Moved by
58: Schedule 4, page 37, line 26, at end insert—
“(5A) The provisions of sub-paragraph (1) are not breached by the use of a representation by the holder of a premises licence under the Licensing Act 2003, Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Licensing (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 if—(a) the representation is used solely for the purpose of indicating to members of the public that the licensed premises will be screening or broadcasting the sporting event,(b) the use of the representation does not suggest, expressly or by implication, that the licensed premises is an official sponsor of, or otherwise commercially associated with, the sporting event or its organiser, or(c) the representation has previously been used for a continued amount of time, independently of the sporting event taking place.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that, in the case of a sporting event being hosted in an area where a small or medium-sized enterprise’s (SME) pre-existing advertising may conflict with an advertising provision as laid out in this Bill, that SME is protected proportionately.
Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee—I had not quite got myself in the right position to start proceedings. This is a probing amendment that looks at some of the minor problems that arise when a big Bill such as this comes out. The amendment probably refers more than it should to licensed premises, but it is a way of finding out how the Government perceive we should proceed. For those small firms that are making a living and are affected by this, what happens next if we take on the structures in the Bill? This has been one of the small niggles we have had about these Bills and processes. Let us see if we can get it right or at least give certainty to those affected. I beg to move.

Lord Foster of Bath Portrait Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My Lords, at Second Reading, I raised the example of the butcher in Weymouth who, during the 2012 Paralympics and Olympics, was threatened with a £20,000 fine because he displayed in his shop window five strings of sausages in the shape of the five Olympic rings. He eventually got around this by changing the circles into squares, but it was a rather ludicrous example of the extremes to which some of the arrangements can go.

We are in a bit of difficulty, because before us we have a framework Bill which refers to lots of regulations to come, but we do not know what they will be. Yet at the same time, we all want to ensure that particularly SMEs can share in the benefit of hosting the sorts of events covered by the Bill. We therefore need to ensure that the regulations on association are flexible enough to protect the sponsors, who have paid a lot of money, but not be overly zealous in how we treat our small businesses, particularly those where the event is taking place.

Although my noble friend’s amendment relates to licensed premises, it could equally apply to all others. I want to test with the Minister a couple of questions. I am genuinely delighted that the impact assessment and Explanatory Memorandum, on pages 19 and 20, already give many exceptions that the Government are planning to introduce and which presumably will be picked up in the regulations. However, there are one or two areas where they do not go as far as many of the major sporting bodies have already gone. In 2012, many of our athletes were upset at not being allowed in any way, shape or form to thank the various people who had sponsored them over many years—an example could be one of my noble friend’s licensed premises supporting a particular athlete. They were not allowed to do so because of the tight restrictions: there was no way there could be any link between that unofficial sponsor and the individual athlete.

Equally, there were very strong regulations concerning what words could and could not be used. There was a whole list: you could not use “champion”; you could not even mention “London”, let alone “2012”. I am delighted that the IOC has, through changes to rule 40, made significant relaxations that now allow, for example, under certain circumstances, an athlete to thank their unofficial sponsor and the unofficial sponsor to refer to the athlete they have supported. There are various conditions around that.

However, there have also been changes to the language. The butcher I referred to earlier would now be allowed, under the IOC rules, to say “champion banger” or “gold medal sausage”. So, significant changes have taken place. Will the Minister ensure that relaxations and flexibilities such as those already introduced by the IOC for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be covered by the regulations that will follow for each of the events covered by the Bill?

--- Later in debate ---
Baroness Twycross Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the noble Lord for tabling Amendment 58, which would introduce an exception to prohibition on unauthorised association. I understand that this amendment seeks to ensure that a licensed premises’ use of representations in pre-existing advertising material will not breach the prohibition, providing that the use does not suggest that the premises is an official sponsor of, or otherwise commercially associated with, a sporting event to which the unauthorised association provisions have been applied.

I can assure the Committee that a licensed premises’ use, or indeed any wider business use, of pre-existing advertising materials in this way will not breach the prohibition on unauthorised association. That is because the prohibition on unauthorised association applies only where a business uses a representation in a way that is likely to suggest to the public that it has an official association with the event. It is for event owners to agree with athletes and their individual sponsors—in response to the noble Lord, Lord Foster—the types of promotional activity that are to be permitted during an event. That is not for legislation.

I can also provide assurance to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that the Bill expressly provides that a business will not breach the prohibition on unauthorised association by providing factual information about the services it provides. The intention of this exception in paragraph 3(4)(b) of Schedule 4 is to enable businesses to factually describe goods sold and services they provide in the course of their normal business, where this is done in accordance with honest business practice. For example, a pub will be able to state that it is screening Euro 2028 matches without breaching the unauthorised association prohibition, provided it does not imply that it has an official association with Euro 2028. A B&B will also be able to state that it is within walking distance of a venue for Euro 2028 without breaching the prohibition.

We want to ensure that local businesses can show their support for major sporting events and we will work with event organisers to ensure that this is the case. The prohibition applies only to activity that would suggest to the public an official association with an event, meaning that there was a realistic chance that everyday members of the public would consider that such an association existed. The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, cited the case of Olympic sausages; the example I have been asking officials about as I have gone through it is whether it is likely or unlikely that this Bill would prevent a local bakery selling football-themed cupcakes in support of Euro 2028, and I have been assured that it is not likely that that would happen. So, for the reasons I have set out, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

I thank the Minister for that reply. Yes, I think the idea is that everybody is saying, can we avoid what we can only describe as the cock-up school of history? That is when something goes wrong that is unintended and gets in the way of the enjoyment here. I will take away what the noble Baroness has said, speak to people and see whether it is enough, because we might want to have a go again if it is seen that there is still some danger and we need some more clarity. In that spirit, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment and hope that we do not have to return to it—but if we do, we do. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.
--- Later in debate ---
I share the thought that leadership, people and relationships early on in these large projects really matter. Words are all fine but, unless we think about these things together very early on and lay the foundation stones correctly, the costs, not just commercially and financially but also in terms of sustainability and all the issues we are rightly worrying about in this Chamber this evening, get lost. Some £323 million of taxpayers’ money, let alone the carbon and other costs of all that, is a very big cost for some of us not getting that relationship together earlier, as it should have been. I just throw that in because learning by doing, the practicality of these big projects, really matters.
Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

My Lords, I just want to make a few comments on this. The idea that we would not have some sort of ongoing environmental impact built into one of these assessments is unthinkable, to be perfectly honest. The exact wording used in any of these might not be the one that has come through, but there should be something in there. There has been in previous projects and should continue to be. I hope the Minister will stand up and say, “Yes, it’s here, it will go in, here is the assurance”, because without it we have missed a trick and gone backwards on ourselves.

I remember the arguments about the roof. I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, might think I was being flippant because, as someone who was consistently raising this, I stood up and said, “If you’re that bothered, I’ll have your ticket”. We can go on about such things, but let us remember that it was about the Games. It should be in here, but we need make sure it is the norm, because if it is exceptional then we are going backwards. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us that assurance when she speaks.

--- Later in debate ---
Lord Foster of Bath Portrait Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My Lords, the point about cyber is really important. At Second Reading I referred to my involvement in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Prior to the Games I had the opportunity of visiting the transport management hub, a group that, among other things, had put gizmos in all the traffic lights throughout London so that they could change the lights at a moment’s notice to enable traffic to move through. A cyber attack on that would have brought the whole of London to a standstill.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised this as an important issue, but he did not point out that this is a reality for sports organisations already. The latest research shows that 84% of the major sporting bodies around the world report that they have had at least one cyber attack recently, and 57% say they have had more than one. This is a very real issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response. It is vital that we have it included, ideally on the face of the Bill.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

My Lords, I will briefly run through the amendments in my name. One of the things about the Bill that we do not really like is the fact that there is nothing on infrastructure. It may be implied. My Amendment 78 is trying to put some infrastructure in there.

Amendment 77 is about the accommodation. Much of what we are talking about and much of the reference in the last debate about the legacy from London has been to do with accommodation of athletes, et cetera. If we do not get that in a games bid, suddenly it loses one of the big attractions when it comes to renovation, especially on the model of the London Games. I hope we get some reference in there. Championships may be different. They are different things with different structures. In Birmingham we had a thing about repurposing and borrowing the accommodation that was used, and in London we created new stuff. I hope we get a few thoughts on that.

The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter are about having a strategy towards a bidding process and making sure we have the capacity to intervene and get on with it. Even if it is seen that we have the capacity here, you have to organise it and bring it together. What are the Government thinking about to bring that latent capacity together and make sure it is always there? There are opportunities here. In most of the discussion on the Bill, I have not heard, “Oh no, we don’t want to bid; it’s a horrible inconvenience that will ruin my day”. I remember certain protests about the 2012 bid down in Greenwich being the best ones.

If we are assuming that it is going to be a good thing, where is the capacity? What are we doing to draw it together? There is a series of suggestions here, to be treated as probing amendments at the moment, about how we can do this and about infrastructure. Please can we have some thoughts on this? It is a very important part of this process going forward. If we do not bring it in, I think this is a Bill for a championship as opposed to a games. It fits better for a championship, when you are using sites and moving around the country, as opposed to a games. I hope the Government can say that I have got it all horribly wrong and missed something here. I wait to be informed.

--- Later in debate ---
Lord Hayward Portrait Lord Hayward (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the noble Lord for that helpful and affirmative intervention in relation to the points I am trying to make.

In broad terms, I do not want to see a structure that is required by government. One needs the capacity to respond quickly, in the right way, at the right time. That is how cities operate when they are trying to attract smaller international competitions of one form or another.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

That would be a perfectly acceptable response: that there is a capacity, that they will make sure they have the capacity to look at this and that there will be a strategy going forward. This is about clarification and finding out what happens here. As I read it, the Bill works perfectly well for a championship—it does not read so well for something for which you have to do a lot of construction work. I am trying to find out the Government’s thinking.

To back up the original point from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, here we must pay attention to the cyber and online world, as it is becoming an increasing part of it. His first amendment is a good tool—use it, because you will be expected to in future. The snappy video is being replaced by the plan. We are trying to get out of this important group of amendments what the Government are going to do, the limitations of the Bill—we have found some today—and what will be set down to the bidding structure that currently exists. Where the two overlap, we should find out what does not have to be done and what does.

Lord Hayward Portrait Lord Hayward (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification, which is important for understanding the directions in which this Bill should go, and what we believe it should achieve.

--- Later in debate ---
Lord Mawson Portrait Lord Mawson (CB)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My Lords, I support this amendment. But, when you have spent many years at the other end of the telescope of these large events and have responsibilities for building the kit, enabling it all to work and making sure that it integrates in those communities, the detail really matters. One of the things we managed to achieve with the London Olympics—which was in no small part to do with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, Lord Coe and others—was to get cross-party support for this very big event, which we knew would probably go through different Governments and Mayors of London, and actually I think we achieved that. It was a very big and long event—and, by the way, we are still building out the Olympic Park today, so it was a big thing.

It is really important that, while there needs to be responsibility for large amounts of taxpayers’ money— I absolutely get that—if we are serious about these events, there also needs to be responsibility among our political parties to get cross-party agreement very early on.

That needs to happen not only at a national level. One or two of our colleagues in east London who were involved in the Labour councils there—I mention in particular my colleague Paul Brickell, who was a Labour councillor in Newham and ended up playing the lead role in regeneration as executive director—spent a lot of time building working relationships with the five Labour boroughs surrounding the Olympic Park, which when we began had a long history of being at war with each other. There was a lot of detailed work over cups of tea to build the relationships that support events such as this.

So, although I am in favour of being very careful about the money and get all of that, if we are serious about going for these events, there is a responsibility across our political parties to build working relationships early on and come to an agreement, so that those of us on the leading edge with day-to-day responsibility to make fast decisions tomorrow will not be held up by politics being played out on them somewhere else.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

My Lords, this is an interesting group of amendments that I assumed would not be needed. I assumed that we would have a series of debates about this. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, did a forensic job on the basic principles of where taxation comes from and how money is raised, going through. If the amendments are not needed, can the Minister tell us when she expects the interaction between the public system and Parliament on where the money comes from? That is a fairly reasonable question. If they have a structure behind what we are debating, we should know. I hope this is just a classic probing amendment, because that is what you should have at this point. We should know where we are going.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, that unless you get a commitment that everybody is prepared to buy into, there is no point doing anything, because it all needs a long-term plan. That is absolutely true, and if you start messing about with that, we just will not have any of these events, because no organising body in its right mind will come within a mile of us.

We have to have a degree of long-term planning. To get the benefits from events, we have to accept that even if Government A do something in a way that Government B do not particularly like when they come along, they will have to accept it and go along with it. Do not let your version of excellence be the enemy of the good on this.

I hope that, when the Minister responds, she will tell us exactly when these debates are to take place, what the structure will be going forward and what the spirit behind them is. The point is reasonable. I hope that there is an equally reasonable answer.

--- Later in debate ---
Moved by
69: Clause 25, page 19, line 15, at end insert—
“(1A) The appropriate national authority may, in connection with a sporting event, set expectations as to the investment to be made by relevant organisations in—(a) grassroots sporting venues or organisations, and(b) participation in sport at grassroots level, including community sporting projects and facilities.(1B) Financial assistance under subsection (1) may, in particular, be given subject to conditions requiring the recipient to make, or to secure that another person makes, investment of a kind mentioned in subsection (1A).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and others in Lord Addington’s name, enables the appropriate national authority to set expectations on event organisers and others who benefit commercially from a sporting event to invest in grassroots sport and community participation, and to make financial assistance under Clause 25 conditional on such investment.
--- Later in debate ---
Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, I feel rather sorry for the Minister, because this amendment is once again going back to lessons learned from previous sporting events, particularly from the London Olympics. Although it was a success in many ways, one thing it did not do was encourage more people to play sport. This is universally accepted. When the committee on which I served, as did the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan —he might have led it, I cannot remember: it is a long time ago now—looked at this to find out what happened, the idea that it is just a straightforward inspiration for sport does not work. You have to do a bit more to encourage people to play sport.

There are good examples in world championships for rugby union and netball: there is argument about who devised the model first. You have a great spike in interest, but you must prepare the grass-roots clubs for people turning up who have not played. This is one of the cases when I found out just how old I am. Advertising for the Rugby World Cup totally missed me, because it was aimed at those aged 18 to 25. It was encouraging those with recent skills to get back to being involved in the game. But you had to make sure the clubs were ready for them. You have to have the grass roots ready to receive and you have to help them to do it. Big gestures from the boys at the top do not help with participation unless you have somewhere coming through where you can do it.

As has been said, these are probing amendments, but the Government need ideas. What are we actually going to do? We have this big sporting event, and we can use the models that the sports themselves have devised and take them further. That might help. I am not saying how it should be done—it may be greater capacity for playing facilities, training or coaching—but we have to make sure that we get people playing the sports. That is what this is about. This is an accepted failure from something which, other than that, was a success. We just did not do that one thing.

There is no point in someone watching something happen on television and saying, “Isn’t it marvellous?”, if we do not find out whether we have the capacity to do it, or even to start that process. We have to get them out and playing. That is what I would like, and it is what I am trying to get at: what is the Government’s thinking about getting a proper sporting legacy at grass-roots level that will give us the capacity to start finding champions? Unless we go down the route of testing everyone at the age of 14 to see who our champions are and saying, “The rest of you, just sit down and watch. There’s a box here. You press a button and watch other people”, because that is not what it is about, or it should not be.

Amendments 74 and 75 merely follow on from the spirit of Amendment 69. Can the Government tell us their thinking about encouraging people to correct the one big failure of something that has changed our whole debate about this issue—that is, the Olympics—by getting people playing sport? I beg to move.

Amendment 70 (to Amendment 69)

Moved by
--- Later in debate ---
Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

My Lords, when we have these debates we tend to follow this pattern: we talk about great things and wonderful events; we talk about the volunteers coming in and helping out and how wonderful it all was. But this amendment was not about that. It was about the second teams: it was about getting participation up and getting people to turn up. It is about making sure you have people playing the sport. Local government has its role, but it is all about facilitating people to do their own stuff. The Government have lots of initiatives, but we are not as good at this as we used to be, and there has been a cultural shift.

Many of our own sports have added to this. Rugby union turned pro, and great, famous clubs got rebranded and lost eight teams on a Saturday. Just think what that did to the local sporting economy. The Government have to get back to grass-roots sports, because that is where the infrastructure is to expand from: namely, from the volunteers. One can do all sorts of things, like redo a clubhouse, but unless we take advantage of that, and encourage them, we are going to miss.

There have been lots of examples about good volunteers, and we could have another amendment about that, because we know that volunteers quite like to do a finite, one-off project, and then they stop and have a rest. Somebody running a small club is a different type of volunteer: they turn up, as part of a lifetime’s commitment almost, to make sure that every new generation of children or junior players get coached properly, that somebody fills out the forms and that there is a secretary and a treasurer—that all that stuff happens.

With this amendment, I was trying to ensure that this goes down through sports, and maybe it needs to be done on a sport-by-sport basis, and some sports will be doing it anyway. When we talk about great examples, we miss the point. It is about making sure that we have something that goes down to the people who are already there—a little shot in the arm to help them carry on—because we are missing this. Parliament tends to do that. We forget about this when we talk about sport. We think about big, exciting events; most sport is not big and exciting. I know because I have played in it.

I understand the Minister’s answer, which could have come from anyone else, because they do not quite get what we are talking about. The noble Lord, Lord Doyle, started saying, “Yeah, we tried: it was all big and exciting, but we didn’t manage it”. This is because we do not go to where the actual volunteers are. The idea was to make sure we got some support, some structure, some help going down to the volunteers. Until we do that, we will continue to struggle, and then local government will say, “Oh, well, you’re not using that facility, so we can shut it down”—that is the negative side—and a few people will determinedly fight it, but they will always have the argument coming against them.

Baroness Dacres of Lewisham Portrait Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. I mention local government because they are part of that grass-roots nexus for local people. They are the ones to whom our local grass-roots organisations will turn in order to try to get that extra money, that extra funding, so that they can run a boxing club, for example, or facilitate other groups. They are at the core. These are the volunteers, to whom the noble Lord referred, with a lifelong commitment to helping young people. This is why we need to remember how important local government is to ensure that we can funnel those extra funds, and ensure that they reach the right people, the right groups and the underprivileged young people who really want to take part in those sports.

In addition, local authorities are closer to what local young people want to do and see. That is why, for example, you will see skateboarding parks, because that is now an Olympic sport, and BMXing is another great, accessible Olympic sport. That is why it is important to remember local government, because it reaches the people in local areas who give their lives to make sure that they are engaging and encouraging young people to take part in these sports that the noble Lord is referring to.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- Hansard - -

I do not disagree with any of that. I would just say that it is not a core activity, so it tends to become a secondary choice and there is pressure on local government. If you come through and give a boost, local government might be able to deliver. Local governments provide pitches for some sports, whereas they do not get involved with other sports. It is about culture, and it is a very varied picture. It can be important: many people play football on local government pitches, but rugby union and cricket clubs tend to own their own grounds or have long-term leases. There is a cultural mix that goes down there. So, local government is important, but we need to go down to the grass-roots club that, for example, runs four teams. As I once suggested to one of our governing bodies, you must remember to write to local government and tell it what you want; that will improve the relationship. There is a struggle there, but we are getting off the topic.

I think we should have another look at this, because we are still not making sure that we engage with those people on the ground. I hope that the Government will, shall we say, have a little bit more robustness in their answer. The Minister can only read out what is in front of her, but we are going down here to get the Government to give us a better answer on this one. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Lord Beith Portrait The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Beith) (LD)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Before the noble Lord can withdraw his amendment, we need to give the noble Baroness the opportunity to indicate what she wants to do with her amendment to his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---
Baroness Grey-Thompson Portrait Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My Lords, I support Amendment 86 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Sater. I am very grateful to her for tabling it and to the noble Lord, Lord Markham, for speaking to it, because I think this is very helpful to keep the discussion on the CQC live. I understand where we have got to with the new guidance that is coming out on the back of the Manchester bombings. It is completely understandable. It has elicited very strong views in the sector. I thank the CQC for the meeting, but I think many of us have probably come away from that more confused than we were at the start. A better explanation of the plan would have helped.

As the noble Lord, Lord Markham, said, on what is an individual, what would happen when a parent steps in at an event? I think of a local rugby event; if there is a doctor there and they are asked to step in, they may not be covered by insurance. It has set a lot of hares running within the sector, which I do not think necessarily needed to happen. I also realise that the consultation is ongoing. The big events—I spoke to the London Marathon—will be fine, because they are already set up to deal with this, but I am thinking of the smaller events. I know there is a cut-off or a line at 200 people, but lots of very local events would have more than 200 people taking part. Yes, they are run under the auspices of a national governing body, but unless we get this absolutely right there is a real risk that volunteers will not continue to step up to run these events.

Yes, there will be risk assessments, but they might not have access to threat assessments. You could end up in an unforeseen circumstance and end up in court for something you have done. While we are waiting for case law, which could take several years, there could be a very big detrimental effect of volunteers stepping back, so understanding the impact is very important. I certainly think it is important to keep this discussion going, and more clarity on this would be really helpful as we go forward.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, on Amendment 83. As I said earlier, this amendment is just basically wrong—end of.

On Amendment 86, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It conforms with my experience that you have to be flexible; you have to understand about local events, and you have to keep the structure going. Clarity is required here about what is wanted, so I hope we step towards that clarity or at least find out when it is coming. That is one thing about Bills in Parliament: you do get a chance to pin a Minister down for a worthwhile answer. I hope we have assurances on both of these.

Lord Moynihan Portrait Lord Moynihan (Con)
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My Lords, I will be equally brief, but let me preface my remarks by saying that I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, is contributing to this debate. We both have a long history in Lewisham, and Lewisham East in particular. It is a very sporting constituency, as it happens, with Chris Chataway being the first Conservative Member of Parliament for that seat. I was nothing like as eminent as he was when he was a fairly impressive pacemaker in the historic 1954 Bannister run, when he broke the four-minute mile. The noble Baroness is a much-loved mayor in Lewisham, very hard working and very respected, so it is great to see her contribute to a sports debate.

Equally, when the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, acting as Minister at the time just now, spoke of talent transfer, it is important to recognise the outstanding work that the noble Baroness, Lady Grainger, has done in that context in UK sport. Talent transfer has been an absolute pillar of the success of many of our sports in recent years, since we really professionalised elite sport. My friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grainger, was critically important in that work, and it is a great delight to see her in your Lordships’ House.

I support the comments made about Amendment 86 in the name of my noble friend Lady Sater. It is very important indeed that these CQC regulations remain on the agenda, and I hope the Minister is going to give us some comfort today and say that they should be looked at again in the context of the smaller events, the ones that local authorities run. The noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, was completely right in what she said about the role of local authorities in grass-roots sport. These CQC regulations are really quite critical now to the cost of running those smaller events that are so important in the development of sport. I hope they can be kept under review and looked at again by the Government. My noble friend Lady Sater’s amendment, and the comments made in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, just underline how important it is to be reviewed now so that it does not do irreparable damage to many of the sporting events that we are talking about.