Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Addington

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Broadcasting is such a critical part of the sporting experience. For most people broadcast is the sporting experience. When Andy Murray was performing so fabulously on Centre Court at Wimbledon, I believe there were 15,000 seats available, yet millions could enjoy and experience that extraordinary event from the edge of their sofa. This is another area where the Bill is unfortunately silent when it comes to innovation. I believe there are solutions which can offer new paths forward to enable spectators to enjoy their favourite sport and these events through various media.

I will give two examples. I declare a previous interest in that I was deputy chair of Channel 4 Television at the time. When Emma Raducanu went all the way through to the final and won the US Open, we were able to do a deal at 24 hours’ notice with Amazon, which was the rights holder at the time, to have the US Open on Channel 4 free to air. But it is not free to air, as my noble friend Lord Hayward points out. It is a domestic UK broadcaster which was not a rights holder, but because of thinking differently, getting into discussions and a broader relationship with Amazon, it was able to secure those rights without in any sense cannibalising the rights that Amazon had paid for. A similar deal was done with England men’s cricket when it was in India that winter. I give just those two examples because they illustrate that there has to be flexibility and innovation in terms of both the deals that can potentially be done and the various media by which spectators are able to enjoy and support these tremendous events.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, very briefly, after so many events going on, free-to-air means not hidden behind a paywall. It is something you do not have to make a very big payment to. Okay, there is the licence fee. To the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, I say, “Yes, touché. Well done, good point”. But the fact of the matter is that if you do not have to specifically pay to see them, people can get to these great sporting events and, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has just pointed out, you create a national memory of them, something which you can refer back to. It is the water-cooler moment that does not go away. It is a point of bonding which you do not get anywhere else.

I hope that when the Minister responds she will give us some idea about how we are going to carry on with this, because it is a changing world. The first time I discussed this, we knew it was going to be on X number of channels, and Sky was only just starting to come into it. But we have been able to watch, at least in the form of highlights. What is the defence? It is a big deal. We must make sure, for these huge events, especially when national teams or the big games come up, that we respond across the board so that people can come down. I hope the Minister can say something reassuring on this because, let us face it, it is one of the reasons why it is worth bidding in the first place. It is now beyond those who go and buy tickets and has been for a long time.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is really a probing amendment to try to get at some of the hardy perennials, shall we say, when dealing with Bills that take on big sporting events. That is, when you have a big sporting event, you have a big advertising structure and restrictions being imposed on the local traders, which the local traders think are not fair. It sometimes gets slightly absurd. I cannot help but remember—but I am trying to forget—the Olympic kebab van that operated in the East End of London and which was restricted by the Olympic Games. It became a case of why they did not know and why there was not some smaller operation to lessen the impact on their business.

In the rest of the group, we have amendments dealing charitable situations. The situation here is about how we are going to make it a little easier for small and medium-sized businesses to operate properly within these structures. What are the duties on those organising the big events to let them know what is going to happen and mitigate any harms to them?

This amendment is a way of trying to find out the Government’s thinking on this, because it is one of those things that comes back and niggles again and again when you have a big event. I hope we can at least find out what the Government’s thinking is about how we are going to make sure that we make life a little bit easier for these small units, which should be beneficiaries, so that they actually get some benefit from this. That is all I am trying to do here. I beg to move.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate on this group of amendments. I will speak to the two amendments in my name. The first, Amendment 39, is incredibly straightforward and simply seeks to exclude charities from the restricted advertisement zone, as set out in the Bill. It replicates the wording from the London 2012 Act of 2006. I am very interested in the Minister’s response to that wording.

My second amendment in this group, Amendment 63, seeks a retrospective on the enforcement action to assure it from an equality and inclusion perspective. It simply sets out equality enforcement assessments so that the data is there and can be reviewed, s actions can be taken where there are disparities, and there can be learnings in real time for that event and for other events that will be hosted across the country. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Lord Addington

Tuesday 16th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for that compliment. We go back to special educational needs here, with a series of amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Carlile, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. My amendment is the most general of them, on a general duty to have a look at special educational needs. Some of the specifics in the other amendments probably should be included in that general duty.

On teacher training, unless you have teachers who are increasingly better equipped to spot conditions and deal with them in the classroom, you are always going to fail because you will have late diagnosis—or no diagnosis for many conditions—or the wrong practice. I am trying to convince people here that getting extra help for special educational needs may be a bad thing if that help is from the system by which you have already failed. If you do not know what is required and are being told “You’ve already failed to do this”—English would be a classic one—you will just not pass. My experience with dyslexia, which I have mentioned once today, is of being given an extra 15 spelling tests, one every week. You fail them all; you carry on doing it, but you just will not pass.

This is because having special educational needs usually means that you process information differently. There can be extreme cases. I have already referred to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes—nobody expects somebody who is blind to copy off a blackboard. You would describe what it is. You have got to have a different system of working and different structures that go with it.

I could expand upon this for ages, but the hour is late and other noble Lords with more detailed amendments are waiting to speak. I beg leave to move my amendment and look forward to the rest of this debate.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I congratulate him on all the work that he continues to do in this area. I thank my friends, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for cosigning my Amendments 491 and 498. I will take them in reverse order, with Amendment 498 first.

Quite simply, it addresses the issue we discussed in the previous group: current SEND provision is not working. It is not working for the SENCOs, who try their utmost; it is not working for the teachers, who strain every sinew to educate all in their classrooms; it is not working for the parents; and, most importantly, it is not working for children with special educational needs or a disability. Yet it can, if we start from the provision of inclusive by design and set out an approach where the funding is identified and ascribed to that SEND provision. The department should and must reach out beyond its budgetary constraints, because the reality is that this is far more than an issue of education. For example, there is a clear causal relationship between the education attainment gap and the subsequent employment attainment gap for those with disabilities.

Other departments must also pull their weight in addressing this issue of special educational needs and disability provision. This is why in Amendment 491 I suggest a practical, reasonable and achievable measure to make a difference across government: to introduce a mentorship scheme for those young people with special educational needs or disabilities.

Before the question arises of distracting departmental officials from their incredibly important work, or of putting more pressure on already overstretched resources, I suggest to the Minister that this would be an ideal situation for an effective, practical and achievable public-private partnership. Imagine how local, regional, national and international businesses could get involved to help support and be part of the delivery of such a mentorship scheme for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Imagine the empowerment for those young people in hearing from adults in successful careers, professions, jobs, activities and third-sector work, across the piece, who have lived experience of being a disabled person and have come through, succeeded and achieved. That is not just mentorship; that is leadership and empowerment, enabling all those young people.

The scheme could be brought in with minimal, if any, disruption or resource pressures put on the department. The difference it would make for those children with special educational needs and disabilities could be profound, impacting their educational experience, setting them up for life and enabling them not only to positively be part of closing that education attainment gap but subsequently closing the employment attainment gap. Any Government should have this as one of their core provisions. I look forward to the Minister’s response.