Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Debate between Edward Leigh and Linsey Farnsworth

Friday 11th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Linsey Farnsworth]

I perhaps misspoke; my understanding is that it is to align with the football calendar rather than the start of the season. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that in due course. We are now on a countdown to the start of the football season. My husband, being a season ticket holder for Coventry City FC, is very disappointed that we will be on holiday at the start of the football season in August. Obviously it is unlikely that we will get the provisions in place by then, but the important thing is to get the legislation in place in time for when we co-host the next European finals, which is in 2028. I think we should be in good time for that. A fixed date of two months after Royal Assent would be sufficient time to get everything in place.

As I mentioned earlier, the Bill has a deterrent element to it. Baroness Casey’s recommendation was to make sure that it is a proper deterrent. We need to be ready, and we need to make sure that as soon as the legislation kicks off, we send a clear message that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated any longer and people will not be able to get away with it. I hope I have provided a thorough and detailed response that satisfies the hon. Member for Christchurch, and I respectfully urge him to withdraw his amendment.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). It seems to me that the way that he introduced his very modest amendment to remove the word “attempts” was entirely proper. I support the Bill, but I think it is quite dangerous to introduce an offence into criminal law of just attempting to enter a football ground, because it is quite difficult to gather evidence of or police that.

I assure the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) that I do not want to delay matters much. I will keep my remarks short, because I support the general principle of the Bill. I support making it a criminal offence to actually enter a designated football match; that is in the Bill’s long title and is something we can all agree on. Widening the scope of the Bill to include attempts to enter a ground is quite dangerous.

I assume that the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will be rejected, but I wonder whether it would unduly weaken the Bill if they were passed. After all, the Bill is about having a legal deterrent to crowds of people seeking to force their way into a football ground, but there may be many other ways in which people attempt to get into a football ground that are not riotous disorder and may be quite honest in intention.

When creating criminal law, it is dangerous to get into aspects of intention—mens rea, as lawyers call it—rather than, in this case, the actual legal fact of entering a football ground. If the law were not changed, someone engaging in this bad behaviour could be punished only by ejection from the stadium, but there are criminal laws of trespass and many other ways in which this very bad behaviour can be identified. When Baroness Casey identified in her review the absence of specific offences as a weakness in stadium enforcement, I am not sure whether she was referring to such minor infringements as attempting to enter a football ground. I will say more about that in a moment.

I know that the key motivation for the Bill was the Euro 2020 final and the chaos at Wembley when hundreds of ticketless individuals stormed the venue, overwhelmed stewards and endangered legitimate fans. That mass unauthorised entry posed real risks, but that was really a riot. That is quite a different situation from somebody on their own, or perhaps a father with his children, attempting to get into a football ground when they may not have a ticket. They may have been mis-sold a ticket—they may believe that they have a genuine ticket. They may have been sold, at vast cost, a ticket by a ticket tout, but apparently now they will face the full force of the criminal law.

Under the Bill, police and courts will be able to ban repeat offenders, as it makes offenders eligible for football banning orders. Those are quite serious consequences for people who may not be rioters at all; they may just be genuine football fans. We are talking about a fine of up to £1,000 and a trial in a magistrates court. I know that such cases will not go to a Crown court, but that is still a very serious matter for somebody who might just be attempting to enter a place.

We will be told by the Bill’s supporters that its enforcement is practical. I understand how entry into a football ground could be enforced, but I am unsure about enforcing an attempt to get into a football ground. Surely police and stewards need clarity. There is no point in us introducing more and more laws when we have a whole slate of traditional laws against riotous behaviour. Laws that may be difficult to enforce just bring the whole system into disrepute.

I know that football clubs, police forces and fans’ organisations largely support the Bill, but I am not sure whether they are aware just how widely it is framed. I am sure that if they could talk these matters through with my hon. Friend, they would think his amendment was a wise and moderate compromise, because people already assume that it is an offence to enter a football ground without a ticket; I agree that the Bill removes the gap between assumption and reality.

The other thing that slightly worries me is that while I can quite understand how such attempts could be dealt with by a premier league club, which has stewards and the whole panoply of a large football club, we should consider small clubs such as Gainsborough Trinity FC in my constituency. These small clubs have faced huge challenges, and we are just introducing more burdens on them. During covid, Gainsborough suspended season tickets and capped attendance at just 300.

Small clubs already have to deal with many regulations and with public health. Their finances are very marginal, and covid worsened already fragile financial situations. I hope that when we consider these undoubtedly worthy Bills—as we look at the Euros, Wembley and all the rest of it—that impose more obligations on football clubs, we remember smaller clubs.

The Football Association is not always as helpful as it can be with small clubs. Big clubs get attention and support, so it may well be possible for them to police attempts to enter, but it may be more difficult for a tiny club—a very worthy, important and wonderful club such as Gainsborough Trinity FC—to deal with the intricacies of the law and understand it.

We are talking about enforcement and police resources, and therefore the measures in the Bill should be very moderate. There would be £1,000 fines or long banning orders. Are we going to drag people before the courts? I have already talked about the father attempting an entry. Could children or young people who sneak in without harmful intent face having a criminal record? Are we really going to do that? Is that the sort of country we want to create?

We do not have a lot of data on how many attempts there are or how much unauthorised entry there is. We should acknowledge that the Euro 2020 final was exceptional. It is unclear whether making this kind of permanent legislative change, and rejecting the amendments, will solve the problem.

[Linsey Farnsworth]

On the data, the FA reports that approximately 600 people regularly attempt to tailgate at matches at Wembley and other competitive games at grounds across the country. It is not the odd person every now and again; people are regularly trying, over and over again, to get into football grounds. That is why it is important that “attempt” is included. Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point, but I am making a point about smaller clubs. We are here because of a political reaction to the embarrassment created by one major failure, but we cannot base good law on one major failure that was on all our television screens. We have to look at all clubs and consider all the difficulties that they would have in implementing this change.