Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Hannett of Everton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that, although the hour is late, I cannot resist saying a few words about the suggestion that we should have a sunset clause. I am somewhat surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has presented what is a very bureaucratic way of going about getting some accountability here, and I fear that the sunset clause would be an incentive for non-co-operation. The noble Lord, Lord Markham, said earlier that he thought that some people might wait until the regulator was in place before they did certain things. If we had the sunset clause, it would be an incentive for those who did not want this kind of regulation to drag their feet and not co-operate. So that is not a good way forward.

I was also interested in some of the comments on the commencement amendments, which would also bring about a delay. I note that the suggestion is that after, I think, three years and nine months we should have this kind of review that was being suggested. I noted the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, saying earlier that there should be a transition period of three years, so we would be judging it on nine months if all the opposition amendments on this were carried, and that is not really satisfactory.

The simple fact is that football needs the Bill, fans need the Bill and we need to get on with it as quickly as possible. We need to give the regulator the powers that he or she needs to carry out the work that needs doing. We talk about football being a pyramid, and it is. The Premier League needs the whole of that pyramid. I could quote certain players who have been on loan at Bolton Wanderers and who now are doing very well at Liverpool, such as Conor Bradley—I am sorry that my noble friend from Everton is looking at me askance. The English national team needs football to be healthy at all levels. If we do not have proper involvement and proper facilities at all levels it will suffer as well. We have talked about the FA not taking its responsibilities seriously in terms of football governance, but there is a dimension here about the English national football team. We have to make some headway and get some things moving as quickly as we can.

The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, also mentioned accountability. What the noble Lord, Lord Norton, said about post-legislative scrutiny was also interesting. I chaired the modernisation committee in the other House in 1997. One of its recommendations was that there should be more post-legislative scrutiny. Both pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny give power to Parliament to get things right and to monitor exactly what it is doing. I am all in favour of that, but it does not need to be in the Bill.

What we do need is a proper drumbeat of accountability of all regulators to Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, mentioned the report that the committee I chaired published, Who Watches the Watchdogs? One of the things we said in that report is that it would be to the advantage of everyone—industries, regulators, Government Ministers and consumers—if there was a proper drumbeat of regulation. A third of all regulators have never been called before Parliament. Another third has been called only when there is a crisis. That is not proper accountability. We need Parliament to take its responsibilities seriously and ensure that all regulators, including new ones, are held accountable by Parliament. That is a valid point, but we do not need new amendments. We need new action on the part of Parliament.

We need this Bill; the Premier League needs this Bill. I mentioned the research from the University of Manchester. Ironically, in the long term, this Bill might help to protect all clubs, including those in the Premier League. I hope we can make progress. It should be Parliament that holds regulators to account, not extra dimensions such as have been suggested.

[Lord Hannett of Everton (Lab)]

My Lords, I will refer to the comment by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, about not everybody being interested in football. As a long-suffering Evertonian, sometimes that is not a bad place to be, especially having seen Everton’s results tonight —but there you go; there is another day. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, regarding David Moyes, who has now returned to his spiritual home, that I hope some of his success at West Ham will rub off on Everton.

I have listened on a number of occasions to this debate and to some of the contributions and the experience that has been expressed. However, I am with my noble friend Lady Taylor—this is a time to move on and to enact the Bill, because this is what football fans want. As a football fan—a season ticket holder at Everton—I was delighted that support for the Bill was in the manifestos of all the main parties. From some of the contributions, you could sometimes be confused that that was the case. As football fans say, this is an important Bill. Noble Lords have on occasions appeared to forget how we arrived at this position. The fan-led review was based not on hot air but on the genuine concerns of football fans. The fans and the future sustainability of our beloved national game must always be at the heart of the House of Lords.

Noble Lords’ amendments—there have been too many to comment on individually, so this is a general observation—would in effect ensure, even before the independent football regulator gets off the ground, that those who oppose it would be seen to be working to ensure its demise. We know there are people who hold strong views about regulation, but there are occasions for regulation and this is one of them.

It could be said that this is another way, on top of the attempts through other means, to kill the Bill—to kill the regulator by the back door. That is not what fans want. I speak to fans from many different clubs who have been waiting for the Bill to pass.

In conclusion, I thank the Ministers for the way they have had handled this debate over many weeks, not only with stamina but with attention to detail. That is extremely uplifting.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I too do not think that these amendments are necessary. I agree with the principles the noble Lord, Lord Norton, laid out—I think the whole Committee agrees with them—but we do not need the amendments. The Minister can correct me if I am wrong but we have the “state of the game” reports, which are built in to look at the structure and success of this. We have a better vehicle for looking at what goes on than we have ever had before. If we decide to get rid of it, do we go back to what we had? Do we go back to having all those small clubs saying, “Nobody’s checking that we’re selling our ground for a nice development of flats”—the first thing raised with me 30 years ago about what is wrong with certain types of people who buy football clubs. That sort of decision is not new.

We have a successful Premier League—all power to it—but we have to look at the other divisions and the rest of football. We have the opportunity to do that and I hope we carry on. When the Minister replies, we should hear what the Government would do if the “state of the game” report suddenly said that we have got it wrong somewhere. I hope we will hear that and that we will carry on, because the underlying problem that brought this Bill forward was one event that actually, oddly, preserved the Premier League. If we go forward with this, we need a series of reviews—I have already raised this. Who Watches the Watchdogs? and all the reports concern themes in Parliament, as does post-legislative review. If we can bring this in and we have a vehicle for delivering it, this Act might actually something of a beacon for how we can achieve it.