Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not had the chance yet to speak to my amendments but I am grateful to other noble Lords for participating in the debate and making their comments and views well known. I am slightly disturbed that the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, has rather overinterpreted my Amendment 156. I was not aware that I was in favour of imposing quotas, but it is an interesting point.

Amendment 156 is there simply to raise the issue of ensuring that in corporate governance, football clubs are obliged to improve the diversity within the club, not just among season ticket holders but among staff and senior managers. We have made great progress through football and its barrier-breaking approach to the world of sport over the last 30 or 40 years. I can remember some pretty unpleasant scenes at football grounds when I first started watching football seriously. Gladly, those have become much less frequent but there is a real and genuine issue about representation, particularly of black players then not getting opportunities in off-field representation at all levels of management.

I have received a useful briefing today from the Black Footballers Partnership, which points out exactly that. Only two of the current 92 league managers are black, despite black footballers making up 43% of the players. The Black Footballers Partnership data shows that despite achieving 14% of all FIFA pro licences and one in four of UEFA licences, black players secure only 4% of the coaching and other managerial roles. There is clearly something not right there.

It is important that clubs are obliged to think through some of these issues. Quotas may or may not be the way to do it but we have opportunity here for football to think about improving the levels of diversity, not just in football management but in all management positions and other roles within the clubs. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said, clubs have led the way and have played a really startling and dynamic role over time.

With this amendment—and I am grateful to those who have signed it and spoken to it—I am trying to get football to begin thinking more widely about diversity in its broadest sense so that in the future it is just part and parcel of how it should be. I guess the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, would think that this is regulation creep, but I do not see it that way; I see it as setting standards for the future. Football has a proud reputation, and it is one it should build on.

In this amendment, we are seeking to encourage football to build on its reputation, because that is what needs to be done to make the world of football more inclusive and better reflect the society in which it is located. If we can do that, I think the values of football—competition and solidarity—will be much better represented. It would add to the fairness and equity that is there within a very competitive game.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I think the motivation behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, posits diversity as something you cannot possibly be against. Of course, we are all against prejudice—I hope—and that seems very commonsensical. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, made the point that he tabled this amendment so we could have a proper discussion about diversity.

The problem for me is that diversity, in the context of governance of organisations, is already established across a wide range of organisations. I am afraid it has not been for the good of those organisations. I will address the problems of diversity as a bureaucratic intervention, especially in the hands of a regulator, and why I think it will not be good for football. That does not mean I am implicitly on the side of people who are racists or not interested in equal rights or fairness.

It is important that we have some perspective here. We might note that there are 64 different nationalities represented in the Premier League, as well as a myriad of religious denominations. For players in all the different football teams across the league, that is surely proof of meritocracy—rather than box-ticking diversity schemes—that provides the riches of talents, that is colour-blind and that is not interested in people based on their characteristics.

I also think we have huge diversity in fanbase, and it has not needed a regulator to organise schemes to ensure that English football is loved by hundreds of millions of people of all shapes and sizes, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds across the globe. Meanwhile, female fans, players and popular momentum are propelling women’s football into the limelight. Therefore, I do not think that football is an example of a pale, male, stale institution that is waiting for a regulator to sort it out.

Both the amendments I am concerned about, Amendments 156 and 249, mention the clubs’ employees and monitoring and reporting on staff diversity. But I think we need to take heed of some of the negative lessons from other workplaces, particularly the public sector. Whatever the intention, too often an over-preoccupation with diversity is less likely to create more fairness for staff but does create an explosion of jobs for human resources—HR—apparatchiks, who manage the diversity and inclusion schemes that we set up.

It is worth noting that Britain has one of the largest HR sectors in the world. It is one area of growth that somebody somewhere might be proud of, although I am rather in despair at it. According to the British Labour Force Survey, there was an 83% increase in HR jobs between 2011 and 2023. As journalist Lucy Barton pointed out, that means that HR workers currently outnumber NHS doctors three to one. Let that sink in. A lot of this growth is due to job creation in relation to EDI demands. I do not think we should go ahead with these amendments on diversity and inclusion but, if we do, I propose some sort of cost-benefit analysis. The salaries needed for the hours and hours of paperwork that the regulator will be checking that the clubs do could be incredibly financially burdensome—even crippling—on many clubs.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Wednesday 27th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

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

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

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