Young People: Gambling Harm

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, I put on the record that the Green Party very much supports the affordability checks that the Government are planning to introduce. We have an awful lot of money sloshing around in the UK economy in all sorts of areas, and keeping a closer eye on it is clearly a very good idea. I should perhaps declare an interest in that tomorrow I will be speaking at a protest on the 100th anniversary of the first official greyhound race, calling for a ban on greyhound racing in England to follow those in Scotland and Wales.

I declare my position as a member of Peers for Gambling Reform and thank our formidable leader, the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for securing this debate. I echo his hope that our new Prime Minister might act at scale to reverse many of the disastrous impacts of the ill-conceived Gambling Act 2005.

We are focusing today on children and, like many noble Lords, I will draw on the Young People and Gambling 2025 report from the Gambling Commission, particularly looking at advertising. Essentially, half of young people—children under 18—are exposed to gambling-related adverts weekly. Boys are more likely than girls to be exposed, because of the very strong sporting link, which has been closely identified. They also have a huge amount of exposure to social media personalities promoting gambling.

Another report, released last year, from GambleAware, revealed that children as young as 11 reported that they are regularly tempted to try betting, after being flooded on their social media feeds on the apps with celebrities and sports start promoting gambling. As the noble Baroness, Lady Gerada, said, this an avoidable harm, to which we are subjecting our young people.

I want to go to the young people themselves, because the GambleAware study found that nearly four in five children said that nobody under the age of 18 should be exposed to gambling adverts. We often hear about how we should listen to the people affected. Let us listen to the young people who are saying, “Stop exposing us to this”. We know it is harmful and very seductive. That is the reality.

On that, I come to something that is absolutely directed at young people. Anyone who has a young person in their life will probably be aware of Roblox—a hugely popular gaming platform. I have to credit Sky News, particularly reporter Mickey Carroll and colleagues, who have demonstrated again and again how much illegal casinos are advertising on Roblox to children. After that group of journalists reported in 2024, some of the illegal casinos were shut down. Roblox Corporation, with its capitalisation of $40 billion and 2,400 staff, shut down some of those casinos. But, just in May, the reporter found an email in their inbox, stating, “BloxFlip is Back!”. This is an illegal casino, operating on this children’s gaming platform. It emailed her, because she had signed up to research it, to say that it is now back and she could play.

Yes, many of these illegal casinos have a geoblock, so, theoretically, you are not able to access them in the UK. I am sure that most noble Lords in this debate do not need to be reminded about VPNs, but should any of the children happen not to know about VPNs, you can find on all the chat platforms the casino operators helpfully telling people how they can get round geoblocks by using VPNs. I have based that on the research and media reports.

I finally come to the cry from the heart from a woman, who is a mother of two children, including a 10 year-old called George, who is autistic and has ADHD. This ties to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the convergence of gambling practices and gaming practices. This mother reflects on how randomised rewards, rare item drops, daily log-in streaks, limited-time events and constant prompts to return use many of the same behavioural principles as gambling. I ask noble Lords to imagine one final story. There was a reward that was available only if you played on Christmas day. This mother talked about Christmas day being a warzone in her family as a result of that.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, if no one else wants to follow the noble Lord, I will add my support to the case that he is making. Like him, I raised this at Second Reading, and I agree with every word he has said, so I do not want my noble friend the Minister to think that this a one-man show of someone who has specific views on gambling. We have to be aware of the significant pressure felt by those who get caught up in gambling. Predictive events and things of this kind are difficult to keep on top of, and it is hard to know what the next challenge might be. The amendments proposed by the noble Lord have a deal of validity, whether or not they are exactly what we should be doing, and I hope that the Minister can respond constructively to a genuine concern.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I wanted to allow some time to raise and discuss the important issue of gambling advertising—I was hoping for more discussion of it. I note that I support Amendments 37, 41 and 44. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, has already made the case on gambling very strongly, and it was something I raised at Second Reading, so I will speak chiefly to my Amendments 42, 45, 49 and 52, which are about fossil fuel advertising. They seek to ensure that sporting events covered by the Bill are free from advertising and sponsorship by fossil fuel companies. We could hardly have picked a better day to be debating these amendments, given the heatwave that the UK is currently facing. One significant impact of that heatwave will be on many sporting events. Many people’s intention to do all sorts of physical activity will be, for very good reason, curtailed in the coming week.

In the Bill, we are talking about highly valued, important events, and they should not be used as platforms to boost the reputation of damaging industries whose products are driving the events that we are currently experiencing. Sponsorship is not philanthropy. Companies invest in sport because they know their association with trusted institutions improves their public image and strengthens their social licence. With this Bill, we have the opportunity to ensure that the biggest events in this country that we host do not become a vehicle for greenwashing. We note that young people are a significant part of the audience of many of these events, and that they are the people who will have to bear the consequences for the longest time.

As I raised at Second Reading—and it became very much a basis for these amendments—this is not something we are dreaming up. Britain would not be able to claim to be world-leading should the Minister say, “Yes, I entirely agree with you” and adopt all my amendments. France became the first European country to ban advertising for fossil fuel products in 2022. The Hague has introduced a legally binding ban on fossil fuel advertising in public spaces. As I said at Second Reading, a number of councils have already shown leadership. Today, we are seeing leadership arriving in Westminster from the rest of the country; this is a place where we could find some more leadership on that. The UN Secretary-General has called for restrictions on fossil fuel advertising similar to those applied to tobacco.

I move to my next set of amendments, which are related but different. Amendments 43, 46, 50 and 53 are about the advertising of less healthy food. There is a huge and similar kind of contradiction of promoting sport as a route to health and well-being while simultaneously allowing sponsorship from products that undermine those outcomes. These and other amendments seek to ensure that sporting events covered by the Bill are free from advertising and sponsorship for less healthy food and drinks. We are talking here about the major ultra-processed food and fast food brands, which are, sadly, major suppliers of the British diet; we are all paying the price for that.

The gap is that Ofcom does not regulate sports sponsorship deals; we have regulations about junk food advertising, but not about sponsorship. Therefore, Ofcom cannot do anything about watching a sporting event and being bombarded with advertising for McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Budweiser and so-called sports drinks like Powerade. Those brands appear everywhere. We do not see adverts for tap water, though it would be quite nice if we did—let us put that down as a thought. This creates a health halo effect: products are conceived and often advertised as compatible with a healthy, active lifestyle when their nutritional profile is anything but.

Public health bodies and parliamentary research have consistently identified marketing as a key driver of childhood obesity. The Government already have policies on direct advertising to act in this area, and historically we saw the bans of cigarette advertising that had to be continually strengthened. We need to see the same thing for ultra-processed and other unhealthy foods. We have an accepted principle that the marketing of less healthy food to children is a legitimate public policy concern. These amendments address an inconsistency in public policy. Sport should be used to inspire healthy lives, not as a platform to promote the consumption of foods we know will shorten people’s lives and make them less healthy.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to these proposed amendments, I have sympathy with a number of points, particularly as they relate to gaming. The noble Lord, Lord Foster, made very clear the logic behind what he is asking for in these amendments.

Unfortunately, on the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, while I am extremely sympathetic to the issue of climate change, and I will not buy all sorts of things in plastic or plastic bottles and the like, I worry because we are talking about adding things to an ever-extending list; every time we get to a major sporting event, we will look at whether we should add on other things that operate in other countries.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just spoke about an established principle, and I think that is a far better route by which we should operate in terms of these international sporting events. In other words, our established principles of advertising as they operate in this country should be the principles by which the major sporting events should operate. We cannot spend our time trying to run ahead of policies we have, whether in relation to age-related matters or food and drink-related products.

I have spoken critically on a number of occasions in this Chamber about Coca-Cola and its sponsorship of major sporting events. However, it is a very difficult road we will go down if we start adding on one thing after another—

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

To make it clear, when I was talking about an established principle, I was talking about the fact that we have restricted advertising of these products—particularly to children. Therefore, it is a question of how far that restriction goes; it is not about doing something new.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her clarification; I was not absolutely clear on whether she was talking about the established principles or extending the limits in some form or another.

I want to make an observation on a comment the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, made on the last group of amendments. I think I heard him refer to sporting events as ones of “chance” on two occasions. There are a fair number of medallists in this Chamber today who may think, “Well, it wasn’t chance that got me a gold, silver or bronze medal”. Equally, when I refereed rugby, it was very rarely viewed as chance that one team or the other won—though there was the odd chance that the referee might have made an error at the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

In moving Amendment 15 I shall speak also to Amendments 26 and 79. We on these Benches think that we should consider events that are in scope of this Bill as part of the free-to-air listed events regime for audiences in the UK, so that those who wish to follow a sporting event but cannot obtain a ticket due to cost or availability can still follow the event without incurring extra costs and potentially having to pay for a subscription; and, secondly and really importantly, because it will encourage and expand the audience for such events. Watching a sport you do not know can spark interest and participation. There are more chances that this will happen if the event is not behind a paywall.

The Minister mentioned the Lionesses. Thanks to the BBC championing and broadcasting women’s football free to air, enabling the public to watch the Lionesses’ triumphant journey in both European and world tournaments, there are new audiences in stadiums, as well as on screens; and, most importantly, it has inspired women and girls to take up the sport. Similarly, there is the legacy of Channel 4 and the Paralympics, and I refer to what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said earlier about encouraging and enabling disabled kids to get involved in sport.

It is in the power of the DCMS to review listed events—the “crown jewels”, as they are known. The amendment I am proposing would create an opportunity to revise the list, and this follows a concerning trend where fans’ rights to enjoy events on free-to-air television have been gradually eroded. For the first time, the finals of the Champions League—football is the sport of the day—Europa League and Conference League were all behind a paywall. If the Government intend to host such great sporting events in the UK, as we have been discussing today, the British public deserve the right to be able to watch them.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise with great pleasure to follow the Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, who is very much the leader of your Lordships’ House in this space. I am here having signed Amendments 15 and 26 to show cross-party support, so I will be brief.

As the noble Baroness set out, we have seen a gradual erosion of people’s access. We often discuss access to the right to participate in sport, but there is also the access to being part of the whole sporting experience and to view major events live. Free-to-air broadcast is what keeps major sporting events genuinely public, rather than turning them into elite viewing that is available only to those who can afford subscription television or other sources. If access depends on payment, watching sport becomes unevenly distributed, with lower-income households at a clear disadvantage. In practice, that particularly excludes, or risks excluding, many children and young people from the shared experience of watching major sporting events with their peers and their communities. Free-to-air coverage ensures that money is not a barrier to participation in what is a common cultural space, where sport is experienced collectively rather than privately. That broad access is something that gives sport extra public value, and that is why it is important to protect it as something that belongs to everyone, not just those who can pay.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I disagree with the proposed amendments for a number of different reasons; first, because the terminology “free to air” is a complete misdescription. You have to pay £180 for your TV licence. It therefore is not free—that is, for the 88% of the population who choose to pay for their TV licence. The number of people who choose not to pay for a TV licence has been rising for many years. I say 88% because the latest figures published say that 12.5% of all viewers do not pay for a television licence.

Secondly, there is the question of competition. The essence of sport is competition. It is a very odd state of affairs whereby one says that broadcasters can compete but, by the way, we will restrict the competition in certain fields. We were debating in the previous set of amendments the question of assisting people who face disadvantages in society. Again, it is a very odd state of affairs whereby one broadcaster might be willing to pay much larger sums to broadcast a particular event, and in that process guarantee substantial funds to the underrepresented groups, but they are not allowed to because the event concerned is a crown jewel. So not only do you lose out because the broadcasting may be inferior; the funding might be inferior as well.

Thirdly, my concern is that the crown jewels were a product of a different technological era. Sport is now broadcast on a whole range of different platforms, and none of us in this Chamber knows what the platforms are going to be in five or 10 years’ time. Therefore, to decree in this piece of legislation that you can have certain sporting events, and I noticed that it suggested that they might be extended only on—I will use the jargon although I have indicated that I do not agree with it—a free-to-air basis, when multiple levels of platforms will probably be available in a few years’ time does not recognise the changing technological world in which we live and which the sporting world will have to adapt to.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I agree with his highlighting of concerns about the greed and denial of principles that have been associated with too many major sporting events recently. That is something I will come back to. It is important that this Bill acknowledges those risks and dangers and considers what kind of events we will be hosting.

I start by saying what a pleasure it is to take part in what has already been a very rich and informed debate. Major international sporting events are important to so many individuals: for pure joy, for engagement in social activities, and for—we hope, at least—encouraging physical activity of their own. Of course, they are also important in providing communities with new facilities, infrastructure and opportunities.

However, we know that major events have not always lived up to their promises or the hopes people held. This Bill is a real opportunity to make sure that future events do just that. The Green Party and I broadly welcome the Bill. It is sensible not to have to keep creating a different piece of legislation for each individual event, and this is a practical measure that is clearly heading in broadly the right direction.

I want to associate myself with a number of points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, such as culture being included in the Bill—certainly cultural events associated with sporting events—but I think we could also ask broader questions. We have seen so much depletion of the cultural life of this country, driven by austerity, by Brexit, by educational suppression of creative subjects, and in some cases by a desire to discourage individual critical thinking. It is important that we look to international inspiration and international support to grow that.

I also share the noble Baroness’s concern that we are not going far enough on anti-ticket-touting or ensuring that events are protected for free-to-air TV. This is still important to so many people. Even though much of what people watch now is through the internet and social media, there are still a lot of people we cannot leave behind.

I very much agree and associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. An amendment to ensure that we build in “inclusive by design” is something we should see. I would further comment, reflecting on earlier debates in your Lordships’ House, that those who are attacking diversity, equity and inclusion measures for ideological reasons should listen to the noble Lord’s speech to understand how important it is that these measures continue.

I want to pick up on the immensely powerful and important speech—as we all expected—from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and her point about soft power. As she stressed, the nature of the event, how it turns out, and its outcomes for individuals, communities and society are important not only on their own terms but to how Britain is regarded around the world. In that context, the UK Soft Power Council has, unfortunately, not met for seven months. A recent PoliticsHome article described it as “drifting towards oblivion”. That is disturbing, and perhaps the Minister can comment on that.

I come now to some specific points concerning amendments that I may consider tabling to this Bill, depending on the Minister’s response. The first relates to Schedule 2, “Advertising provisions”. We have already ensured that we remove tobacco sponsorship from sport because of its impact on public health. Should we not also consider preventing fossil fuel companies advertising and sponsoring major sporting events? This has been called for by the UN Secretary-General, who has said there should indeed be restrictions similar to those applied to tobacco. Various countries have made progress in this area. France has already banned fossil fuel products advertising from 2022. The Hague has introduced a legally binding ban on fossil fuel advertising in public spaces from 2025. Of course, many local communities around these islands—including Edinburgh and Sheffield, to mention two that I know about—have already taken action on this.

We can look back to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics for lessons that we might learn. Public health in the UK is so poor. Surely, if we are going to put significant public investment into these sporting events, as we inevitably will, we need to make sure they do not do significant damage to public health. There should surely be restrictions on the nature of the products being advertised or, indeed, forcibly sold at these venues.

I note that major sponsors at London 2012 were McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Cadbury and Heineken. That was subject at the time to criticism from a number of senior medical officials; indeed, the London Assembly passed a motion calling for a ban on junk food sponsors. We saw a real problem whereby food sellers were forced to prominently display Coca-Cola advertising and products, with very limited space for alternative products. This, of course, is a product linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity. Surely, the Bill should be looking to address some of those issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, has already given us a sneak preview, and I will not go on at length as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Foster, will be discussing this, but the issue of gambling sponsorship and advertising has to be considered. This is, of course, a huge issue when it comes to football. I am afraid I am not going to celebrate the very modest measure whereby next season, there will be a voluntary ban on advertising on the front of shirts. That is what you might call the minimum possible we think we can get away with. The economic costs of gambling to the country are very well known and I am sure will be rehearsed later. I note that Italy, for example, banned most gambling advertising through a “Dignity Decree” in 2018.

My final point concerns sustainability standards. Again, London 2012 unfortunately did not live up to many of the promises made before the Games on waste reduction targets, resource use and use of renewable energy. Also, they failed to use locally grown food and fair trade products, in part, again, because of the influence of those sponsors and contracted suppliers.

Surely, we should be thinking back to the soft power point. We should be ensuring that we produce genuinely “world-leading” events—a phrase popular on both the Government and Opposition Benches in this place. Paris sought to host the lowest carbon Olympic Games ever; it did not always live up to this. Surely, we can do better than Paris in future events. Yes, international bodies are starting to mandate those standards, but we can surely demand that the events we cover under this Bill go further.

In-game Purchases: Protections for Children

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

This is about making sure that children are safe. The Government are committed to ensuring that games are enjoyed safely and responsibly by everyone, including children. The Government maintain the view that loot boxes should not be purchased by children, unless enabled by a parent or guardian, and that is our clear position. All players should have access to spending controls and transparent information. This is why we have funded detailed academic research into the implementation of loot box guidance, which, as I mentioned earlier, will be published in the near future.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

With quite a number of countries around the world having already banned loot boxes and quite a number of gamers having developed a resistance and an anger about them, some online commentary suggests that loot boxes are already on the way out. There is the next new thing, which is known as sweeps or sweepstakes, which involve buying coins for social gameplay. Then, engaged in that, there is a raffle-like or a slot-machine-like process that produces rewards. Are the Government aware of that? Are the Government looking at that? We know that the industry will react—if you just legislate against loot boxes, it will try and find something. Do we not need legislation that covers the whole thing of a gambling-like system set up in gaming?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Baroness correctly identifies that sometimes our debate does not necessarily keep up with developments. One of the major protections we have in place is the Online Safety Act, which applies to online services that allow users to share content and interact with each other. As I have said in previous responses, the Government keep up to date with developments and keep all options under review.

Covid-19 Pandemic: Commemoration

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 13th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for the leadership that she showed in London during the pandemic. Rebuilding trust is clearly important but is potentially for a wider conversation. I am happy to meet the right reverend Prelate to talk through this. In our approach to the commemoration, we are keen to make sure that, at the heart of what we are announcing today is the recognition of the loss of nearly 250,000 lives.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I also offer the Green group’s deep sympathies to those who continue to live under the shadow of Covid bereavement, those who are suffering continually from long Covid and those who gave so much during the pandemic. The Minister referred to preparedness: there is a high probability that the next pandemic, which the WHO calls Disease X, will be a flu virus; it will almost certainly be an airborne pathogen. Are the Government ready with up-to-date medical supplies to deal with that now and in the future? What are they doing on issues of ventilation and air filtration to make sure that our public spaces are safe in that environment?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Ensuring that the UK is prepared for a future pandemic is absolutely a top priority for the Government. We are embedding lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, including the inquiry’s recommendations, within our pandemic preparedness. Like other noble Lords, we are hugely grateful to the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hallett, and her team for their important work. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, that the UK Government have been conducting a national exercise on pandemic preparedness, which is exploring a lot of these issues, called Exercise Pegasus. It involves Ministers from across the UK Government, and is working closely with devolved Governments, to ensure that we have the preparedness that we need for a future pandemic. We are clear that this will not necessarily be after another 100 years and that we need to be prepared now. The exercise is the first of its kind in nearly a decade and the largest simulation of a pandemic in UK history. Its findings and the post-exercise report will be delivered in due course and I am sure will be of interest to your Lordships’ House.

Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) Regulations 2025

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

I want to ask a very quick question of the Minister. Why 15%? A number of noble Lords have said very clearly that 15% does not give influence, but they are missing a very important legal right that cuts in at 10%. That is because when acquiring a company, if you are able to get 90%, you can compulsorily acquire the remaining 10%—it is called the squeeze-out procedure. For that reason, in any takeover situation, typically you put in a condition that says that you will not acquire the company unless you reach 90% or more. If you hold 10%, you can block a takeover, so why was 15% chosen, not less than 10%?

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, very briefly, I offer the Green group’s support for the fatal amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Fox—and I welcome him back.

I will make three brief points, one of which is drawing on my experience. I declare my position as a former editor of the Guardian Weekly newspaper, the international edition of the Guardian. Before I worked for the Guardian, I worked for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times newspaper, and I was the page 1 sub-editor for a period in the early 2000s. There was a lot of interest at the time in what influence Rupert Murdoch had on what the Times did. That was something of interest to me, and I watched it very closely. There was only one specific case where it was widely known that Rupert Murdoch had explicitly intervened in the Times’ coverage. What I saw regularly, evening after evening, was senior editors agonising, asking: “Would Rupert like this?” or “Would Rupert not like that?” This was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about the provision here whereby the Minister can intervene if they see influence. How are you going to see influence such as that? It is not a visible action—nothing is even said.

My second point is that my support for the fatal amendment is in no way support for our current media ownership arrangements. The Green Party has long worked with the Media Reform Coalition, focusing on the extreme concentration of our media in a handful of right-wing media tycoons. What is being proposed here is not going to improve that situation.

Thirdly, reflecting on what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said about Chinese influence, I draw the House’s attention to a ruling this morning in the European Court of Human Rights on a case brought by three former MPs, one of whom is former Green MP, Caroline Lucas. They did not win their case over the Brexit referendum in 2016, but the court in Strasbourg did find that there were shortcomings in the UK’s initial responses to allegations of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum campaign. As Caroline Lucas said afterwards:

“It’s hugely significant that the court has found in favour of our case that foreign interference is a threat to our right to free and fair elections”.


I would add that it is a threat to free and fair democratic debate.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I am sure that noble Lords feel that they have heard enough from newspaper editors already. As another former newspaper editor, I was going to sit quietly, but I must take issue with the comment from the noble Baroness opposite that Rupert Murdoch was always an unseen influence on what senior editors wrote. As a former senior editor there who disagreed vehemently with Rupert Murdoch over very many things, I can say that that was not at all a consideration in what we wrote. I have no doubt that he told those at the Sun every evening what to write, and that they wrote it. It shows that newspapers are influenced by their proprietors if they wish to be, and if their audience is happy with that.

Listening to this debate, we seem to have lost the idea of what has happened to newspaper audiences. They are no longer what they were. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talks about people having their newspapers delivered to their homes and those newspapers upholding British values. Maybe he has been reading the Daily Telegraph recently, but my reading of the Daily Telegraph is that it does not tally with my British values, and it may not tally with the British values of everybody here.

Newspapers have a role. It is no longer the role that it used to be. They are fulfilling it to the best of their ability, but competing with numerous other sources and not always succeeding. As others have mentioned, the web in various guises, particularly social media, provides the news for the majority of young people in this country. I contend that that is far more dangerous than any influence on a major national newspaper. If some major national newspapers were to influence the debate at all in this country, I do not think that Keir Starmer would be the Prime Minister today—it could still be Liz Truss. Newspapers do not have that much influence any more.

However, there is no doubt that the procedure that has brought us to this position has been flawed. I think the Minister accepts that the Government have not made the best job of this. If she can give the House some indication that the potential loophole between now and the autumn will be fully bridged, then we should support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, because there is sufficient regret over how this has been done. We should not pass a fatal amendment that looks to a history that no longer exists.

Media Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

That is right. He has succeeded; I have lost my thread.

If we had had more time or if the phrase “extended consensus” had been interpreted more widely, these matters could have been dealt with. In the end, we will end up with an unnecessarily flawed Bill and a subject to which an incoming Government—as long as they are not a Conservative one—will have to devote their time. We could have wrapped all this up today and adopted the compromise put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. If necessary, we could even now improve that compromise by amending it at Third Reading. But we will not do so. The will is not there.

We are now seeing an elected dictatorship of two parties—my own, alas, and the Conservative Party—pushing through things that have not achieved consensus support simply, as I explained at Second Reading, for political advantage. This is a sad day not only for press regulation but for Britain’s democracy.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to associate the Green Party with the remarks of both the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. The noble Baroness spoke up very clearly for the people with very little power who are being crushed by those with great power—the oligarchic press and media system, to which I have referred in previous speeches.

To pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, I often hear the phrase, “We are a self-governing House” said with great pride. “We are not ruled by the usual channels”—or at least we are not supposed to be. They do not represent large parts of your Lordships’ House.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and Members from all parts of the House for their good wishes about my health. I went into hospital yesterday morning for a procedure on a long-standing back complaint. It went very well and as I left, the doctor said, “Oh, you might find a bit of discomfort once the painkillers wear off”. Always listen to your doctor. I was really touched to read today’s Hansard. There were good wishes that you usually have to die to get in this House. I feel rather like Tom Sawyer in that respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is right—I am only going to speak to the amendments to Clause 50—as the notes issued by the House on the wash-up period state:

“The wash-up period allows a Government to enact essential or non-controversial legislation”.


Whatever else this is, Clause 50 is neither of those things. We all know it has been put into the Bill like a sore thumb, to fix a deal between the Conservative Party and the major newspaper proprietors. That is the wicked world in which we live.

Having served in government and in this House for well over 30 years, I cannot get excited about wash-up. George Woodcock, the great trade union leader of the early 1960s, said that good trade unionism is a series of squalid compromises; so is wash-up, I am afraid. I understand what we are doing today. If we did not have this rather crude end to a Parliament, even a general election period of six weeks would be eaten up by both Houses debating Bills. It is not the end of the world; there is another Parliament coming.

I can see that the noble Lord, Lord Black, is in his place. Like Don Quixote, he is ready to charge at the windmills of state control of the press. That has never been any part of Section 40, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, explained in quoting the expert on the situation, Lord Leveson. I was the Minister in the Ministry of Justice who had responsibility for trying to put forward a solution to the problem of how you square the circle of press freedom and the power of big money in the press. I find it ironic that, at the end of this Parliament, we are being asked simultaneously to help the titans of the press to escape the bullying of SLAPPs—that is the use of big money to curb freedom—and at the same time those same press bodies are resisting attempts to give the ordinary citizen the protection from big-money press that they are asking for.

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[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The reality of political life—the noble Lord knows this as much as I do—is that wash-up is a very difficult constitutional concept. However, that is what we have, and it is the only way of getting business through. Since the noble Lord asks me, I do not think this is contentious at all. I thought the provision of Section 40 when it was enacted was a disgrace.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Wait a minute. I have continued to consider so since, and my views are confirmed by the fact that we have all managed perfectly well for 10 years.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Give me a moment. I said I would give way, but I would like to finish my point. If the noble Baroness does not mind, I would like to finish my answer to the noble Lord and then I will happily give way to her.

Therefore I do not consider this contentious, because there is no conceivable justification for maintaining any part of Section 40. I happily give way.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way, and I suggest that perhaps his tone is testimony to the degree of contention in your Lordships’ Chamber at this moment. I also contest the argument he makes that lots of examples have not been given. As was pointed out, examples were given yesterday in Committee, but your Lordships’ House is also very aware of the wash-up procedure and the need for speed, and people’s desire to progress. However, just to give the noble Lord one example, the NUJ—the National Union of Journalists—ethics and disabled members councils have written to IPSO complaining about its failure to address the way in which disabled people are covered by the media organisations that it is supposed to regulate, and asking for action. I have seen no sign of action. That is just one example, since the noble Lord asked for them.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

That is a very sensitive subject.

Media Bill

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

There are new rules.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

Well, I hasten to add that I have no intention of going beyond that time. If that is a new rule, of which I was unaware, I certainly think it is a highly retrograde step because in Committee we should be exploring all the implications of all amendments. That is something we will no doubt return to at another time.

I welcome this debate and these amendments, particularly the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, moved his amendment and made reference to Wales as well as Scotland. I do not intend to go in depth into the Scottish context. I welcome the fact that amendments have come from that side of the Committee, with their intentions shared in other parts of the Committee, no doubt. I discussed some of these matters with friends in the Scottish National Party but, quite frankly, I feel incapable of addressing the Scottish context, which is very different from the Welsh context in terms of structure and the location and strength of the language in the country as a whole.

I would like to make this point at the beginning of my remarks. On page 6 of the Bill, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, it says

“‘recognised regional or minority language’ means Welsh” ,

et cetera. But Welsh is not a minority language. Welsh is a national language in Wales and is officially recognised as such in statutes passed by Westminster. Therefore, it is inappropriate for that terminology to be used in this context.

In saying that, I should perhaps clarify, in case there is some uncertainty about it, that I come from a very different background to most Members in this House. Welsh is my first language; Welsh is the language that I speak almost all the time at home; Welsh is the language of 90% of my community and village, and 70% in the county in which I live. I have two children and six grandchildren. All six grandchildren speak Welsh as a first language; those six grandchildren have two grandparents who are Welsh-speaking and four who are not Welsh-speaking. That is the reality in Wales today: Welsh is a language that has been grasped by people of Wales, in Wales, but also by people have also moved into Wales. It is part of their heritage. In fact, there are 20 Welsh-medium schools in Cardiff now, teaching through the medium of Welsh. That is the reality.

Welsh is a language that has a diversity within it as well. People come on holiday to Wales and they see Jason Mohammad on Welsh television. The sound is off in the pub, so they turn it up to hear what he is saying. They are amazed when they find that Jason Mohammad is, of course, speaking in Welsh. He is one of the Welsh community, a fluent Welsh speaker, and he learned it as a second language. We have rappers, such as Sage Todz, who raps in Welsh and in English. There is no problem with that. They are an ethnic part of the Welsh community, and the language belongs to the whole of Wales. It belongs to those who speak Welsh and to those who do not speak Welsh, because it is part of our culture.

There have been changes in places such as Merthyr Tydfil, where I lived before I entered Parliament. The language was almost dead when I was there. It is partly thanks to television and partly thanks to education that things have changed since then. We will be coming on to some of these aspects in a later bank of amendments. However, I want to make the point as strongly as I can that the context of the Welsh language is a very different one to being treated as a minority language or a regional language.

This does raise questions in relations to Welsh and to Gaelic, whether they should be seen just in a Scottish context—or in a part-of-Scotland context for Gaelic—or in a Welsh context—the whole of Wales, as far as Welsh is concerned, where it is an official language throughout the whole of Wales—or should they be seen in a British context? That is the implication in some of these amendments. If they are being seen in a British context, do they have a claim to existence, in respect and with regard to nurturing, within England itself?

There was a time when I was on the board of S4C —the Welsh language television service—where some of our programmes were being picked up in England, particularly things like rugby, understandably, where there were audiences of 100,000 and more from within England. That raises the question: how many people in England actually speak Welsh? We do not know that, because in successive censuses—in 2001, 2011 and 2021—there has been a refusal to ask that question in England. It may be 100,000; it may be 200,000; it may even be half a million. We do not know.

We know that many, many young people leave Wales to look for work, and they live in England. They tune into S4C, and, of course, it is very much easier to do that now than when I was on the board in earlier times. The fact that there can be audiences of that scale indicates that a question must arise if you are talking about minority languages. What is the position of minority languages such as the Gaelic language and the Welsh language in England? What intentions will there be to find out how many speakers there are? What are the appropriate requests and demands of those? In terms of television, which we are discussing, there is now no problem: television knows no boundaries, and Welsh-language television can be seen in the United States, in Patagonia or wherever, because of the facility technology affords to it.

There are a number of questions that arise in that context. This is not the time to follow this through, but they run through to questions as to whether the Welsh language and the Gaelic language should be available, in some schools at least, in conurbations in England if we are saying that the Welsh and Gaelic languages are British languages. I just assume that this is the position from which the Government come on such matters. In which case, what are the Government going to be doing about it?

I am grateful for these amendments being tabled because it puts into context our interpretation of the words “regional or minority language”, which are on the face of the Bill. I suggest that this needs to be thought through again, in order for it to have a respect, or even a meaning, as far as we in Wales are concerned.

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of Creative Scotland. I thank my noble friend Lord Dunlop for his work to champion the Gaelic Media Service and add my support to his amendment.

I just want to respond a little bit to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that the Welsh and Scottish situations are not the same. No, they are not, and we feel rather hard done by because, as the noble Lord said, the two pillars of education and broadcasting have done much to support the Welsh language. I think that my noble friend Lord Dunlop’s amendments are just trying to reverse what I call the devolution deficit that has done no favours to the Gaelic Media Service.

We heard at Second Reading about the economic benefits of MG Alba. It sustains 340 jobs in the Highlands and Islands and produces gross value added of over £17 million. It is very interesting today that the Scottish Government’s new Deputy First Minister is not only a fluent Gaelic speaker and the first-ever Scottish Minister for Gaelic, as my noble friend said, but she also has responsibility for the economy. Despite its impressive economic record, however, MG Alba is facing a huge generational challenge at this very moment of having to transition to a digital service on its existing funding.

My noble friend Lord Dunlop has already set out that Scottish Government Ministers have been very vocal about their so-called strong and consistent support for the Gaelic language service. What I support about my noble friend’s amendments is that, by denominating the Gaelic Media Service as a public broadcaster, they are not committing the UK Government to funding, but they could ensure that the Scottish Government are held more accountable for their—in real terms—dwindling support for MG Alba.

If the Minister is minded in his reply to say that this issue should wait for the BBC charter review, I respectfully warn him that he is in danger of conflating two issues. The Media Bill is the appropriate place to confirm that there should be a Gaelic broadcaster. It is the place that confirms again that there should be a Welsh language public broadcaster, so why not Gaelic? The charter review would simply be a mechanism for the delivery of this. Frankly, if MG Alba has to wait another two years, it may be too late for the future of the Gaelic Media Service.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise humbly to take part in what has been a very rich and informative debate. I would particularly single out the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. I apologise that I did not take part in the Second Reading of this Bill due to other commitments. I declare for general purposes for the whole of this Bill that I was formerly an editor of the Guardian Weekly and spent 20 years as a journalist, so that is the background that I bring into this.

We have uncovered some important technical drafting detail here, both from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and I hope that we will certainly be seeing some government amendments on Report addressing those issues. However, I really just wanted to offer general Green support for the importance of having linguistic diversity broadcast across these islands, and I really wanted to stress that this is a terribly important issue.

We were talking in the last group about the British broadcasting ecosystem having a general claim to being world-leading. I am afraid that English characteristic monolingualism is something of a global joke. It is really important that we acknowledge that there is multilingualism on these islands, and it needs to be supported and encouraged.

I experienced a monolingual environment in the Australia of my childhood. Having exposure to only a single language impoverished my youth. Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Ulster Scots, Irish and Cornish are treasures of these islands, and they need support. They preserve tradition and knowledge, and they contribute to cultural diversity.

I note that, last week, the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee heard evidence on the proposed Scottish Languages Bill, which aims to establish official status and improve educational support for languages. The chair of the professional association for Gaelic secondary teachers noted that Gaelic-medium education is, in effect, now stopping at S1 or S2. In 2023, only 1% of primary school pupils were in GM education, but 46% of primary school pupils in the Western Isles, for example, are in Gaelic-medium education and 54% study Gaelic. If we are going to have broadcasters that truly serve across these islands, we clearly need to see the delivery of all these languages.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I offer Green support for Amendment 9, which I think has already been very powerfully argued for. I also note the degree of lobbying, from the Citizens’ PSM Forum, already referred to, but also a number of other groups and individuals who have contacted me about this, indicating that they regard this as terribly important.

I will focus on science, because I think that science broadcasting, in terms of socially valued public service genres, really deserves to be stressed. This picks up points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on the first group, in the context of our climate emergency and all the other exceeding of planetary boundaries threats that we face. I am speaking in the context where today’s Guardian reports that a survey of IPCC scientists notes that the majority view is that we are heading towards 2.5 degrees of global heating. I remain an optimist and I do not necessarily agree with that—it is a question of social innovation and change—but what is clearly crucial is that the public sector broadcasters provide the scientific information and context that the public need to understand the debates and the issues.

I declare my position here as a science graduate from 1987. Much of what I was taught in my science degree I now know to be utterly out of date. One thing that may not apply to the other aspects of this—certainly to the first point here—is that science changes with lightning speed. Most of what I was taught in soil science I can now regard only as absolute junk. Much of what I was taught in genetics has been utterly overturned. If we are to have a public who are informed about these really crucial issues, science programming can be difficult, controversial and very expensive but it is crucial that there is a remit in the Bill that we need this from our public sector broadcasters.

Personally, I try to keep up to date with a whole range of podcasts. I can recommend to noble Lords “Big Biology” or the New Books Network “Systems and Cybernetics” channel, but they are not necessarily terribly accessible and it is really important that we have public sector broadcasters providing the content that informs the public on scientific issues.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, I too have added my name to Amendment 9. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, said, a clear definition of the genres, rather than the vague “appropriate”, is necessary to ensure commissioning from the PSBs across a full range of programmes and proper oversight from Ofcom. As my noble friend Lord Foster mentioned, the Minister said earlier that the Bill has not removed Section 358 of the Communications Act, which requires Ofcom to collect information on principal genres, but it does not define what these genres are, so we return to the essential fact that, if not specified, Ofcom will not be required to monitor this crucial content in quantitative terms.

Specifying genres provides guarantees for a future we cannot predict. It does not take a lot of imagination to envisage the slippery slope. With the genres gone, there are two likely consequences. First, the commercial PSBs will seek to diminish their commitment and will lobby accordingly, exactly as ITV did with regional current affairs programmes. Secondly, Ofcom will have less discretion to hold them to account if it is under no obligation to monitor individual genres.

I return to the pre-legislative DCMS Committee report and to what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said so forcefully, that removing the requirement on commercial PSBs to provide specific genres for UK children’s content

“led to significant reductions in the production of original children’s TV, and we are concerned that the draft Media Bill’s removal of the specific reference to other genres will lead to similar reductions in content, particularly in the less commercially successful areas”.

That is from the committee’s report, but we all agree on it, I think.

I have one rather off-the-wall question, having listened to the very interesting debate about language: can we please find another word instead of “genre”? Maybe there is a Welsh, Gaelic or Cornish word that we could use instead.

Gambling Advertising

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Trevethin and Oaksey. His final suggestion was a pertinent and encouraging one. Like other noble Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for securing this debate and for all the work that he has done over many years on this issue. I declare my position as a member of Peers for Gambling Reform.

I shall begin, for a change, with some positive good news—this picks up something mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Foster—which is the ban on various forms of advertising that has come into place in Sheffield following a decision by the council in March. This is a great demonstration that campaigning works and can make a difference. I know some of the people who have been campaigning for that in Sheffield over a significant period. It is also a demonstration of the public desire to have healthier environments and healthy societies, which is what indeed this public health measure does. It is a ban, within the limits of the power of Sheffield City Council, applying to authority-owned hoardings. As well as gambling and betting products it covers short-term loans, alcoholic drinks, fossil-fuel products, some breast and infant milk formulas and petrol, diesel and hybrid plug-in vehicles. We can see the focus there on health. An important point to make is that, as the director of public health in Sheffield, Greg Fell, said, while this measure is not going to break our gambling harm epidemic—and it is important that the public health sector sees that the epidemic is there—it sets an important direction of travel.

I have a direct question for the Minister. Local councils and local communities have been expressing a desire to see these gambling adverts and other harmful adverts out of their communities. If the Government will not act centrally—although I would prefer it if they did—will they allow local communities to make the decision for themselves, not just on the sites that they control but on all the advertising sites within their communities?

It is important to note how much this advertising is focused in poorer, disadvantaged communities. In Sheffield, the group Adfree Cities found that 60% of the advertisements were in the poorest areas of the city while just 2% of the adverts were in the most affluent locations. More than four in five outdoor billboard adverts around the country are focused in the poorest areas of England and Wales. These impact negatively on people’s lives and on the environment in those communities.

Like other noble Lords, I commend the Library, as usual, on its excellent briefing. All the evidence is that, along with the deluge of gambling advertising that we are all being exposed to, we are seeing a great rise in problem gambling. Under the new methodology from the Gambling Commission, we are talking about a 2.5% problem gambler rate—that is more than 1 million people. This is an addiction problem and a public health crisis. The GamCare helpline had more than 50,000 calls and online chats in 2023, up 24% on the previous year.

Other noble Lords have referred to the situation of football. Again, there is a strong, fast-rising grass-roots campaign saying, “We want something to be done about this”. As far as I have been able to discover, AFC Wimbledon was the last club to join the campaign The Big Step, calling for an end to all gambling advertising in football. That campaign is part of Gambling with Lives, the charity set up by families bereaved by gambling-related suicide. I do not think anyone has said this figure yet, but I think it needs to be recorded: the Government’s own estimate is that there are 496 suicides related to problem gambling every year. And I have one figure showing how much people are suffering: in the first weekend of the Premier League last August, fans were subjected to 11,000 gambling adverts.

To put this all in a broader context, we have an epidemic of problem advertising. Figures out this morning from the WHO show that the UK has the worst rate of child alcohol abuse worldwide. We have a real problem where advertising is creating an unhealthy society. We need a much healthier society, which is something the Government themselves often acknowledge. Gambling is part of a much broader problem. There is no right to advertise. We have right to say as a society that we do not want to force unhealthy products on people and communities.

Human Rights: Sportswashing

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for securing this important debate. I am honoured to take part alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who gave a very important speech. I share her great concern about women’s sport, including how far we have to go towards equality and the understanding that we can go backwards as well as forwards, which is sometimes forgotten. I also credit the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for acknowledging having changed his mind; in your Lordships’ House, it is always good to see people’s thinking developing and going forward.

I will go a long way back to a couple of the origins of sporting activity thousands of years ago. One was the ancient Olympics held in honour of Zeus, who, for the ancient Greeks, was the despotic, sexually abusive king of the gods on Mount Olympus. There was the Mesoamerican ball game. Sometimes, positively, it seems to have been used as alternative to war: Topiltzin, the Toltec king, played against three rivals, with the winner getting to rule over the losers. But later in its history, it became associated with human sacrifice and usually decapitation—blood-soaked sport indeed.

I looked up the origins of the term “sportswashing” as we currently use it. It seems to have begun in 2015, when Azerbaijan used the European Games to divert international attention away from human rights in that country. As the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, did, we have to draw a parallel between greenwashing and sportswashing. They both make associations with health, democracy, equality and even environmental action—all positives that are churned up together and supposed to put out something good. But, so often, what we are talking about is a very thin coat over some very nasty things underneath.

It is worth looking at where in the UK the term was first widely used: I think it was probably in 2018, regarding Abu Dhabi, the Manchester City football team and the case of Matthew Hedges, a PhD student who was convicted of spying in the UAE. Eventually, after a great deal of suffering, he was later pardoned.

What we saw was lots of Manchester City supporters coming out to defend the UAE and its record on human rights because they wanted to defend their football team. That is a very interesting example of the way in which sport can be used as a lever and a tool, and Amnesty International was particularly effective in highlighting that at the time.

Closer to the current day, a moment when sportswashing became untenable was when UEFA decided to move the 2022 Champions League final from St Petersburg, President Putin’s hometown. That was after the illegal invasion of Ukraine by the Russian regime, but there had already been extensive sportswashing by what was obviously an authoritarian and internationally aggressive regime. That was at its peak during the 2018 World Cup. The president of FIFA declared at the Kremlin that the world was now “in love” with President Putin—what does that image look like now? Even at the time, it was not hard to see how disturbing that was. Rio Ferdinand and Peter Schmeichel were also at that meeting.

Further back, in Argentina the military junta seized power two years before the 1978 World Cup. When the Argentinian team won the cup, it was seen as a real political boost for the junta that helped to keep it in power.

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar was truly bloodstained and a mark of shame on the so-called beautiful game. In 2010, when Qatar won the right to stage the World Cup, it had only one of the eight stadiums needed. Human Rights Watch reported that to build the rest, and the hotels and roads, more than 2 million migrants were forced to work in sweltering heat and extremely abusive labour conditions. They were abused in the interests of sport—and money, of course, which I will return to. It was reported that at least 6,500 migrant workers died during those 10 years of construction. We are not really that far from the Mesoamerican ball games, are we? This is a country where migrant workers and other residents, should they be LGBTIQA+, face severe repression of their basic human rights, as do many other people. This is despite the fact that in 2016 FIFA signed up to the UN principles on business and human rights, requiring it to

“avoid infringing on the human rights of others”.

The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, spoke extensively about the situation in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. I will not go back over the entire ground that he covered, but it is worth looking at the total list because there has been an explosion of sportswashing by Saudi Arabia. It has spent at least $6.3 billion on sportswashing since 2021—that is 300 sponsorship deals. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, and the state-owned oil company—we come back to the link between the environment and sport—have invested in sports such as boxing, racing, football, snooker, golf, ATP tennis, cricket and the America’s Cup regatta, and they are sportswashing what is an increasingly oppressive regime. The regime continues to intervene in Yemen, one of the world’s worst human rights crises, and was responsible for the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

I will also briefly revisit—as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, did—the situation of Bahrain, particularly Formula 1. The regime has regularly used the Grand Prix to enhance its image, and over the past two decades, as the noble Lord outlined, there have been numerous human rights violations directly associated with the event itself; we are coming back to bloodstains again.

I raise, as the noble Lord did specifically, the case of Sayed Hashim AlWadaei, son of Hajer Mansoor, and ask the Government what they are doing in that situation. I am aware that it is not directly in the Minister’s portfolio, but none the less, in this context, he must have expected this question. Would the Minister defend the UK ambassador to Bahrain, Alastair Long, on 2 March 2024 releasing a promotional video celebrating 20 years of F1 in Bahrain? He talked of the vision it took from His Majesty and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and boasted of Bahrain-UK tourism ties, completely ignoring human rights abuses and actively sportswashing the regime. I remind your Lordships’ House that this is the UK ambassador to Bahrain. Does the Minister consider that acceptable?

An obvious part of this debate on sportswashing is the place of boycotts, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I have to raise the impact of the sports boycott on apartheid South Africa. I very much agree with the noble Lord that the sports boycott was only part of the story, but it was none the less an important part. I have to cross-reference what is generally known as the anti-boycotts Bill that the Government are currently pushing through your Lordships’ House, formally the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, not currently in his place, spoke extremely powerfully at the Second Reading of that Bill. I urge noble Lords who have not read that speech to do so. He also writes in today’s Guardian about the power of sports boycotts and the power of local action when the national Government were failing to take action. As the noble Lord says in the Guardian,

“the British people’s international solidarities often exceed those of our political leaders”.

That does not, however, absolve the Government of taking action. Noble Lords and I have only covered so much; there are so many issues around the place of repressive regimes in British sport today. So I have a direct question to the Minister: what steps will the Government take to ensure that multi-billion-dollar companies based in the UK are not actively engaged in covering up human rights abuses through their sports-related activities, actively sportswashing and making regimes have a more positive appearance? My second question is: what steps will the Government take to ensure Sayed Hashim’s release?

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that sport is only a small part of this story. Finance is a big part of the ways in which repressive regimes have infiltrated our society; they have used elements of our financial sector and other elements of our society to make themselves appear respectable. Since my entry into the House, I have talked about the corruption of the London laundromat, the still partly hidden scandal of golden visas and our role as butler to the world’s kleptocrats and populists. That is a term I have borrowed from the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, who gave a speech of that title in your Lordships’ House in February 2022.

It can sometimes seem that sport is small beer in comparison with that wave of corruption that we have invited into the UK—the wave covering up human rights abuses and corruption that has occurred through the City of London and through other British mechanisms. But I come back to the point that the plutocrats and autocrats are people too. They seek acceptance, gilding on tarnished reputations and fake legitimacy, and we have to acknowledge that sport is something that has a very special ability to provide that.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

Before we get away from the video, will the Minister defend the words that the UK ambassador said in it?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I have not seen the video, and I do not want to defend words I have not heard. I have set out how His Majesty’s ambassador and all Crown servants overseas follow the policies of His Majesty’s Government and are rightly held to account for what they say publicly—but my colleagues at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are perhaps better placed to discuss that.

It is important that we continue to have direct conversations on human rights and other important matters. The UK continues to show global leadership in encouraging all states to uphold international rights obligations and to ensure that those who violate human rights are held to account. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, mentioned the World Cup in Qatar, where I hope he saw that my right honourable friend Stuart Andrew—the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Equality—made the point directly by wearing the OneLove rainbow armband when he attended. By doing so, he showed that we do not shy away from these conversations and gestures. Following the tournament, we continue to engage with Qatar, which has moved forward on labour rights, as noted by noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who pointed to the independent monitoring done by the International Labour Organization.

The benefits of inward investment are key in international sport. In the last decade, there has been an unprecedented level of interest and a flow of private capital investment into the sports sector globally, particularly from international institutional investors. Like others, I think my noble friend Lord Hayward did us a great service in this debate by touching on the importance of sponsors. The Government have consistently supported the UN guiding principles on business and human rights, which are widely regarded as the authoritative international framework to steer practical action by both Governments and businesses across the world in this important area.

The last decade has seen growth in a number of areas across sport, with significant levels of new and innovative investment, particularly in women’s sport. The Government have outlined the important role of inward investment in our sports sector through their recently published sports strategy, which works to encourage investment in our sport system in a sustainable manner. We will work across government departments and with external partners to highlight best practice and opportunities for inward investment in our domestic sport, including women’s sport.

In July, the Government hosted the inaugural investment in sport symposium, bringing people from the sector together with investors and other associated organisations to discuss the opportunities that are available. We have also launched a new women’s sport investment accelerator pilot scheme, which brings UK-based women’s sports rights holders who are seeking investment together with industry experts and investors. We believe there are further opportunities within the sector, in the form of viable investment propositions for the right investors who are committed to the long-term growth and health of the sport.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for what has been a timely debate and a chance to look ahead to the debates we will have on the independent football regulator, but also a powerful opportunity to remind us of the importance of how the Government engage with countries around the world through sport and in other ways, to the benefit of the UK, our sportsmen and sportswomen, and the millions of people across the country who enjoy sport in all its forms.

I was struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said. There is a powerful lesson in the example of Lloyd George, whose comments about the impression he formed at the 1936 Olympic Games are difficult to hear, not just for the noble Lord and his colleagues on the Liberal Benches but for us all. But I am glad that, as we look back on those Olympics, it is the figure of Jesse Owens, with his impressive four gold medals, that looms larger in the historical imagination, underlining the importance of seizing the opportunity of sporting events to advance important conversations on matters of human rights and politics, which, as noble Lords have rightly said, are often intertwined.