Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Hayward

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the difference between “may” and “must”—or may and shall—is a pretty old parliamentary debate, but the noble Baroness has something here. I read through the amendments and thought, “It’s pretty clear. How could they stay if they’d done these things?” It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response. I know that “may” probably means “must” in certain circumstances, but if we could just have it clarified, we might get through this very quickly. It is very worth while having it clarified in this case.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I understand the point that both the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, are making, but I am always hesitant to say that something “must” happen. I speak here as someone who spent many years as a personnel/human resources director, acting as the final stage of appeal in disciplinary matters. As the noble Lord implied, I know that there is a debate in legal fields, because nowadays lawyers generally do not like being bound by something that tells them that they “must” act in a certain way.

It does not seem to be appropriate to insert “must”. The noble Baroness said that there would be a presumption—and I think so too. As the noble Lord said, these are very serious offences, but until one is confronted by a set of circumstances, I hesitate to bind anybody to a certain decision. There may be special circumstances where one is found guilty of only one of the categories and circumstances, so I am not convinced that “must” should be inserted in place of “may”.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Addington and Lord Hayward

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, just used two words which are of significance: “subjective” and “clear”. The problem with the Bill as drafted, judging from the lengthy debate we had last Wednesday and today’s proposed amendments, is that we are trying to provide clarity in relation to very subjective words, not least of which is “sustainability”, which is used several times. All these amendments are about looking at ways of making things clear, so that the football regulator can operate in some form or another.

The noble Lord was present throughout the debate last week, and during that debate I spoke about the threat to which the noble Lord, Lord Maude, has referred: that other sports and organisations will overtake our system—the Premier League and the other leagues—unless it is able to modernise and change as time goes on. What worries me genuinely about the Bill as drafted is that it almost implies ossification. It is an immovable process, because “sustainability” is just not clear.

Let us look at what we have seen in the past few days in terms of sport. This weekend the Middle East hosted a Grand Prix, a cricket tournament and a rugby tournament, so let us look at what might happen elsewhere. Equally, the Champions League, as was referred to in a previous debate, is changing and expanding. This Bill arose from a government reaction—an overreaction, probably—to the threat of a European super league whereby a set of clubs would be in a league of their own, never challenged. Quite rightly, the nation’s fans—not just this nation but a whole series of other nations—rose up and said that that is utterly unacceptable. Despite that, some clubs still believe that that is the right way to go. The Champions League has extended and we have the UEFA Conference League, et cetera. They are involving more and more British football clubs, and I welcome the success.

In referring to the football results of the past few days, I apologise profusely to my noble friend Lady Brady. But the success of the Premiership was identified in the fact that, albeit only briefly, Brighton & Hove Albion were second in the Premier League. That does not imply an unchanging, rigid position; it implies that the Premiership and the league system can develop. I was listening to the commentary on Liverpool v Manchester City—I apologise to any Manchester City fans for referring to yesterday’s game—and it was striking that, before the game, Radio 5 Live observed that there were more foreign correspondents covering that match than were covering the Liverpool v Real Madrid game only four days earlier. That indicates the very success and potential our system has—as long as it is reasonably developed and allowed to progress.

I have doubts, to be honest, about my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s amendment, because I do not think it goes far enough. I welcome that of my noble friends Lord Maude and Lady Evans, because it gives the Bill a better perspective and tries to provide clarity beyond the merely abstract word “sustainability”, and to develop some other aspects to which the football regulator should refer.

When I spoke last week, I was highly critical of the impact assessment, and I continue to be so. I know that it is largely based on the impact assessment prepared for the previous Bill, so I do not criticise the Minister; I criticise my colleagues in the previous Government just as much. However, I said that the impact assessment was intended to justify the current Bill, and that is made clear in paragraph 17:

“This Impact Assessment (IA) provides evidence and analysis to support the government’s case for intervention”.


In other words, it is providing support specifically for this Bill. It does not look at a range of other issues, which my noble friend Lord Goodman identified when he quoted from Tracey Crouch’s original report, relating to the overall success of the football industry in this country.

I believe that we need to provide greater clarity and greater indications of what we are trying to protect, develop and allow to go forward. Although last week I criticised the total lack of reference to “success” in the impact assessment, and I stick by that, I was very pleased, in part, to receive the letter from the Minister, page two of which has a section entitled “Proportionality and promoting success”. That is the attitude I want to see reflected in the Bill, in whatever phraseology we choose.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, it might be an appropriate time for me to make a few comments on the Bill. Amendment 12 suggests that the regulator will be able to have a very positive input into the marketplace. I do not know how it will achieve the aim of attracting significant domestic and foreign investment. Let us face it, our Premiership and our football structure have no divine right to be the most popular show in town, end of story. We all agree on that, but this Bill is about the fans and what they want from their domestic game. They want it to be there, and they do not want it disappearing off to Europe, or the top names disappearing off to Europe and the structure going.

If the Minister can point us to where we will have limits, and to the encouragement of involvement, we will all be able to move on a bit, but the “sustainability” factor is actually making sure that our domestic structure is there. I do not know how much else we can do without massive intervention by the state. Are we going to say, “You are not going to pay any tax on your revenue”, which means the state has no involvement anyway?