Football Governance Bill [Lords]

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

Football is not just an important cultural institution in Britain, but one of our great successes and our most successful export. I accept that the Government have only the best of intentions in wanting to set up an independent regulator and I am sure Labour Members genuinely believe this Bill will achieve good things, but I fear they are mistaken.

I fear that the regulator will hinder growth in a sector that should be powering our economy forward instead of being held back by red tape and political interference. The Prime Minister says he wants to reduce the number of quangos yet has set up 41 new ones in his first eight months in office. That is because this Government’s first instinct is always to regulate first and ask questions later. How long will it be until an independent cricket regulator is proposed, and perhaps rugby after that—we could have two, one for union and the other for league?

I believe we should make a different choice: we should accept that the state already does too many things in our country and does many of those things not very well. I believe that we should limit the role of the state to a smaller number of areas and demand that it performs those roles better.

This Bill threatens the future health of English football. Labour’s changes to the remit of the regulator will impose a significant regulatory burden, which will be felt particularly harshly by lower league clubs. The ultimate cost will be borne by the fans. Ticket prices, already rising on average by 7% this season, will rise further. Compliance costs for clubs are estimated at £35 million; that is money that could be spent on football instead of compliance. Is that really a good use of money?

The operational costs of the regulator are estimated to be £97.9 million, all funded through a new levy. Small clubs will struggle under the burden. What the Government are saying is that they want to take £130 million out of the game and spend it on administration. That means that the cost of Labour will yet again be felt by working people, despite what the Government claim.

I am fully aware that it was a Conservative Government who launched the fan-led review into football governance chaired by Dame Tracey Crouch. That review made targeted recommendations for an independent regulator, focused solely on financial stability and protecting club heritage. The previous Football Governance Bill, introduced last year, tried to strike that careful balance. While I would have had questions about that Bill, I have even more significant concerns about this one. That is because Labour’s version is a different beast. It has expanded the regulator’s remit to cover parachute payments, solidarity payments, fan engagement mandates, new spending controls, and unnecessary diversity, equality and inclusion reporting.

This Bill will take £130 million out of football and spend it on administration. It will expand the role of the state into a sector that is commercially successful and where that intervention is unnecessary. It is more Government at a time when we need less, and that is why I shall oppose this Bill tonight.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. As hon. Members can see, a number of Members still wish to speak, so the time limit will be reduced to three minutes after the next speaker, Jon Pearce.

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[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

Fans of Reading football club, including the many in my constituency, will be anxious as they wait for the final game of the season. We are neck and neck with Leyton Orient, and a good result against Barnsley on Saturday—apologies to the Minister for Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock)—will send them to the play-offs. Any football fan knows these jitters; they are an essential part of what makes the beautiful game so beautiful.

The sad reality is that Reading fans are anxious for another, entirely avoidable reason: the stranglehold that their absent owner Dai Yongge has on their club. I will not rehearse it all now; I spoke about it in a Westminster Hall debate a few weeks back, and we have heard a lot tonight about the state of the club. However, with the EFL now finally forcing Dai Yongge to sell up, with a deadline of 5 May, Royals fans really are nervous. The Bill will come too late for Reading fans, but it is so important, because what has happened to Reading should never be allowed to happen to another club.

I want to take this opportunity to praise the Supporters’ Trust at Reading, which has been fantastic in standing with the club and fans throughout this process. I thank the Secretary of State for meeting me and colleagues to discuss the plight of Reading, and I thank the Minister for meeting with us and staff. Staff welcomed the Bill, as have fan groups up and down the country, which makes it all the more shocking that the Tories have U-turned and are proposing to vote against it tonight. What the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) said—that it is all okay because no club has been lost irrevocably—is an indictment, and there is one party that has been completely silent tonight. Where are the Reform MPs? Why are they not in the Chamber standing up for the clubs in their constituencies? It is not good enough.

I will quickly touch on three aspects where the Bill could go further and do what I hope it will: ensure that what happened to Reading is never repeated. The first is the protection of community assets. The Bill rightly protects stadiums, but it would be great to see more action on other community assets, including training grounds. The second is about giving fans a say in their club. It is so important that the Bill is strong, so that bad-faith clubs are not allowed to get away with simply paying lip service to these matters. Finally, it is so important that a fit owners test is included in the Bill, but we need to work out what will happen when bad owners are already in post or slip through the net. I recognise the huge complexities here, but Reading really is a cautionary tale.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

From Reading again: Matt Rodda.

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[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

My constituents in Gateshead have, by and large, been subjected to a lot of dodgy owners in their time. The vast majority of my constituents are Newcastle fans. Many people remember the Mike Ashley era: the grotesque nightmare for Newcastle fans of seeing their football stadium named the Sports Direct at St James’ Park Arena, or being sponsored by Wonga. Even as a Sunderland fan, I found that pretty appalling. But Sunderland were not spared the nightmare of bad ownership. We had owners who used parachute payments—as chronicled in the Netflix nightmare show, “Sunderland ’Til I Die”—to buy a football club. I am therefore delighted to hear that parachute payments are within the scope of the Bill. Frankly, for me, that is a unique selling point of the Bill, not a downside.

A lot of my constituents also support Gateshead, which has had challenges with ownership as well. In 2019, Gateshead football club faced a winding up order, and the club was preserved only thanks to football fans including Neil Pinkerton, now Gateshead’s chairman, and Gateshead Soul. I say a big thank you to them, because it is thanks to Gateshead Soul and the current fan ownership of Gateshead football club that I still get to go to Gateshead matches with my dad, and that my son might one day be able to come and watch Gateshead matches with his dad. Ultimately, that is what football and football clubs are about: a sense of place and community.

Gateshead has faced a huge number of challenges as a football club. Somewhat infamously in the town, we were relegated in 1960, the last time we were in the football league, but we were not relegated on the basis of sporting merit; instead, we were voted out of the football league. Although there were two teams below us—Oldham and Hartlepool—it was Gateshead who were chosen to be kicked out of the football league. I am pleased to say that if Gateshead are successful in beating Southend this weekend and then progress through the play-offs, we will hopefully have an opportunity this season to right 65 years of wrongs and get back into the football league. However, it should never have happened in the first place. It is something that matters a great deal not just to me, but to my wider community.

Opposition Members talk about how football clubs do not disappear, but I am afraid that is simply wrong. The Gateshead who were relegated, Gateshead AFC, disappeared in the 1970s; they were soon followed by Gateshead United, who also disappeared in the 1970s. Those football clubs do not exist any more. The current Gateshead FC is not the same football club as before. That is very important to me because my grandfather, Allen Forster, played for the original Gateshead in the 1950s. In the limited time I have left, I hope the House will allow me to talk about him, because he was passionate about football. He was not only a professional footballer but, in his later years, the secretary of the Northumberland FA.

My hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) and for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) have talked about dementia among footballers. My granddad was a footballer who headed big, heavy, wet leather footballs. He did not care—he would not have it any other way. He was a defender; that is what he did. In his later years, he began to forget things. I once found him driving around the village where I grew up, unable to remember how he got there or even how to drive his car back. It has a profound impact. I will never be able to prove that it was anything to do with heading footballs in the 1950s, but it is what I have always suspected, so I think it is important that it is part of our debate.

I thank the Secretary of State for bringing forward the Bill, which will be a huge benefit to teams like Gateshead.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

It is unusual for me to say this, but, having heard about Southampton earlier, we shall conclude with Portsmouth.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Minister.