Policing: European Championship Final

Lord Goddard of Stockport Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, as I said, there are certainly lessons to be learned, but I for one am incredibly grateful to the police for the role that they played. Some 19 of them were injured, and of course there are lessons to be learned from that day. However, there was a surge event and on the whole the police did incredibly well to manage it.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister and I come from the north-west of England—Greater Manchester—where clearly we have tribal loyalties to football clubs. But this is about information. On the day that Manchester United’s football ground was invaded and broken into and a Premiership match was abandoned, that was fully on the internet, everybody knew what was going on and very little happened. What happened at Wembley is a mirror image of that. These people see this happening, see that there are few consequences, with no arrests or prosecutions, and try it again. It is only by the grace of God that nobody was killed at Wembley, and I just hope that, instead of apologising, the Minister actually does something.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I will not at this point state which team I support, because that might get us into another row. However, I agree that lessons have to be learned. I understand that there was very regular communication on what was going on, and I think the police on the whole did a very good job. As the noble Lord says, it is a very good thing that nobody was more injured than they were, particularly the police officers. Nineteen officers were injured but, thankfully, none died.