Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Committee stage
Monday 2nd December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 12 in this group. Before I do so, I think it important to express mild regret at what the noble Lord the Government Chief Whip said before we started our proceedings today. This is an incredibly important Bill, which, for the first time, imports into our much-loved national game a costly system of regulation. It is a very long Bill. There are numerous amendments being tabled, mostly by Members on the government side. We know that the House of Commons these days gives scant scrutiny to important Bills. It is therefore incredibly important that this House in Committee gives the Bill the detailed scrutiny that is required. If the five days that the Government have rather meagrely assigned to this Committee stage are not enough, I hope they will be quick to extend the proceedings so that we can give proper scrutiny. Much hangs on this. The more we have debated the detail of the Bill, the more issues have arisen, giving rise to greater concerns—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I was here last Wednesday, waiting quite a long time for my amendments to come up in group 3, and I sat through an awful lot of what I felt was hypocritical stuff from this side of the Chamber, given that this was a government Bill under the last Government. Not that much in it has changed, yet there was a lot of discussion on this side. Listening to that was agony, so I am quite keen to get through the Bill. Of course we should debate it, but not at the sort of length that is, I would say, rather self-indulgent.

[Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)]

I empathise with the noble Baroness’s pain, but this is what legislative scrutiny is about. It is about looking in detail at what is proposed and ensuring that we do not pass into law measures that will inflict damage on something that is both an incredibly important economic activity but also a source of great pleasure to millions in this country and more than a billion worldwide. So I hope the noble Baroness will suffer less and we will move as quickly as is appropriate in these circumstances.

We debated last time whether the ambition for football to be sustainable was sufficiently ambitious for the state of English football, and I think many of us in different parts of the House concluded that it was not so. However, if the Government insist that sustainability is all that is going to be sought then it is important that we define what is meant by sustainability in a way that does not circumscribe the mindset and the approach of the regulator that is going to be established.

Football is a very successful industry and activity. As we have heard, it remains the case that the Premier League is the most successful league in the world and the Championship is the sixth most successful in Europe, and we need to make sure that we do first do no harm but, secondly, because we know that there is no such thing as steady state any more, if it does not continue to grow and improve then it will be going backwards. So it seems right that, in addition to the addition suggested in my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s amendment, we should look at the four elements that I propose should be added to the definition of “sustainability”.

First, it should continue

“to be globally competitive in relation to audience and quality”.

That is important because you cannot take anything for granted. The success of English football has been earned, but it has been harder over a period so we need to be extremely careful; this is a precious asset and we need to be concerned all the time with competitiveness. The costs that are proposed to be imposed on English football through the creation of this regulator—both the costs to be recovered through the levy and the compliance costs for clubs of accommodating themselves to this regime—will in themselves be a blow to competitiveness, so there needs to be at least an equal and opposite concern to offset that. Competitiveness is going to be incredibly important in relation to audience and quality.

Secondly, it should continue

“to attract significant domestic and foreign investment”.

My own club, Tottenham, has invested hugely in a world-class new stadium; other clubs need to do the same. A huge amount of investment will be required in upgrading stadia around the country. They are extremely expensive commercial assets that are of great importance to their local communities as well. They are community assets that tend to attract in their wake, in their slipstream, other regeneration investment into the communities, often some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country. It will be extraordinarily important that the regulator has in mind at all times that the return on those big investments that will be needed should not be imperilled by the way that the regulator itself operates.

Lastly, it should continue

“to grow economically in terms of commercial revenues”.

All these are fragile. None of these revenue streams—from broadcasting or from the asset and enterprise values—can be taken for granted. The success of English football has to be earned, every day of every week of every season there is, so this will be very important.

Given these approaches, I cannot feel that anyone will quarrel with these being elements that the regulator should think about and seek at all times to prioritise. What is the objection to them appearing in the Bill, since that shows the importance that Parliament attaches to these considerations? That can in some way help to make a difference to the way in which the regulator is set up, because much of that is left unclear. Much of it will be at the discretion of the board and its chair, yet to be appointed, of the regulator. This Committee should have no difficulty in supporting having these factors placed squarely on the face of the Bill. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will take this away and think carefully about whether it would a be way of improving a Bill that currently leaves much to be desired.