Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor: Citizenship

Debate between Lord Pannick and Lord Wood of Anfield

Thursday 17th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that. She is absolutely right that attacks on all journalists are a matter of grave concern. We are very concerned by the high death toll of journalists in Gaza. Reporters covering conflicts should be and must be afforded protection under international humanitarian law. Access to conflict zones is vital for the media to carry out their role effectively—a role that we all depend on.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister rightly recognised that, in Israel, independent filmmakers can and do produce work that is highly critical of their own Government. Are the Government taking any steps to ensure that independent filmmakers can do precisely that in Gaza, the West Bank or any other state without suffering appalling consequences? Can I also recommend to the Minister and, indeed, to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, the new fifth season of the award-winning Israeli drama “Fauda”, which deals with the appalling events of 7 October and their aftermath?

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I am a “Fauda” fan, and I have not got to the fifth season yet, but I will do; I appreciate the pointer. On establishing freedom for artistic expression and freedom of speech in the West Bank and Gaza, there is, unfortunately, limited ability for us to influence what is happening at the moment in Gaza, but in the West Bank we are working with the Palestinian Authority to help cement reforms and support the development of democracy and the rule of law.

Israel and Palestine

Debate between Lord Pannick and Lord Wood of Anfield

Wednesday 9th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. He obviously speaks with great authority and passionate interest in this subject. I agree that we should be supporting moderates—not intervening politically to support them, but supporting moderate voices across Israeli society and within the Palestinian Authority. Serious reform needs to be done in the Palestinian area as well.

I want to be clear that, while obviously a new Prime Minister and a new Cabinet are in place, the reason for the timing of this announcement is a sharp rise in settler violence; an accelerating expansion of settlements; a new tender process in the E1 settlement area that was issued in August—which, by the way, completes a week before the Israeli election; and a consistent failure by many of those in power in Israel to hold those who perpetrate violence to account. That is the explanation for the timing.

Israel’s elections will proceed according to Israeli law, and we will not intervene in Israeli politics. We have to make decisions based on the facts that we see. The new Government have come in and made an assessment, and that is why we responded when we did.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Will the Minister recognise the wisdom of the statement yesterday by the much-respected president of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog, who said that what is needed in this context is constructive dialogue, not gesture politics. Is it not therefore most unfortunate that, since the appointment of Prime Minister Burnham in July, he is yet even to speak to Prime Minister Netanyahu?

[Lord Wood of Anfield]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. Dialogue is, of course, fundamental to the way forward in this as in any comparable crisis, and in any complex situation like this. President Herzog urged dialogue. When it comes to the expansion of settlements, though, there seems to be precious little dialogue going on domestically to restrain an accelerating and deeply disturbing trend. I will give the House some statistics: as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said, there were about 250,000 settlers in 1993 at the time of Oslo, but in 2026 there are 750,000. There are six settler violence incidents per day, with 65 Palestinian communities expelled in their entirety since 2023. I absolutely agree with the need for dialogue, and I think dialogue should be the first port of call between Israel’s Government and the settler community.

I am sorry, I forget the second part of the noble Lord’s question. I do apologise.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Pannick and Lord Wood of Anfield

Committee stage
Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, posed a number of questions about the operation of Part 3 in relation to licensing functions. I will add one further question, to which I do not necessarily expect an answer today. Pursuant to UEFA regulations and delegation from the FA, the Premier League currently licenses clubs for the purposes of their participation in UEFA club competitions. I declare an interest as a season ticket holder at Arsenal Football Club—I realise that some of the other clubs supported by noble Lords would not have an interest in this matter for various reasons. My question is: will this function of the Premier League be affected by Clause 15 or any of the other clauses in Part 3?

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 168 and 169, which connect with some of the themes raised by the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Moynihan. One of the most sensitive areas of this regime is the imposition of discretionary licence conditions on clubs. The purpose of my Amendment 169 is to say that the regulator can introduce such conditions only after being satisfied that the conditions would

“not be met by the club complying with all rules, requirements and restrictions which … will be imposed by a competition organiser”.

Essentially, this does not go as far as full delegation to leagues such as the Premier League—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the broad criticism of that—but would introduce in one specific area what might be thought of as a limited principle of subsidiarity for the imposition of discretionary licence conditions.

The main purpose is to ensure that the regulator observes the norm of good regulatory co-operation—with not just the Premier League but all the leagues—by looking first to the adequacy of league arrangements in response to specific problems that will be the most politically and competitively sensitive, before stepping in and intervening with club-specific conditions attached. Why? It is because subsidiarity is a good principle of regulation where it is not inconsistent with the application of the intent of the law; also, I believe that it will foster the habit of regulatory co-operation more generally—not just on discretionary licence conditions. It will avoid duplication and confusion in regimes, and it will equip the regulator with a bit more political protection when it comes to the charge of political interference, because it can say, “We’ve looked to the leagues to step in first before stepping in”.

In the case of the Premier League specifically—let us face it, that is where the rubber hits the road on this issue most of all—it gives it, first, a chance to maintain system-wide and league-wide governance integrity before club-specific rules arrive, rather than risking the intervention of the regulator, leading to fragmentation between clubs. Secondly, it allows differences in application, inside the Premier League, of the general IFR rules in ways that account for differences in risk, finance and strategy, which we have heard discussed many times in Committee.

An example is capital buffers. The regulator will want to require cash reserves, and in the case of the Premier League, you want to take account of those areas where there are genuine differences from lower league clubs—differences in player registration rights, meaning players are more liquid assets, for example. The Premier League could design league-wide rules that are sensitive to these different conditions. The amendment does not say that Premier League rules would trump regulator rules, but where there are concerns, the regulator would look first to the Premier League to modify league-wide rules that respond to the concerns before the regulator directly intervenes.

Another scenario might be an issue of liquidity management inside a Premier League club. This amendment would point to the regulator first looking to the Premier League to take steps such as enhancing its monitoring systems, developing new metrics, et cetera, before it goes to individual licence conditions. This, again, would ensure that the league could retain the integrity of league-wide rules, rather than Premier League clubs having individual regimes as and when they trip up over certain rules.

What if the regulator wanted to intervene with a specific club as a matter of urgency? It could still do this. What if the regulator thought Premier League rules were inadequate to the task and insisted on imposing a licence condition that cut across and undermined league rules? Ultimately, it could still do that too; in fact, it may think that was the right thing to do. But what the amendment would do is introduce a prior stage that looks to the leagues to make league-wide governance adjustment first. In the name of good regulation, that seems to me a sensible, limited amendment.