Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Foster of Bath and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Wednesday 15th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the amendments standing in my name in this group are ones I have tabled before and, in tabling them again, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, showing that I am the chairman of both Peers for Gambling Reform and the charity Action on Gambling.

I have brought these two groups of amendments back today because I had a very useful meeting with the Minister, for which I am grateful, and I was able to explain in a little more detail their purpose. This is an opportunity to see if the Minister has decided whether the Government may, in one form or another, be rather more supportive of those amendments.

As I say, I have two groups of amendments. One relates to the need, I believe, to ensure that all sporting venues where the activities covered by this Bill take place are clear of gambling advertising, marketing and sponsorship. I will not rehearse all the arguments I have used before; suffice it to say that many major international sporting bodies believe it is the right thing to do. That is what is happening currently with the World Cup, as FIFA does not allow advertising in its stadia. The same is true for the Olympics, the Paralympics and many others. The organisations firmly believe that, among many other reasons, it would be wrong in particular to allow children to grow up believing that the only way you can enjoy a sporting event is by participating in betting on it.

I genuinely believe this is something we should be adopting for all sporting activities in this country, and certainly for international sporting events, on which a lot of gambling ends up taking place. Even though FIFA does not have advertising in the various venues, worldwide, gambling on the games currently taking place is believed to total half a trillion dollars—and that is just the World Cup. Gambling is very big business and it causes a great deal of harm to children and many other people. Tomorrow, the Gambling Commission will be publishing statistics, and we will be able to see how big that problem is in this country.

The second group of amendments relates to the unlicensed use of sports data. Sports data is increasingly valuable. Sports clubs use it to help with their training practices and so on, but it is also very useful for gambling organisations and, indeed, gambling syndicates that are trying to get money off the gambling companies. At the moment, sporting bodies enter into voluntary agreements with various companies that choose to do this work, allow those companies to collect the data and then, through licences, sell it on to other bodies, including gambling companies. That brings them in quite a lot of money. Unfortunately, those licences are currently very difficult to police, and there are all sorts of difficulties with taking action against people who act illegally or use unlicensed data.

This is a very big issue. I have in front of me a printout of a gambling website called LSports. LSports is not licensed to use data from this country, and yet it does. Indeed, it claims to cover 100 different sports, 3 million different fixtures in 15,000 leagues and 2,500 markets around the world. These people illegally—or at least, without a licence—use data which they claim in their advertisements is used by companies in this country such as Sky Bet and Betfred. I am deeply worried that these organisations are scraping data—denying money coming into sports organisations in this country—to feed into gambling companies that use it for all sort of purposes. Even more worrying is that in all their feeds, they include advertisements for illegal gambling websites: ones in this country and others that can be accessed around the world. This includes the largest illegal website in the world, 1XBET, which is supported by the Putin regime and helps fund it. We should not be supporting opportunities like that.

I turn to something even worse, and which is deeply worrying. I have another set of printouts, concerning a company that provides livestreams of major sporting events, including the current World Cup. The live feeds it provides to people, who choose for a variety of reason to get coverage of those events on its feeds, are absolutely full of illegal gambling websites.

The Minister is rightly desperately keen to do something about illegal gambling. I want to do so too, but I also want to do something about the harm that gambling in this country causes. The solution is very simple, and that is what my amendment effectively provides. It says that we should make it illegal for anybody to use the data from companies if they do not have a licence; it is a very simple solution that would make it much easier to bring prosecutions against people who do not have one.

So, I have two groups of amendments: one would make venues gambling advertisement free, and the second would stop people being able to use sports data without a licence. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I thought those were very interesting amendments. I am sorry that I had not read them, but they are interesting and worth considering by the Government.

I want to speak to Amendment 21. I begin by thanking Freddie Daley, whose work with Cool Down and Badvertising has helped to shape this amendment. His research has highlighted the growing tension between local fossil-fuel advertising bans and major sporting events. I know that the Government are not proposing a national ban on fossil-fuel advertising, even though I think they ought to. However, that argument was rejected in Committee and I am not trying to reopen that debate.

This amendment takes a different approach. It is saying that, where a host city or local authority has adopted climate, environmental or advertising policies that restrict fossil-fuel advertising, major sporting events should respect those policies. After all, the Bill is about creating a framework for hosting major sporting events. It should not become a way to bypass decisions that have already been made by local authorities.

We have a very useful example. In 2027, Edinburgh will host the Grand Départ of the Tour de France. Edinburgh City Council has already voted to ban high-carbon advertising, including fossil-fuel advertising, across council-owned spaces. Sheffield has adopted a similar policy, and other local authorities have done the same or are considering doing so. Athletes should not become moving adverts for fossil-fuel companies as they race past Edinburgh Castle and through the city’s streets. These councils have made democratic decisions about the kind of places they want to be. If they have decided that fossil-fuel advertising has no place on their streets and public spaces, why should an international sporting event be treated any differently?

I do not need to repeat the reasons we brought in Committee on why this matters. This year’s Tour de France has already had to shorten a stage because of extreme heat, for the first time. Here in the UK, running races have been cancelled this week and other sporting events and transport are affected. Climate change is already changing how major sporting events are organised, yet sports, including cycling, continue to provide a valuable advertising platform for fossil-fuel companies, and these adverts are no accident. Fossil-fuel companies do not sponsor cycling because they sell bikes; they do it because it allows them to associate their brands with healthy lifestyles, beautiful places and active travel, rather than with the filthy emissions that are driving our climate emergency.

Sports such as football and cycling were once full of tobacco sponsorship. As the evidence of harm grew, public attitudes changed; the rules changed and the sport adapted. Today, that relationship feels completely out of step with the values that sport represents. I believe we are beginning to see the same shift in attitudes towards fossil-fuel advertising. If sporting events are allowed to sidestep local advertising bans, they risk becoming one of the last remaining routes for fossil-fuel companies to advertise in cities that have deliberately chosen to restrict that advertising. We should not be asking cities to choose between hosting world-class sporting events and sticking to their climate commitments. This amendment would make sure that they do not have to.

Sentencing Bill

Debate between Lord Foster of Bath and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage
Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, during our various deliberations throughout the passage of the Bill, I have on a number of occasions expressed great support for many of the measures within the proposed legislation but, at the same time, a concern that we may not have the means to deliver the ends—in particular, the concern that we would not have the right number of sufficiently and adequately trained staff within the Prison and Probation Service. I have suggested on previous occasions, therefore, that it would be appropriate that we look at, for example, not only the number of prisoners and prison places but at the same time the number of staff in the Prison and Probation Service. That is particularly important because, if many of the measures in this legislation go ahead, they will increase demands on both those services. For instance, there will be more tagging having to be taken up and, of course, more people—hopefully—engaging in a wider range of activities in our prisons and in non-custodial sentences to reduce reoffending.

The two amendments in my name, therefore, simply propose adding those two issues—staffing in the Probation Service and Prison Service—to the amendment that has now been proposed by the Minister. However, I am reasonably confident, in light of the comments that the Minister has made, not only about the assurance that there will be a continuation of the quarterly reports but that there will be a bringing together of the data from that and the annual report that we are going to get as a result of the amendment, that we have probably got to the point where we will have the relevant information in a very transparent way. I am grateful to the Minister for the discussions we have had on this particular issue.

So I will not press my amendments to a vote, and I am grateful to the Minister for going as far as he has. I just say to him that it is slightly difficult to understand why simply adding in the wording I propose has not been done, but I know that the Minister really wants to make this work. I believe he is going to achieve that—I hope he will—and so I shall not be pressing these amendments to a vote.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I have tabled Amendment 97A, which is again about probation capacity. I know that the Minister has done his best to convince us, and I completely understand that, with his business drive and determination, he is going to do the absolute best possible for this problem. But I remain unconvinced that the concerns raised by Peers in Committee and by probation staff themselves have been properly addressed.

It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is not going to push his amendments to a vote, and I certainly will not push this to a vote. However, in Committee, the Government charged that this amendment would risk duplicating existing reports and delaying reform, but I do not see that, because this amendment is not about producing more data for its own sake; it is about independent assurance at arm’s length from Ministers and operational management that the Probation Service has the capacity to safely absorb the additional demands that the Bill will place on it. Quarterly staffing statistics published by the Probation Service are not the same thing as a system- wide assessment that the Probation Service has that capacity.

In addition, the amendment balances investment plans. The Minister referred in Committee to the recruitment of trainee probation officers, to digital innovation and to welcome investment over the spending review period. We heard about those issues from the Minister himself at a briefing yesterday. All of that is positive, but none of it guarantees that the capacity is adequate at the point of commencement of the new statutory duties. The organisation Justice also says that the number of new probation officers set to be recruited would be inadequate. I would be very grateful if the Minister could tackle that problem of the inadequacy of numbers because, of course, recruitment takes time. Trainees take time to qualify. Technology takes time to embed and to get right. In the meantime, probation officers are working under extraordinary pressure, managing high-risk individuals and with case loads that are already too high.

The argument that this amendment would delay reforms misunderstands its purpose. If it delays reform, it is necessary, because it means that the reforms are not enough. Carrying on with huge changes regardless of capacity does not strengthen probation; it weakens it and increases risks to staff. Parliament is being asked to legislate for significant new demands on the Probation Service without this independent assurance by HMPPS that it has actually happened and that it is going to work and it is going to fit. I would have supported the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, but I will, of course, not move mine. I just hope that the Minister feels he has the backing of the House for everything he is trying to do. If we are raising concerns, it is only from a point of view of wanting to make it perfect.