75th Anniversary of Formula 1

Lord McLoughlin Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, I would be more than happy to meet the Racing Steps Foundation charity to discuss options or arrange for the Minister for Sport to meet them. In terms of celebrating the role of Silverstone, the grand prix and the issue of free-to-air racing, I fell in love with grand prix racing because it was free to air. There are conversations to be had about making sure that significant moments in British sport can be accessed. However, obviously there is currently a commercial agreement in which Channel 4 gets the highlights—which I, like others, watched of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the weekend.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

Would the Minister agree that, looking at the success of Formula 1, it has been achieved mainly by not having a government regulator? Does that draw lessons for the Government on other sports?