Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Foster of Bath and Lord Addington

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

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 (LD)]

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?

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[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

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 (LD)]

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.