Football Governance Bill

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Rosie Winterton

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I also rise to welcome the Bill and congratulate the Government on bringing it forward. I have to admit that we on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee were wondering whether this day would ever come, but the Government appear to have been inspired by the mighty Portsmouth football club, who last week secured victory and promotion to the championship with a last-minute goal. It is edge-of-the-seat sporting drama like that that makes British football the best in the world, right from the very bottom to the top—from the millionaires at the top of the premier league to grassroots clubs such as Gosport Borough, who have treated fans to a romping season. They play in the southern football league and sit tantalisingly in the promotion zone. Of course, there is also Fleetlands FC, who are pushing for promotion in division 1 of the Wessex league.

Here in Parliament, we have also been kept on the edge of our seats, eagerly awaiting this Bill that could potentially reshape the landscape of football governance. Over the past few years, instability off the pitch, not the action on it, has increasingly grabbed the headlines. Soaring levels of debt have led to the collapse of clubs such as Bury and Macclesfield, an experience shared by so many fans in communities up and down the country devastated by the demise of their beloved clubs. The debt problem is getting worse: premier league clubs have reported staggering losses of over £1.2 billion over the past 12 months alone, and the figures in the championship are looking just as shocking, with Leicester losing £90 million in 2022-23.

Fans of clubs such as Everton and Reading are sick of seeing them mismanaged through the reckless decision making of irresponsible owners. Just last week, the House heard of the pain of Torquay United fans, whose club has entered into administration following years of flawed business plans. Unreliable owners who do not have the interests of their club or its fans at heart, and are prepared to play fast and loose with their finances and their future, should be held accountable. As a lifelong Pompey fan, I feel their pain: after a series of disastrous owners, it took a fan-led buy-out in 2012 to save our club, demonstrating that our fans were literally prepared to pay up in order to stay up—or, in fact, to stay afloat—such was their dedication and commitment.

The failure of English football’s wealthiest clubs, those in the premier league, to agree a financial distribution deal is putting the fabric of our national game at risk. This situation has dragged on for far too long, and it has been especially disappointing to see the Premier League spending time and money lobbying MPs and peers against the Bill, rather than lobbying its clubs to secure a fair deal for English football. Decisions are repeatedly being made in the interests of the top of the football pyramid without a thought for the vital ecosystem that generates its lifeblood. Scrapping FA cup replays may be welcome in some quarters, but once again it is a characteristically messy number, denying lower-league sides that all-important financial boost. We need a change of tactics, so I know that fans across the country will welcome these plans to introduce a regulator and attempt to bring some stability to the game.

Of course, that is not to say that the new independent regulator will be the silver bullet that the Government have sometimes presented it as. The problems faced by football are extensive and complex, and there are still some areas where I would like to see more clarification and further work as the Bill progresses. I will talk through a couple of those now.

Widening financial distribution across the football pyramid will be the ultimate test of the Bill. Last year, our Committee urged the Premier League and the EFL to urgently agree a new deal to redistribute a higher proportion of revenue throughout the football pyramid. We recommended that in the absence of such a deal, the Government should expedite their plans to establish a regulator with the power to mandate a solution. I am pleased to see that the Bill aims to address this issue by giving the independent regulator the backstop power to intervene in the distribution of broadcast revenue, but that power is subject to certain thresholds being met, and it excludes the controversial parachute payments within the pot that we have already heard about. We need reassurance that the regulator has the teeth to trigger its own backstop powers and impose a fair settlement, when and where it deems necessary and without any undue delay. We also need an indication from the Government of how the regulator will curb the reckless spending of clubs trying to keep up with those in receipt of parachute payments.

Enhanced financial regulation across the football pyramid is really welcome. It will improve the resilience of clubs, encourage sensible financial decisions and ensure that risks are mitigated. However, given that the regulator will not oversee regulations such as the Premier League profitability and sustainability rules or the squad cost controls that are set to replace those rules, the Government need to provide clarity on how both systems will work alongside each other and reassurance as to why they deemed it unsuitable for the regulator to take on this responsibility.

When it comes to owners, I am really pleased to see that the regulator will establish a new, strengthened owners and directors test to ensure that a club’s custodians are suitable for the role. I welcome the fact that the Bill confers enforcement powers on the independent regulator to protect clubs from any harm that an irresponsible owner or officer might cause and to be able to remove them, but we need further detail on what precisely will happen to those clubs that have an unsuitable owner removed. We need to understand how the regulator would remove another potential Dai Yongge from Reading without compromising the future of the club and ultimately punishing its fans. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain how the Bill will safeguard clubs that find themselves in the position of having no owner, no financial safety net to keep them going and potentially no prospective buyers on the horizon.

We have already heard from Members that football is nothing without its fans, and I am pleased to see the Bill placing fan engagement requirements on the clubs as well as requiring them to comply with heritage protections and to seek approval for the sale or relocation of their home ground. But the Bill does not go quite so far as requiring fans to have a golden share, as recommended in the excellent fan-led review led by my hon. Friend—and real-life friend—the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch). At this point, it would be terribly remiss of me not to add my congratulations to her and the whole team who have put an enormous amount of brilliant work into getting the Bill to this stage. As the Bill progresses, I want to be sure that it provides a way for fans to share their concerns about their club with the regulator and to know that they will not be dismissed. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has agreed to hold a pre-appointment hearing with the chair of the independent regulator once the Government have a preferred candidate, and I expect that this will be one of the first questions we will be asking them.

Ultimately, there are two main questions that I want to see answered by this legislation. First, does it deliver for football and its fans? Secondly, to what extent will it prevent some of the distressing times that clubs like Reading are currently undergoing? There is more to be done on the Bill—and indeed the guidance that goes alongside it—to ensure that it fully meets those aims. We cannot overlook the huge economic value, the sense of community cohesion, and the moments of both local and national pride that football gives us; nor can we ignore the vital importance of a football pyramid that delivers at every single level. I know that some, including the Premier League, have concerns about unintended consequences, so the Select Committee has written to them to give them a chance to set out exactly what they would change—because there have been plenty of chances for the sceptics to prove that this Bill is not needed. Given that this is one of the biggest overhauls in the history of English football, we must do it right.

I congratulate Ministers, particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), on getting the Bill to this stage. I look forward to his responses and to hearing what more can be done to secure a clear win—and, just like Pompey, can we do it well before the end of the season?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am putting in place a seven-minute time limit to ensure that everybody gets as equal a chance to speak as possible.

National Carers Week

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Rosie Winterton

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I reiterate my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to have this debate today. I thank both the Minister and the Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), for showing that they both understand and care about this issue. I also thank all the Members who have taken part: the hon. Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken).

Many Members shared their own personal experiences; I kicked off by talking about mine, when my mum cared for my grandmother who lived with dementia. I think it is only now that I am probably at a similar age to my mum in that caring role that I fully understand what she was going through and the toll that it would have taken on her own wellbeing. I put on record today—because I have never had the opportunity to do so—my thanks to her, and to the 7,000 carers in my constituency of Gosport and the millions across the UK. They deserve our thanks.

In many cases, what those carers do is so invisible. I know that they do not do it for thanks—they do it because they love the people who they care for—but that does not mean that we should take it for granted. It means that we need to recognise them and value them, and to put our money where our mouth is when we do that. It means that we need to provide them with support, funding and respite, and with everything they need to continue doing their role, because it is thankless and hard. I know that they probably would not have it any other way, but that does not mean that it should be done for free. The final thing I will say to the Minister today is that we need a national carers strategy to bring together all that good work, and to demonstrate to carers that we do care.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I know that the young people from Balby Central Primary Academy will have enjoyed the contributions made about carers, particularly young carers.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered National Carers Week and respite for carers.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Rosie Winterton

Report stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I remind hon. Members about the six-minute advisory time limit.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a great relief to see the Online Safety Bill finally reach this stage. It seems like a long time since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) kicked it off with the ambitious aim of making the UK the safest place in the world to be online. Although other countries around the world had picked at the edges of it, we were truly the first country in the world to set out comprehensive online safety legislation. Since then, other jurisdictions have started and, in some cases, concluded this work. As one of the relay of Ministers who have carried this particular baton of legislation on its very long journey, I know we are tantalising close to getting to the finish line. That is why we need to focus on that today, and I am really grateful to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for confirming that the Opposition are going to support the Bill on Third Reading.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this, because we do need the Bill to be future-proofed to deal with some of the recently emerging threats to women and others that the online world has offered.

The potential threat of online harms is everyday life for most children in the modern world. Before Christmas, I received an email from my son’s school highlighting a TikTok challenge encouraging children to strangle each other until they passed out. This challenge probably did not start on TikTok, and it certainly is not exclusive to the platform, but when my children were born I never envisaged a day when I would have to sit them down and warn them about the potential dangers of allowing someone else to throttle them until they passed out. It is terrifying. Our children need this legislation.

I welcome the Government support for amendment 84 to clause 11, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), to ban content that advertises so-called conversion therapies for LGBTQ+ people. Someone’s sexuality and who they love is not something to be cured, and unscrupulous crooks should not be able to profit from pushing young people towards potentially sinister and harmful treatments.

I really sympathise with the aims behind new clause 2, on senior executive liability. It is vital that this regime has the teeth to protect children and hold companies to account. I know the 10% of annual global turnover maximum fine is higher than some of the global comparisons, and certainly having clear personal consequences for those responsible for enforcing the law is an incentive for them to do it properly, but there is clearly a balance to strike. We must make sure that sanctions are proportionate and targeted, and do not make the UK a less attractive place to build a digital business. I am really pleased to hear Ministers’ commitment to a final amendment that will strike that really important balance.

I am concerned about the removal of measures on legal but harmful content. I understand the complexity of defining them, but other measures, including the so-called triple shield, do not offer the same protections for vulnerable adults or avoid the cliff edge when someone reaches the age of 18. That particularly concerns me for adults with special educational needs or disabilities. The key point here is that, if the tragic cases of Molly Russell and dozens of young people like her teach us anything, it is that dreadful, harmful online content cannot be defined strictly by what is illegal, because algorithms do not differentiate between harmful and harmless content. They see a pattern and they exploit it.

We often talk about the parallels between the online and offline world—we say that what is illegal online should be illegal offline, and vice versa—but in reality the two worlds are fundamentally different. In the real world, for a young person struggling with an eating disorder or at risk of radicalisation, their inner demons are not reinforced by everyone they meet on the street, but algorithms are echo chambers. They take our fears and our paranoia, and they surround us with unhealthy voices that normalise and validate them, however dangerous and however hateful, glamorising eating disorders, accelerating extremist, racist and antisemitic views and encouraging violent misogyny on incel sites.

That is why I worry that the opt-out option suggested in the Bill simply does not offer enough protection: the lines between what is legal and illegal are too opaque. Sadly, it feels as though this part of the Bill has become the lightning rod for those who think it will result in an overly censorious approach. However, we are where we are. As the Molly Rose Foundation said, the swift implementation of the Bill must now be the priority. Time is no longer on our side, and while we perfect this vast, complicated and inherently imperfect legislation, the most unspeakable content is allowed to proliferate in the online world every single day.

Finally, I put on record the exhaustive efforts made by the incredible team at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Home Office, who brought this Bill to fruition. If there was ever an example of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, this is it, and right now we need to get this done. The stakes in human terms simply could not be any higher.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Kirsty Blackman.