Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Hannan of Kingsclere and Lord Pannick

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, in opening this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, expressed the hope that we would not take another hour dealing with this group of amendments. We have taken well over an hour. I find this debate very odd because we all seem to agree that equality, diversity and inclusion are of enormous importance in football. The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, rightly spoke of the great efforts that West Ham in particular has made and the great results. Many other clubs have done the same. I would be astonished if a Bill dealing with these matters did not require the independent regulator to look at equality, diversity and inclusion and to have broad powers across the scope of football to do so.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who knows how much I respect him, that I have had no contact at any point with the Premier League, unless you count occasionally buying a ticket to one of the member clubs. Far from filibustering, my intervention on the previous round was the first time I had spoken since Second Reading, and I kept it to about four minutes. I opposed this Bill very strenuously when it was proposed in the previous Parliament. I am sure he will allow that it is not exactly the same Bill. It has been beefed up in various ways, and those ways need scrutiny.

One of the ways in which it has been beefed up, even short of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, is in strengthening the EDI provisions. I have to stand back and ask whether it is proper for a regulator to tell private clubs what kind of people should be their ticket holders. Is there not a basic principle of proportionality and property here that says it is in your interest to have as many ticket holders as you can, and it is in their interest, if they are interested, to come? Does that intersection of who wants to come and how much they are prepared to pay not represent the right place in a free society? We are not some autocracy where we impose values on free-standing organisations.

In our present mood we sacralise the values of EDI but tomorrow it may be something else, and that would be equally wrong because there is such a thing as freedom. There is such a thing as a private space, and that is an essential building block of a free society. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam—he will correctly me if I get this wrong—says it is shocking that only 4% of senior management positions are held by black people. According to the 2021 census, the proportion of black people in the UK is 4.0%. In other words, without any intervention, without anyone telling them what to do, we happen to have an exactly representative number. But even if that were not the case—even if, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was saying, there is a much higher proportion of black players in Premier League clubs—surely that is meritocracy. Why would it be the business of government to try to bring that number into line with the population?