Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Markham Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise merely to add my support to what has been said, and to commend the Government for having been on a journey to recognise some of the points made in Committee, which, as my noble friend Lord Parkinson said from the Front Bench, was some two months ago. I hope I will not be thought ungracious if I simply comment that it was mildly irritating for us to be criticised for submitting this Bill to the scrutiny that we did in Committee, and to be accused of filibustering, when the Government were all the time listening to what we were saying and moving in the direction we were advocating.

I would merely comment that a number of us across the House advocated in Committee that an obligation to pursue growth in English football should be a key part of the purposes of the Bill. That was rejected by the Government at the time—almost contemporaneously with the Chancellor of the Exchequer using her bully pulpit to advocate that all the other regulators should be doing precisely what we were proposing.

We welcome the conversion and the journey, and we hope that more concessions will be made towards making the activities of this regulator less damaging than seemed to be the danger in the way the Bill was originally constructed. There will be more for us to discuss on that subject later.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I will speak briefly about the growth amendment in my name. Like other noble Lords, I welcome the Government’s recognition of the importance of growth and, generally, I welcome the input from the Minister and the collaborative manner.

I want to make one point quite clear for the record. There are two main reasons for the success of the Premier League. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, pointed out, it has 44% of the best players in the world. Secondly, every game is competitive. Why is that important in this context? Two elements that the regulator can be involved in could impact that. One is the backstop: if there is too much redistribution between the Premier League and the other leagues, the Premier League will no longer be able to attract the best players in the world, and that will impact the attractiveness of the sport. The other element is the parachute payments: if those are impacted to a degree that clubs no longer feel confident to invest in new players if they have just been promoted or are under threat of relegation—making those games less competitive—the Premier League will become less attractive.

That is why it is very important to put on the record that, instead of having one just dimension where the regulator considers the sustainability of clubs—that would always point it towards redistributing more money —it now has the twin objective of growth. That will mean that it needs to counter that with making sure that the Premier League and all of football is very successful—because it can attract the best players because it has the financial resources to do so—and that all clubs want to invest because they know that they have the safety net should they be relegated.

Again, I am very pleased to see that that extra dimension is now added in there. That will be an important point that the regulator will always have by its side as it considers the Bill.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, at the end of the day, the purpose of this first amendment is simply to increase financial sustainability and to require the Secretary of State to do a number of things. The Bill as it stands clearly and simply states the purpose, review and key priorities:

“The purpose of this Act is to protect and promote the sustainability of English football”.


I for one would be content not to put in finance and many other things, because that opens a big can of worms. The Bill then spells out clearly in Clause 2 how to achieve that particular purpose. This amendment would truncate a big piece of work that has been done.

So I still support the idea that the purpose of this Act is to protect, promote and sustain English football. That is a wonderful way of doing it. The amendment would reduce it to financial sustainability and the Secretary of State having powers to do this, that and the other. This particular Bill is really about the independent regulator; do not suddenly introduce the Secretary of State in the purposes. So I would not like to support or go with this amendment, because it is not as careful and clear as the purpose we have at the moment.

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[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to offer praise to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for having a go at a very necessary social responsibility question in his Amendment 3, so I thank him for doing it. His name is also on Amendment 32 in this group, which is a distillation of what I think he would like to say to already successful clubs that are engaged in social responsibility in their area. Amendment 32 would be the one I would go for if a vote were called, whereas the noble Lord’s Amendment 3 has woken us up to the possibility that if you are working in a community and living in a community, you have a responsibility to it—you should not just take the money out.

As a vicar in Tulse Hill near Brixton, when most of our houses were not in very good shape and I was living in a vicarage, I felt that my duty and responsibility to Tulse Hill estate and St Martin’s estate was to engage the local council fully, and it agreed to provide a lot of change as a result. I understand the question of responsibility, but I think Amendment 32 gets what the noble Lord wants in Amendment 3, so he should go for Amendment 32 and not for Amendment 3.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

From this side, I would like to join the recognition from all noble Lords about the social value that clubs bring. I need only to look at my six year-old, who is barely ever not wearing his Cole Palmer shirt, to know that it is much bigger than just an economic interest. Clubs fully understand that, and I think that point was made very well by all noble Lords—the particular examples from my noble friend Lady Brady were very well made.

Clubs realise that they are the leaders in their field, and I think we have all seen countless examples of them doing it again and again. In terms of getting the balance right, though, we shall talk later—the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made the point as well—about wanting to make sure the regulator is light touch. I think the Government get that right in their Amendment 32—again, I think we all agree on the intentions—but the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, may go slightly to the other side of the fence. However, I think we have a united gathering, for want of a better word, around the Government’s amendment. From our side, we very much welcome that, and welcome the continued work of the clubs on the social front as well.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this issue on Report and giving us the opportunity to discuss it further. I also thank him for his very kind words and, not least, for his persuasive arguments over the past few weeks. I am grateful to him and to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for their time on many occasions. I am also grateful to noble Lords from across the House, irrespective of whether they agree with the government position, although I feel that there was a general consensus.

I think that what we are all agreed on across your Lordships’ House, including the Government, is that clubs play a vital role in their local communities. It is a key part of what makes football our national game as well as our local anchor. However, as I previously stated in Committee, we believe that the noble Lord’s amendments would expand the scope of the regulator too far and are potentially overprescriptive, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, expressed much more elegantly than I can.

The regulator should be focused on areas of critical need, addressing genuine market failures rather than regulating on issues that the industry can solve. There are many different ways a club can make a difference and serve its local community. We have heard some fabulous examples throughout the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House, including a number we have heard today, such as that of West Ham during the pandemic, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton mentioned the charity work of her team, Bolton Wanderers.

This is why we are confident that government Amendment 32 strikes the right balance. We want to encourage clubs to continue their great work in their local communities without restricting the manner or form in which they achieve it. For example, clubs could match their community outreach initiatives to the size and resources of their clubs and to the specific communities’ needs and issues, which may vary. This could include the bespoke training for charities and community groups envisaged by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Like him, we agree that the regulator can shine a light on this vital work carried out by clubs up and down the country and therefore encourage more outreach. That is why we have brought forward the government amendment, which would require clubs to report on the actions they are carrying out.

Government Amendment 32 would mean that the regulator includes clubs’ community contributions in its corporate governance code and adds criteria for what constitutes corporate governance for football clubs. I welcome support for the government amendment from my noble friends Lord Bassam and Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who have co-sponsored the amendment. This is very much in the spirit of co-operation and discussion that we have had over the past few weeks. It will be explicit in the Bill that a club’s contribution to the economic and social well-being of its local community is part of its corporate governance. That will ensure that clubs outline how they contribute to their local communities in their corporate governance statement.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, we do not think this is heavy-handed or overregulation; this is, as the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, said, what good clubs already do. If they were not contributing to their local community, they would, however, be expected to explain the reason for that in their statement. Their report would be published online to allow for public scrutiny so they can be held accountable for their actions or inaction. We believe this will encourage transparency and, as with the approach to corporate governance more widely, this will in turn encourage greater action in this space.

Above all, this approach will allow flexibility for each club to comply in accordance with their resources and size and in a way suited to their own community’s needs. Additionally, when the regulator publishes its corporate governance report on clubs, best practice can be shared with the industry. The approach will also ensure that we do not step on the toes of the likes of the FA, which already spearheads good social and community initiatives across football.

I hope that I have reassured the noble Lord that we are taking appropriate action to ensure that this important issue is captured without giving without rise to scope creep. For these reasons, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, and I commend government Amendment 32.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as the debate has progressed, I have become a little more concerned about this. There is clearly the idea that this independent body is going to be a political football—pardon the pun—kicked around at the beginning, in the form of the question of who is acceptable. We have to trust independence a little more, I am afraid. None of us will be happy with everybody all the time, but I think we have to have it.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s Amendment 10 and to support the other amendments in this group. Our amendment is quite modest and uncontroversial, in that we seek to limit the number of individuals appointed to the expert panel to 20. I think we would all agree that 20 is actually quite a large number. It is the figure that was in the Conservative version of the Bill, which for some reason the Government removed. I must be honest, 20 sounds like a lot to me, so to enable that figure to be higher probably leaves us open to jokes such as, “How many regulators does it take to change a light bulb?” Twenty will definitely do it, and I hope the Government will be happy to bear that in mind. There is a serious point here. We talk about wanting a light touch and to remove red tape, but a body of more than 20 would definitely be unwieldy.

I support the amendments tabled by the Minister and others. I welcome transparency being at the heart of the regulator’s work, and it is entirely correct that any potential conflicts should be openly declared.

Finally, there is a consensus that Amendment 8 from my noble friend Lord Maude is a sensible move. As my noble friend said, we are perfectly happy to accept the assurances the Minister gave about subsequent chairs. She is happy for this to happen for the first chair, so the precedent has been set. I therefore hope that it is not a big ask that some assurances are made for future ones, and that there is flexibility in respect of the format.

I will also take the opportunity, given that there has been quite a bit of press speculation, to ask whether there is any update on the timing for announcing the potential candidates and when we might see them in place.

I hope the Minister will either accept this amendment or give an undertaking for Third Reading. If not, my noble friend will have our full support if he wishes to test the opinion of the House.