Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Friday 24th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, for giving the House the opportunity to debate this Bill. I regret that we did not manage to pass these measures before, due to the general election last year, but I am glad we are picking up where we left off and following the advice of the 2021 report from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, to legislate on tailgating and other forms of unauthorised entry at the earliest opportunity.

Tailgating and ticket fraud present both a financial blow and a great unfairness to clubs and fans alike. The great success of football lies in its accessibility for players and fans of all ages and abilities. Clubs become the bedrock of communities because they give people a shared purpose and responsibility in the upkeep of their team. This is undermined by those who breach entry. These clubs lose out on revenue, and genuine fans pay the price by being undercut. It is a wholly unjust practice.

There is also the danger that comes with the practice of unauthorised entry. Even lower and non-league clubs impose a maximum capacity for safety reasons, but the risk is exponentially heightened as the size of the stadium increases. At big events, where capacity is reached, there is simply no room for extra supporters in the stadium. When the capacity is breached, serious dangers arise,

As the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, referred to, the report on the Euros final by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, outlined risks of crowd collapses, door wedging, trampling and barrier collapses. These were very real possibilities that were narrowly avoided, but they were made possibilities only because of those entering the stadium unauthorised. Those events and the more recent 2024 Champions League final demonstrate why legislation to deter tailgating and other types of unauthorised entry, such as ticket fraud, are so important.

Those who are caught committing this infringement, as it stands, are likely to be thrown out of the stadium without further repercussions. Those who are caught before they have entered are simply turned away to attempt re-entry at another turnstile. Considering the very real risks posed by this practice, notwithstanding the thorough unfairness that it represents, these measures have not proved sufficient.

The Conservatives agree with the attempt to deal with this in a proportionate way. As the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, said, introducing a summary offence, with a maximum fine of £1,000 and the likelihood that a conviction will lead to a court-imposed football banning order, seems to provide the proportionate deterrent. I hope that it will indeed, in practice, put an end to this conduct, once it is seen that attempting unlawfully to enter a stadium will bar those attempting it from far more than a single match in the future.

My two concerns lie with the drafting and implementation of this Bill. On drafting, proposed new Section 1A(3) appears quite broadly drafted and may inadvertently allow those who have committed this offence knowingly to be successful in mounting a defence in the courts. Could the Minister reassure me on this issue? On implementation, police numbers are down this year and forces are already stretched. As my noble friend Lord Moynihan said, we must ensure that we have the numbers needed to police this crime. If we manage to charge an unauthorised entry only every now and again, it will not have the intended impact and we here will have been paying lip service to this issue and no more. As the noble Lord, Lord Shamash, said, I hope the Government have a clear plan on implementation. Can the Minister provide us with some detail on this when he replies to the debate?

Similarly, a deterrent is successful if it is seen to work immediately. This means demonstrating, after this Bill has passed, that its powers will be used swiftly and effectively. I hope that the Government understand the importance of appearance and have planned how they might immediately demonstrate the law’s effectiveness.

I wholeheartedly support this Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, on bringing it before the House.

Housebuilding: Regional Mayors

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I completely agree with my noble friend. It will be necessary to introduce effective new mechanisms for that strategic planning and to put the say in strategic planning back into the hands of people who have skin in the game in local areas. We will strengthen the position in the NPPF on co-operation between authorities; work with the mayors and their constituent authorities to extend their existing powers; and identify groups of other authorities where strategic planning will provide particular benefits.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, the National Housing Federation, the Home Builders Federation and Savills have warned that the Government will fall short of their ambition to build 1.5 million homes over this Parliament by nearly 500,000 homes. Can the Minister give the House an unshakeable guarantee that the Government will not water down their housing target?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am not going to apologise for the housing ambitions of this Government. We were left with a housing crisis, which we have set about tackling. The previous Government failed to do so for 14 years. We want to see young people able to achieve home ownership, to make sure all homes are safe and well maintained, and to create a new generation of social housing and new towns. We believe that everyone deserves a safe, secure, affordable home—do they not?

Homelessness

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. Can we have the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and then my noble friend Lord Naseby?

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Are the Government aware that for every person who falls homeless—they are not all out on the streets—the cost of running that homeless family or individual is two or three times higher than if you keep them in their homes? Has the Treasury done any serious work looking at how to keep the costs of homelessness down by keeping people in their homes?

Building Repairs: VAT

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests recorded in the register. I want to turn our attention to people’s homes. Some 20 years ago, Kirklees Council offered free loft and cavity wall insulation to every home, regardless of tenure. It was largely funded by energy companies, and 100,000 homes benefited from that scheme. Will the Government learn from that pioneering scheme and consider its introduction across the country in order to achieve the COP 28 agreement?

Holocaust Memorial

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, could we hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and then the noble Lord, Lord Pickles?

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as honorary president of the National Jewish Assembly. I support the noble Lord, Lord Lee, in drawing attention to the almost total lack of consultation on the memorial. All efforts to open dialogue and to have discussions and round tables have been met with silence, and sometimes abuse. Victoria Tower Gardens is a green enclave, and the dangers of digging down two storeys with piledrivers, which could cause unimaginable damage, have not been taken on board when there are decent alternative sites with as much dignity and more space. I speak for a number of Holocaust survivors in this.

Housing: Conditions in Rented Sector

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, during the passage of the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, your Lordships’ House voted for an amendment that would have reduced energy costs in social housing. In the other place recently, without any explanation or debate, that amendment was removed. Is that not a gross discourtesy to this House? Can the Minister now explain why that amendment was removed?

Building Safety Bill

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I want briefly, having just had a signal on those lines, to offer Green support for all the amendments. I will speak only to Amendment 261 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. I commend him on his long work in this area.

I am perhaps a little less charitable to the Government than him about where things are now. Just this afternoon, while we were debating the second group of amendments, the Green Alliance put out a new report, Cutting the Cost of Living with a Green Economy. It has some figures that are interesting and helpful for this debate. It points out that the cuts to energy efficiency subsidies and the scrapping of the zero-carbon homes policy over the past decade saw the installation rate of home insulation and energy measures go from 2.3 million in 2012 to 230,000 in 2013—a rate that has continued since.

This addresses the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just asked about what we can do and whether it is possible to step up again. We have done this in the past; we can do this in future. The noble Baroness expressed concern about a lack of costing for that. The Green Alliance report points out that, if we followed Amendment 261, through insulating 15.3 million homes, it would save them all £511 a year after the April price cap rise. For the country, that is £7.8 billion a year, mostly in fossil fuel.

Looking again at the costing, the Great Homes Upgrade plan, put together by the New Economics Foundation along with 28 organisations, shows that spending £11.7 billion over this Parliament could raise 7 million homes up to this standard by 2025. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said, this is very much a health and safety issue. We have set the standard of zero carbon by 2050. That is a target for the environment; this is a target for people’s health. Surely we can have both health and environment targets that so crucially fit together.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, taking the time into consideration, I beg to move that we adjourn the debate on this amendment and that consideration on Report be adjourned until after the Urgent Question.

Debate on Amendment 15 adjourned.