Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to question Amendment 156 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lady Grey-Thompson. It is a great pleasure to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Burns, because it is a reminder to us of how much experience we have here, from a board director of a Premier League football club to regular supporters and, in the noble Lord’s case, the holder of three season tickets. I pay tribute to him and his long-suffering son and grandson.

The point that I want to make about Amendment 156 is about season tickets. I do not think anybody in your Lordships’ House would argue against diversity in staff and senior managers. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, made the good point that about 40% of Premier League players are from a BME background, but that that does not continue into senior management. That has been the case for a long time and there is clearly more work to do on that.

However, the first part of Amendment 156 talks about

“the diversity of season ticket holders”.

When I saw that, I was worried about the law of unintended consequences. How on earth do you sort out that issue? For season tickets for my team there is something called supply and demand. There are several options for having a season ticket at Manchester United, as there are at other Premier League clubs, but how do you work it out? There is a waiting list, because of supply and demand. Several thousand people are waiting to become season ticket holders, so can the Minister advise the Committee how this amendment would be looked at?

There are a limited number of seats at a ground: in the case of Old Trafford, there are 75,000 seats and a waiting list of 10,000. I have had a season ticket for many years. Recently, they changed where you could sit at Old Trafford. I was unsure for a while whether I would have a ticket for where I moved to. I was told that there was no guarantee that I would have a ticket, which, as you can imagine, was quite distressing for somebody who had been a season ticket holder for many years. As it turned out, I was lucky enough to have a ticket, in the way that several thousand were not.

There is also the option of a league match ticket book. That enables me to go to Premier League games only. There is the cup option—the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup and the European Cup options. There is also a ticket forwarding membership of £20. I mention that because, if you are looking at diversity, you may not be able to get a season ticket holder, but if you want to go and see a Premier League club, becoming a member gives you access to get a ticket. It might not be your favourite Premier League game against your local opposition or any other club in the Premier League, but anybody could apply, become a member of their local club and should be able to get a ticket for a cup game. It may not be a Saturday or a Sunday; it may be a midweek game. Diversity is in evidence at Premier League clubs. For example, accessibility for disability has been there in many clubs for many years. When I sit there before kick-off at Manchester United, I see significant diversity around me. What surprises me is the people who fly around the world to see their team play, as they do for so many other Premier League clubs.

The Premier League is the best premier league in the world for a good reason. It attracts diversity by that very principle. I would be interested in how the regulator would ensure diversity of ticket holders. I say yes when it comes to staff and senior management—I do not think anybody could disagree with that. However, it is complicated, and so much to do with this Bill is the law of unintended consequences. You cannot tell people who have been on waiting lists for many years that they cannot become a season ticket holder because of some diversity report from a regulator.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and Amendment 157, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I shall speak also to Amendment 249, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, which has a lot to commend it.

Before I comment briefly on those three, I want on the record to thank the Minister. We met this morning. We are fortunate in this Committee to have a Minister who is patient, engaging, professional and, unquestionably, inclusive in her approach to many different amendments and many different views that are expressed throughout this Chamber. When she consistently says how much she is enjoying this, some of us might question that, but there is no doubt that if she is, she deserves to, because she has the respect of the Committee and certainly my respect for the way in which she has engaged with us.

I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for whom I have many decades of respect. I was completely in agreement with 50% of what he said today, but I caution him in labelling a large number of Members of this Committee as purely spouting the views of the Premier League, trying to talk this Bill out or, more importantly perhaps, breaching the admonition from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, that because both Front Benches supported the Bill, we should not scrutinise it. He will know that for many decades I have been a passionate and independent voice for sport. My own deeply held view is that the autonomy and self-regulation of sport worldwide, be it in the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA or any number of international sporting bodies, are essential to the success of sport and ultimately those who participate in it.

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[Lord Pannick (CB)]

I point out to the noble Lord that the whole point is that this regulator is independent. Obviously, it is influenced strongly by government decisions, but it is independent. Surely, many of the concerns that the noble Lord is expressing—as, indeed, is the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—are answered by the appointment of a sensible regulator who will act in a proportionate manner.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I only wish I could say to the noble Lord that that is what we have in front of us. Had we had the opportunity to sit with him and explore each and every clause as we have gone through this, we might have been able to say so, but that is not the case. This is not light-touch regulation. This is not even regulation that you find in the Companies Act.

Let me give the noble Lord a quick example; I risk admonition for repeating a point that I made earlier, but I will make it very quickly indeed. When you give powers to the regulator to explore not just the controlling influence of a football club but those who “significantly” influence a football club, those are very different roles. You have “controlling” in the Premier League; you have “significant influence” in the Bill. Significant influence can reach back as far as the Crown Prince, who has significant influence over the PIF, which owns Newcastle, whereas, by definition in this Bill, he does not control that club, nor would the Premier League investigate him on that basis.

So it is reasonable to accept the noble Lord’s premise—I wish it were true that this is light-touch regulation—but, in reality, this is incredibly intrusive, highly detailed regulation. It goes further than the regulation I put in place in 1990 when I was the Minister responsible for water privatisation and we were setting up Ofwat. That was light-touch regulation in comparison with this extraordinarily detailed Bill. That is the most important point driving my concern about unintended consequences—what some people call the “mission creep” of regulation.

I turn to the amendments. Given that we are going to have a Bill for the reason that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said—there is all-party support for having legislation of this kind—we may as well get it right. There is real merit in looking at the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett—backed so eloquently, as ever, by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson—which would

“ensure regulated clubs have a clear, appropriate governance structure with a board consisting of executive and non-executive directors enabling decisions to be taken collectively”.

I hope that it would not be just regulated clubs. I hope that all clubs in all sports would do that, because the benefits of having both executive and non-executive directors is well known to those of us in sport—not least in the British Olympic Association, which I had the privilege of chairing.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, has widespread support in this House for the work he has done on anti-Semitism and anti-Semitism training. I am glad that he tabled his amendment, because it gives us an opportunity to thank him on behalf of sport and on behalf of football. That work has been absolutely critical; I say this not just as a fellow Leeds fan but because, across sport as a whole, it is vital that we put equality, inclusion and diversity right at the top of what we do.

We are expected to do that outside football. I have an interest to declare as the chair of Amey, which has some 13,000 people. Almost the first thing that I did as chairman was set up an ESG committee immediately beneath the board and chair it so that I could ensure inclusion and diversity were right at the heart of our policy and were in the DNA of everybody who worked in that organisation. I do not believe that that is different from sport and I do not believe that that is different from football.

So, if we are to have legislation—which, as noble Lords know, I regret—let us get this right and listen carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said in the first 50% of his speech, and to the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Mann. There is real merit in the Minister taking this away and thinking about what we would expect to see from the regulator in this context.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I was not intending to speak in this debate, but I am afraid that some of the comments that have been made have obliged me to do so.

However, before I come on to the amendments and the comments made in the speeches, I would just like all your Lordships to look around you. We are talking about equality, inclusion and diversity. What proportion of this Chamber is disabled, non-white, gay or lesbian? The answer is: very, very few. It is a compliment to the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, that she is a great example of what women can achieve at the top of the football tree, and that we have a female Minister responding. But I stand here, as I said in my first speech to this Chamber, as the founder chairman of the world’s first gay rugby club. It celebrated its 29th anniversary only just under two months ago and will celebrate, I expect, its 30th anniversary next 1 November.

I find it utterly unacceptable to suggest, as has been suggested, that we should not tackle the question of trans individuals in society. I am proud that I did a podcast the other week with a member of my club, who himself has undergone the process of moving from female to male. He is proud of having done it. There are issues that we have to address in society, as well as issues that we have to address in sport. I believe that on occasion it is appropriate to put things into legislation as an “encouragement” to people to behave in a certain way. It is all very well saying, “Well, we have the right policies and we’ll do it all right”, but I come back to this point: look at this Chamber.

I have not taken any guidance, as Lord Blunkett suggested, from the Premier League, and in fact, on a previous occasion in Committee, I made the point that actually the Premiers League, for all its right efforts, was not messaging correctly. I believe that that is the case here. In rugby we have had openly gay World Cup final referees and a captain of the Welsh rugby team, but we have no openly gay, top-level professional players at the moment, as far as I am aware. But football is behind the times despite the best encouragements from individuals, and it is therefore well worth while asking the question of the Minister and of the regulator, “How are you actually going to tackle these issues?”—because issues they remain.

I will conclude on the observation in relation to Rainbow Laces. Rainbow Laces has been adopted by sport throughout as a means of messaging to people as to how they should behave to other minority groups. They must continue to do so. It is not a political gesture; it is a gesture on behalf of society as a whole to other parts of society. I believe we have achieved so much, but we could achieve so much more.

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[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. In my view, these are proper probing amendments about unintended consequences—such as with Solihull—and the need to support women to get to the elite level, as well as the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. This is not about having an argument or asking the Government to rethink anything; these are truly probing amendments asking the Minister and those who work on the Bill to look at these points and make the Bill better. I am so thankful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Markham, in that. This group gets to the nub of an issue that can be dealt with very quickly.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I will pick up on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and refer to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mann. My understanding is that the regulator cannot take the women’s game into account, even where, in theory, the accounts may relate to both. Indeed, on the face of the Bill, as I read it—I look forward to the Minister’s clarification—it would be possible for clever accounting to move money and, indeed, even financial exposure, across to the women’s game and therefore exclude it from the consideration of the regulator. I hope I am wrong in that. I can see that there would be ample opportunity for approaches to the accounts and the financial strength of clubs to be manipulated in a way that I am sure was not the intention of the Government or the regulator. The Minister will no doubt clarify that when she comes to respond.

This goes back to the possibility of amending the scope of the Bill in the future. In other words, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, this is exclusively a men’s regulator. I was a bit concerned about the language in the report to Parliament and to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which was prepared by the department, recommending that women’s football be “given a chance” to self-regulate. That is rather a condescending phrase to the sport. Therefore, it is not surprising that a number of people in the sport have been rather concerned that the women’s game has not been given equal opportunity. UEFA has brought in solidarity payments for the Women’s Champions League clubs to support the growth of the women’s game. That is not the case in the UK. I can completely see the arguments that people like Kelly Simmons have made: if the benefits of the regulator are as strong as the Minister has expressed to the Committee, then it could enhance and expand club licensing criteria to raise standards in women’s football—the performance of women’s football as well as medical and welfare provision.

If the Bill offers so strong a benefit to the sport as the Minister makes out, it is unfortunate that the women’s game should be put to one side and simply told it is being given a chance to prove itself and, in due course, might see the benefits that the Minister says exist in this Bill for football. That is my biggest concern. I think it is a concern felt by many in women’s football; I see the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, nodding in assent.

It is important for the Minister to address both the role of the regulator in relation to what a football club does to promote women’s football and the wider implication that many in women’s football feel: that they are being somehow excluded from the great benefits we have regularly heard about in Committee from the Minister about the game as a whole.

I hope the Minister will respond to both those points; that would be helpful to the Committee. If they are not positive responses, then this will perhaps be something we should return to at a later stage, to make sure that the women’s game is not disadvantaged by the introduction of the regulator.

[Baroness Brady (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak on Amendments 65, 70 and 72, which focus on ensuring financial support for the women’s game and protecting it from many adverse impacts resulting from the Bill.

While I respect the intention behind these amendments, I believe that they are not strictly necessary. I want to underline the significant commitment that many Premier League clubs already have to the women’s game. A vast majority of Premier League clubs operate women’s teams—including West Ham, which had a fantastic 5-2 win yesterday. We do that not as an obligation but as a genuine commitment to growing and professionalising women’s football. We all want our women’s teams to succeed, thrive and contribute to the broader success story of English football.

The truth is that not one WSL team makes any money—actually, not one even breaks even. They all lose between £1.5 million and £5 million a year, so they are currently wholly reliant on the men’s teams playing in the Premier League for their funding. The Premier League’s commitment is not just rhetorical; it is backed by meaningful action. Premier League clubs have provided substantial financial support and shared their expertise, facilities and resources. A recent example of that is a £20 million interest-free loan, which was made available to the women’s NewCo to help build a robust foundation for future growth, alongside a co-operation agreement with the Premier League to assist with growing, commercialising and attracting investment to the women’s game. The Premier League also invests £6 million in over 70 emerging talent centres across the country, to bring brilliant and diverse talent into the women’s and girls’ game from the widest possible range of backgrounds.

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[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank my noble friends Lord Mann and Lady Taylor of Bolton, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for tabling these amendments, including on the important issue of the women’s game.

I reassure noble Lords that we are completely aligned on our commitment to women’s football. As I have said previously in your Lordships’ House, I was not allowed to play football when I was at school. I could not be more delighted that my nieces can not only play football but take for granted that they can, and that they are encouraged to do so. I am as excited at the growth in women’s football as is the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I asked a number of questions similar to those that noble Lords asked, so I hope that the answers I have had, which form a large part of my speaking notes tonight, will provide them the reassurance that I was provided when I asked those questions in preparation for your Lordships’ Committee.

At present, the regulator will not cover women’s football. In answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, the regulator will not be concerned with women’s teams’ accounts even where they are affiliated to men’s clubs. However, it is empowered to obtain and consider information from a club’s wider corporate group. I reassure the noble Lord that clubs should not be able to circumvent requirements through creative accounting in the manner that the noble Lord described as potentially being an issue.

The regulator will be concerned only with the sustainability of the clubs which will be within the scope of its regime. Women’s football is in such an exciting place and we really do hope that it will be able to grow and succeed in a sustainable way. Indeed, the wider football ecosystem already provides financial support to the women’s game—a point made eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Brady.

The FA has a 2024-28 women’s and girls’ football strategy, which states that by 2028 it will

“secure significant additional funding and investment to support women’s and girls’ grassroots football and pyramid”,

among other things. In addition, as the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said, the Premier League has provided a £20 million interest-free loan to the Women’s Professional Leagues Limited to help build strong foundations for the women’s game.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Can the Minister clarify what she has just said? Is she saying that the regulator would not be able to intervene in the example given by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, in introducing his amendment?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

On the example of Solihull, the response I made related specifically to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, raised about the creative use of accounting being used to avoid things. My understanding is that it is empowered to obtain and consider information regarding the club’s wider corporate group where it has reason to do so. It might be worth me getting further clarification from officials and ensuring that a letter outlining that is placed in the Library so that all noble Lords are clear on that point.