Football: European Super League

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right, and this will be covered in our fan-led review. I think the House will share my confidence in Tracey Crouch as its chair, as the former Minister for Sport is very well placed to lead this.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I react with some horror to the proposals for yet another regulator, which will end up simply being gamed by the big clubs, as most regulators tend to be. Instead I second the remarks of my noble friend Lady Altmann, who said that there should be a fiscal solution to this problem by way of imposing a non-dodgeable tax on sports clubs joining closed leagues, which I suggest should be equivalent to 100% of their broadcasting revenues. Would my noble friend be willing to put this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is great elegance in the apparent simplicity of my noble friend’s suggestions, but I just repeat that in the first instance, it is for the football authorities to deal with this and respond to the outpouring that we have heard from across the country.

British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Vaizey and all the others who have brought this Bill thus far. I support it, but I want to put it in the context of our recent fiscal history.

It was Gordon Brown, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, who sought to increase the Government’s spending power through the great Ponzi scheme of forcing capital expenditure off the government balance sheet and on to the books of quasi-governmental bodies that could ill bear it. The effect was that the bodies required to take on their own debt found themselves paying a much higher rate of interest than they would have done had the Government been the borrower— understandably so, because their credit rating was much lower. We still live with the hospitals and other cherished institutions that were burdened by that debt, the cost of which is far higher than it need have been. In some ways, this Bill is the last knockings of that process. To the British Library board, it is an anomaly that it is denied a freedom granted to other museums and great collections. Perhaps we should be asking, rather, to whose benefit those other institutions were given the power in the first place.

None the less, given where we are, this is not a bad Bill. On the face of it, it does not oblige the British Library to borrow and, in practice—despite, if I may say so, the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone—it is likely to borrow only from the Government, for which bank would lend to it? Although its land and, in my view, very fine building—by Colin St John Wilson—are valued in the books at more than £500 million, they are in effect worthless as collateral. It is hardly likely that the Government would allow the national collection of books and manuscripts to be seized by a bank to redeem a defaulted loan—although if they did, it would be the jumble sale of the century.

For all that, should one oppose this modest Bill? I think not. The British Library is held in such high regard that it would be like depriving a revered aunt of her favourite sherry. I shall not use my vote to refuse her that tipple—but let us hope that it does not go to her head.

Public Service Broadcasting Online

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have to say that I do not recognise the description the noble Lord gives of either my noble friends behind me or those in the other place. We absolutely recognise the importance of the investment in our creative industries of more than £2.5 billion a year, and we welcome that and the ecosystem it creates.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

In my Neanderthal fashion, I have found that BBC Radio 3 has been the mainstay of my life for nearly 50 years, and it is a fine example of public service broadcasting—but in recent years, it has been infected by a sort of relentless “wokeness”, which is a tendency of public service broadcasting. So, while my noble friend is correctly promoting the prominence of PSB, will she also tell us what she will do to try to ensure that it meets a broader spectrum of cultural views across the country?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think that the new director-general, and the most recent comments from Ofcom, support my noble friend’s final comments about breadth of views and voices—but, as he will know, the BBC is editorially independent, so decisions in relation to Radio 3 rest with it.

National Trust Acts

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Those views were set out clearly by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State when he wrote to all arm’s-length bodies earlier this year and talked about history being “ridden with moral complexity” and the need to understand that. The question in this case is about the primary charitable purpose that the National Trust is pursuing.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the National Trust has become something of a national monopoly, at least in the country house market, largely due to the very large endowment of properties to it by the state over the years in lieu of tax. Will my noble friend agree to undertake an assessment of the benefits that might accrue from splitting it into two or more organisations, with a view to encouraging competition and increasing the variety of visitor experience, which I think I can fairly say has become rather samey?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sorry to disappoint my noble friend, but we have no plans currently to do such a review. The National Trust conducts its own governance review every 10 years and any external review of its activities should be left to the Charity Commission.