Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to Amendments 11 and 13. I remind noble Lords of my registered interests: I am chair of Sport Wales and, with that, I sit on the board for UK Sport.

We have a rich history of organising sports events in this country. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, is absolutely right. We do not get much of an opportunity to discuss sport, but what we need with this Bill is some flexibility around what we are trying to do.

The world of major sports events bidding has changed quite a lot. For many cycles of bidding for the Olympics and Paralympics, we bid seven years out, but that changed when the international landscape changed, and the IOC has moved to announcing several Games in one go. We can look at what happened with the Commonwealth Games, when Australia pulled out and then Canada ultimately pulled out of one of the Games. We have to be fleet of foot if we want to bid for these events.

As someone who has worked in and been in sport for a very long time, I do not think that we should underestimate the power of these governing bodies coming together. They are wide-ranging and work on quite different events, but the fact that they all agree that these amendments are needed is important. We should listen to them. These amendments are important for what we are doing, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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

My Lords, let me first say that, like all sensible Scotsmen, I will be supporting England tonight. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that soccer is my main interest, as a former chairman of Heart of Midlothian Football Club, so I have a particular interest this evening.

I support this amendment for all the reasons I gave at Second Reading and for the excellent reasons put by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, in her speech. However, I have had an opportunity over the last few days to discuss this issue with my noble friend the Minister. She has assured me that this will be looked at over the Recess and sympathetic consideration given to the points in this amendment. Accordingly, I hope that we will not divide the House this evening, because we want to look forward to finishing before the witching hour, as we all know.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 86 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. I am very grateful to her for tabling it and to the noble Lord, Lord Markham, for speaking to it, because I think this is very helpful to keep the discussion on the CQC live. I understand where we have got to with the new guidance that is coming out on the back of the Manchester bombings. It is completely understandable. It has elicited very strong views in the sector. I thank the CQC for the meeting, but I think many of us have probably come away from that more confused than we were at the start. A better explanation of the plan would have helped.

As the noble Lord, Lord Markham, said, on what is an individual, what would happen when a parent steps in at an event? I think of a local rugby event; if there is a doctor there and they are asked to step in, they may not be covered by insurance. It has set a lot of hares running within the sector, which I do not think necessarily needed to happen. I also realise that the consultation is ongoing. The big events—I spoke to the London Marathon—will be fine, because they are already set up to deal with this, but I am thinking of the smaller events. I know there is a cut-off or a line at 200 people, but lots of very local events would have more than 200 people taking part. Yes, they are run under the auspices of a national governing body, but unless we get this absolutely right there is a real risk that volunteers will not continue to step up to run these events.

Yes, there will be risk assessments, but they might not have access to threat assessments. You could end up in an unforeseen circumstance and end up in court for something you have done. While we are waiting for case law, which could take several years, there could be a very big detrimental effect of volunteers stepping back, so understanding the impact is very important. I certainly think it is important to keep this discussion going, and more clarity on this would be really helpful as we go forward.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, on Amendment 83. As I said earlier, this amendment is just basically wrong—end of.

On Amendment 86, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It conforms with my experience that you have to be flexible; you have to understand about local events, and you have to keep the structure going. Clarity is required here about what is wanted, so I hope we step towards that clarity or at least find out when it is coming. That is one thing about Bills in Parliament: you do get a chance to pin a Minister down for a worthwhile answer. I hope we have assurances on both of these.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord on starting with a question that should be asked. When we have done the big games in the past, there were infrastructure measures that had to happen, but they do not seem to be in the Bill. So how do they fit in? It is that simple. I probably should have had my name down somewhere—my fault, sorry. But it is one of the things that we really must get out about how the Bill is going to work. Is it something we tag on to this, or is it something we expect to be smaller secondary legislation, or is it part of the whole that we are doing here?

As I said, we have always had to discuss this before—well, we have done it twice here; the other times, it was Scottish legislation. If we need a proper planning structure to build stuff, how is that fitting in? It does not seem to be that obvious. If the Government have a scheme coming, let us hear about it, because it is one of the things that has been of great benefit. In Birmingham, we learnt how to do it quickly; in London we learned how to do it well with lots of planning. Where do those two structures fit into what is going on here? It is a very reasonable series of questions that have been asked, and I hope the Minister has a very reasonable set of answers.

Most people who are taking part in this wish the project well. There is a lot of nodding going on here, so if we have got that going on, let us find out how that happens. If there are further questions, let us find out what inspires them, and let us see what we can do. This is something which might be very good. Let us confirm it is, or at least that it sounds like it is.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise. I did not get in to speak before the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I did not want to interrupt.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I apologise also.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

I remind the Chamber of my interests. I am chair of Sport Wales, and I am also part of the Laureus World Sports Academy, which is a group of ex-athletes who come together to raise money to put back into sport.

I have my name on Amendments 3 and 4 but support others in this group. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, I think the Bill is too tightly defined. If we are going to bid for major games in the future, it would be useful to have in this Bill everything that we might possibly need. We have huge experience from various national bodies and organisations in this country—I have previously been a board member of the London Marathon, so I have seen that—and it would make sense to use the expertise that they have.

The noble Lord, Lord Markham, talked about transport. One of the massive successes of the 2012 Games was the transport. It was an incredible experience for disabled people. A huge number of staff were available at various train stations and interchanges. The planning for that started years ahead of the Games, thanks in no small part to the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the work he did when he was commissioner at TfL. These are the things that we have to get right. The world of bidding is going to change. If we get the Bill right, it sends a strong message to the international community that we take bidding for major games really seriously and it is something that we want to do.

I joined your Lordships’ Chamber in 2010 when we were considering the then London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill. Although there was a lot of support for it at the time, that Bill was tidying up things that had happened earlier. It makes sense that if we could just slightly widen the scope and think about other measures that are needed, it would save us a lot of hassle and stress in the meantime, and it would make sure that the world knew that we are ready to bid for the biggest sporting events.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. As it is the first time I have spoken in Committee, I declare my technology interests as adviser to the Crown Estate, Endava plc and Simmons and Simmons LLP, and as non-executive director at Avalanche BVI Inc and the Avalanche Foundation. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, it seems that I am too slow to compete with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who never moved that quick on a rugby field. Nevertheless, he still has some pace when it comes to putting down amendments.

Before I speak to my Amendments 90, 92 and 93 in this group, I commend the remarks of other noble Lords. If this Bill’s purpose is to have a situation where we are well set when we come to bids for mega events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the FIFA men’s and women’s World Cup, and so on, we need to ensure that the Bill includes everything that we can know at this stage. If we take a principles-based approach throughout, that gives us the best opportunity. As my noble friend Lord Parkinson pointed out in the form of my noble friend Lord Markham, we know now that gaps exist because we understand from 2006 the need to put in place an ODA, as it was then. As my noble friend Lord Markham said, these amendments may not be word-for-word perfect, but the principle behind them is sound. We are either doing this Bill to have everything that we know at this stage covered to put us in that pole position to host these events, or we are not. There needs to be a distinction when we are going through the Bill between adding provisions—baubling as the Government might call it—and enabling it to be full to its stated purpose. I believe that much of the debate in this group of amendments goes to that second critical point: to make the Bill as fulsome as it can be to achieve its objectives.

Amendment 90 is very much in that vein. It would exclude registered charities from the provisions of the Bill when they are acting under the restrictions of their charitable status. The amendment clearly sets out that if a charity is engaged in a commercial activity or for commercial reasons has a connection with a third party, that obviously would not be included. It also sets out the potential for government to consider a limit. If it is a mega charity, perhaps the provisions of the Bill should apply. This was an issue which we faced very clearly when we were doing the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. It is a cardinal principle when you are involved with these mega events. You have to protect and defend the rights of the marketing partners without whose funding, support and value in kind these events could not happen. It is in no sense trespassing one centimetre on the right of charitable organisations, of which we have such a flourishing community across the UK, particularly local charities, to pursue their charitable objectives without transgressing the provisions of the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that point.

Similarly, Amendment 92 looks to a social value assessment. This is not extending the provisions of the Bill; it is merely intensifying the impact that these events can have. Again, at London 2012, we looked at everything through a social, economic, environmental and cultural lens. The provisions I have set out in proposed Amendment 92 give some illustrations of social value, but they are in no means an exhaustive list. In reality, it does not impose greater restrictions on an event; it enables it to state its value, through commercial and sporting, into that wider social, environmental and inclusion potential—all positive for the games themselves. I look forward to the Minister’s response to my three amendments.

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With those introductory remarks to Amendments 8, 13, 18, 20 and 21, I say that I genuinely support the Government in wanting to bring international sporting events to the United Kingdom. However, I am, I hope, realistic in persuading the Committee that this cannot be done simply by statutory instruments that have minimum debate and no opportunity to be amended, and simply go through on a yes/no basis. We will need primary legislation, and the International Olympic Committee and FIFA will welcome the fact that we have primary legislation, because it will show that parliamentarians from all sides of the House in both Chambers are in support of that bid. I beg to move.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I think in the excitement of thinking we might have another Olympics and Paralympics, it is easy to forget the huge amount of work in—the reality of—bidding for these Games. For me, 2012 was the best eight weeks of my life, but it is easy to forget that the process of even getting to bidding was a massive risk. A lot of people put their careers on the line in saying that we should bid. Most of the way through bidding for 2012, we were told that there was no point in bothering because it was Paris’s turn; amazingly, we were able to turn that on its head.

When you go to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, it is easy to forget that legacy at that point was not defined as we look at it now. If a handout amendment is actually a real thing, I think one of the successes of Olympic Park was in looking at it as a mayoral development corporation—I had an amendment to the Localism Bill—and about having the foresight to see what was required and what the park would look like 10, 20 or 50 years beyond the Games. That is why we need to be quite bold with some of the things that we are doing in this Bill. We are way beyond sport for sport’s sake. Certainly, Amendment 20, where the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, would change “is likely to bring” to “will bring”, is really important, because we can do so much through the power of sport.

Back in 2000 Nelson Mandela said:

“Sport has the power to change the world”—


that is quoted everywhere. The bit that gets forgotten is what he said afterwards: that sport inspires, unites the youth and breaks down racial and societal barriers—better than Governments, he said. We should not underestimate the power of sport. We should be thinking about legacy. If we are bidding for anything, we need to build in legacy right at the very beginning, when we are talking about bidding for the Games, because the value for money and the return you can get on it is significant. We should be thinking about schools programmes, which 2012 did brilliantly—coaching, clubs and facilities. An increase in participation is such a tiny part of what we are trying to do. We should be bold and say, “Yes, actually, we demand that there is a really strong legacy as part of anything that we bid for”, so that we stop having these spikes when everyone loves football for a bit or rugby for a bit, and it actually genuinely changes the way we participate.

This group of amendments covers this, with the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, in terms of who we are trying to get to, to be physically active. We should look at these amendments and maybe think of a slightly different form of wording but be really bold in what we want for the United Kingdom and beyond.

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[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 19 and 22 to 25 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park, to which I have attached my name, and I thank the Minister for sparing time to discuss these. I said when we met that there are a number of sports organisations that are feeling a bit unloved at the moment. These are events that have a global reach and help cement our standing on the world stage.

The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, mentioned the London Marathon. I think I competed in 17 of them—it is quite hard to remember when you get to that many. I know I did one more than my husband. I also commentate on the wheelchair race for the BBC. The marathon is not just the race itself. Anyone who walks up the Embankment at 6.30 pm on the Sunday will see people valiantly keeping going, to try to make it to the finish line. On Westminster Bridge the next morning, you also see the hundreds of people who have competed standing there with their medals, wanting to take a photo in front of Big Ben.

Beyond that, the impact is quite significant. It puts London on the map as a city, and it brings a huge amount of tourism. People stay in London for days afterwards, thanks to the many good deals that the marathon has negotiated with various restaurants and different companies around the city. We need to think about this in a slightly different way. That is positive chemistry and association that you cannot buy. It is because people feel amazingly good about putting themselves through 26.2 miles around the city.

I will speak briefly to Amendment 25, because it is really important. Mostly, athletes will mention something they saw at another event that inspired them to do sport. That is probably because they are asked about it a lot. But we cannot underestimate this—it is not just about people seeing these moments in time and doing sport. They will do lots of other things, and 2012 was a brilliant example of that, such as people who have gone into the creative industries because of what they saw.

The Minister talked about wanting to change the health of our nation, which is incredibly important. To quote a bunch of statistics, Women in Sport has said that 80% of women in the UK are not fit enough to be healthy. That has a massive impact on jobs, pensions, life—everything. It means hitting frailty at an earlier age. ukactive has said that we have a generation of children who are more likely to die before their parents because of inactivity. This is really worrying, and we have to do something quite radical.

It is not necessarily the Bill’s responsibility to do that; we need some joined-up government. We need to look at physical literacy in primary schools and progression steps. We also need to look at the cost of the pathway for athletes who aspire to compete at the highest level. SportsAid data, which is probably a little bit out of date now, shows the average cost of the pathway for a teenage athlete is £10,000 a year. I imagine that is significantly higher now. There are a lot of families who cannot afford that, but what we can do is broaden the base of participation.

I am particularly interested in Amendment 25 and what we can do to encourage more disabled people to be active. Activity Alliance has said that disabled people not only find it hard to be physically active but that they are actually quite worried about how it is perceived if they are physically active, so we need to look at this in a different way. I was not a product of special education—thank goodness, because it meant I actually received an education, when a lot of children who went through special ed did not. As much as the world has moved on in many ways, that was actually really good for enabling disabled children to be physically active. Mainstreaming, which is much better for education, has actually made some of those things much harder. I receive emails at least monthly, often weekly, about how disabled children in schools are not able to take part in PE.

That is not a problem for this Bill—it is an issue for the Department for Education. But unless we are more explicit about what we are trying to do and how we are trying to change some of these stubborn inequalities, we are never going to move it on. In Wales we are incredibly lucky that we have the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act, which gives us a very useful framing for what we are trying to do to encourage young people to be active. The Sport England campaign, This Girl Can, was ground-breaking. For the first time, it showed real women doing sport—as opposed to Olympians or Paralympians, who look slightly different. But we cannot expect just an advertising campaign to radically change what we do, so any way we can think differently about developing a fit and healthy nation that truly stays engaged in physical activity is really worth exploring in more detail.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I echo the comments of my colleagues across the Chamber in relation to this set of amendments, although I tend to disagree—or will clarify—in relation to one of the amendments. This is an enabling Bill. Surely, therefore, it should provide the opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has said, for major sporting events which wish to make use of the Bill—whether it is the RFU, the LTA or whoever—to be able to come forward and say to a Government, “We wish to use this Bill for the following reasons”. Surely that is the objective of this legislation.

The point has been made a number of times already that sporting frameworks change, and we cannot guarantee that the Olympic Games, European Championships, et cetera, will be the same in 15 or 20 years’ time, or whenever it may happen to be. Structures of international competition change. If ever there was an example of one—and I am surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, did not refer to it—it is the announcement in the last few days that the London Marathon is going to move from one day to two, with the objective of having 100,000 participants.

It is about the level of attraction from around the world. Most people look at the London Marathon and say, “Oh, it’s just the London Marathon”. It is not; it is part of an international body of marathons, a set group of them. If there are 100,000 participants next year, we are going to have many hundreds of thousands of visitors. There are transport and all sorts of other implications. Surely, if this legislation is anything, it should be available to that sort of sporting evolution, because it is so positive both for this nation and for fitness in general.

I wish to make a brief observation in relation to the amendments, where they cite certain categories of people. I just ask, for reasons most people in this Chamber would recognise and which I identified at Second Reading, that where there is specific identification of women, girls, the disabled and ethnic minorities, we either use the classifications of the Equality Act or just stop at

“removing barriers to physical activity”.

I speak, as I identified on previous occasions, as the founder chairman of the world’s first gay rugby club, a structure that now has 100 clubs around the world and an international structure where we compete on a regular basis. Certainly, I know only too well the difficulties and the challenges associated with bidding and with organising international competitions, with people coming from other parts of the world.

We had the European championships in Birmingham less than a year after the Commonwealth Games. The competition, the Union Cup, was the largest sporting competition in the Midlands after the Commonwealth Games over the following 12 months. There are international competitions all the way down—they restructure and they reorganise. But I ask that we remove barriers to physical activity for underrepresented groups and stop at that point, rather than trying to cite specific examples, because we risk excluding some groups or others, and I know that is not the intention of those who have proposed these amendments.

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[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.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 26. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, makes an interesting reference to free-to-air. As well as not knowing what platforms are going to be available, we do not know even what events there are going to be. The Olympics and Paralympics are going to change radically in the next few cycles, not least because of the impact of global warming. In quite good timing, there was an article this morning online on the Broadcast Sport website which talked about the changing world of events. Rights holders have more choices about where to go to put their events on, and they can ask for more money. It has been estimated that FIFA is going to make about £3 billion from organising the World Cup. Where is that money going to go? If you look at something closer to home such as Wimbledon, it puts a considerable amount of money back into the grass roots, which is incredible.

How people watch is going to change as well. The same article on Broadcast Sport was saying that even if you are watching a live event, you are probably checking your phone at least 10 times during that event to see what else is going on and what other comments are being made. We should be looking at how we make available these major sporting events. A number of people are disappointed that the Commonwealth Games is not going to be readily available, certainly on BBC TV. Everything that Team Wales does is going to be shown on S4C. There will be two hours’ live coverage a day, which is amazing—in Welsh, which is really important in terms of continuing to develop the Welsh language. I am sure there will be lots of other home country athletes competing who will be seen within those time slots. I do not think we can underestimate the importance of being able to watch the Games.

If we look back through history—we have been talking about this today—when the BBC covered the Sydney Paralympics in 2000, one of the decisions behind putting the Games on at teatime was so that schoolchildren could watch the Games. That developed a much better understanding of disability and the Paralympics. It got an age group of children watching sport that they probably would not have been able to see before. Whether it is free to air or however we define that, it is important that the public in the widest possible sense are able to watch these events in real time without spending some quite significant sums sometimes on monthly fees.

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Finally, I think we need AI monitoring across this whole area. We have come a long way since the days when your man in the sheepskin jacket approached with a bunch of tickets for whatever sport or music event he might be trying to pile on to you. So much of this is an online experience—or an online exclusion, because the tickets disappear before even the fastest human hand can get anywhere near them. All this activity is entirely able to be captured in real time by effective AI monitoring systems, setting the technology to solve for the technologies; and yet the Bill says nothing as to this opportunity. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I tried to add my name to Amendment 27, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, but I was slightly too late for the printing of the Marshalled List. I think there is something important in this amendment in terms of thinking about who is able to have access to major games.

If you look at the 2012 programme, there was a massive commitment right from the start to no free tickets—the sponsors paid for them. It was not just the joy on the children’s faces when they got to go and experience the events, but it was something that they will remember for the rest of their lives. It was also tied into the school programmes that were being run at the same time. As I have said before, 2012 was also the only time that I have ever been able to go and watch a sporting event where I was able to sit with more than one member of my family. With the ticketing, if someone could not sit in a high stand or needed to be at the end of a row, they also thought about how they linked that up to accessible toilets; those are all really important things. I think Wembley Stadium is the only place I have ever visited that actually understood some of those issues as well. I think there are 147 accessible toilets at Wembley Stadium, which other venues should definitely aspire to. Other things that you could do include “Pay your age”, which 2012 did really well.

As a spectator who is a disabled person—the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, mentioned smarter ticketing—you are constantly having to explain what you need, where you want to sit and who you want to sit with or check whether you actually have a guaranteed accessible seat. Again, it is about showing the world what we do and what we care about. We should be looking at ticket touting wider than this, because it is an issue not just for the events that this Bill may cover.

Another issue in this group of amendments, which I also mentioned in my meeting with the noble Baroness the Minister, relates to thinking about disabled people not just as spectators. I was commentating on a major event in a new-build venue, and it turned out that the commentator’s position was not wheelchair accessible, so I was not able to do my job properly. I spent half the time commentating in a completely different position. As a commentator, it helps if you can have some interaction with the other people that you are commentating with, so we had to move to a venue quite a considerable distance away to be able to do the last event that I was commentating on. There should be something in here about a guarantee of what accessibility means—perhaps not necessarily on the face of the Bill but just an understanding that we can do so much better. If we are going to be building new venues, whether it is for the Olympics, the Paralympics or more football clubs, we should make sure that disabled people have the ability to access events in a fair and equitable way.

I support the other amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. He has more experience on this than anyone else in the Chamber from his work at LOCOG and beyond, and we should be listening to the things that he is asking for.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I have four amendments in this group, but the main thing about the amendments on ticket touting is that everybody agrees that something should be done. There is one principal disagreement going on here. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is basically saying, “Do not do it here; do it properly somewhere else” and lots of the rest of us are saying, “No, do it here, get it done and carry it on”. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, agreed with that. From my Benches, we tried to get an amendment down that included this and we did not actually hit the target; we were told that we were out of scope of the Bill, so I salute his drafting—I take it that it is his; if it is not, he can just take the compliment.

However, when we go through this, we have got a lot of other issues here, such as disability accessibility. I do not know how many dozen times I have discussed that, and we still do not have it right. I hope the Minister will be able to say something reassuring about an ongoing process for that.

Just to refer back to my amendments, I said to myself, “Oh yes, that was it—National Trading Standards, yes, good idea, I thought I had an original point there, but the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, used it in his first sentence”. We have something here that says, “It isn’t working. Can we know what will be done?” The small series of options that we have in this Bill is actually managing to annoy people, oddly, because they are not big enough and they are not going far enough, and we do not have anything else that is immediately coming. We have a pocket of legislation around this Bill, which we have not seen even in draft, and that is one of the problems here. I hope that the Minister can start a process that could be finished by Report, when we get an idea of what we are going to get on ticket touting and where it is going to come in, if we are not going to do it here—and this would have been an opportunity to bring in everything under this Bill, so we had something that would actually work.

There are some other smaller amendments. A charity auction for a ticket is not ticket touting—yes, I would hope that that would be the case. But to have some clarity around some of the issues that we have raised, is the maximum penalty enough? One of the amendments in my name suggests

“leave out ‘£20,000’ and insert ‘an amount not exceeding 10% of the person’s annual global turnover’”.

Some of these organisations are so big that £20,000 would basically be the cost of doing business.

Could we have an idea of the whole picture? At the moment, the Government by doing a nice thing in this Bill are annoying everyone, oddly. I do not envy the Minister in her response. The Government may well have good intentions, but the old cliché that this might well be the thing that paves the road to hell might well be true with this.

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[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate on this group of amendments. I will speak to the two amendments in my name. The first, Amendment 39, is incredibly straightforward and simply seeks to exclude charities from the restricted advertisement zone, as set out in the Bill. It replicates the wording from the London 2012 Act of 2006. I am very interested in the Minister’s response to that wording.

My second amendment in this group, Amendment 63, seeks a retrospective on the enforcement action to assure it from an equality and inclusion perspective. It simply sets out equality enforcement assessments so that the data is there and can be reviewed, s actions can be taken where there are disparities, and there can be learnings in real time for that event and for other events that will be hosted across the country. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I wonder whether I could briefly help out the noble Lord, Lord Addington. There was also a case in 2012 when a lady decided to do knitting patterns of the mascots and made a Games maker. It is incredibly important that the rights and brand of these major events are protected. I think I am right in saying that they issued her a warning for knitting one and trying to sell it at her local church. They then recognised the importance of stepping back from that, because they became hugely popular, were a lot of fun and did not impact anybody.

However, a line has to be drawn between what we are seeing quite a lot with FIFA in terms of ambush marketing versus somebody just doing something that is quite nice. There is some merit in these amendments to make sure that local businesses are protected and are able to carry out their day-to-day work without threat of legal action.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 56 in the group. The Bill unashamedly tries to snare and capture the large global events that can make a national impact in our country, but national impact and national scale also have local effects. One of the purposes of hosting these big events is to transform the local economies, drive investments and spread love and enjoyment in the local communities that act as hosts. It is naive to think that this is front and centre of the organisers’ minds. The promoters of the global events line up their sponsors, sports rights and big global brands, and there are pallet loads of merchandise to shift. We know that money follows sport, and the Bill makes sport all about the money by law. I am concerned about the powers to designate zones around stadiums or other undefined places—which might be fan zones, I suppose—where local trading will be made illegal.

At Second Reading, I gave the example—and it was on “Yesterday in Parliament” actually, which I was very pleased about; that was my first time—I gave the example of the 10-minute walk from Twickenham station to the Allianz Stadium down Whitton Road, where every type of food is available, from licensed food vans to stalls set up in front gardens, where the enterprising home owners have demolished their garden walls. There is not just food; there are old boys selling tat, and there is the little guy with his roadside kebab van and the youth club, with its pop-up gazebo, frying chicken wings. It is all part of the grittiness, but all these places have a licence. The way in which the Bill bans this trading means that little of the money will be assimilated in the local economy. That is not right, because the people who are hosting these events should have a right to expect that some of the benefits will be retained locally.

I accept there needs to be some sort of control, so that it does not become a scrum—Twickenham to one side—and we need to have minimum hygiene standards and sensible limits, so we do not get overwhelmed. That is why, over decades, a series of local licensing decisions by the local authority has evolved. It is tried and tested, it has public safety and hygiene at its heart and it has allowed an ecosystem of local traders to flourish. The Bill casts all that aside. Even if you have licence, you will be excluded from participating in a whole-community effort to host a big event. The local little doers will be cast to the wilderness. How does this help the local economy? Why have we got it in for the Cubs and Scouts who are trying to raise money for the jamboree?

My amendment is simple. It would protect the ability of the local council to ensure that at least some of the benefits of hosting an event are retained locally and are not outsourced to national firms or multinational burger corporates. I want to ensure that local flavours are part of the mix and that fans are not just force-fed cardboard burgers and gassy lager served in soulless stadium concourses. Under my proposal, it would be up to the council to strike the right balance between the local needs and the rights holders in exchange for issuing licences. In a local territory, the council will hold some of the cards. The Bill gives the organisers all the cards, and that is no good. It is an affront to the bloke who prefers a cheap kebab to an overpriced burger or a bucket hat to a baseball cap, or the fan who fancies ale rather than lager. If the council gets it wrong, there are elections to sort that out.

At Second Reading, I was grateful that the thoughtful noble Lord, Lord Mann—who is not in his place—supported the principle of locals being able to get in on the act. He was on the side of the working man, the local charity, the youth group and its pop-up gazebo. I say: let us empower them all. They collectively, over decades, have created so many different rituals and traditions associated with going to the game, more so than the game itself. Families, groups of fans, clubs and societies work with the community in a sort of foreplay that heightens the pleasure of the big event itself. I know that the Minister would not want to deny fans their pleasure, so I ask her to accept my amendment, so that everybody gets to enjoy themselves in the way that they want to, but, most importantly, so that some of the benefits are retained in the community, which is potentially so inconvenienced by the disruptions of hosting it. The economic benefits must be retained locally.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 3rd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships. I made it into the wrong end of the Chamber at the start of the debate and then sprinted around the outside, somewhat slower than I used to be able to.

I declare my interests: I am the chair of Sport Wales, a board member of UK Sport and a trustee of the Foundation of Light, and I sit on His Majesty’s Government’s Soft Power Council, particularly looking at sport. I was part of the bid team for the Manchester Olympic and Paralympic Games when we bid against Sydney. We had 100 years of rain data to show that there is more rain in Sydney at that time of year than Manchester, and they held up a picture of Bondi Beach. We learned from each of those experiences.

My noble friend in sport, the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and I worked on much of the 2012 Games together. It is easy to forget that when we bid for those Games, we were bidding only for the Olympics; for the Paralympics there was a separate negotiation. Thanks to the amazing work of Tessa Jowell, she made that happen. On stage presenting to the IOC, she wanted to stand up and say that we were bidding for the 60 days of the Games. Unfortunately, at that time, we could not risk anything getting in the way of the IOC awarding the Games to us. Those Games raised the bar on the Olympics, the Paralympics and disability sport.

There is a lot to be said for avoiding bespoke legislation every time we want to bid for a Games. I support much of the Bill, but I think we could be just a little bolder. It is potentially a really exciting time to look at a possible bid for a Games in the north. I am Welsh but with a geographical designation of Eaglescliffe in the County of Durham, and there is a lot of local interest. I understand that it is probably too early for the Minister to say, but I would welcome a little more understanding of what the definition of the north is. I would prefer us to say the north of England. A lot of the UK is above where I live. People remember those magical times and understand what major sporting events can do for us.

We are looking for Welsh legislative consent, and the Long Title mentions Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. I wonder whether I am missing something, but I would like to understand why Wales is not there. What conversations and discussions have taken place with the new Government in Wales?

Next year, the Tour de France grand départ will go through Scotland, England and Wales. This is a really exciting time to re-emphasise the power that the UK has in international sport. I wonder what impact the Bill might have where sport is devolved, and where there is a crossover with major events. Will we still be able to use the Bill to bid for events such as that in the future? These are important things. UK Sport and the UK have a great deal of expertise in bidding for events.

It is important to note that our international reputation is also based on holding and hosting much smaller events. That shows our commitment to sport and it is something we are really good at. Recently the UK hosted the world team table tennis event, which was incredible. It also shows the international federations, which have an impact on our bids for major events, that we are committed to a variety of sports.

The Commonwealth Games is an important part of that. We are hugely thankful to Glasgow for stepping in. It is important to Wales and Welsh athletes as a potential stepping stone to GB. It connects local people to the athletes. For all the countries in the Commonwealth—Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but also the smaller countries—it means an awful lot, and we should be proud of that.

I am very interested in what the major sporting events strategy will look like. One of the things that UK Sport recognises and works very well at promoting when bidding for smaller events is that they sit across the four home countries. In Wales we had the AIG golf in Porthcawl and world para fencing in Cardiff. All those make an impact and do not need primary legislation, but they tie to our global aspiration.

One of the things that arose out of the recent Soft Power Council meeting was that more clarity was required on what is a major or mega sporting event. I wonder whether His Majesty’s Government intend to offer a definition of this, because it would be hugely beneficial for the sector. The sport sector in its entirety is huge and significant, and this would help in some of the future planning. A number of organisations that work with current UK events are asking for this clarity. You could argue that additional help is not needed if they are currently operating and successful, but it is important to understand the jigsaw that needs to exist in what we are trying to aspire to on the world stage.

You should never underestimate the impact that the UK has in promoting disability events, not just in starting the Paralympic Games and 2012 but in our ongoing role. One such example is wheelchair tennis; the LTA is one of the best governing bodies at promoting inclusion and is doing a really good job.

The world is changing, not least due to climate change. By the time we get to Brisbane 2032, there might be a very different Games—not just the type of events that are included, as there is a move to more street and urban games, but the impact on climate change. I would like to understand more about what consideration has been given to environmental sustainability, transport—we know that is going to be an issue in Los Angeles—and how we can further push for decarbonisation. A lot of sports are already looking at this. You could argue that the easiest way to help the environment is to have athletes not travel anywhere. The Games are going to be very different. We need to be fleet of foot in what we do in the UK to understand what bidding for future Games might look like.

The legacy of 2012 was amazing. I am always slightly uncomfortable when people say that the 2012 Paralympics changed the world for disabled people. It was the best eight weeks of my life, but we also have to be careful about overselling what sport can do unless we invest in legacy. Join In, the volunteering charity, was an incredible legacy of the 2012 Games. We need to think about how we build in social and community aspects at bid stage. It is cheaper and easier, and there is more chance of it working. There is always a spike in participation after the Games, but if we think about legacy at the very start, we have a real chance of making a difference.

The cost of bidding was raised. I remember, in 2005, talking to one of the planners for 2012 and them talking about the difficulty of predicting the cost of steel seven years into the future. This is something that other countries will be looking at as well, because you can sometimes spend millions on bidding for a Games. We have to be very smart in what we do.

I know this is outside the remit of the Bill, but this year the UK is hosting the summit for the International Working Group on Women and Sport. This started in 1994 as the Brighton declaration, and it is now the Brighton and Helsinki declaration. It has support from 600 organisations around the world. The summit in July will be an amazing opportunity to network, and I hope there will be a ministerial presence there. This is a situation where the eyes of the world will be on us. We have a chance to influence sport and international federations, but it is not a sporting event as we might think about it.

In Committee we will also need to look at the cost of policing and security. Sadly, it is a necessity. We are seeing that the cost of policing and security is making it unsustainable to hold some of the smaller events in the UK, which are part of the jigsaw for what we want to do in the future.

This is not quite in the Bill, but we have been talking in Grand Committee about the Care Quality Commission and its changing guidance. It would be great if we could join up the different threads of conversation to make sure that we are in the best possible shape to go forward. I thank the Sport and Recreation Alliance for its continued discussion in this space.

I support the Bill. We have an amazing opportunity. We could be a little bit braver. If I can steal a quote from the 2012 Games, we have a chance to inspire a generation.

Media Bill

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to address the government amendments which I have tabled in this group: Amendments 19 to 24, 27 and 28, and 36 to 41. These, although numerous, are all minor technical amendments to provide Ofcom with the necessary tools to ensure that the regime delivers for audiences. The amendments will close off any opportunity for non-public service broadcaster services to qualify. They will update the provisions on contract voiding and provide consistency in definitions, in line with changes that were made to the Bill in another place. They will enable Ofcom to specify that audiences should be able to continue to watch events from the beginning or to rewind while an event is in progress—perhaps including debates in your Lordships’ House—in its adequate live coverage regulations; and they will ensure that Ofcom has appropriate flexibility to determine any penalties. I hope, therefore, that noble Lords can support these amendments and I look forward to noble Lords making the case for the other amendments that they have tabled in this group. I beg to move.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 25, 26 and 30, which are in my name. I draw attention to my interests in the register: I am also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Media Group.

Whether it is Wimbledon, the Olympic 100 metre final, the Euros joy and World Cup despair of the Lionesses, or the optimism of the FA Cup, listed events have a special place in people’s hearts and memories—but how and when we watch these big sporting moments that can unite nations and encourage participation, social cohesion and pride is changing. Thanks to the listed events regime, devised in the mid-1990s, major sporting events are freely available to all audiences, especially those who cannot afford to watch sport behind a paywall—great if you can watch in real time on your TV, but currently there is no protection for digital on-demand coverage of these much-loved events. If no action is taken, anyone who wants to watch, say, Team GB on their tablet or smartphone or see the highlights could miss out, especially with events taking place in different time zones.

At Tokyo 2020, the gold medal-winning performance by BMX specialist Charlotte Worthington was watched by just 400,000 people at the time, as it happened overnight, but in the days that followed different forms of short-form coverage of the race generated nearly a tenfold increase in views; and, while the TV reach to the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was about 20% lower than for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, there were around six times more on-demand views of digital clips. Soon, digital and on-demand viewing will be the norm for watching legends being made. Looking beyond Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032, could Great Britain’s medal successes be behind a paywall?

Now is the time to not miss the opportunity. The Media Bill offers a once-in-a-generation chance to protect these moments for all of us, however, whenever and wherever we watch, and I am seeking to bring the regime up to date to safeguard the future of listed events for the next generation. The new clause will give enhanced regulatory protection so that these shared national moments are available to us all, making sure the benefits of watching on your TV in real time are afforded to clips and highlights, and will allow for time-shifted viewing, enabling people to watch on tablets and smartphones; and it would secure, where possible, adequate digital on-demand coverage of listed events made available free of charge to us here in the United Kingdom.

Audiences are changing. For Wimbledon in 2023, BBC coverage was streamed 54.3 million times on iPlayer and BBC Sport online—a new record. The men’s singles final peaked at 11.3 million on BBC1, with streams up by 58% on iPlayer, and the women’s singles final peaked at 4.5 million on BBC1, with streams up by 85% on iPlayer. For the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, 12 million watched England’s Lionesses versus Spain on BBC1, with an additional 3.9 million streams on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online. There were 25.7 million streams on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sport online across the tournament—a 75% increase on the 2019 World Cup.

It is not just the BBC that wants to see this. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee recently concluded that

“digital rights should be included as part of the listed events”

and an independent report commissioned by Ofcom last year concluded that

“as expectations about the availability of live and secondary coverage of sporting events of national interest changes, we think that the current linear TV-centred regime risks failing to take into account the increasing popularity of secondary coverage”.

We know the Government recognise the issue and consulted industry a year ago, yet nothing has been done. Please do not let this opportunity pass. The time to act is now.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a large group, as the Minister said in his opening comments, dominated mainly by government amendments. We are grateful to him for his explanation of the effects of the amendments, which we broadly welcome, although we have some questions about them. In particular, I would like a more precise understanding of the meaning of the Minister’s Amendment 19; I had hoped it might make our Amendment 29 irrelevant, but I do not think it does. All of us in the Committee are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling Amendments 25, 26 and 30, and I look forward to hearing something positive about them from the Minister.

We on these Benches have two amendments in this group: Amendments 29 and 31A. Amendment 29 would have one simple effect: it is designed to make provision for the coverage of listed events, which is not the same as live coverage. As the noble Baroness has explained, the position regarding the Olympics is, frankly, ludicrous: unless you are able to catch the live coverage of an event, you cannot view the same event on catch-up TV or in an edited highlights programme. Where the Olympics, a World Cup or similar events are in time zones that are 12 or 13 hours different from the UK’s, the position is even more ridiculous: sports fans are forced to become insomniacs—and worse—to watch blue-ribbon events within the Olympics programme. I am sure that was never the intention when the listed events regime was created, and I hope that we will hear from the Minister today that this peculiar state of affairs will be put right.

Amendment 31A seeks to insert a new clause. This reflects the concerns brought up by internet providers about the quality of listed events in the face of competing demands on our internet system. As we consider these changes to listed events, it is important that we also consider the audiovisual quality of digital delivery. Our frameworks must ensure good reliability to support a viewing experience worthy of the importance of these live events. Can the Minister answer the question that the new clause asks about how we ensure that listed events get their fair share of internet infrastructure as we see the digital share of television viewing rise further? That is especially true for listed events but it is worth asking more generally as well.

In the same vein, Amendment 30, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is of course one that we support, although it seems to be a more belt-and-braces version of our own. I am not wedded to a particular form of words, and if the noble Baroness has spotted a deficiency that requires plugging and her amendment achieves the same end as ours, we will happily support it at a later stage.

We are sympathetic to Amendment 31 from the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Cricket misses out in terms of coverage, and that is surely the minimum that we should expect for this much underrated summer game. Test and one-day format cricket have the ability to capture the national mood and imagination, and the nature and rhythm of cricket, with its rolling narrative, is surely worthy of a more advanced listed billing. I have never understood why test matches are not listed; the Ashes series, with its long national rivalry involving Australia, certainly should be. As a devoted cricket fan and participant in 60-plus seasons, I make a strong plea to your Lordships’ Committee to listen to this argument. I appreciate that my case is highly subjective but the recent Ashes series in the last 15 to 20 years have been compelling, and there is a compelling case for this event to be listed as well.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

42: Schedule 2, page 128, line 3, leave out paragraph 54 and insert—
“54 “(1) Section 310 (code of practice for electronic programme guides), is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (3), insert—“(3A) Where a user interface gives access to one or more electronic programme guides, the practices required by the code must include the giving, in the manner provided for in the code, of such degree of prominence as OFCOM consider appropriate to electronic programme guides within the user interface (whether such guides are provided by the person providing the user interface or by other persons).(3B) For the purposes of subsection (3A), OFCOM may consider that different degrees of prominence are appropriate in relation to different electronic programme guides.”(3) Omit subsection (4)(f).(4) After subsection (8), insert—“(8A) In this section—(a) “user interface” means an electronic programme guide that, in addition to the facilities mentioned in subsection (8), includes a facility by which a user may find, select or access electronic programme guides;(b) for the purpose of the definition of user interface in paragraph (a), the description of a service in subsection (8) includes such services provided by means of apparatus.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to secure that OFCOM’s Code of Practice for Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs) gives EPGs prominence. Subsection (8A) defines a user interface as an EPG that – in addition to a traditional linear EPG –includes access to EPGs. This definition would include the means of accessing EPGs, such as remote controls. This amendment requires one short consequential amendment to the definition of “television licensable content service” in section 232 of the Communications Act 2003.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 42, 50 and 51 in this group. I again draw your Lordships’ attention to my registered interests.

The UK’s public service broadcasters—the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5—and national broadcasters S4C, STV, and MG Alba, play an essential cultural, economic and social role, supporting British democratic values and underpinning the UK’s creative economy. They produce high-quality, distinctive content, informing, educating and entertaining audiences across the UK. Audiences support this. Seven in 10 UK adults want to see UK life and culture represented on screen. A similar number think that PSBs deliver well on programmes made for UK audiences. Six hours and nine minutes is spent watching BBC TV/iPlayer on average per person per week, which is more than Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video combined.

Currently, prominence is one of the main regulatory benefits provided to the PSBs, but the existing regime has not kept pace with technological change. It applies only to linear channels—for example, BBC One—delivered through the channel menu, also known as the electronic programme guide or EPG. The Media Bill updates the rules so that they will apply not just to PSB linear channels but to on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer. This is hugely welcome, but there is further opportunity to ensure that PSB prominence arrangements are future-proofed and watertight, protecting access to the content that people love and enjoy for future generations.

Amendment 42 is on the prominence of the EPG. While the Media Bill seeks to ensure that PSB on-demand services will appear prominently on regulated TV platforms, and PSB linear services within the EPG will continue to benefit from the existing prominence regime, there are no protections for the EPG itself. A growing number of IP-only households watch videos via a broadband connection. This is expected to exceed 50% of total households by the end of this decade. All this has led to more people watching content on demand. It does not mean the end of linear, which remains the single biggest way that people watch video content and delivers 82% of audiences’ consumption of BBC TV content. The familiarity of linear TV will continue to make it a popular discovery route for audiences, even as they move away from digital terrestrial television.

The PSBs have responded to the continuing need for live TV by investing in an online linear solution freely, but linear TV is being eroded. The EPG has been downgraded within TV user interfaces and the linear schedule hidden away. This comes at the expense of PSB. In internet-only homes, without a linear programme guide, the BBC gets just 22% of our normal consumption. The current rules do not enable Ofcom to support audiences by safeguarding this popular and familiar way of watching TV. The Government should use the Media Bill to update the Communications Act 2003 to safeguard linear TV, an important and familiar viewing route. This would also support audiences as the digital transition continues. The amendment would require Ofcom to give the EPG itself the degree of prominence that it considers appropriate. This is in keeping with the existing linear prominence framework, with high-level legislation underpinned by Ofcom guidance and codes. This is a flexible and future-proofed approach.

Amendments 50 and 51 concern the definition of “appropriate prominence”. The Media Bill gives PSB on-demands appropriate prominence but does not define what this means, leaving it open to interpretation. Ofcom will be the regulator of the prominence regime and sufficient direction and clarity about the outcomes that Parliament wishes to see is crucial in order to allow Ofcom to implement the rules robustly. As recommended by the CMS Select Committee, the PSBs should receive “significant” rather than “appropriate” prominence. The best way to secure this is for the Bill to set out explicitly what “appropriate” means. A further amendment to the Media Bill should also set out more concretely the areas of Ofcom guidance that the application of appropriate prominence should cover: for example, search, recommendations and personalisation, acting as a further safeguard. I beg to move.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 46 and 47 are in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. We had a bit of a knock-around on “prominence” at Second Reading—was it “appropriate”, “significant” or, as the right reverend Prelate ventured, neither? Indeed, he was right; the word itself should be enough, for the Oxford English dictionary defines it as

“the state of being important, well known, or easy to notice”.

We want the PSBs, on any screen that offers choices between PSBs and streamers, to be important, well-known, and very easy to notice. It is vital, as commercial operators do not always want us to choose the PSB, because their gods are commercial. As we know, things can get very small and difficult on-screen when customers choosing it means less income—think about how hard it is to find that tiny “unsubscribe” notice when we want to get out of emails from some commercial arrangement we no longer want. It is not in commercial entities’ interests to make life easy for us; that is why we have to mandate and prescribe “prominence”. We on these Benches do not believe it is sufficient to leave it to Ofcom to define. I have heard the arguments about “appropriate” being perfectly adequate, and we beg to disagree.

For clarity, I am trying to get across that we on these Benches believe that prominence must be defined in legislation to guide Ofcom, and not be left open-ended for it. That definition should be crystal clear: that in every and any situation where channel choice is being offered, the PSB logo or whatever should be of equal or greater prominence to any other choice offered on the electronic programme guides.

The dangers of not specifying what prominence means or seeks to achieve in the Bill could include a loss of funding. PSBs often rely on public funding or subsidies to fulfil their mandate of providing programming that serves the public interest; without prominence, they may struggle to attract viewership and advertising revenue, leading to financial difficulties that could jeopardise their ability to produce the sort of high-quality content we want them to. PSBs may find it challenging to reach a wide audience, particularly in a crowded media landscape where viewers have numerous options for their entertainment; that could lead to a decline in their influence and relevance, making it harder for them to fulfil their role as a source of impartial news, educational programming and cultural content.

The public service mandate could be undermined, as PSBs are tasked with providing programming that serves the public interest, including news, current affairs and educational content. Without prominence, they may struggle, and their content may be overshadowed by commercial broadcasters or streaming services prioritising profit. It could also be a threat to media diversity and cause a loss of trust and accountability. Lastly, if public service broadcasters are not given prominence in a democratic society, there are issues around this that could arise: an erosion of media pluralism, a threat to freedom of information, diminished public discourse, a loss of accountability, and the undermining of democratic values, social cohesion, education and lifelong learning, and cultural preservation.

As this is a probing amendment, I encourage the Minister to think about bringing back his own amendment as an instruction to Ofcom in dealing with prominence, to say that, however it writes it regulations, PSBs must have equal or greater prominence than any other offer on the screen.

--- Later in debate ---

Overall, we believe the current drafting of this new prominence framework works and that it strikes the right balance. This is testament to the extensive engagement we have carried out during its development, following its publication in draft and the pre-legislative scrutiny that the Bill received from the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in the other place. We have listened to interested parties and very consciously made changes to the Bill before introduction where necessary. For those reasons, I am not able to accept Amendments 42, 46, 47, 50 and 51, but I am grateful for the opportunity to set out again today the reasons for that and the changes we have made in developing the Bill.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who spoke on this grouping. I also thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds for giving us a different set of words we can use. I am sorry my noble friend Lord Colville is not in his place; I am merely an occasional TV and radio presenter as opposed to someone who works in the industry. “Appropriate” and “significant” are part of the language of the media, which is rather like the language of your Lordships’ Chamber; it is quite subtle and not always easily understood by people who work elsewhere.

I also thank the number of broadcasters that got in touch with me once I had tabled the amendments, particularly ITV, which spent some time with me pointing out why it did not think my amendment would necessarily work. It is not opposed to strengthening the language to “significant” prominence, and none of us wants any unintended consequences from these amendments, but strengthening that might be something to look at. No doubt the strength of the regime will depend on Ofcom’s implementation regardless of the change. There is plenty more to discuss on finding the right terminology for this. I am slightly disappointed but not surprised that my enthusiasm for these amendments is not shared by the Minister, but I am likely to come back again at the next stage. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 42 withdrawn.

Community Sports: Impact on Young People

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my entry in the register of interests. I am chair of Sport Wales and of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and president of the LGA, among other things listed in my entry.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wood of Anfield, for raising my work on duty of care. It took about 18 months of my life and was not without lots of challenges, as some people in sport really did not want the debate to happen. There is no doubt that a number of governing bodies have been through challenging times in the drive to win medals. People who did not want to address the issue pushed back hard—they were very worried about lifting the lid—but many people in sport were extremely supportive. It is about getting the right balance in the system, which includes coaches, athletes and volunteers.

In my role with Sport Wales, I also sit on the board of UK Sport, which in recent years has gone through a transition from “medals and more” to “winning and winning well”. That is really important to me because, as a young athlete, my mum always used to ask me whether I had won and my dad asked me whether I had competed well. They are two really important things when we are looking at elite sport.

Some positives have come out of my work. A coaching register is being worked on and the positions of trust legislation has got across the line. Sadly, the ombudsman has not quite happened, but a lot of work is ongoing on integrity in sport—in the governance, culture and process—which is incredibly important because it has a big influence on community sport. I am delighted that many in your Lordships’ Chamber are interested in debating listed events. I have tabled some amendments to the Media Bill for the second day in Committee on Monday. All are welcome to contribute to that.

There are many different ways to measure the impact of sport: the social return on investment, the psychological impact and the medal table—which, of course, is a hard outcome. Major games are important, but we have to be careful not to overemphasise the impact of watching sporting events. It certainly brings people in, but we have to find smarter ways to keep them involved. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Wood, quoted Jürgen Klopp—I am a huge fan of his. I will raise it up a level and quote Nelson Mandela, who said:

“Sport has the power to change the world”.


I absolutely believe that.

A lot of really good work is going on at the moment. In February 2023, the Sports Council for Wales, known as Sport Wales, commissioned Sheffield Hallam University, in partnership with Loughborough University, to carry out a social return on investment study of sport in Wales. The research builds on previous studies of sport in Wales in 2016 and 2017. It is centred in the policy context of Wales, taking into account the Vision for Sport in Wales and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. Sport Wales is one of 44 public sector organisations which are subject to the Act, which requires public bodies to put sustainable thinking and partnership working at the heart of their role and to improve social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being in Wales.

The Act requires public bodies, including Sport Wales, to work towards seven well-being goals: a prosperous, resilient, healthier and more equal Wales; a Wales of cohesive communities; a vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language; and a globally responsible Wales. There were many benefits highlighted: ill-health prevention, a sense of belonging, leadership skills and increased educational attainment. The report revealed that £3.43 billion of social value was generated from £1.19 billion of input, giving a social return on investment value of £2.88 billion. This means that for every £1 invested in sport in Wales, financial and non-financial, £2.88 billion-worth of social impact was created for individuals and society in 2016-17. The largest amount of social value, 61%, was generated through subjective well-being, equivalent to £2.08 billion. Considerable social value, £651 million or 19%, was also created by social capital, £295 million or 8.6% by health, and £312 million or 9% by volunteer labour.

There is always a need for more money. This is not an appeal to the Minister—after all, sport is devolved, so as much as I would like to ask for more money it is not within his gift. However, we have to think about what we do differently. We have to think about physical activity as well as sport. Some research from ukactive, Sport England and Sheffield Hallam University shows that every £1 spent on community sport and physical activity generates £4 for the English economy. Physical activity is essential in preventing over 20 chronic conditions, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, musculoskeletal issues, depression, anxiety and dementia, and generates more than £5.2 billion in healthcare savings per year. Physical activity plays an important role in preventing a number of serious conditions, with research showing that it provides £9.5 billion in value to the economy. We should also look at physical inactivity, which costs £3.5 billion annually, of which £2.9 billion is borne by the public health system.

There is definitely a benefit in sport but I would like to look forward and think about what more we could do if we could join up the different organisations that are involved. We know that disabled people struggle to get involved in sport. Disability Sport Wales and Activity Alliance are doing great work in this area. Professor Rosie Meek is working in the criminal justice system. For women in sport, there are three organisations that are doing incredible work. The Women’s Sport Trust has just produced figures to show record-breaking TV viewership. The Women’s Sport Collective is bringing women in sport together. When I first got involved in working in sport, I did not need two hands to count the number of women working in sport. There is now a huge WhatsApp group, which is incredibly exciting. Also, Women in Sport is about to celebrate 40 years of challenging media portrayal and imagery. I say well done to Tess Howard, a GB hockey player who changed the rules of hockey to allow women to wear shorts, which brings more people in.

We now have role models—Olivia Breen, Hannah Jones, Jess Fishlock and Lauren Price—who do incredible things in sport. They cannot do it alone. We need to be supporting some incredible athletes out there and using their power—and the power we have—to change how people view sport and physical activity and really live up to Nelson Mandela’s words that sport can change the world.

Human Rights: Sportswashing

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I am chair of Sport Wales and, with that, I sit as a board member of UK Sport. I also have a number of other declarations in the register—but I emphasise that these are my personal views.

It is always a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—I like to call him my friend in sport. I agree with much of what he said this afternoon. We talk about sport and politics not being linked, but I note that, actually, the medal table is soft politics: “Which is the best country in the world?” When I first came to your Lordships’ House, I was frequently asked, “Is it not really difficult moving from sport to politics?” Actually, sport provides one of the best political training grounds you could wish to have.

I agreed when the noble Lord talked about boycotting. Athletes are being asked to give up a relatively short career and, unless the Government and Ministers do much more around that to offer athletes support, it does not change the conversation too much. I remember that, prior to the Rio Paralympics, which nearly did not happen, a number of Ministers had gone to the Olympics, and then a decision was taken by the Government not to send a ministerial delegation to Rio. I was asked by a number of journalists, “Won’t athletes be desperately upset that Ministers aren’t going?” With all due respect to the Members on the Front Bench, who I know care passionately about sport, I have not met a single athlete who spent many years of their life training to compete in front of a Minister. But there is a value in our role in educating athletes so that they understand the countries and jurisdictions they go into.

I have long said that many athletes should have families like mine. Way before the internet, when I was competing in Seoul, which was my first Paralympics, my father made me go to the library and take out a whole pile of books and make a conscious choice about what my participation in sport was going to be.

This debate is really important because sportswashing gives us a lens to look at the power of sport, but it is only one lens. There are lots of different types of washing. There is purplewashing, in terms of how disabled people are treated and used. Merely putting a wheelchair user in a picture of people doing sport does not mean there is inclusion in a governing body or an international federation.

There is also greenwashing. In my time in sport, I competed at five Games. At the beginning, I am not sure anybody was looking at the green credentials of the Olympics and Paralympics. By the time of Sydney, that was really important: they gathered rain from the roof of the main stadium to water local farms and vegetable patches; they had worm farms for recycling food; athletes were not allowed to take food that they were not able to eat. By the time of Athens, there was a mass recycling programme for collecting the lids of water bottles; if you got 2,500 lids, that bought a wheelchair for a local child. I still argue that that was the biggest competition at the Athens Games, because athletics beat swimming by quite some way. It is educating and moving people along as you go.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, I worked on the bid and delivery for the 2012 Games. The strapline was: “Inspire a generation”. Well, you cannot have a strapline that says: “Vaguely inspire a few”. But I am really pleased to say that gone are the days when we just dump a big Olympic park into an area and not think about the legacy or the impact it is going to have on the environment around it.

When we look at sport, we have to look at the bigger picture: what is the point of sport? Is it for sport’s sake or for changing lives? I argue that it can be both. Back in 2000, Nelson Mandela famously said:

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand”.


That is the best of sport, but, as other noble Lords have mentioned, there are also huge challenges in terms of what we do. As we push younger and younger children through the pathway as we aspire to win Olympic and Paralympic medals and World Cups, we have a duty of care to those we encourage to go through the system. I wrote the Duty of Care in Sport report back in 2017 for the Government. Many of those recommendations, based on the work of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, are still waiting to be enacted. It is really important that we talk about these issues and do not just focus on the amazing things sport can bring.

In turn, we have to challenge the international federations. What is the International Olympic Committee doing? What is the International Paralympic Committee doing? What is FIFA doing? Over the years, they have done some work to diversify themselves. It is possibly slower than I might have hoped, but can we really expect an international federation to change the world? The International Paralympic Committee has a campaign called “WeThe15”. Some 15% of the world’s population are disabled. It was a great campaign for the time of Tokyo, but can the IPC really be expected to change the lives of disabled people in every single jurisdiction around the world? I think that is asking too much of sport on its own.

Many noble Lords have heard me say that 2012 was the most amazing Olympics and Paralympics but it did not change the world for disabled people. Just this week, there has been a report from the UN rapporteur on disability rights saying that the UK is a difficult and challenging place for disabled people to live. Most people would be surprised by that. If the UK is a difficult place, other countries are challenging as well.

The Paralympics in China in 2008 certainly did not change the lives of most disabled people in China. That was the first Paralympic Games in which China competed seriously, and it came top of the medal table. It is almost impossible to see that it will ever do anything but that, because there are something like 85 million disabled people in China.

However, what the Paralympics did for Beijing was to change the lives of some of the disabled people living there. It changed the underground—Beijing has a step-free underground system in Beijing—and tactile paving was put in the city. It started that change. Without the Paralympics, that would not have happened.

I went to Beijing in 2005 and was sitting in a meeting and somebody noticed my wedding ring. They asked me whether I was married, and I said yes. Then I mentioned that I had a child, and the room emptied. I was trying to think about what I had said that had potentially been mistranslated; then everyone from that floor of the organising committee was brought in to meet me, because I was the disabled woman who had been allowed to get married. In Beijing at the time, I was not allowed to hire a car, because disabled people were not allowed to drive—or indeed be married or have children. It is heartbreaking when you see those things. The Paralympics helped to move that on at least a little.

I am going to introduce a new phrase, which I am not sure has ever been mentioned in your Lordships’ Chamber, which is “inspiration porn”. You can safely look at it on a government computer; it has not yet thrown up anything too dodgy. It is about the way in which disabled people are treated. This is another conversation that we do not have often enough, about what we are using sport for in changing the rights of disabled people. The challenge with inspiration porn is about how it is reported in the media that every disabled person is inspirational just because they are in society. That is quite hard in sport, because there are inspirational moments. But we have to challenge ourselves in what we are doing, as much as we challenge other countries around the world.

I worked at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Qatar, where disabled people are called “people of determination”. I really struggle with that as a phrase, but actually it explains the life that a lot of disabled people have to lead in coping with their impairment. Having the chance to go there—I would not have gone there in any way other than working in the media—gave me at least some experience of what life is like there for some disabled people. We have to think about whether going to a country shines a light and can shift the dialogue in a way that, if sport was not there, would not be able to happen.

As for how we push back at the IOC and IPC, they have to look at what the Games are going to be in future. The Games are getting bigger and more expensive, with more sports being added. The Athens Olympics cost $15 billion. We demand bigger and better opening ceremonies. The opening ceremony in Beijing had 15,000 people taking part although there were only 11,000 athletes at the Games. The estimated costs of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics were $38.5 billion, of which more than £20 billion was spent on infrastructure. With regard to the responsibility of the IOC and IPC in moving forward, they can do things in a very different way. The reality is that, if the Games are going to get only more and more expensive, the only countries that will be able to or will want to host them are ones with which we have a fundamental disagreement about human rights.

A slightly brighter area to look at are the Commonwealth Games, which have done some amazing things in inclusion and spreading a really important message of bringing people together. However, the Commonwealth Games are facing a crisis at the moment of countries being unwilling to host, or struggling to host—and in the UK that is something that we will find very hard to do. Sport has to refocus and think very differently about what it wants to be. It comes back to the question of whether it is sport for sport’s sake and physical activity, or whether it is going to do more to try to change the world.

A lot of the area that I work on is around women in sport. The 2012 Games was known as the “women’s Games”—both the Olympics and the Paralympics—with British women dominating. It is incredible to see the rise of women in sport. The number of people who go to watch women’s football is unbelievable; it is something that I dreamt of for years. I have still not forgiven the team behind not giving Mary Earps her own shirt, which was a gross mistake and a missed opportunity.

There are still challenges for women’s sport. For example, the Swiss Football Association has just cut its support for women’s football from £13.5 million to £3.6 million. Women’s sport will be put in a situation where it has to make difficult decisions about where it goes and what support it gets—which, ultimately, will not develop what it is trying to do.

I was very lucky as an athlete because I was never asked to boycott a Games; I honestly do not know what I would have done. It is important, at the moment, for athletes to have that platform. In British sport we now talk about giving athletes a voice and a platform, allowing them to talk about the things that matter to them. We have a responsibility as administrations to educate and support them so that they are not cancelled for having an opinion, but are able to use the very best that sport gives them to keep changing things for the future. We need government support to do that; it cannot be done by sports and athletes on their own. Look at the number of British individuals who sit on international federations in the world of sport; we have to use those voices because, quite frankly, sport can do better. We can do better for sport, but we can use it to change the world.

Media Bill

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my declaration of interests in that I do occasional work for the BBC and Channel 4, and other media outlets, which are declared on my register. I am also chair of Sport Wales.

I am interested in many aspects of the Bill; in particular, how sport will be treated. I was delighted in 2020 when His Majesty’s Government added the Summer and Winter Paralympics to the “crown jewels”. This was a really important moment for the sport’s movement and the athletes. For a long time, while other countries were catching up on the media coverage of the Paralympic Games, many international athletes, friends and families used the British coverage to get up-to-the-minute updates. Just today, the International Paralympic Committee and Paris 2024 announced that media rights holders in more than 160 countries and territories plan to broadcast the Paralympics this year. I am in no doubt that the free-to-air coverage in the UK has helped the transformation of other jurisdictions, and we have much to be proud of.

The Bill introduces a new special clause for multi-sport events which was not in the draft Bill and was not subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny in another place. It would apply to four current group A events: the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, and the Winter Olympics and Paralympics. The new clauses would have the effect that Ofcom consent would not be required for multi-sports events if a service in one category has full rights and a service in another has what is termed “adequate live coverage”. The Bill does not define adequacy and it is not clear that adequacy would mean the same thing to a PSB as to a commercial subscription service. A concern would be that “adequate” might equate to “incomplete”; for instance, by carving out particular sports such that they are available only on pay-to-view services, or by significantly limiting the hours of broadcast or transmission times available to a free-to-air broadcaster.

I ask the Minister about the ability of Ofcom to make regulations and what might constitute “adequate” live free-to-air coverage. At the moment, I am not reassured that the balance is quite right. It could remain possible, for instance, that some key Olympic and Paralympic events and moments will be lost behind a paywall; for example, a cycling gold medal or the‘ women’s 100 metres final would be available only to those who can afford to subscribe. If this were the case, it could widen the divide between male and female athletes or give some sports less reach. Seeing elite athletes perform is important, to offer some inspiration to younger people.

Is it His Majesty’s Government intention, with the multi-sports clauses, to facilitate partnerships between public service broadcasters and commercial pay broadcasters? This might be considered a curious sort of intervention, given that the BBC and Discovery are quite happily partner broadcasters for the Olympics right now, without these clauses. In fact, many listed events now have co-rights holders; these are sometimes more than one PSB—such as the BBC and ITV for football—and sometimes they are a free and a pay broadcaster. These partnerships are already allowed and, indeed, encouraged by the current legislation.

Does the Minister see any issue where the Government are inviting Ofcom to make regulations that will likely set two live streams as the ceiling for free-to-air coverage and potentially weaken the PSBs’ hand in any negotiation with rights holders or commercial broadcasters? If that is the case, it cannot be in the wider interests of the UK public. There are already many challenges in negotiating sports rights without making it any harder.

I am also interested in what may happen to digital on-demand rights within the regime. The way that many of us watch or consume sport is rapidly changing. As many noble Lords have mentioned, we are no longer sitting around one TV in the living room as a family. If no reference to digital on-demand rights is included, it seems unlikely that two live streams free to air, but with no catch-up or digital clips available for free, would be sufficient for audiences. An unintended consequence of the multi-sports clauses, and exclusion of safeguards around digital on-demand rights in the regime, could be to make the investment case for PSBs so weak that they are no longer inclined to bid for these crown jewels and they de facto become an all-paywalled affair, or with minimal skeleton free-to-air live provision, so that many UK audiences may miss out altogether.

I am also interested in exploring prominence, as other noble Lords have done, and the difference between “significant” and “appropriate”. Like many noble Lords, I support the Welsh language and Gaelic, but as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has already raised, we do not go anywhere near far enough in provision for those who require British Sign Language. I hope that we never go into another pandemic, but a huge frustration for me was that we could not provide British Sign Language at 5 pm on the media outlets that were updating the country about what was happening. This is simply not good enough.

Finally, have His Majesty’s Government given any consideration to using the Media Bill to update the Communications Act 2003 to safeguard linear TV, which is still an important and familiar viewing route? This would also support audiences as the digital transition continues.

I will be tabling and supporting amendments that cover these issues, and very much look forward to Committee.

Commonwealth Games

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend, who is a strong supporter of the Commonwealth, makes a very valuable point about the Games’ geopolitical importance as well the great fun they involve for everyone taking part and the legacy they can bring in terms of sports participation and economic benefit. We are speaking to the Commonwealth Games Federation, which makes the decision here, but it is an issue we will of course raise with the Commonwealth at every appropriate level.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Sport Wales and I also competed at three Commonwealth Games at the beginning, middle and end of my career. We should not forget that the Manchester inclusive Games played a big part in us winning 2012. What assessment has been made of the impact on disability sport of potentially losing the Games, as they do have a significant role to play in developing talented British athletes?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Your Lordships’ House benefits from sports people who have competed at every level, and I am glad that the noble Baroness has made her point. We hope that we do not lose the Games; we are working with the Commonwealth Games Federation to ensure that the Games go ahead and there is a sustainable resolution for both 2026 and 2030. She is right to point to their importance in the sporting pipeline for people of all abilities, and that is why we would like to see them continue.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Grey-Thompson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, much of what I would have said has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Black, so I will make my contribution brief. Elegantly dressed up as these amendments were by the noble Lord on behalf of the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord McNally, to whom I also say get well soon, they are in fact intended to change the way the press is currently regulated. I declare my interest as chairman of IPSO, a post I have held since January 2020. IPSO regulates 95%, by circulation, of the printed press, and that includes online versions of newspapers.

Noble Lords will remember the Leveson inquiry, following the discovery of unacceptable press practices including phone hacking. Parliament’s response was to create the Press Recognition Panel and the concept of an approved regulator. It was not state regulation, but nor was it the status quo ante. Only one regulator has sought and attained approved status: Impress. The Press Recognition Panel was chaired by David Wolfe KC, who provided a quotation to the noble Lord. Impress is funded by the estate of Max Mosley. It does not regulate any of the main national newspapers, which have either, like the Guardian, elected for self-regulation, or, like most of the others, selected IPSO as their regulator. Now, clearly it would be unattractive for me to extol the virtues of IPSO, but to its critics I recommend reading the newly published independent external review, written by Sir Bill Jeffrey, former Permanent Secretary at the MoD. I think readers would generally be reassured by the report.

Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act was intended as a stick—or was it a carrot—to drive newspapers into the arms of the approved regulator. Even when I had nothing to do with press regulation, I did not like that provision, which has hovered over the newspaper industry like the sword of Damocles. It has never been brought into effect, and I welcome the fact that the Government now intend to repeal Section 40 via the media Bill—although I accept, as the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, that there may be a debate about the proper scope of regulation, and indeed of Section 40, when that comes before Parliament.

As I understand these amendments, regulation of the largest websites would prospectively be the subject of the Online Safety Bill’s regulatory regime. I echo comments already made that this extraordinarily significant Bill is not primarily directed at press regulation at all. It is intended by these amendments that for newspapers to qualify for the recognised news publisher status, they would have to be a member of an approved regulator. This is plainly an attempt to dismantle the current system of press regulation.

It seems something of an irony that newspapers that are regulated by IPSO or even self-regulated have accountability, however imperfect, whereas, pending the passing of the Bill, internet platforms are wholly unregulated—yet it is sought to pass off some of the regulation of newspapers to Ofcom. Is Ofcom ready, willing or even equipped to replicate the complaints system that currently obtains? I think Ofcom would have quite enough to do. Is its horizon-scanning model even appropriate for press complaints? It is very early days to increase the scope of Ofcom’s rule. The Government have promised a review of the regulatory framework in two or three years; I suppose then it might be possible to assess whether Ofcom’s role should change or be enlarged. Until then, it seems inappropriate to do so.

I suggest that the current system of press regulation should not be the subject of further statutory provision at this juncture, or indeed at all. There have been some deplorable press practices in the past, but the traditional printed press in this country, albeit a much-reduced animal with diminished circulation and advertising revenues, nevertheless has some real strengths. A free, vigorous and challenging press is part of a functioning democracy. We should be very wary of giving a Government, of whatever colour and by whatever means, greater power to control it.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in favour of Amendments 124, 126 and 227 to which my name is attached. I will reserve my comments mostly to the Bill’s loophole on newspaper comment sections.

These forums would qualify as social media platforms under the Bill’s definition were it not for a special exemption in Clause 49. They have been found to host some of the most appalling and despicable content online. I will paraphrase some examples so as not to subject the Committee to the specific language used, but they include anti-Semitic slurs in comments appearing under articles covering a violent attack on a synagogue; Holocaust denial; and speculation that Covid was created and spread by a secretive global cabal of powerful individuals who control the world’s leaders like puppets.

Some of the worst abuse is reserved for women in public life, which I and others in your Lordships’ House have personally experienced. In an article about a female leader, comments included that she should be struck down or executed by the SAS. Others commented graphically on her appearance and made disturbing sexual remarks. Another woman, Professor Fowler—who the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has already discussed —was described as having a sick mind and a mental disorder; one comment implied that a noose should be prepared for her. There are many more examples.

Comment sections are in too many cases badly regulated and dangerous places for members of the public. The exemption for them is unwarranted. Specifically, it protects any social media platform where users make comments in response to what the Bill describes as “provider content”. In this case, that means comments posted in response to articles published by the newspaper. This is materially no different from user exchanges of any other kind and should be covered just the same.

The Government have previously argued that there should be a distinction between newspaper comment sections and other platforms, in that other platforms allow for virality because posts that are liked and retweeted do better than the others. But this is exactly the same for many modern comment sections. Lots of these include functionality to upvote certain comments, which can then rise to the top of the comment section on that article.

There are estimated to be around 15 million people on Twitter in the UK—I am one of them—but more than twice that number read newspaper websites every month. These comment sections are social media platforms with the same power, reach and capacity to cause harm as the US giants. We should not treat them any differently on account of the fact that they are based out of Fleet Street rather than Silicon Valley.

There are some concerns that the Bill’s requirements would put an undue burden on small organisations running comment sections, so this amendment would apply only to organisations with an annual turnover in excess of £100 million. This would ensure that only the largest titles, which can surely afford it, are required to regulate their comment sections. Amendment 124 would close the comment section loophole, and I urge the Government to act on it.

It is a great shame that, due to the lateness of the hour, my noble friend Lady Hollins is unable to be here. She would strongly support Amendment 126 on several points but specifically wanted to talk about how the exemption creates double standards between how the public and news publishers are treated, and puts platforms and Ofcom in an impossible situation over whether newspapers meet vague criteria to access exemptions.

I also support Amendments 126 and 227, which would help protect the public from extremist and other dangerous websites by preventing them accessing the separate media exemption. In all these matters, we must not let overbroad exemptions and loopholes undermine what good work this Bill could do.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, while considering this group of amendments, a comment by Index on Censorship came to mind. Critical of aspects of the Bill, it worried out loud about whether this legislation

“will reverse the famous maxim ‘publish and be damned’, to become, ‘consider the consequences of all speech, or be damned’”.

In that context, I am very grateful—relieved at least— that the freedom of the press is given due regard and protections in the Bill. Freedom of the press is one practical form in which freedom of expression exists and is invaluable in a democracy. It is so crucial that it has been at the centre of democratic struggles in this very Parliament for more than five centuries—ever since the first printing press meant that the masses could gain access to the written word. It fuelled the pamphleteers of the English Civil War. It made a hero of MP John Wilkes in the 18th century, his victory giving the press freedom to report on the goings-on of the great and the good, to muckrake and to dig the dirt; long may that continue.

So I welcome that news publishers’ content on their own websites is not in scope of the legislation; that if platforms take down or restrict access to trusted news sources, they will face significant sanctions; that platforms must notify news publishers if they want to take down their content and, if the publisher disputes that, the platform must not remove it until the dispute is resolved; and that Ofcom must also review the efficacy of how well the platforms are protecting news.

I say “Hurrah!” to all that. If only the Bill treated all content with such a liberal and proportionate approach, I would not be standing up and speaking quite so much. But on the press specifically, I strongly oppose Amendments 124 and 126—as well as Amendment 127, now that it has been explained and I understand it; I did not quite before. Amendment 124 would mean that the comment section of the largest newspaper websites were subject to the regulation in the Bill.

It is important to note—as has been explained—that user comments are already regulated by IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, and that individual publishers have strong content moderation system policies and the editor is ultimately liable for comments. That is the key issue here. This is about protecting editorial independence from state interference. Amendment 124 does the opposite. That amendment would also restrict the ability of UK citizens to discuss and engage with publishers’ content.

It is part of a lively and vital public square to be free to debate and discuss articles in newspapers. We have heard some pretty graphic and grim descriptions from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about those comments; but for me, ironically, the comment section in newspapers is a form of accountability of the press to readers and the audience. Although the descriptions were grim, much of that section is intelligent, well-informed and interesting feedback. I will talk a little about hate afterwards.