Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Birt Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I too will comment a little on the point about light-touch regulation. Before I do, earlier today—prompted, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson—the Minister offered her good wishes to Newcastle in the Carabao Cup final at the weekend. I wondered whether she would also be willing to offer her best wishes to Liverpool at the weekend, with the due impartiality that is merited. We need a little help tonight, because we are 1-0 down at half time to PSG, so she might like to send her immediate good wishes before it is too late for that game.

Needless to say—I have said this before—I truly support the regulation of English football, and I will not repeat what I have said in earlier debates. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made clear, the Government’s amendment is extremely helpful. He intends not to press his own amendment, but I did not see anything wrong with underlining the point with the addition of “light-touch”.

Throughout my career, I experienced the public benefits of effective regulation in broadcasting. However, we know that not all regulation has proved successful in the UK or in other countries, and we must learn from both the successes and the lack of success. As the Chancellor said just a month ago, our economy has “suffered” due to “stifling and unpredictable regulation”. Overregulation bequeathed us the absurdly expensive and long-delayed HS2. On the other hand, under- regulation brings us sewage flowing freely into Lake Windermere, so we have to get the right kind of regulation.

These amendments should oblige the regulator to practise considered and proportionate regulation, focusing on what really matters—and more than one thing really matters, as has come out again and again in this debate. Above all, effective regulation here means ensuring that English football clubs should be well and prudently managed.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for Amendment 17, which I signed. It says that players and fans should be regarded. When discussing professional sport, the two key elements are: somebody to play and somebody to watch. Both should be recognised within the structure of this legislation as important.

With the huge amount of appetite for football, players are clearly under pressure of being overplayed. How they should be looked after is an important factor that all sports are dealing with. I encourage the regulator, when it comes out, to take a serious look at this, as well as the rights of fans. We had great fun debating which diverse group should be consulted. Well, let somebody else figure it out—we could not.

When it comes to light touch, I will break a habit of mine and read out something from the EFL which I received, I think, yesterday:

“The EFL does not support the enshrining of ‘light touch’ as a regulatory principle in the Bill … Light touch is an extremely subjective term that the IFR will struggle to meaningfully define as it goes about its activities … It also risks limiting the effectiveness of Regulators once it is operational, which instead should have the ability to determine what is the ‘right touch’”—


dozens of other expressions are available—

“to deal with any situation it is required to address”.

Hiding behind a mantra is never a good idea. What the Government have here is quantifiable at the very least, so I say yes to that. I hope that we can go forward, because the minute you get something like “It has to be light touch”, you will get it wrong. It has to be effective. I hope the Government and the regulator enshrine effectiveness from this point on; it does not matter if it is light or heavy, it matters if it works.

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Moved by

[Lord Birt]

21: Clause 10, page 6, line 35, at end insert “, including its global appeal”

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, Amendments 21 and 22 are in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. I strongly support the notion of a “state of the game” report, above all to encourage an evidenced and sophisticated dialogue between the leagues about fund flow, either in direct negotiation or as part of the mediation process if the backstop is triggered. But I will make three points.

First, the Bill currently states that the report should include

“information about any other matters relating to the state of English football”.

One highly critical matter, which has come up more than once today, is the global position of the English game. The Premier League, as was said a moment ago, is the most successful sporting league of any kind in the whole world, its global broadcasting revenues now surpassing those raised domestically. We propose that the “state of the game” report should capture the position of the Premier League in relation to other major European leagues—the purpose of our Amendment 21.

Secondly, producing the first draft of the “state of the game” report should not take, as the Bill suggests, up to 18 months. Football is an incredibly data-rich activity, as I have learned over these last few months, with enormous pools of relevant publicly available information at home and abroad. Six months to produce the report should be quite sufficient.

Thirdly, the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and I will argue next Monday that a well-evidenced “state of the game” report should be the first step in a redesigned backstop process. But there is a problem. The Bill indicates that, after the first “state of the game” report is complete, future reports will be produced on a five-year cycle. We cannot be certain at what point in the five-year cycle the backstop might be triggered—this is all quite technical. Hence, our Amendment 22 suggests that, if the backstop is triggered and more than two years have passed since the last report, the “state of the game” report should be refreshed and updated before the backstop mediation process begins.

I do not plan to test the opinion of the House, but we tabled these amendments in the hope that the Government will continue to refine the Bill, as they have been doing, as they take their next steps. We hope they will consider these points. I beg to move.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Given the late hour, I will speak briefly in support of these amendments. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, quite rightly said, the value of the global rights is now greater than the value of the domestic rights. Of course, it is the rights money that affords the best players in the world. We have put out this stat before: the Premier League has 44% of the best players in the world, which makes it the most exciting, which creates a virtuous circle and grows the rights. It is entirely proper that the global appeal should be recognised in the “state of the game” report. We wholeheartedly support the amendments.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We on these Benches welcome the government amendment that makes it five years, so that the “state of the game” report is more aligned with the parliamentary timetable. We may touch on this when we speak to the later group from the noble Lord, Lord Birt.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

I thank the Minister for her response. I also thank her, as others did earlier, for her extreme generosity with her time and that of her Bill team. We have spent many long hours discussing these things. Given what she has just said, I hope that we may spend some more hours discussing these matters. It is actually rather a technical question: it is not a matter of high principle—it is a practical matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has just said, imagine that the backstop is triggered four years after the previous “state of the game” report. Everyone will be saying, “This isn’t very relevant any longer; everything has changed”. I hope that the very good dialogue we have had over these last weeks can continue, because I do not really agree with the account the Minister has just given. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 21 withdrawn.