they might be better achieved in a different way. This includes explicitly considering whether delegation might be appropriate, for example, to an independent industry body.

As part of looking into the impacts of the regulator on the market, the review will also consider interactions with industry rules and any resulting burdens. It will also be a set opportunity for the Secretary of State to formally consider and set out whether the competitions in scope of the regulation remain appropriate. The report will be laid before Parliament and will lay long-term scrutiny of this regime by this House and the other place.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has been a champion of clubs in relation to costs throughout. In relation to compliance costs and the statutory review proposed, a separate review of compliance costs alone might be unnecessary, duplicating the work of the post-implementation review and creating additional costs. The statutory review will offer an opportunity for a more complete and detailed view of the regulator’s performance, per se, and will therefore be more useful in understanding the costs and benefits of regulation to clubs. It will also capture compliance costs that are more reflective of ongoing costs instead of the initial costs of the first year of familiarisation, although we expect that, in its annual report, the independent football regulator will have due regard to these issues.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, for tabling his amendments. I completely understand their intent—namely to introduce more independent scrutiny of the legislation and its effects—but, unfortunately, we do not think it is appropriate for an external third party to carry out this review of the Act. As is common practice, it should be carried out by the Government, particularly because the review may inform future government policy and because its conclusions may include recommendations to add, amend or repeal primary legislation. The Government introduced this legislation, and, in our view, it should be the Government which review whether it has achieved what it intended. However, we completely agree that there should be additional scrutiny, and the intention is that this review will facilitate that scrutiny, for example, by a relevant committee of Parliament. However, it is not for this Act or the Government to direct Parliament to undertake that scrutiny.

On Amendment 92, we have not taken the approach anywhere in the Bill of prescribing specifically where publication must be done. Clearly, the norm these days is for publication online. However, there is no need to mandate where online, as to do so would risk the legislation becoming outdated.

I appreciate the intention of Amendment 81, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham: to ensure the regulator is offering value for money and not unduly burdening clubs financially. Ensuring efficiency and avoiding unnecessary costs have been at the heart of the Bill’s development, but the proposed amendment would duplicate the Government’s statutory review amendment and would therefore impose unnecessary additional costs and burdens on the regulator.

On Amendment 94, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, we are acutely aware that ticket prices are a key issue for fans. That is why the Bill explicitly requires clubs to consult their fans on this point. It may well be that the regulator also chooses to look at ticket pricing as part of the “state of the game” report. However, as it is a commercial decision, the regulator will not intervene beyond this. I again reassure the House: we do not believe that an increase in ticket prices would be a proportionate reaction to the cost of the regulator. The levy will be distributed proportionately, and no club will be asked to pay more than is fair and affordable.

An industry that earns over £6 billion a year in revenue and spends hundreds of millions of pounds on player transfers every year cannot legitimately say that it has no choice but to pass the cost of regulation on to fans, particularly since the cost faced by any one club will be relatively low and proportionate to their financial resources. However, if the regulator were to lead to higher ticket prices, this in our view would be captured within the review, which must look at the impacts of the regulator on football in England and Wales.

I turn finally to Amendment 94D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. As I have set out, one aspect of the statutory review will be to consider whether delegation might be beneficial. However, we do not believe that the power to delegate should be provided for in the legislation at this stage. We should not pre-empt the findings of the review, particularly as there is no way of predicting what delegation might need to look like or to whom that delegation might be. We have been clear, as the previous Government were clear, that independent regulation is needed in English football because the industry has shown itself to be incapable. Any decision to delegate back to the industry is not a decision that should be taken lightly, nor should powers established by an Act of Parliament be transferred to private third parties without proper parliamentary process. I am surprised that the noble Lord has tabled this amendment, given the concerns that he has raised repeatedly on delegated powers.

For these reasons, I hope that noble Lords will not press their amendments, and will accept government Amendment 90 when we come to it.

20:00

[Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. This has been an extremely positive debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was right to point out in detail that the Government prepared, in Clause 90, a potential line of retreat. Whether they have or have not, the Government have certainly listened to calls across the House for greater post-legislative scrutiny. I particularly enjoyed the distinguished contribution of my noble friend Lord Norton, who has long displayed a great interest in these matters. Given what the Minister said, I have no intention of pressing Amendment 81 —or the other amendments—to a vote this evening.

Amendment 81 withdrawn.

Clause 91: Regulations

Amendments 82 to 85 not moved.

Clause 92: Minor definitions etc

Amendments 86 and 87

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

86: Clause 92, page 74, line 19, at end insert—
““Bank of England base rate” means— (a) the percentage rate announced from time to time by the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England as the official dealing rate, being the rate at which the Bank is willing to enter into transactions for providing short term liquidity in the money markets, or(b) where an order under section 19 of the Bank of England Act 1998 is in force, any equivalent percentage rate determined by the Treasury under that section;”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, together with an amendment to paragraph 13 of Schedule 9, moves the definition of “Bank of England base rate” into the overarching definitions clause from Schedule 9.

87: Clause 92, page 75, line 15, leave out paragraph (a)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes the Secretary of State’s power to amend the definition of “football season”.

Amendments 86 and 87 agreed.

Schedule 11: Index of defined terms

Amendments 88 and 89

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

88: Schedule 11, page 119, line 8, at end insert—

“Bank of England base rate

Section 92(1)”

Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment inserts a cross-reference to the definition of “Bank of England base rate” into the table in Schedule 11 of defined terms used in more than one place.

89: Schedule 11, page 120, line 30, at end insert—

“relegation revenue

Section 62(3)”

Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment to clause 61 at line 27 and it adds the defined term “relegation revenue” to the table in Schedule 11 of defined terms used in more than one place.

Amendments 88 and 89 agreed.

Amendment 90

Moved by

[Baroness Twycross]

90: After Clause 95, insert the following new Clause—
“Review of Act(1) The Secretary of State must—(a) carry out a review of the operation and effect of this Act,(b) set out the conclusions of the review in a report,(c) publish the report, and(d) lay a copy of the report before Parliament.(2) The report must be published before the end of the period of five years beginning with the day on which section 15 comes fully into force.(3) The report must, in particular—(a) assess the extent to which the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act have been achieved,(b) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved more effectively in any other way (for example if the IFR could delegate its functions to persons other than those listed in paragraph 17(1) of Schedule 2), (c) assess the impact of this Act and the IFR’s actions on football in England and Wales,(d) assess the interaction between this Act and the rules, requirements and restrictions imposed by competition organisers and whether that interaction is appropriate, and(e) assess whether the appropriate competitions are specified under section 2(3), including whether a competition that is not specified should be specified.(4) In carrying out the review, the Secretary of State must have regard to—(a) the purpose of the Act (see section 1);(b) the IFR’s objectives (see section 6);(c) the IFR’s general duties (see section 7);(d) the IFR’s regulatory principles (see section 8);(e) any state of the game report published by the IFR (see section 10);(f) any annual report submitted to the Secretary of State by the IFR (see section 14).(5) Before publishing the report, the Secretary of State must prepare a draft report and consult the following about the draft report—(a) the IFR,(b) the Football Association,(c) each specified competition organiser, and(d) such other persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment requires the Secretary of State to carry out a review of the Act and publish and lay before Parliament a report setting out the conclusions of that review.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I beg to move.

Amendments 91 to 94D (to Amendment 90) not moved.

Amendment 90 agreed.

Clause 99:Commencement

Amendments 95 and 96 not moved.

Ukraine: UK Policy

Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

20:03

Asked by

[Lord Skidelsky]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is their policy with regard to the Ukraine war following the new policy of the government of the United States of America.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Moraes) (Lab)]

My Lords, before we start the QSD, I remind all noble Lords participating of the now four-minute time limit for contributions, other than for the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, and the Minister. I ask all colleagues to stick to this time and begin winding their remarks before approaching the four-minute mark to protect time for other contributions and the Minister’s response. If we do run to time, speakers in the gap can have up to two minutes.

[Lord Skidelsky (CB)]

My Lords, last Thursday, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked the House to take note of the UK’s international position. My purpose today is narrower but more urgent; to ask the Government what their Ukraine policy now is. It is urgent because the Trump Administration have torn up the familiar script. I wish the Government had offered a full-length debate to consider the consequences of this.

I remind your Lordships of the script. The King’s Speech of 17 July promised full support to Ukraine and a clear path to NATO membership. That was of course before the American election. It echoed what David Lammy, Labour’s prospective Foreign Secretary, had written in May, which was that

“the British government must leave the Kremlin with no doubt that it will support Kyiv for as long as it takes to achieve victory”.

This, in turn, echoed the previous Government’s Grant Shapps: “We need consistently and reliably to do whatever Ukraine needs to win the war”. I have heard this repeated word for word all round your Lordships’ House in every Ukraine policy debate over the last four years.

Concerning Ukraine’s clear path to NATO membership, Peter Hegseth, US Defense Secretary, has just said that “NATO membership is not a realistic outcome of a negotiated peace”. So that is one plank of the King’s Speech gone.

What about full support for Ukraine’s war aims? Our leaders may have thought it necessary to pledge this to keep up Ukrainian morale, but there is not— and never was going to be—a Ukrainian victory, for the simple reason that the United States and NATO were never going to risk a war with Russia to achieve it. President Zelensky has now recognised this and accepted a ceasefire, and with it the reality of a compromised peace. In upending these pledges, the Trump Administration have upended our own reckless, dangerous and insincere quasi-commitments.

Words have real effects. Words such as “unprovoked”, “full-scale”, “barbaric” and “criminal” to describe Russian actions, which have tripped effortlessly off ministerial tongues, closed the door to diplomacy. You do not talk to people you label criminals and pariahs. It is an important step forward that no member of the Trump Administration has used this language since the President has been in office.

As far as I know, there has been—and the Minister might confirm this—no direct contact with the Russian Government since the war started. The Russian embassy in London has been treated as an unwelcome outpost of an enemy state. So much for the role of diplomacy in the last four years.

The UK needs to provide some thought leadership on how to end this tragic conflict. To his credit, our Prime Minister has made a start. At the London meeting of 2 March, Sir Keir Starmer proposed a four-point peace plan. The first point was to keep up military aid to Ukraine and economic pressure on Russia. I agree with this, but we should not be tempted to provide the kind of military help urged by some of our warmongers, which will only lead to a dangerous escalation.

We should also understand the limits of economic sanctions. Trump has threatened bad financial things if Russia rejects a ceasefire, but Russia is already the most sanctioned nation in the world. The purpose of sanctions, as often stated, was to degrade Russia’s ability to wage war. However, Russia has opened up alternative import routes for essential supplies and markets for its oil, energy and natural gas exports. The sanctions regime is, and will remain, much too full of holes to prevent Russia finishing its business with Ukraine. Nevertheless, the promise of its withdrawal does remain a powerful potential inducement to bring Russia to the negotiating table.

I agree with the second point that any lasting peace must guarantee Ukraine’s security, but Sir Keir said nothing about Russia’s security. He reflected the standard Whitehall view that NATO was never a real threat to Russia. This script, too, must be scrapped. Any durable peace must take into account the security concerns of both Ukraine and Russia.

I agree with the third point, that we must increase our military spending, but I mistrust the reason most often given, which is to meet the Russian threat. That is just a replay of Cold War rhetoric. European defence spending needs to go up, not because Russia threatens Europe but because Europe and Britain need to shoulder a larger share of NATO’s costs. We cannot go on expecting America to pay for our protection for ever.

Sir Keir Starmer’s fourth point is that the UK, with countries such as France, should place troops on the ground and aircraft in the air to enforce the ceasefire. This has always been a non-starter, despite the mindless repetition of the cliché “coalition of the willing”. The Trump Administration will not agree to provide the necessary backstop, and Russia, as could have been expected, has rejected the idea of NATO forces being stationed in Ukraine under a different name. Why make a proposal which is bound to be rejected unless the intention is to prolong hostilities? I concur therefore with Anatol Lieven when he says:

“Any peacekeeping force must come from genuinely neutral countries under the authority of the United Nations”.


Standing in the way of more realistic UK appraisals is the continuing misinterpretation of the motives of Putin and Trump. Time and again, I have heard noble Lords echo the Government’s line that, unless Putin is seen to fail in Ukraine, he will be “emboldened” to broaden his assault on Europe, starting with Georgia, Moldova, the Baltic states—and where will it end? I believe this profoundly misinterprets both his intentions and Russia’s capabilities.

Of course one can argue endlessly about what Putin’s intentions are, but I concur with many specialists who believe that, above all, he wants Russia to be surrounded by neutral states, not by NATO missiles. A slight knowledge of history will explain why this might be so. However, I agree with Professor Jeffrey Sachs that we should not provoke the bear by inflaming ethnic nationalism in Georgia, Estonia and Lithuania, as we did in Ukraine. A durable peace with a prickly nuclear power requires great prudence. As for Russia’s expansionary capacity, I will just cite Owen Matthews in the Spectator:

“the supposedly mighty Russian army has been fought to a standstill not by Nato … but by Ukraine’s once-tiny military”.

We must also scrap our Trump-phobic narrative. This views him as an amoral deal maker with no principles, cozying up to dictators. In fact, President Trump has consistently and persistently said “Stop the killing” —an eminently moral standpoint sometimes ignored by our own humanitarians. He has replaced a passive war policy with an active search for peace. If he does succeed in ending the war, he will richly deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Government have been talking about a peace process based on sticks, but in diplomacy you need both sticks and carrots. Where are the carrots? What positive incentives are we offering Russia to make peace? I would like the Minister, in winding up, to endorse the blessed phrase “compromise peace”. Only if he does so can we be sure that the script has changed.

20:14

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

The noble Lord again ploughs his eccentric but consistent furrow. I heard not a scintilla of criticism of President Putin, nor indeed of the invasion of the state of Ukraine.

I will make three brief comments. First, President Trump has thrown a large rock in the pond, and the changes will be profound and possibly long-term. Secondly, recent events have shown key insights into the President’s worldview and his negotiating position, which can be very brutal and show no sign of a sense of history. Finally, there is clearly a major gulf between the parties. We are told by the Americans today that President Putin agrees with President Trump’s philosophy; I wonder what that can mean.

Clearly, one major gulf is the security guarantees and what a backstop can mean. Does my noble friend agree that a backstop is absolutely necessary to buttress any forces which go in? Otherwise, it will be a clear green light to the Russians to bank on the relative weakness of Ukraine.

We were told that the ball was in President Zelensky’s court. Now he has made this major concession of accepting, without conditions, President Trump’s suggestion, but there has been no similar response from President Putin. Does this mean, or should it mean, that we can now expect some similar pressure on President Putin to agree to this ceasefire, or are we going to have more conditions, more prevarication and more time buying for his own ends?

20:16

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I think we should listen quite carefully to some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, made. I have some agreement with some of them, but I think he is missing one vital dimension that he did not and a lot of people do not mention: that we are living in a digital age, in which the fundamental nature of war has changed and in which the fundamental repository of power and influence and the nature of that influence, throughout the entire planet, have changed. If we had been confined to just two minutes, which I think was the plan at one time, rather than four, I was going to make—and I still will—just two basic points around that proposition.

The first is to plead that we do not overestimate, as we did in the 20th century, the power of the so-called great powers to fix things and to arrange their empires so that the world is fixed to their pleasure, with total disregard for the rest of the world—the smaller countries and so on. That is the language of the 20th century. It is not the language of the 21st century. It completely underestimates the power and influence of a multipolar world and the power and influence of mass hyper-connectivity around it.

My second point is that, just as we should not overestimate the capacity of Russia, one hears President Trump, in some of his more exotic moments, overestimating even the power of America—still a mighty, powerful country but not the automatic leader of the western world, because we no longer deal in automatic leaders; we deal in multi-powers. We do not even deal in a western world, because a great many of the powers that are deeply interested in this belong in the east and south of the planet.

I had a fascinating conversation with a very senior Japanese official last week, and the first thing he said was that if Russia’s unprovoked, or anyway unjustified and atrocious, attack on women and children, killing thousands of civilians—the killing continues, even while we talk of ceasefires—is in any way rewarded, that is the end of the international rule of law. That is the end of safety for nations of the kind that, on the whole, on and off, we have tried to preserve, not always with success, for the last few hundred years.

An equally senior Australian official came to me and said, “Australia is ready to contribute”. This is a world issue, not just a European issue, as Mr Trump seems to think, and some of our leaders here seem to think, although I acknowledge that our present leader and Prime Minister has played the hand very skilfully indeed. This is not just a European issue but an issue that threatens the balance of organisations and power throughout the entire planet.

I can understand the Japanese nervousness. If Xi Jinping gets the wrong signal, which is that having a go—violence of a limited kind—pays off, he will think about the same approach to annexing and suffocating Taiwan. That is the danger. This is a wider world issue. We should not assume that it is just a narrow matter between America and Russia to fix.

I am not a naive, and I do not think Davids will always beat Goliaths. Goliaths are always going to win by size, but the Davids are very powerful. I am told the Ukrainians have 1 million drones in manufacture, processing and deploying. The impact of this on the nature of war, on the nature of bigger and heavier equipment, is enormous. When we realise that the world has changed to that degree, we will have a much clearer vision of which way now to proceed.

20:20

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, as events move apace, it is absolutely right that we in this House ask the Government to restate their policy, and in that regard the Government know of these Benches’ support for it. That does not prevent us asking questions or seeking that they go further and faster, and I will end on that point, but there is full support for the Government’s actions on these Benches.

As we have a couple of extra minutes, I thought that, for the benefit of the noble Lord, I would repeat the 10 points that President Zelensky outlined in September last year as the very reasonable and, I believe, fully justifiable points that he considered to be the basis of a peace plan. The first was radiation and nuclear safety for the people of Ukraine. Then there was food security, then energy security and the release of all prisoners and deportees. Fifthly, there was the implementation of the UN charter and the recognition of territorial integrity in any final peace agreement. The sixth would be the withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities. I hope that the latter part of that may well come to fruition. The seventh was justice for the very many war crimes that have been inflicted on the people of Ukraine, then the immediate protection of the environment and the prevention of escalation. The 10th was the official confirmation of the end of war in a treaty.

Those must all be considered sensible and justifiable, because we all, I hope, would want peace to help the victim of aggression, not to reward the perpetrator—otherwise, history will condemn us all. It seems that there is potentially an incentive in a pause for Putin to regroup, recruit and refinance. There are too many nations, many of them allied to us, that potentially see profiting opportunities and will now, worryingly, have carte blanche to trade with Putin because the US’s new stance will not be a block for them doing so. It is also likely that Putin will seek to insist on protracted discussions on concessions unpalatable to us and Ukraine. In the scenario where those concessions may be palatable to President Trump but not to us, how are we navigating that very delicate situation? I heard the Foreign Secretary speak with clarity earlier, but that must surely be the situation with regard to the position of President Trump.

From the American point of view, sometimes unpredictability can work. It is called strategic ambiguity. The key word is “strategic”, but that is lacking, in many respects, from the Trump Administration, especially since his last comments on seeking discussions on land and power plants and dividing up certain assets. If this was between Ukraine and Russia, perhaps we might have sympathy for it, but my worry is that the negotiations will be between Russia and the United States when it comes to dividing up certain aspects such as land rights and energy rights.

So can the Minister confirm that, in this new time of flux, we can move unilaterally to seize, not just freeze, assets; that we can work with a coalition of the willing, even if that means a more diluted American standpoint; and that we can embolden our strategic relationship with our European allies for defence procurement, defence co-operation and defence purchasing? Surely this is an opportunity for us to make sure that the victim does not pay the price for the perpetration from Putin.

20:24

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Purvis.

As he points out, peace is not only the absence of war but the presence of justice and of the conditions for human flourishing. Therefore, what we need is a just and lasting peace. This peace must address the causes of the war and provide for Ukraine’s security, sovereignty and freedom. We must recognise that this peace needs to be negotiated by all parties and cannot be dictated by the US. We must recognise that any ceasefire will need to be maintained through a combination of mechanisms, such as troops on the ground and trained mediators who can deal with the contentious and central issues, such as access to resources and the repatriation of civilians.

While there has been talk in recent days about the uplift in the defence budget, investment in new military platforms is also needed. We must also ensure that proportionate funds are spent on preventive diplomacy, conflict resolution tools and development. We need to see a step change in Britain’s investment in active peacebuilding and conflict resolution capabilities. Active peacebuilding will not on all occasions prevent a descent into conflict, but its focus on prevention and mitigation represents value for money for the taxpayer, given the extraordinary costs that war now involves.

Can the Minister say what consideration has been given along these lines and towards active peacebuilding, including development?

20:26

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for securing this debate and agree with much of what he said.

Stepping back and looking at the last three years of war—in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza—our Government and military policy have learned an enormous amount about up-to-the-minute warfare and states’ capabilities. We are living in the age of the drone and the hypersonic missile. Russia is clearly much weakened after expending its stores of men, munitions and money. So I query the assertion that it is eyeing greater swathes of eastern Europe, given its much-depleted status. This is not Munich. We appeased Hitler when his army was intact and bellicose and before a shot was fired, whereas we are now three years into a bloodbath.

If Russia is expansionist, we should calmly consider why. In the Cuban missile crisis, when the USSR parked its missiles on its doorstep in Cuba, the US understandably felt very threatened, and we were all a blink away from nuclear war. Ukraine’s aspirations to join NATO presented a similar threat to Russia, as would a peacekeeping coalition of willing NATO countries’ soldiers—NATO’s missiles on its doorstep.

Turning to Trump, it is fashionable for commentators in this country and Europe to be scathing and disdainful, but there was no major war during his last presidency. Anthropologists say that war is failed trade and as deals are what drive him, he wants peace. He wants to be known for peace, requiring others to strive for peace too. That was what the Trump-Zelensky-Vance drama in the White House was all about. Listening to the whole press conference and the quiet Zelenskian aggression reveals that he, Trump and Vance were worlds apart. As Trump said at the end, it is going to be a tough deal to make because attitudes have to change. He did not play nice and now attitudes are changing.

There is also the important aim of keeping Putin out of the arms of Xi Jinping. Are the Government adjusting their expectations and encouraging others who might be in the coalition of the willing to do the same so that the West, broadly, is in line with Trump’s position?

20:29

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise, as I have lost my voice, although I would love to deliver a few very short remarks.

The war in Ukraine has entered its darkest and most decisive phase. To the east, Ukraine faces the advancing Russian army, and to the west, a reluctant and ambivalent United States, alongside those who doubt our resolve to ensure Ukraine’s survival as a sovereign country.

What we debate here today matters. It matters to every Ukrainian woman, man and child. They did not start this war. For them, this is not a theoretical exercise but a struggle for survival. It also matters to us, the rest of Europe and, indeed, the world how this war ends, as much depends on ensuring that borders are never changed by force and that aggression is not rewarded. We must be clear: a just and lasting peace cannot be one that legitimatises conquest.

We have seen the consequences of such an approach elsewhere. The Dayton agreement brought the end of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it left a legacy: a recognition of ethnic cleansing and genocide as tools that get rewarded and tolerated. As I have warned many times—sadly, to little effect—recent developments in the region have brought it to the brink of conflict again. The lesson is clear: rewarding aggression does not bring stability; it invites only further conflict.

I welcome the Prime Minister’s steadfast support for Ukraine and his commitment to standing firm against Russian aggression. However, I am concerned that he and others may come under pressure from the United States to support a flawed peace agreement. I ask for assurance from the Minister that the United Kingdom will not ever, as a part of any negotiated peace, recognise Russian sovereignty over Ukraine’s occupied territories.

History has shown that appeasement and weakness do not secure lasting peace. The shift in American policy is regrettable, but we must not let it dictate our response. If it teaches us anything, it is that we must firmly stand for Ukraine’s sovereignty, because a weak, divided Ukraine will make Europe and us less safe and less secure, and mark the beginning of an era in which the Europe we have known ceases to exist.

20:32

[Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)]

My Lords, I spoke in a previous debate about two lazy and dangerous assumptions that are sometimes applied in areas of conflict: first, that everyone involved is a victim; and, secondly, that every side within a conflict is in some way a perpetrator or somehow culpable. Nowhere more clearly illustrates the fallacy of those notions than Ukraine. Let us be absolutely clear: Ukraine is the victim and Putin’s Russia is the perpetrator and the aggressor. It slightly beggars belief that I even have to reassert that fact.

Everyone in this House and beyond, and particularly the people of Ukraine, want to see peace. We realise that will mean peace with a level of compromise, which many of us will be deeply disturbed about; but we also want to see a peace which is lasting and, as much as possible, just. I believe that the best way to achieve that peace is through strength, security and deterrence. Those were watchwords that I know were talked about in relation to the Cold War by the noble Lord who asked this Question. Those were notions that served us well in the Cold War, which is appropriate, because if anyone in this world is a Cold War warrior, it is Vladimir Putin. He has a toxic mix of Soviet dominance and Russian nationalism and views many of the states that surround him as artificial concepts which, if given the opportunity, he would annex; or, alternatively, he would try to put in place a puppet regime sympathetic to his aims.

What should our response be to this in the West? I think there are five things that we need to do. First, we need to continue, both in public and in private, and in word and deed, to be tough with Russia. Yes, we want to see peace achieved, but it cannot simply be a peace dictated by the terms of Vladimir Putin, or on the timetable of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, as the UK we need, in difficult circumstances, to try to maintain our relationship with the United States, and to act as that bridge between Europe and the United States, to try to ensure that the USA remains heavily involved in the European theatre.

Thirdly, the Prime Minister is right to try to build a coalition of the willing. That coalition must continue to deliver that military aid and do so in a manner that is speedy and ensures that there is a flow of support to Ukraine. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that we need to look at this in a more global sense and look beyond simply the allies we can have within Europe, particularly to our friends in the Commonwealth, to build that broader consensus.

Fourthly, Ukraine needs security guarantees. It is naive to believe that simply economic links with Ukraine will be a sufficient deterrent; it has not proven that way in the past. Russia could see itself, if you like, overseeing a different contract on that basis.

Fifthly and finally, the one thing on which I largely agree with the American position is that we need a boost to our defence spending beyond the 2.5% to 3%. In the worst-case scenario, we are left with a United States Government who look at the world as spheres of influence and see Europe as not being part of their remit. The best-case scenario is that in the future we see an America that is much more focused on concerns about China. We have to step up in Europe and be able to provide our own support.

Those elements seem to me to be the direction of travel of both the previous Government and the current Government. While they continue to move in that direction, they will continue to have my support, and I suggest that they should have the support of this House—if not unanimous support then that of the vast majority. Let us all stand together with the people and Government of Ukraine.

20:36

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to make two points. First, we must not stand by and let President Trump force Ukraine to accept a surrender deal. That is the only fair way to describe what Putin’s, and indeed President Trump’s, terms amount to. Rewarding Russia’s aggression would make a third world war more rather than less likely, setting a terrifying precedent that an illegal invasion can become a permanent, internationally tolerated annexation. We might as well wave farewell to Taiwan and South Korea now; their fate would surely be sealed by such a surrender deal.

Blinking at the prospect of what was called a prickly nuclear power—I think the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said that—would be the best possible advert for nuclear proliferation. The message it would send to a whole host of hostile countries would be: get nuclear weapons, then no one will take you on.

As for the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, of the precedent of the Cuban missile crisis, anyone who has read Max Hastings’s superb book Abyss, which I can recommend to this House, will know that the true message of history from that episode is that Russians respect strength. They can sniff out weakness, which we should not display. The Cuban missile crisis did not lead to Armageddon because the Russians knew that a nuclear exchange would lead to the total obliteration of their country, even if America would survive in some fragments. We need to project strength, not weakness.

My second point is that the case for giving Ukraine the frozen Russian state assets as reparations for Russia’s illegal invasion is compelling. Now it truly is urgent, and possibly even existential for Ukraine. It is time to move from a process of consideration to make a decision on this matter. There is at least $26 billion of these funds held in this country, and about $300 billion worldwide. Releasing these funds for Ukraine would, in a single stroke, fill the funding gap left by America’s U-turn at Russia’s expense, not our taxpayers’ expense. Surely it is time now to take this step.

In the past, it has been said at the Dispatch Box and by the Minister’s colleagues that this step must be taken in harmony with our allies in the G7. But a member of the G7 and still one of our allies—when I last checked the news—is America and Donald Trump. In winding up, can the Minister say whether the Government’s position is that the US should have a veto on releasing these funds to Ukraine, or will that be done in conjunction with other allies but not with President Trump? We all know what his position on this will be.

Secondly, a step that the UK could take unilaterally is to commit that under no circumstances will the £26 billion of frozen Russian state assets in this country go back to Russia, irrespective of whether and to whom they do go. I would welcome clarification of the Government’s position on this.

In conclusion, I thank the Government and the Minister for all the hard work that I know they are doing.

20:40

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, in his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, pointed to some truths. First, we as a country and Europe in general have been saying things that we cannot deliver. The fact is that we have run our defence down over decades and we have now been found out, and in the most brutal way possible.

In my opinion, the reason why problems have arisen in Ukraine is that red lines were drawn in Syria to which President Obama did not adhere. Putin took a message from that, dug himself in with a warm-water port in the Mediterranean and has moved on from there, because he knew that our bark was worse than our bite. American military intelligence would have been able to foresee the tanks lining up in Belarus for the invasion. If President Biden had acted at that stage, the war could probably have been prevented.

There is no historical reason why the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation should be enemies. Many British merchant seamen lost their lives in World War II as they resupplied the Russians during the fight against the Nazis. Sadly, Russia has become an aggressive and territorially acquisitive country, led by thugs who think nothing of eliminating their internal critics, whether poisoning residents in this country—which nobody seems to mention any more—or throwing their opponents out of high-rise buildings in Moscow. They are interfering and stirring up trouble in the Balkans and in Africa. They are interfering in eastern Europe, part of which they see as a relic of the former Soviet Empire.

I understand the argument, “Is NATO coming closer?” Then what are we going to do about Finland and Sweden? They are now on the front line. NATO is not threatening Russia in Africa or the Balkans, so we have to get away from this idea that these people are some kind of victims. They are not. But I accept that diplomacy has failed: we have been talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

There is one big lesson from this, which the noble Lord, Lord Banner, mentioned. The big lesson of the last three years of war is: if you have nuclear weapons, hold on to them; if you do not, acquire them. That is the message. Had Ukraine retained its nuclear weapons and territory after the collapse of the USSR, there would perhaps have been no invasion in 2022. This lesson has been learned by North Korea, after they saw what happened to Gaddafi, and it is now informing Iran’s thinking.

While I welcome President Trump’s desire to see an end to the fighting, I do not agree with the recent public treatment of President Zelensky. I fear that Donald Trump is being deceived. I do not believe that even a token pause in the fighting will be anything other than a pause in the Russian campaign to acquire the territory of its neighbours. For instance, as far as Russia is concerned, Ukraine does not exist. That is the starting point. We are not natural enemies, but sadly there is a regime in that country that does not recognise any standards with which your Lordships or I would identify.

It is fearfully clear that Ukraine does not have the military capability to push Russia back. It did not get the support that it needed at the very start. There were mixed messages and there still are, so I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on that. However, Ukraine should not be forced to recognise its territory as part of Russia. It does not have the military capability, as I said, but annexation should not be rewarded by recognition, and nor should sanctions be removed from Russia. Ending the fighting is one thing, but giving recognition and reward is another.

20:44

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I will focus on humanitarian aid policy, an essential component of our assistance to the people of Ukraine, but I would like first to commend the speech of my noble friend Lady Helic, with every word of which I agree. I am also grateful for the speech from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, and I agree with her on support for active peacebuilding, conflict prevention and development. We are, of course, seeing development cuts across the US and, indeed, Europe; I fully support the increase in defence spending, but I fear that these development cuts will cost us from a national security perspective in the long term.

The UNFPA has highlighted that around 640,000 women and girls in Ukraine will be impacted by the USAID cuts to gender-based violence prevention and response services, including psychosocial support, economic-empowerment initiatives and life-saving information services. I appreciate that the Government will not comment on other countries’ decisions, but here in the UK we are providing at least £120 million in humanitarian assistance through to the end of this financial year, bringing the total humanitarian contribution to £477 million for Ukraine and the region since the start of the full-scale invasion—as an aside, I do not see how we can say that this is not a full-scale invasion; we should not shy away from saying that it is. This humanitarian support is very welcome. However, given the UK cut to ODA from 0.5% to 0.3%, is the Minister able to confirm that this assistance to Ukraine will continue as planned? Also, given the pressure on UK aid, will the current level be continued in future years?

My noble friend Lord Banner spoke about the broader Russian assets held in this country, and I want to focus on one specifically. One way to get significantly more money into humanitarian assistance in Ukraine would be to find a way to release the proceeds of the sale of Chelsea FC, which is £2.3 billion, plus interest, that is currently frozen in UK bank accounts. Given the UK ODA cuts, I hope that the Government are pushing for this as hard as possible. Can the Minister provide an update on these funds?

Finally, I will raise something that has perhaps not been highlighted as much as it should be in this debate. There have been more than 19,500 reports of unlawful deportation and forced transfer of Ukrainian children into Russia. I spent part of last week with a Ukrainian MP, who shared with me her concern that this had been forgotten. Will the Minister join me in remembering these children and condemning this practice, and will he argue for their return in the peace talks?

20:47

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, Labour, in opposition and now in government, has understandably and loyally supported the Government of the day in this time of war. That is what it is: we are engaged in a war. While I have expressed opposition in nearly 30 contributions since 2014, I am grateful to my party for its tolerance. I have repeatedly questioned the rejection of the Russian 2021 proposed talks on a draft treaty covering security guarantees, arms control, self-governance for Donetsk and Luhansk, and confirmation of non-nuclear barrier status from Finland to Georgia.

Our response to Russia’s demands for non-nuclear security guarantees over Ukraine has been a resounding “No”, with much of the press constantly questioning Trump’s attempts to bring a settlement. But there has been a heavy price to pay. The price of years of intransigence has been worldwide inflation, increased third-world poverty, a crisis in energy supply, the rewrite of American foreign policy on the back of a trade war, and vast population movements. We need a strategy that responds positively to Russia’s calls for non-nuclear barrier status and no combat troop deployments. Our contribution should be blue-helmet personnel stationed on demilitarised territory separating potential combatants. I worry over remnants of the Azov brigades challenging any peace process or settlement.

We need a sensitive negotiation with Russia over sanctions. It is out of dialogue that future problems can be avoided. Our policy should be to promote free debate in Russia in post-Putin conditions while ultimately welcoming it into the fold of western democracies. Russia will change. Autocracies inevitably die, and we have to help that process.

20:50

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for securing this QSD. I do not agree with much that he said, apart from that I agree that European countries should pay their fair share of defence. At the time when we started expanding NATO eastwards, when I knew practically nothing, even then I felt queasy. We must accept that Russia has a persecution complex; the map that the Kremlin has of the world looks very different from our map of the world. However, I am extremely grateful that the Prime Minister and the ministerial team are doing everything they possibly can to resolve the problem while dealing with extremely unpredictable key players.

I am slightly worried about the size and terms of the combat power of any development, because it seems to have the combat power of an observation force rather than a peacekeeping force. I accept and hope that that may be academic, but what message does it send to the rest of the world about our willingness and capability to deploy at larger scale?

20:52

[Lord Mott (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my support for the charity Ukrainian Action, which provides emergency support, humanitarian aid, recovery and reconstruction. It has recently launched a programme to help injured servicemen and women to rehabilitate.

However, reconstruction is not merely about rebuilding infrastructure; it is about restoring hope, dignity and opportunity to a nation scarred by conflict, and it is about the people of Ukraine. Ukraine’s recovery must be comprehensive, addressing not only physical rebuilding but economic revitalisation and social cohesion. That requires international collaboration, innovative funding mechanisms and a commitment to ensuring that the rebuilding process is inclusive and transparent. The UK, alongside its allies, must play a leading role in that effort, offering expertise, resources and unwavering solidarity. It requires a guarantee on Ukraine’s security.

The Prime Minister is to be congratulated on his leadership in his work so far, as is the Minister. I also thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for his wisdom in preparing for this speech, and the work carried out so far by the Council of Europe.

Democracy, as we know, is the cornerstone of a free and just society. It is fragile yet resilient, and must be nurtured with care. As Ukraine moves towards peace, we must ensure that its democratic processes are robust, secure and reflective of the will of its people. Ukraine needs time to recover, with so many potential voters serving on the front lines or living abroad as refugees. That means supporting civic participation at all levels, safeguarding against misinformation and cyber threats, and ensuring that electoral laws and practices meet the highest possible standards.

Democracy cannot be rushed. It must be built on a foundation of stability and trust. As policy is updated at pace, I wonder if the Government should consider building on the UK-Ukrainian 100-year partnership agreement by using Article 11 of the treaty to build civic participation and democracy into it, perhaps by hosting a conference on democracy. I hope the Minister may be able to answer that.

I want to see peace urgently, but how Ukraine moves forward as a democratic country is going to be fundamental to its future and to Europe. Let us reaffirm our commitment to standing with Ukraine, not just in its time of need but in its journey toward a brighter, democratic future.

20:54

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, while I welcome that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, initiated this debate, there was little of what he said that I could agree with.

Last week in relation to Ukraine I referred to the importance of maintaining cross-party unity in this House and the other place. Four days on, I think it is safe to say that the need for this Parliament to speak with one voice is even more important.

As noble Lords may be aware, last night Donald Trump told reporters that his Administration are talking to the Russians about “dividing up certain assets” belonging to Ukraine. That is an outrageous statement for any American President to make. For good measure, he said that land had also been discussed. He added:

“It’s a lot different than it was before the war”.


Indeed it is, but only because it is land stolen by the Russians. One can only imagine the demoralising impact these comments are having on the brave people of Ukraine, not least on its brave and fearless soldiers.

As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned, other countries—not least Taiwan and other south-east Asian countries—are hearing these comments and no doubt are alarmed and troubled.

Today is St Patrick’s Day—happy St Patrick’s Day. In common with my noble friend Lord Empey, I have been privileged to be invited to the White House under different Presidents to attend the annual celebrations in honour of Ireland’s patron saint. My experiences of the Washington events were always positive. We did not always agree with decisions taken by the incumbent of the Oval Office, but we were granted an audience and treated with respect by the Administration of the day.

Sadly, respect is not a word I can associate with Donald Trump. I appreciate that Keir Starmer has a difficult task in trying to guide the US President to a position of continued support for Ukraine. However, in doing so, I urge our Prime Minister not to soften our country’s stance of total backing for the Ukrainian people.

20:57

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)]

I refer noble Lords to my entry on the register of interests. Like many noble Lords who have spoken, I do not concur with the essence of the perspective of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, but I recognise the merit of free speech and debate.

In preparing my remarks for this debate, I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, was born in Manchuria in the 1930s, as indeed was my own mother. This is relevant because Manchuria in the 1930s was an epicentre of great power conflict and aggression, with some pretty uncomfortable parallels with where we find ourselves today.

My remarks on Ukraine focus on the very organisation that the British Government set up in the 1930s to counter malign great power influence. It was, of course, the British Council. In Ukraine today the British Council is supporting one in five teachers with conflict and trauma training, keeping children in school when their fathers are fighting on the front. It is teaching English to Ukrainian government officials because English proficiency is vital to building international support and to managing the complexities of any negotiations to come.

The British Council is building links between British and Ukrainian universities so that young people can continue to have a university education in Ukraine, and is supporting the protection of nationally important cultural sites, thereby safeguarding Ukraine’s heritage in the midst of war.

This wide-ranging British support has contributed materially to maintaining Ukrainian morale and resisting aggression, and all of this has cost just £2 million a year. For context, that is the cost of just one Storm Shadow missile. But the grit in the oyster is that all this vital work has been funded from overseas development assistance.

To the Government’s credit, they have already recognised the role of the British World Service as a force multiplier for the United Kingdom in these changed times. The British Council serves a similar purpose as a force multiplier because, in the future, for Ukraine and elsewhere, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, recognised, countering disinformation matters. Conflict is no longer simply about who wins the war; it is about whose story wins. So, whenever the fighting stops, the clash of values will matter. I invite the Minister in his summing up to recognise the value of the British Council’s work in Ukraine and, more broadly, in situations of conflict and conflict prevention, as well as the role of soft power in complementing hard power.

21:00

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have been allowed to speak briefly in the gap. I declare an interest: I am acting as counsel pro bono for Ukraine in proceedings against the Russian Federation in the ECHR.

I will focus on a specific but very important consequence of the changes in American policy towards Ukraine that are playing out before us. NATO allies closest to Russia—the Baltic states, Finland and now Poland—are reconsidering their membership of certain conventional weapons agreements, such as the 1997 Ottawa treaty on landmines and the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions. Russia is not a party to these treaties, and nor is China. The US did not join because it did not want to put itself at a military disadvantage against potential adversaries. Britain and nearly all European powers joined because we felt safe under the American umbrella. The impact of Pax Americana was such that, probably for the first time in history, the weaker gave up weapons that their much stronger neighbour was still holding on to.

There is now talk of deploying British troops to Ukraine. I have some concerns, but, if the Government are serious about this, should they not consider whether we can continue to afford legal limits on conventional weaponry, to which we agreed under very different assumptions? Somewhat alarmingly, Prime Minister Tusk has also referred to non-conventional weapons. If we do not act fast enough, through diplomacy, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, suggested, but also by strengthening our conventional deterrence, do the Government share my concern that the far more fundamental legal architecture for our security, which goes back to the Cold War—the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in particular—could be in danger?

21:02

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the choreography this evening seems to have got slightly muddled. I was all prepped to stand up and say how delighted I was to be speaking after the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, with whom I very much agreed. Two additional speeches in the gap later, I rise to say how very much I welcome the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, because he raised some issues that need to be taken very seriously.

Like most noble Lords in the Chamber this evening, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for raising the issue for debate. But, like my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed, from these Benches I have to reiterate our support for His Majesty’s Government’s stance on, and absolute unwavering support for, Ukraine. There may have been a change of Government in the United States, but we do not need to criticise or denigrate the President of the United States to say that, whatever his views about Ukraine, our position is unchanged and must be unchanged.

Donald Trump says he wants peace; who should not want peace? In a world of injustice, there have been conflicts—during the Cold War and beyond—almost every single day since the end of World War II. So peace is something to which we aspire. But that peace should not be about appeasement. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London pointed out, it should be about justice. As my noble friend Lord Purvis pointed out, the aggressors should not also be the victors.

It is essential that the United Kingdom—with our NATO partners, to the extent possible—stands with Ukraine. We must keep trying to persuade our friend in the White House, who is still our ally, that it is vital that we support Ukraine now but negotiations with Vladimir Putin are not the way forward.

I have heard the calls from the noble Lords, Lord Skidelsky, Lord Farmer and Lord Campbell-Savours. We need to think about what message we are sending to Russia—if there is any sense that we will negotiate a peace that changes the boundaries of Ukraine. Ukraine is a sovereign country; it has chosen a western-facing route, whether or not it will be a NATO member and whether or not the United States tries to impose a veto on that. It is a sovereign state that has been invaded not once—not just in February 2022—but twice. Russia still has Crimea, but it also has 20% of Georgia. Very few people talk about the 2008 invasion of Georgia, but the boundaries of that country seem not to have been sovereign. The West did not do enough then and the danger is that we are not doing enough now.

The noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, pointed out that Poland and the Baltic states are looking at changing some of the international treaties to which they are signatories. There is an existential fear among some of our NATO partners and allies. We need to stand strong for Ukraine in order that each one of our NATO partners remains safe and secure as well. This cannot be a matter of negotiation.

21:06

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and her passionate words, with which I almost entirely agree.

I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for promoting this debate at an appropriately sensitive point in this dreadful war. It has been a long, hard, gruelling three years since Putin’s troops marched again into Ukraine. As ever, I pay tribute to the remarkable bravery and selfless sacrifice so many have demonstrated, in both the military and civilian population, in their struggle to resist the illegal invasion of their homeland and defend the sovereignty of their country. They are indeed an example to us all.

We have seen a flurry of activity over the past few weeks, some positive, some less so, which leads one to hope that the end of this war may indeed be in sight. As a couple of noble Lords have mentioned, the President of the United States has said that the killing has to stop. But, of course, that is all down to Putin. As many noble Lords have mentioned, Ukraine and the United States have agreed to a deal for an unconditional ceasefire for a period of 30 days. They now tacitly await a decision from the Russian President—the ball is now clearly in his court. But what we have seen in the last few days are shameful delaying tactics. The increased military pressure can be construed only as an obvious attempt to manoeuvre into a stronger, more threatening position on the battlefield, and so gain advantage, strength and an enhanced posture when it comes to the negotiating table.

We must resist this. The Prime Minister has done a very commendable job in navigating this geopolitical storm, and we will continue to support the Government in all these endeavours. But if Russia does not show a willingness to engage, we and our allies must be prepared to go further. Can the Minister expand on the steps that the Government are considering, or will take, if President Putin refuses to agree to a ceasefire? It is through an initial ceasefire that diplomacy can move towards some form of lasting peace.

Ukraine has come to the negotiating table, the United States has come to the negotiating table and Europe stands ready to commit significant peacekeeping troops in some form or another, should it be necessary. It is time for Russia to demonstrate that she, too, is ready for peace. The world waits with its breath held. This is an opportunity that must be taken for the sake of us all, but most particularly for the warring factions and even more particularly for the brave peoples of Ukraine.

21:09

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who has contributed to this very important and significant debate this evening and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, on the way in which he presented his arguments. They are not always the arguments that are the most popular but, as I have said on many occasions, it is a great tribute to our democracy and our Chamber that it contains those with different and competing views and views that do not always garner the widest support, and that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, can say that without fear and without his right to do so being undermined. That is extremely important. Sometimes we take our democracy for granted, and sometimes hearing speeches in this Chamber that we may not all agree with is a reminder to us all of that right.

I shall come to some of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, made in a moment, as well as points made by other noble Lords. I wanted to make a couple of introductory remarks before I did so. There are a significant number of questions among the 20-odd contributions that have been made this evening, and I shall make sure that we go through Hansard. If I have not answered sufficiently or have missed anybody’s contribution or question, I shall write to every noble Lord who has contributed to the debate with answers from the Government and I shall place a copy in the Library. I hope that that is satisfactory for noble Lords.

As the Prime Minister has said himself in recent days, as negotiations are ongoing for a deal, now is not the time to take our foot off the pedal. Partners must coalesce around a coalition of the willing and provide concrete proposals. The West must maintain maximum pressure on Russia to bring an end to its illegal war, and there can be no negotiation on Ukraine without Ukraine.

Instead of being rolled over in days, Ukrainians have shown untold bravery. Let us remind ourselves again that Ukraine’s front line is also the front line of European security. What happens here will define our continent, and what happens in Ukraine will define our continent and the international rules-based order for the next generation. This Government are not complacent. Noble Lords have mentioned some of this, but we have seen efforts between ourselves and France in recent weeks to establish a pathway to support any agreement that should be reached. We have also established the need for us to spend more on defence, as we have seen with the recent announcement of reaching 2.5% by April 2027, as well as plans to achieve 3% in the next Parliament. Whatever the rights and wrongs with respect to what President Trump has said, he was surely right to encourage Europe to do more and spend more on its own defence, which countries across Europe, including our own, are doing now.

We are working with allies to give Ukraine a strong voice in the negotiations which have taken place and are taking place. The key aim for us is working to build a secure, lasting and just peace within a European-led security framework, with critical US security assurances in place.

The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, asked me what our plan is and then proceeded to agree with three out of the four points. Let me remind noble Lords that this is the plan that the Prime Minister set out. I thank noble Lords for their praise for what the Prime Minister has done, with the support of other parties, taking up points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Minto, and by others across this Chamber and across this Parliament, and I think, by and large, across the country—if not unanimously, then certainly by a very significant majority. The Prime Minister has laid out a plan that will, first, keep the military aid flowing and keep increasing the economic pressure on Russia in order to strengthen Ukraine now.

The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, mentioned warmongers. I do not think it is about warmongers in NATO and in the UK; it is about providing military aid to Ukraine to defend itself against the Russian aggression that it faced. We agree, as the Prime Minister pointed out, secondly, that any lasting peace must ensure Ukraine’s sovereignty and security, and Ukraine must be at the table. That is a fundamental principle of the plan that the Prime Minister has laid out for this country. As other noble Lords have reminded the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, Russia was the aggressor and NATO is a defensive alliance, not an alliance that sets out to attack others.

Thirdly, in the event of a peace deal, we will keep boosting Ukraine’s own defensive capabilities to deter any future invasion. We do not expect the US to do this for us, although we do look for assurance from the US. We will go further than we have done to develop a coalition of the willing to defend a deal in Ukraine and to guarantee the peace—a point that many noble Lords have made in this debate. Whatever comes after the negotiations, we need to be able to ensure that we have a security guarantee for a sovereign Ukraine, and that is a fundamental principle for us. A strong, just and lasting peace has now to be our goal. It is vital, it is in our interest and, in its pursuit, Britain, the UK, will lead from the front. For the security of our continent, of our country and of the British people, we must now win the peace.

Turning to other points, I agree with my noble friend Lord Anderson about the need for US security assurances, and we continue to work with the US with respect to that. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned the broader implications of what is happening in Ukraine and gave the examples of Japan and Australia; indeed, we have often made the point about the inter-connectivity of conflict between regions and the fact that many countries across the world are concerned about what is happening in Ukraine and look to us and to others to ensure that aggression is not seen to succeed.

Again, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for his support for the unity of purpose across this Chamber, and I think that is a really significant and important point that will be noted by those who read our debates and listen to our discussions. The point he made is that, as I have reiterated, the negotiation must involve Ukraine, and we are seeking to enhance our relationship with Europe in order to move forward with respect to that. I hope that, over the next few months, we will see that develop.

I agree with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London about the importance of the sovereignty of Ukraine, and of course we support any efforts to bring about the peace that we all want to see.

The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has often made the point about the importance now of drones and hypersonics, and he is right to draw attention to that, to the changing nature of warfare and to President Trump’s efforts to achieve peace. We are working as hard as we can to act as that bridge between the US and Europe. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, and other noble Lords: let us make no mistake that the US-UK strategic relationship is vital, not only with respect to Ukraine but with respect to other challenges that we face in Europe and elsewhere. We see the US as extremely important with respect to that, as I know many other noble Lords do as well.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Weir, for his points about how strength, security and deterrence serve us well and the importance, as I have just said, of the US-UK special relationship.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Banner, that I know of his family involvement, and we are very grateful for it. I hope that the noble Lord can convey our support for Ukraine, its people, their continuing brave struggle and all that they achieve. I know that will be particularly emotionally important for him and his family. We are working hard with respect to Russian assets and we are sanctioning more individuals and tankers. We are doing what we can. We will have to work with our allies to do this and I know that is of some frustration to the noble Lord. However, we are pursuing every lawful route we can with our allies to see what more we can do about sanctioning Russian assets. But make no mistake: we are taking more action against more ships and individuals to do what we can.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, as always for the various points that she made, particularly referencing her interest in the western Balkans. While we have a particular reflection, for obvious reasons, on Ukraine currently, we need also to remember some issues that are occurring in the western Balkans.

It is very interesting to listen to people saying that the US is not interested in Europe and referring to Secretary of State Rubio’s remarks about Bosnia and the need for us to protect the Dayton Accords. It shows that the US is interested in many aspects of Europe and what we deal with.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for the support he outlined with respect to Ukraine and to the importance of ensuring sovereignty.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, about children. We are doing what we can about that, and on the issue of child deportations. We are also doing what we can to deal with Chelsea Football Club.

I think I am running out of time to deal with all of this, so there are some noble Lords whose questions I will have to respond separately to. I do, however, want to finish by saying to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, the noble Earl, Lord Minto, who spoke for His Majesty’s Opposition, and to all noble Lords across the House that Ukraine’s fight is our fight. It is a once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent. Only a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty will deter Putin from future aggression. Ukraine’s security is our security. NATO’s support for Ukraine remains ironclad and our support will be sustained. That message needs to ring out loud and clear from this Chamber tonight.

House adjourned at 9.23 pm.