Football Governance Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I understand the point that the noble Lord makes, but I am reading the amendment that he has tabled. The third word is “promotes”. What does that mean in terms of an objective criterion for how an individual would promote human rights, and for how he or she would protect the human rights of those involved in football and the club that they were involved with? The amendment is an example of potential regulatory overreach. Seeking to enforce it would be a straightforward prima facie case of ultra vires actions, because it would be unenforceable.

Having said that, I have great sympathy with the noble Lord’s Amendment 200 on state ownership of football clubs. We will have a good debate on that. However, on Amendment 178, the noble Lord is gilding the lily. Although he has good intentions, it is not a workable amendment. It would damage the interests of football clubs and be difficult for the regulator properly to enforce.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 178. Indeed, I have come in specifically to speak on the issue of modern slavery and I declare an interest as a co-chair of the modern slavery parliamentary group and vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

I profoundly disagree with what the previous noble Lord said about individual ownership fitness criteria in relation to modern slavery. Under the Modern Slavery Act 2015—Section 56, I think—it is wrong to have a supply chain that operates on the exploitation of those who provide the goods for a company. So, if you have an individual owning a company who makes his money on the exploitation of people in the supply chain, it should not be all that difficult to discover it. That is absolutely where the regulator should be promoting modern slavery issues when he looks at the individual fitness of a person who wants to take over a club.

I see the point on human rights, although we have the Human Rights Act and it is fairly clear under that Act what the rights are of various people that might be impinged by an individual who did not have appropriate fitness criteria. I can see—

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the noble and learned Baroness for most generously giving way. If we have statutory sanctions already in place to deal with this behaviour, whether it is the Human Rights Act or the Modern Slavery Act, surely she is proving my case that this is regulatory overreach. My point is that we do not need further legislation when it is already covered by the existing legislation.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I do not want to deal with human rights. I have come here to deal with modern slavery. I disagree with the noble Lord. The problem is that Section 56 is voluntary and not mandatory. Consequently, companies are not obliged to follow what happens. In a 2019 review led by Lord Field of Birkenhead, of which I was a part, we picked up the fact that it was not mandatory. Consequently, if the regulator does not have to think about modern slavery, he would not have to look to see whether or not an individual taking over a club is making his money in a wholly inappropriate and extremely wicked way. Because it is not mandatory, it is important that someone else looks at it. If it were mandatory, I would entirely agree with the noble Lord.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

Is it the case that the reason it is not mandatory is that Parliament did not think it should be? Therefore, the question is: why should it be imposed in this context and not generally?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Section 56 says that it is utterly wrong to have companies that make money by exploiting people down the chain—consequently, it is wrong. But, for reasons I do not know but can guess, the last Government, who put in place this very good bit of legislation, presumably did not want to offend businesses. I understand that there are problems in making it mandatory but, if somebody is making money that they are going to put into a football club by exploiting other people down the chain, that is something we should not want our clubs to be involved in.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I was unable to join your Lordships at Second Reading and have decided to add my name, and speak, only to amendments on areas where I have relevant knowledge. I speak as somebody who has for a number of years been a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy and Human Rights in the Gulf, and also led the first ever debate on sportswashing in your Lordships’ House in March of this year. Therefore, I will speak in favour of the amendments I have added my name to—Amendment 185 and in particular Amendment 193 from my noble friend Lord McNally, who cannot be here in his place today. I also strongly support Amendment 200 on state entities.

It is interesting listening to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and other noble Lords talk about human rights and the Human Rights Act. Let us be clear. What the regulator will be doing here is having a statutory responsibility for ensuring that a takeover of a club takes into consideration human rights issues. Under the Human Rights Act an individual can bring a case based on their feeling that their human rights have been undermined. If you are in Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the UAE, you cannot bring that case as an individual whose human rights have been undermined, particularly when it comes to a state entity potentially taking over a football club. That is what these amendments are about. Rather than just financial issues, when it comes to a takeover of a club, as a statutory point of principle human rights should be looked at by the regulator independently to decide whether a potential director is a fit and proper person to be able to take over and manage an English football club. That is what this debate is about.

It is interesting that certain issues in the Bill are specific, such as money laundering, so the Government have accepted that the regulator can look at specific issues. These amendments ask that another area specified in the Bill should be human rights abuses carried out not just in the UK but elsewhere in the world, particularly when it is a state entity or an individual linked to a state entity. The reason why this is important is that the concept of sportswashing, where sports clubs are bought particularly to try to influence soft power, is really taking hold. The previous Government understood that when it came to taking over media in this country. There was an issue to do with how state-entity organisations, including their potential human rights abuses, actually stopped takeover of the media.

I am sure that the Minister, when it comes to arguing the Government’s case if they are not minded to do this, will look at the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 as the cloak of respectability, where the powers already exist for this to be looked at. Well, let us be clear. These were introduced with the aim of holding individuals and entities accountable for human rights abuses. However, these regulations are not proving efficient in stopping foreign Government entities from owning Premier League clubs, or any league club. The Newcastle deal, where the Saudi Public Investment Fund took over Newcastle, happened 15 months after these regulations came into force.

These regulations target individuals and specific entities, not entire Governments or sovereign wealth funds. This is a critical loophole which we can see in the case of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which now owns Newcastle United and operates a state-controlled entity that presents itself as independent of government. As a result, it evades direct scrutiny under the sanctions framework. There is also a lack of transparency with these regulations, because decisions about who we sanction are not clear and are at the whim of an individual Minister. That is why I believe there should be the provisions in the Bill laid down in Amendment 200 and the other amendments which I put my name to.

The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations lack the reach and enforcement power to prevent foreign state entities linked to human rights abuses owning English Premier League clubs. That is why these amendments are required. Otherwise, I believe that our national game, football, will potentially remain a platform for authoritarian regimes or individuals who have committed human rights abuses and will be used as a sportswashing exercise that will tarnish their own reputations and image and not defend our national game.