Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I understand the point that the noble Lord makes, but I am reading the amendment that he has tabled. The third word is “promotes”. What does that mean in terms of an objective criterion for how an individual would promote human rights, and for how he or she would protect the human rights of those involved in football and the club that they were involved with? The amendment is an example of potential regulatory overreach. Seeking to enforce it would be a straightforward prima facie case of ultra vires actions, because it would be unenforceable.

Having said that, I have great sympathy with the noble Lord’s Amendment 200 on state ownership of football clubs. We will have a good debate on that. However, on Amendment 178, the noble Lord is gilding the lily. Although he has good intentions, it is not a workable amendment. It would damage the interests of football clubs and be difficult for the regulator properly to enforce.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 178. Indeed, I have come in specifically to speak on the issue of modern slavery and I declare an interest as a co-chair of the modern slavery parliamentary group and vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

I profoundly disagree with what the previous noble Lord said about individual ownership fitness criteria in relation to modern slavery. Under the Modern Slavery Act 2015—Section 56, I think—it is wrong to have a supply chain that operates on the exploitation of those who provide the goods for a company. So, if you have an individual owning a company who makes his money on the exploitation of people in the supply chain, it should not be all that difficult to discover it. That is absolutely where the regulator should be promoting modern slavery issues when he looks at the individual fitness of a person who wants to take over a club.

I see the point on human rights, although we have the Human Rights Act and it is fairly clear under that Act what the rights are of various people that might be impinged by an individual who did not have appropriate fitness criteria. I can see—

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the noble and learned Baroness for most generously giving way. If we have statutory sanctions already in place to deal with this behaviour, whether it is the Human Rights Act or the Modern Slavery Act, surely she is proving my case that this is regulatory overreach. My point is that we do not need further legislation when it is already covered by the existing legislation.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I do not want to deal with human rights. I have come here to deal with modern slavery. I disagree with the noble Lord. The problem is that Section 56 is voluntary and not mandatory. Consequently, companies are not obliged to follow what happens. In a 2019 review led by Lord Field of Birkenhead, of which I was a part, we picked up the fact that it was not mandatory. Consequently, if the regulator does not have to think about modern slavery, he would not have to look to see whether or not an individual taking over a club is making his money in a wholly inappropriate and extremely wicked way. Because it is not mandatory, it is important that someone else looks at it. If it were mandatory, I would entirely agree with the noble Lord.

Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Committee stage
Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Lawlor. I will speak generally about the Bill very briefly, and the amendment, and also say why I strongly oppose the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, which are pernicious and dangerous. I cannot believe that, when my noble friend Lord Hailsham sought election in the county constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham in 2010, he would have told his constituents that he would seek to disregard the rights and privileges of Parliament in favour of supranational legal entities and international treaties, because I suspect that that would not have been a very popular point of view to take. But that seems to be the logical implication of the amendment he has put forward today.

The Bill does contain some important statements of principle, in that it reasserts the sovereignty of Parliament and its right to legislate to cut through the morass of alleged international norms which currently frustrate the ability of the United Kingdom to control its own borders, in Clause 1(4). The partial disapplication of aspects of the Human Rights Act—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Does the noble Lord realise that the Government, and previous Governments, have signed and ratified the international agreements and treaties about which we are talking?

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Well, I will develop my argument about the tension between domestic legislation, parliamentary sovereignty and the rights and privileges of Parliament, and the international obligations and a universalist human rights regime which many noble Lords seem very content to support in preference to the former.