Football Governance Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Beith

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his introduction to what I am going to say about Berwick Rangers. I declare an interest as having for some years been the honorary president of Berwick Rangers Football Club, which has existed for 143 years. During virtually the whole of that time, it has played in Scottish leagues, despite its stadium being in England. My amendment is there simply to secure clarification, which I am confident the Minister can give—although clarification would not necessarily survive subsequent amendment of the parts of the Bill to which I shall refer.

It appears to me that none of the regulatory provisions applies to a team in a competition that has not been specified by the Secretary of State. Under Clause 2(3), the Secretary of State does not have power to specify a competition in which the majority of the teams are not English teams. Thus, the Secretary of State could not designate the Scottish League, or the Lowland League or the Scottish Cup, in all of which Berwick play or have played.

Furthermore, Clause 15 makes it clear that operating licences are required only for a club operating a relevant team, which is defined in Clause 2(1) as a team participating “in a specified competition”. That would not apply to Berwick Rangers, because competitions in which they play could not, under the Bill, be specified. However, references in the same clause to a club with a stadium in England does raise in people’s minds the question about whether the Bill could be extended to Berwick—which would not be the Government’s intention, I am quite sure. Not only do they not seek to extend the Bill to Berwick Rangers, I do not think they are trying to move into the world of Scottish football, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Reid is well aware, is quite distinct in many respects, some of them desirable, some of them perhaps less so.

It has been the privilege of Berwick-upon-Tweed to play in Scottish football for almost the whole of its existence. Indeed, it has led to occasions on which we have played Glasgow Celtic, when I was able to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Reid, who came with the team for that fixture. We have played Glasgow Rangers on a number of occasions, defeating them in 1967 and holding them to a draw in the Scottish Cup on another occasion. To have a club playing such distinguished teams is obviously an asset to a town and, if there is any regulatory structure to be put in place, it should be the same one as for other teams in the Scottish league in which they play.

Berwick’s notable history is a very powerful case for making sure that any legislation deals properly with it. I am confident that the Government have no intention of causing us problems in this respect, but it would be helpful if the Minister could give us some clarification and would keep the matter in mind if there is any redrafting of this part of the Bill.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I just want to make a point that has emerged in this short debate—or has become obvious to me in it. The first thing is to say to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that I take issue with his characterisation that England is “littered” with clubs from Wales. There are only four. There is another one at level 6, Merthyr, but that is not the point I want to make. I am concerned, looking at Clause 2, that subsection (3) refers to

“teams that are members of … or … participate in”

competitions being

“exclusively or predominantly English teams”.

However, Clause 2(4) says a team

“is an ‘English team’ if the ground at which the team customarily plays its home matches is in England”.

These are contradictory because, as we have heard, there are two Welsh clubs in the Championship, one in League One and one in League Two. So I think perhaps on Report there will have to be an amendment, which I am happy to bring forward if it is helpful to the Minister.

I also take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Beith, makes about Berwick Rangers, who made a contribution to Scottish football over many years. I was sorry to see them drop out of the Scottish League and I hope that they will soon be back. But they do play in Scottish football still at a lower level. It is unusual; UEFA, the governing body for European football, is very strict on clubs not playing their matches in another country. The practice of Welsh clubs playing in the Welsh FA Cup and representing their teams and cities in Europe was stopped by UEFA. Now it is only the much smaller Welsh clubs that are able to do that, because UEFA said that clubs had to choose which jurisdiction they were playing under. The only other example I can think of within the UK is Derry City. For reasons that might be quite obvious, since Derry is right on the border of the Republic of Ireland, they play in the League of Ireland, not the NI Football League.