Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Fuller

Report stage
Wednesday 15th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 18 on ticketing before alighting briefly on Amendment 31 on trading. Previously I have highlighted the iniquity of not being able to trade a ticket with a Facebook friend if you have been jilted by the person you planned to go with or if in the months between buying the tickets for yourself and Grandpa, he has died. It happens. Not only preventing that sale but fining someone £50,000 for trying it is two-tier justice. You get less for burglary.

If you have bought half a dozen tickets or fewer for a game, you get to go with your family. It does not make you part of a crime family, yet this is what the Government are saying. The Bill purports to support the fan but it criminalises those whose plans have changed while failing to go after the organisers who could do so much more to sort out ticket abuse. This part of the Bill is stuck in the past in that it fails to consider the modern ways in which fans can be protected from scammers with new techniques such as proving identity and interoperability, which automatically validates and authenticates tickets. That prevents ghost ticketing and facilitates a regulated exchange between consenting adults.

The organisers of these events have not tried hard enough to stop the bots because it suits them to carry on just as they are. They can sell out and bank the cash on day one. We all want to ensure that the fans get a fair shot at going to the game—that is common ground—but rather than sorting the problem of the bots that stand in the way of the fans at source and ensuring that multiple bunches of tickets cannot be hoovered up, this Bill gives the organisers a free pass to do what they like. It is the ultimate unintended consequence.

I have previously given the example of the FIFA World Cup ticketing fiasco—outrageous prices, empty stadiums, ghost ticketing, the 15% resale fees from a monopoly supplier and no regulated secondary market. It encourages fans to hang around the turnstiles, which is a recipe for disaster and not in the best interests of fans. If the Bill is enacted, it would aid and abet these activities and prevent the Government intervening. We would be giving FIFA the legal right to do what it wants. Let us remind ourselves: this is the organisation that rescinded a red card under pressure from President Trump, who did not think it was a foul when he did not even watch the game. These are the people being given carte blanche. It is wrong.

Nobody wants the Olympics or the World Cup more than I do, so why are the peer-to-peer sites such as StubHub or your Facebook friends to be banned instead of encouraged to participate in regulated secondary markets? Why are we handing the organisers a monopoly for their favourite chums? Why cannot anyone get their story straight on how the mechanics of ticket surrender will work?

I ask the Minister, who I know has her lines, to concede that my previous warnings about FIFA and the World Cup ticketing have proved me right. Life has not worked out as she expected because the organisers are not the good chaps she thought; they are just in it for themselves. I invite the Minister to agree and to accept my proposal in Amendment 18 to focus more on the organisers who sell the tickets rather than the innocent families who want to go to the game and buy six tickets or fewer.

I move briefly on to trading in my Amendment 31 in this group. The whole purpose of these big events is to transform local economies. In Committee the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and I made the strong case in the public interest for local traders and businesses to have some sort of economic benefit. At that stage our pleas fell on stony ground, but I am pleased now with the government amendment that says that local licensed traders will be given priority. At last, the Government have agreed with me that fans should be given the choice of consuming good local food and beer in local streets, served by local people, rather than being force-fed dismal cardboard burgers, gassy lager and overpriced tat in stadium concourses. We are agreed. We got there and, on that basis, I am happy not to move my Amendment 31.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend. I think we would all agree that he has brought some of the more colourful illustrations to his amendments during the passage of the Bill. Perhaps, like me, noble Lords are disappointed that the kebab did not make an appearance today, but in the dying moments the cardboard burger did. That is something to reflect upon.

I will speak to government Amendment 16 and the related charity amendments that have been brought forward on Report. When we began this process, the Bill was deficient when it came to the operations and thus the impact of charities up and down the country. The charitable sector makes such a contribution—socially, of course; psychologically, certainly; and economically, in so many ways, to the general well-being of this nation.

The London Olympics Act of 2006 contained charitable provisions, as did the Commonwealth Games Act of 2020. We have made some good progress. I thank the Minister and all her officials for their detailed discussion between Committee and Report, resulting in these amendments, which set out significant provisions and a real commitment to what could be included in subsequent regulations. It puts charities in a far clearer, far better position. It does not just benefit charities and charitable activity up and down the country; it makes sporting events and this Bill better.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Fuller

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Hayward. Were I to imagine myself—as I never would—on the Bishops’ Bench, in approaching this set of amendments I would be very much reminded of the parable of the prodigal son.

The Bill rightly sets out a whole raft of provisions for mega sporting events that come to the United Kingdom on occasion. Events already listed by my noble friend Lady Evans, such as Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix, and so on, do their thing year in, year out, staging world-class events which are far greater than sporting celebrations and competitions, with economic, social and cultural benefit which goes far beyond, for example, Wimbledon, SW19.

In asserting the principles in the Bill that have to be in place when it comes to international bids, it seems odd that at least some of these provisions would not be available to those extraordinarily impactful sporting events that are the very fabric not only of our sporting nation but of our culture. I ask the Minister to consider, if not implementing these amendments, the essence behind them and to how it could be threaded into the Bill. Further to my noble friend Lord Hayward’s comments on frameworks, why would the Government not want that to be available to the sporting events that wish to avail themselves of some parts of it? Ambush marketing is ambush marketing, whether it is targeted at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games or the Wimbledon Championships every year.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Evans and I have a lot in common—we both support Norwich City Football Club, and we show our allegiance to it—but I disagree with her in her amendments. I did not contribute to the last debate, but it is safe to say that it confirmed what I think we all know: that, while this may be an enabling Bill, if we actually capture one of these global events, we will need to have specific legislation anyway. If that is the case, we will not be doing any more than virtue signalling in the Bill. The conclusion that all the noble Lords have made is that the Bill is incomplete and half-full. I will not say that it is half-baked, but there is plenty more work to be done on it.

However, if the Bill is incomplete, I do not think that it is the right thing at all to extend it in scope to other events, because the mission creep brings politics into sport. Of course, it is very difficult to keep it there, but it brings politics into sport by law. It will prevent somebody who is interested in public discourse from having an opinion and gives them leverage over the event. It will sanitise so much of the activity that goes on around the game. It will make unlawful things that are part and parcel of what we do—certain trade, advertisements and things such as that; it stops innovation—for Wimbledon, the rugby union, the rugby league, the Grand Prix, the Open, the Test match, Premier League and, if we listen to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, cultural events such as the Proms and Taylor Swift. Where does this end?

I am concerned that, however well-intentioned it is, it could backfire. My noble friend Lady Evans talked about a gap to be filled. I see it a different way; I see this creating a chasm between the fans and the men in blazers, who want this for their own narrow purposes. We have grown the well-trusted and well-organised events of global repute that we host without the benefits of the Bill. While it is an enabling Bill and has very important new rules for traffic wardens, I am not sure that having more traffic wardens is enough in and of itself.