Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Addington

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it might be convenient for me to say a few words on this. Primarily, I am drawn to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for the reasons he gave. We have heard that this is a wonderful, successful league. Bits of it are but, unfortunately, those are the bits at the top. Most of the cultural capital, I am afraid, is in the less glamorous clubs with less successful balance sheets.

We have a situation where we want to maintain the whole of the football structure: five leagues. This has proven to have—let us say—attracted financial irregularity; I think it was described as “chancers and fantasists”. We have to do something to stop this or we will start to have more disasters that mean something to the fan base.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, starts to address this. I hope that the Government are far more in tune with that amendment than with some of the others in this group.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to Amendment 128. We are getting to the crux of what this regulator should be about: making sure that there are sensible financial decisions, and that risks are mitigated so that they do not jeopardise clubs’ futures.

Clubs in the EFL are expected to lose around £450 million this season and are reliant on owners to fund the shortfall. If this funding is not forthcoming, it can lead to financial trauma. Only 66 of the 92 clubs that filed accounts for the 2021-22 season included data on wages and cash reserves. Nottingham Forest spent £58,606,000 on wages but had just £25,000 in cash reserves—five hours’ worth of reserves. Surely that cannot be acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, regarding Amendments 150, 152 and 164, I will not repeat what has already been said about community assets. I will speak just to my Amendment 248A, which probably counts as a miscellaneous amendment. It is a probing amendment, strong concerns having been raised by the Supporters Trust at Reading. It seeks to insert a new clause, after Clause 51, on ticket pricing, meaning that regulated clubs would have to adhere to the following rules: dynamic pricing strategies being prohibited, concessionary tickets being mandatory and ticket prices for away fans being kept at the level set out in regulations by the Secretary of State. It is a simple amendment, but I suspect that it will not be universally supported.

I understand why clubs want to use dynamic pricing and how it can be used very successfully, but this amendment seeks a more fan-inclusive approach. The Supporters Trust at Reading quoted the Early Day Motion tabled in September 2024, when 19 of the 20 2024-25 Premier League clubs increased their ticket pricing. Abolishing or reducing concessionary tickets would be very bad news for older or younger fans who felt the effects of the cost of living crisis harder than most. Also, Fair Game has said that the constant rise in ticket prices has priced long-standing fans out of the game and that there should be proper consultation with supporters to address their concerns.

I do not seek to open the debate on what a fan is, but this amendment is about giving consideration to how fans can be engaged in discussions about ticket pricing. I am expecting many noble Lords to tell me that this is too interventionist and that it will limit clubs too much, but I am interested to hear the Minister’s response.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, going through this long list of amendments, I think that we can all agree that “miscellaneous” is a good description of this group. On what is a competition, I added my name to one of the amendments, but probably should have added my name to the one about heritage. Is it a ground part of the heritage, is it part of the structure, is it what is going on? I should have put my name to this and look forward to the Minister’s reply. If we do not include this, we are missing an important part of why this Bill is justifiable.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Addington

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Wednesday 16th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I draw your attention to my interests: I am chair of ukactive, and I have a number of interests in this area. I also sat on the Lords Select Committee.

I too am not going to rehearse the arguments we gave in Committee, but all the names added to this amendment have been involved in this space for many years. We have all been through various iterations of this, and we should be talking about physical literacy and physical activity, and slightly less about sport. That might be surprising considering my background, but as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said, we have an obesity crisis and a generation of young people who are more likely to die before their parents, and there are a number of conditions that can be treated. Frankly, we have been tinkering at the edges of this for way too long. There have been programmes and lots of initiatives that have had some success, but if we are serious about the NHS and the health of the nation, we have to do things in a different way. I feel like I have been talking about this for about the last 30 years—the noble Lord has had a slightly longer time in sport than I have—but I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response in order to understand how we can genuinely make a change and stop going round in circles on this important issue.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the last shall probably be quickest on this. We have all, as is agreed, said that we need to do something that is coherent. This has not been coherent. We have had committees that met once every full moon, provided everybody had had tea of the right quality that day; thus was their infrequency. Nobody was prepared to ensure that something that was inconvenient for one department was done to ensure that another department fulfilled it. There just was not anything. The Olympics did not manage to make them work together. We need coherent leadership and a price to be paid—accountability—for not doing it. If the Minister can give us that, we will have taken a major step forward. I would of course prefer the amendment that has been tabled, but I will take half a loaf any day over no bread. Can the Minister assure us that there will be leadership and that a price will be paid, publicly paid, for not doing it? Without that, as we know, this will merely become a report with somebody else saying, “They should have had a meeting about it some time”. Let us bin this. I am fed up with making that speech, even though it does usually get me out of a lot of trouble.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Addington

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson]

My Lords, I am delighted for the athletes involved that there has been a late-night solution to this issue. Bizarrely, when we talk about the Commonwealth, Olympic or Paralympic Games, we rarely talk about the experience of the athletes, although they are at the heart of the Games. It can be very difficult for athletes to be in a position where they do not know whether their event is on or off the programme. Most countries do not support athletes financially or with medical services unless there is an elite pathway. This particularly affects women’s events and also involves media support and sponsorship. Once you are off the programme, you have nowhere to go and it is almost impossible to get funding to get back on it.

Having two different events has lots of implications. On the positive side, it could give us an opportunity to increase the number of events for disabled athletes, although there has been an increase over the years, which is great. In 1990, there were just two demonstration events at the Commonwealth Games; it is lovely to see where we are now. However, my big concern—actually, this is outside our control—is about the challenge that smaller countries may have sending teams to different venues. The bigger teams have a chef de mission, a large core staff and large medical teams. The home countries are fortunate that they are able to support that; some of the smaller ones might struggle to fund it.

This is not without precedent, to some extent. Olympic Games sailing events are held in different parts of the country. In Atlanta in 1996, sailing was held in Savannah. India is considerably further away, but we are looking forward to the Paris Olympics and Paralympics where surfing might be held on the other side of the world. The Commonwealth Games should be congratulated on getting to this stage, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan: why do we not just start the Games with a medal table? Everyone is going to be doing that anyway, regardless of the announcement; it is important for every country to know where it stands. It would make more sense for the TV coverage, for the athletes in the village, and for the spectators, if it was there.

It is also important to make sure that there is an equivalent experience of being at the Games, with countries having the same kit and the same medal ceremonies. We could share the welcome ceremony when you come into the village—not every athlete is able to go to the opening ceremony, depending on when their competition starts, so the welcome ceremony when they move in is important. I had not considered the closing ceremony until the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, mentioned it. It is really important that the athletes, team managers, and everyone else, go to this, if there is any way that they could be brought over. It is not without logistical and cost problems. In 2012, we promised that there was a bed in the village for every athlete, so they could come to the closing ceremony if they were competing outside. It would be challenging, but it would be a lovely, positive way to celebrate the final medal table.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I shall say one or two words on the principle of what is going on here. This is a good thing. At every Games, there are little rows about which sports take part. When the Games were on the Gold Coast, we had basketball but not judo. Australia likes its basketball; we are good at judo, so we made sure we had it. These deals and negotiations are always going on. You are always going to exclude a group of athletes, for many of whom this is the biggest thing they will ever do. This major international sporting event may be at the end of their career, so there is a good principle behind this.

I have a question for the Minister, the answer to which might make my later amendment unnecessary: how are we going to set a precedent for how this is done in future? Every good idea comes with baggage: how do we make sure we know what this means for the organisation? In principle it is a good idea and has good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with those, I am afraid. What are we doing to get this right? There has always been sporting politics over which events are in. There are lovely books about bitchy back-room deals and people fighting to get their event in. This may be a way of reducing that and making sure that more athletes and fans get the experience. It is a good thing; can we have a bit more guidance on how it will be looked on in future? If the noble Baroness cannot give the Committee the answers, it would be helpful if she could point it at someone who could.