Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[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?

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the observations made by the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Foster. This follows the line of the issues I raised on Monday concerning the impact assessment and the various impacts on small businesses. This amendment is clearly a probing amendment, but it is intended to establish protections for small businesses that may by chance get picked up in one way or another. We must ensure that we do not damage those businesses. As many of us said on Monday, mission creep ends up negatively impacting small businesses, often by chance.

I welcome the broad principle of this amendment, and I hope that further discussions will ensure that those protections, whether they be for individuals or businesses, are pursued.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and other noble Lords for their gold medal contributions today—if I am allowed to say that, at this stage at least. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and my noble friend Lord Hayward set out, there are quite often unintended consequences, the sausage being a perfect example of what we would all agree is a disproportionate response. I think all we are talking about here are common-sense provisions in all of this, which I know are very difficult to draft into any sort of amendment, but which at the same time I think we would all agree would be sensible. With that, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, in relation to his amendments. My concern is about creep. I referred earlier to ensuring that we do not have creep that affects small businesses. Here I am concerned about setting up an organisation that has to be maintained when there is nothing relevant to do. The noble Lord used the phrase “always there”. I do not think that is the intention he is aiming for, but if you put it in the Bill you are saying to government, “You have to have a group of people who are working on this all the time”. It is surely far better for government to have the capacity to respond at the right time as quickly as possible, rather than having an “always there” structure.

Associated with that, on the accommodation to which the noble Lord refers, it is my understanding— I am looking at those who were involved in 2012 and in other major sporting events—that when it comes to the Olympics, UEFA and FIFA, the accommodation strategy is decided by those bodies. They will enter into negotiations with worldwide hotel chains and say, “What are you going to do if we come to Manchester, London or wherever it may happen to be?” This is not a responsibility of government. In fact, most of those international organisations would regard it as an intrusion if they were being told, “We’ve already got a strategy and this is how we operate”, because it may well conflict with what is intended by the major sporting organisations.

I cited international gay rugby tournaments when I spoke on Monday, and next year there is the gay EuroGames in Cardiff. With these smaller competitions, you go to those major cities and seek assistance on accommodation. Cardiff is expecting 5,000 or 6,000 competitors and a fair number of spectators next year. Any major authority will maintain a process by which it can deal with those sorts of approaches, but on a much smaller basis. I do not want to see this legislation set up a government structure that is required on an ongoing basis or a belief that the Government should intrude on matters such as accommodation when the major sporting organisations do it themselves because that is how they want to operate.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

The noble Lord is correct on that point. It was the IOC that had the view on what should happen with the accommodation on the Olympic park. For example, it did not put kitchens in, for very good reasons—the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, will know more about this than I do. They wanted people eating not in that accommodation but in a special place, because if you are an Olympic athlete, eat the wrong foods and then have tests, there are implications. As a legacy company, we had the job afterwards of putting in the kitchens and a whole range of stuff to make all that work in its legacy format.

What you do want is close working relationships between that international body and those on the ground who are responsible for creating that legacy. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, may well agree that we learned on the go as we went on this journey together. It would be good if that kind of conversation about these close working relationships was happening between government and the international bodies on day one, so that we do not have to spend £323 million on a roof that does not quite work in legacy. Those connections really matter.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

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 (LD)]

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 (Con)]

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.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes, and all other noble Lords, for what I hope people will see as a good debate and a helpful contribution. We hope to make sure the UK is best placed for the best planned events, so I hope this will be taken in the spirit of helpfulness. As ever, my noble friend Lord Holmes brought us to the cutting edge of technology in the need for digital twins, and my noble friend Lord Moynihan set out the perfect example of Queensland for what is happening on that. He was absolutely right to remind us of the dangers from cyber attacks. With my other brief in my science and technology role, I am all too aware of that; it was brought out very clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, with his traffic light gizmo example. I would quite like to have one of those for my way home.

What the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was getting to on the infrastructure and accommodation points was in some ways similar to the point we tried to make in our amendments on Monday to enable an Olympic development-type agency. As he said, it is not a championship-type event; it is a much bigger scale. These are all coming at the Bill from different angles to make sure that if this is to be enabling legislation, it is broad enough that when bodies of that scale are needed, this framework legislation is able to do it. I very much take my noble friend Lord Hayward’s point that we need to make sure we do not build overbearing full-time bureaucracies here.

The amendments in my name, and that of my noble friend Lord Parkinson, are trying to make sure that the UK is the best place possible to host these events. That is why we are asking the Secretary of State to make a report within six months on some of the impacts on and barriers to that. Noble Lords are only too aware that the recent changes to employer NI increases the cost of a worker by about £900 per year, and the minimum wage changes add another £1,000 per year to the cost of each worker. These are exactly the type of people needed to man these events and make them happen. Unfortunately, these recent changes and tax increases will have a disproportionate impact.

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[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I do not have favourites, but the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, wins that today. I used the words of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, so my apologies to him as well. The Government do not believe that these amendments are necessary, although I recognise that the concerns the noble Lord raises are to ensure that arrangements and infrastructure are adequate to serve major events, including, as he said, accommodation for athletes, whether that is purpose-built or repurposed. The example from London 2012 given by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was helpful to illustrate this.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her kind comments. I ask her to encourage some of her colleagues on the ministerial Benches to acknowledge that, on occasions, there are good ideas from the Opposition Benches as well.