Football Spectators (Seating) Order 2022

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Football Spectators (Seating) Order 2022.

Relevant document: 10th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I express gratitude to the usual channels for giving us the opportunity to debate the order. I tabled a take-note Motion because I felt that the reintroduction of standing at our main football grounds was a sufficiently major change to the licensing regime enforced by the Sports Grounds Safety Authority to justify a short debate.

The all-seater requirement for the top two divisions of English football was a direct consequence of the reports by Lord Justice Taylor into the Hillsborough stadium disaster in April 1989. It was his report that caused the abandonment of the central provision of the Football Spectators Act that would have made it compulsory for everyone attending a match at a designated ground to be part of a national membership scheme.

It is often forgotten that the Act was introduced as an anti-hooliganism measure, particularly as a result of appalling disorder at a cup tie between Luton Town and Millwall, which caused huge offence to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. That led to a breakdown in the relationship between the Government and the Football Association, whose secretary rather unwisely suggested to her face at a meeting I attended in Downing Street that Mrs Thatcher should get her hooligans out of football.

Lord Justice Taylor was scathing about a compulsory membership scheme and said that it would have made the Hillsborough disaster worse. I believe that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House to have been at that match and to have witnessed the horror of that afternoon. I certainly agreed with what he said about a compulsory membership scheme. Instead, the Football Spectators Act was pressed into service as the means to enforce the all-seater rules, which I always supported, although there was some opposition from some of the fan groups.

Until December 2018, successive Governments were content to leave those rules in place and were able to point to general improvements in football crowd behaviour as one of the benefits of that, even though many fans at a number of clubs took no notice of the no-standing rules, particularly behind the goals, and stood up in their seats. This caused considerable disquiet among a number of supporters, who were concerned by the consequences for family areas where young children were present and for disabled fans. I declare an interest as vice-president of the Level Playing Field charity, about which I will say more in a moment.

The Sports Grounds Safety Authority published a report on the Safe Management of Persistent Standing in Seated Areas, in which many of the dangers were described. It also pointed out that operating licensed standing areas had the additional benefit of removing

“the need for safety teams to make spectators sit down, thus reducing potential conflict between staff and spectators.”

Perhaps the Minister can comment on what seems to be a rather unusual aspect of this debate. It is clear that one of the reasons for abandoning all-seater stadiums is the acknowledgment that the rules could not be enforced and that lawbreakers should, in effect, be rewarded by getting the law changed. Does he feel that this establishes an undesirable precedent for other aspects of public policy?

The Conservative manifesto for the 2019 election contained a commitment to

“work with fans and clubs towards introducing safe standing.”

This was followed by what was called the early adopter programme, launched by DCMS and the Sports Grounds Safety Authority, which provided for licensed standing in seated areas at five football clubs—Cardiff City, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur—from the start of the 2022-23 season. This was followed, on 4 July this year, by the laying of the statutory instrument we are debating today. This provides for all football clubs to allow for standing in areas of their grounds where the seating accommodation has been adapted.

I referred earlier to my involvement with Level Playing Field, and I have some questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer. I should make clear that Level Playing Field has always maintained an entirely neutral stance in the safe standing debate. But that stance would change if the introduction of standing compromised safety or reduced the matchday experience of disabled supporters in respect of things such as sight-lines, discrimination or abuse, misuse of facilities, or displacement. Disabled supporters should be able to choose whether they are in the safe standing section or not. Choice is important and there must be facilities for them, including accessible toilets and dropped counters at refreshment kiosks. It is vital that if parts of a ground are to become designated standing areas, all spectators—particularly disabled ones—are safe from crowd surges and crowd collapse.

It is good that recommendations and guidance relating to disabled supporters were included in the SGSA’s document SG01, Safe Standing in Seated Areas, published in July this year. But there are concerns as to how the impact on disabled spectators and the inclusion of disabled spectators will be mitigated, implemented or enforced.

I have a few questions for the Minister. Will observance of the guidance become a part of the safety advisory group’s duties and responsibilities? How will the facilities for disabled spectators be monitored to ensure that they have been included in the safe standing areas, with spaces for wheelchair users and easy-access and amenity seats? What measures will be in place to ensure that disabled spectators choosing not to purchase tickets in the safe standing area are not adversely affected? How will persistent standing be dealt with in non-standing areas? How will the potential displacement of disabled spectators be managed? What steps are being taken to ensure effective stewarding in the safe standing areas? Lastly, how will consultation with disabled supporters be conducted and monitored? I have given the Minister notice of these questions and hope that he will be able to answer them today or, if not, in writing later.

To conclude, I repeat my support for the adoption of safe standing areas but urge that it be carefully and continuously monitored. The very last thing we need is any return to the incidents of disorder that did so much damage to the reputation of English football in the past—a reputation that I hope will be enhanced by the performance of the England team at the current World Cup, particularly after that sensational start in the first game this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the Minister, who has done well to address the questions that I have put to him. As a bit of a veteran on these matters—I have explained some of my past back in the 1980s and 1990s, not as a hooligan but as somebody attempting to deal with hooliganism, particularly through the medium of sports ground safety—I am very heartened that the safety of spectators and everybody who uses stadiums is paramount in the Government’s thinking, as it is in the thinking of the other political parties.

I am particularly grateful for the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, who was Sports Minister quite a long time ago when I was deputy chair of the Football Task Force, which came up with a series of recommendations. Some of those recommendations are relevant to another debate, on which I shall engage with the Minister over the coming weeks, on football regulation. It was a matter of great regret that the football authorities on that occasion, particularly the Premier League and the Football League, resisted the wise recommendations of the taskforce on regulation. We will come back to that.

One of the central aspects of the policy discussed in this debate is the fact that the Sports Grounds Safety Authority is clearly the lead body in making sure that all our sports grounds are safe. I had the privilege of taking through a Private Member’s Bill—it was a government handout Bill in the Commons—through your Lordships’ House which converted the Football Licensing Authority into the SGSA. The things that it could do as a result of that were, first, to make its expertise available to other sports bodies, not just football; it has been involved with rugby, tennis, cricket and horseracing. It has also been able to sell its expertise to sports bodies overseas, if they require expert advice. I am sure that, if UEFA is looking at this matter, it would be well advised to draw on the expertise of the SGSA in drawing up its plans.

I appreciated what the Minister said about the involvement of Level Playing Field. I shall report back to it on this debate—and maybe I shall need to write to him, but he has given very good answers on that issue. We will hold our breath and hope that this new approach, or milestone as he has described it, in dealing with ground safety and spectator amenities, can work, and that people can stay safe.

We know that demand for the change is considerable, but it is important that the freedom that comes with it is not abused and that we do not go back to the sort of terrible problems at football grounds in the 1980s and 1990s that I remember so well. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Addington, the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and the Minister.

Motion agreed.