Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Before I speak to the amendments in my name, I start by thanking my noble friend Lord Moynihan. This is yet another example where, as we understand this Bill further, we see more and more complexities and unintended consequences which will have a profound impact on the sport that we all love. Those points were very well made by my noble friend, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to them.

My amendments are trying to be helpful and practical, given the complications set out by my noble friend around how you determine who is an owner or who has influence on it all. At the very least, as proposed in Amendment 30, the regulator must inform who it considers to be counted as an owner. I hope noble Lords would agree that that is a fairly sensible move, given that such a person might not consider it themselves but might be deemed to have influence.

Just as we require a certain competence from officers, Amendment 177 suggests that owners should be subject to a similar assessment.

We are all mindful of the numerous situations we have seen where there is a timeliness to the acquisition of a club, particularly in the context of rescuing a club or where there are certain deadlines, as happened in the case of Abramovich and Chelsea. Amendment 186 states that the regulator must make a decision about an owner or an officer within one month. Officers can be critical to the running of a club as well, so we need timeliness there.

My two further amendments, Amendments 188 and 189, propose that where the regulator is seeking to act retrospectively—as has been pointed out, this gives it the power to reopen the issue of ownership and officers—there needs to be a high bar before it is allowed to go in; otherwise, before we know it, it could be investigating and unpicking the officers and owners of every club. Once again, this is a massive example of just how overbearing we are in danger of setting up this regulator to be.

Amendment 188 says that the regulator can investigate the current owners only if it believes that there is a reason for them not being suitable. It is trying to put an evidential burden or barrier on that. Similarly, Amendment 189 is about trying to determine the fitness of current officers only if it already has information in place suggesting that those current officers are not fit. Otherwise, if we add up all the multiple hundreds of officers of the hundred or so clubs, we would be setting up a whole logjam of investigations, which I would hope that all noble Lords think does not best serve the interests of those clubs or football as a whole.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Moynihan and I commend him on his comprehensive demolition of the Government’s case. I have fundamental problems with this clause, as it stands, in respect of ownership. As my noble friend rightly says, it goes way beyond the admonitions and existing legislation of, say, the various Companies Acts. It is much more draconian and prescriptive than anything we have seen in company law. It is quite sensible, and not ignoble, for all Governments to take a value judgment on who is a fit and appropriate person to be a company director and to trade and take part in commerce. We all understand and support that, but what we see here is very oddly drafted legislation. It seems to me that it may be a reaction to the trade policy clause that existed in the original Bill, which was withdrawn.

At the same time, the Bill is extremely opaque, permissive and open-ended in the power that is bestowed on the Secretary of State. Looking at the schedule, I am very uncomfortable about giving those sweeping powers, not least because there is a differential between the “significant influence”, as contained in the schedule, that a director or a person involved in a football club may have and what we read in Clause 3, which is just “a degree of influence”. What does a degree of influence mean?

It is not all a case of the Saudi royal family and Newcastle United. We are talking about 116 clubs. Is “influence” popping into the dressing room at half-time and saying, “Great match, guys; here’s a beer”? Is it saying, “If you play better next year, my company might sponsor you more favourably”? It may seem ridiculous to use those examples, but this wording is so unclear—so opaque and permissive—in asking to give Ministers very significant powers that we need to think carefully, again, about whether it is appropriate to let it remain in the Bill.

For that reason, I strongly support the eloquent and comprehensive case made by my noble friend Lord Moynihan and, in passing, of course I support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Markham. This is a bad clause. It will give rise to very big risks of litigation. Ministers should think carefully about whether it remains in the Bill and we should think again, perhaps on Report.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, Norwich City were very fortunate to have Michael Wynn-Jones and Delia Smith as majority shareholders for the past 26 years. They have been fantastic custodians of the club. They joined the board when Norwich were in a perilous financial position and helped steward the club through the highs and lows of six promotions, six relegations, two play-off finals and 15 managers. Of course, Delia was not averse to some direct fan engagement with her “Let’s be ’avin’ you” rallying cry, which we all know and love.

In October, Norfolk Holdings, a group led by the principal owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, assumed majority control of the club, so a new chapter has begun. While Michael and Delia have relinquished control, they remain committed fans, as they always have been. I know that all Canaries are extremely grateful for their unwavering commitment to the club.

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[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I read with interest the noble Lord’s Amendment 182. The wording says of the commitment to the home ground

“with said commitment to be codified in such form as the IFR may determine”.

Does he agree that it could undermine any existing contractual relationship and bring uncertainty into the business activities of that club, were this amendment to be adopted?

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

I do not think that it would. It is designed to stop owners disposing of the assets. I will give the noble Lord the example of Brighton, because what happened there is very instructive. Back in the 1990s, it was taken over by some rogue owners —Bellotti, Stanley and Archer. Apart from becoming local hate figures, they sold the stadium before they had anywhere else to locate the football club. Then they tried to blackmail us politicians in Hove Council and Brighton Council—we were not a unitary at the time—into providing them with a completely unsuitable site for relocation, with no planning permission and no business plan at all. That was wrong, and it destroyed that club for a period of time. It has taken us a long time to recover from that. It has taken the support of fans and the good will of good local politicians to rebuild Brighton into the excellent and well-run club that it is today. Now, I would say that, wouldn’t I? But it is the truth, and that was the situation.

This amendment is quite personal to me. I did not go on marches, protest or do what I could as the leader of the council to see that position undermined. I would hope that the noble Lord opposite, as a supporter of Peterborough, would have a similar passion for his club. That is the reason for this amendment. We want to make sure that we provide fans with that security and knowledge and understanding of the importance of that commitment.

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[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, started speaking, I thought that we were going to have a first. She started off by agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, on some points that I would agree with him on. Then she went totally against that and said that a Select Committee might be too interfering. I point out to her that the Select Committee that covers DCMS has, for many years, talked about the problems in football such as ticket pricing and the timing of matches. That has not impinged in any way on any international arrangements.

We have to make a clear distinction between Parliament and the Executive, because we are not talking about state control or government control. What we are talking about in this amendment is a proper accountability for any regulator. As I mentioned at Second Reading, I have the privilege of chairing the Industry and Regulators Committee of this House. We had a report about who regulates the regulator, so it is strange that the noble Baroness should use those words. This is not about regulating the regulator; it is actually about holding regulators to account. Both Houses have a very important role to play in making sure that regulators are held to account by Parliament.

I go further: if some of the regulators had been held to account more closely by Parliament in recent years, we would not, for example, have the crisis that we have today in the water industry. There has been a failure of Parliament to hold regulators to account.

My Amendment 89 is not grouped with these amendments but covers very similar points and the same principle. I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that Parliament will have a role to play in holding all regulators to account, including the independent football regulator.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. Her words are born of great experience—not just the dark arts of the Whips’ Office, I know, but many years of speaking up for her constituents in the other place. I think she ended up agreeing with my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay.

I support this amendment because of my experience of four years on the Public Accounts Committee in the other place. I had the great privilege of serving under the excellent leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge of Barking, who was a superb chairman. That is not to take away from the work of Meg Hillier, who recently did an excellent job in that role.

My point is that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, mentioned the division between the Executive and Parliament. Our worry on this side, and the reason we put forward this amendment, is that we see too many powers being vested in the Executive and Parliament having too few.

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[Lord Hayward (Con)]

Since my noble friend is referring to a letter that was addressed to me, I assure him that in the debate on another amendment I shall return in far greater detail to this letter, not least because the first heading of the letter refers to “Exact cost”. I never asked for exact costs. I preferred to use the word “probably”.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Your Lordships and I can rely on my noble friend’s forensic interrogation of the letter and the Bill generally. I know that we will come back to this issue.

I mentioned proportionality and a final example is the framework document, which has a strange description on page 2 of the letter. It says:

“DCMS as the sponsor department will agree a ‘framework document’ with the Regulator”.


It will be up to a parliamentary committee to look at what the point of that framework document is and whether its delivery by the regulator is efficacious. We need to know about the accounting officer. We need to know about the role of the National Audit Office and how it will intervene and work with the department, the regulator itself and any parliamentary committee. The levy, the proportionality and the cost are all areas where Parliament has a very important role to play.

I think we have reached the turning point in trusting regulators to discharge their duties without appropriate and close examination by legislators. That is our job and the job of those elected in the other place. Because the weather has changed for regulators, we no longer implicitly trust them to be full of experts and to do their job effectively. As my right honourable friend the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said, “In God we trust, everyone else bring data”. I am not just looking at the right reverend Prelate when I say that. The serious point is that we need to see that the regulator is doing its job. We cannot rely on just undertakings and assurances. We need the proper statutory function of a committee to oversee the work of the regulator. On that basis, I warmly support my noble friend’s excellent amendment.

[Lord Moynihan of Chelsea (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Jackson and to support the three amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson. I spoke a few days ago about how the Premier League became so successful, so popular and such an enormous contributor to the soft power of this country around the world, as well as to our finances in the many billions of pounds of taxes it pays. I spoke about the very delicate nature of entrepreneurial activity and the danger that comes from overregulation.

As noble Lords will know, I am not keen on the whole idea of this regulator—particularly one that is given so many powers in such an enormous Bill. But there is only one thing worse than a regulator given many powers and that is one given untrammelled and unscrutinised powers. Therefore, if we are to have this regulator, it is absolutely crucial that there is sufficient scrutiny of what it does.

We know that regulators like to regulate. People who are attracted to the idea of supervising other people like to get really involved and talk about what they would like to happen and how they can make that happen. They want to have the powers to make it happen—and preferably without scrutiny. I do not know how many Members of this Committee have had the experience of many years of scrutiny by regulators who decide, “You’re a wrong ’un and we’re going to go after you”. The process becomes the punishment.

And as many noble Lords have asked already this evening and earlier, who is going to come into this game? Who is going to apply their entrepreneurial flair if they believe that an untrammelled and unsupervised regulator is going to be able to second-guess everything they do, consider their fitness and will be able—from what we were told earlier—to reach into their funds and, through the backstop, extract them for whatever purpose, unchallenged, unsupervised and without any scrutiny. I submit to noble Lords that these amendments, if we are to have a regulator, are absolutely crucial for the regulator’s good functioning and for the future success of this wonderful part of our economy.