Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grantchester (Lab)]

My Lords, I propose Amendment 35 in the name in the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, to which I have added my name. I declare my interests as a former director of Everton Football Club. I am now chair of its memorabilia trust and a small shareholder.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, apologises to the House that she cannot be here to move her amendment, as she is chairing a three-day social care conference. The dates and timings of commitments can present difficulties with the scheduling of legislation. If she were here, she would have reflected that the women’s game has come a long way and now has a recognised pathway for women and girls to progress beyond recreational football enjoyment to elite participation. The pathway now crosses national structures to successful European clubs, where there will be more opportunities to progress for less football-friendly nations.

The success of the Lionesses in recent years has been a great, positive beacon in the sport, encouraged by the FA’s strategies Inspiring Positive Change and Reaching Higher. There has been a 56% increase in women and girls playing football and a 14% increase in schools offering equal access in sport and PE for girls. There is so much more that is needed in schools to improve female health and well-being through sport.

This Bill has been a long time coming to fruition. I have not spoken much on the Bill as I am in total agreement with this improved version that will tackle, from a fan’s perspective, all the shortcomings in the top leagues, rather than leaving problems exposed, as would have occurred in the previous Conservative Government’s legislation.

This amendment is simple. It is correct that there are powers in the Bill for the Secretary of State to expand the remit of the IFR into the women’s game. Right now, the focus needs to be on embedding the IFR into the men’s game appropriately. However, the women’s game remains vulnerable. Kaz Carney’s report, Raising the Bar, achieved an agreement that the women’s game would like to develop on its own terms separate from the men’s, but that it needs protection. Separate, yes, as audiences differ, and it is more diverse and family-focused, with a different culture and even refreshments at games, but it needs protections, as women’s football needs so much investment in standards and facilities.

This season, for the first time in the WSL, all the teams are teams with a men’s Premier League club providing that investment. Kaz Carney’s report understood that if the top clubs do not believe in women’s football, it will not thrive. However, dependence on the men’s team is fundamentally problematic. When Reading was in financial trouble, it made a decision to cut support for the women’s team and disbanded it, leaving all its female players without their club. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, provides the example of Thornaby FC, which also disbanded the women’s team, which was saved after a public outcry, with an indignant Lily, then aged seven, declaring:

“If girls want to play football, you can’t just not let them”.


I applaud the restructure of the FA-controlled competitions into two top divisions, with a separate league structure under the leadership of Nikki Doucet. The Premier League has come forward with a £20 million interest-free loan to nurture this development. With the simple Amendment 35, women’s football development, while dependent on funding from the men’s game, will be independent in its operations and protected from the vagaries of the men’s game. Whether it develops along US lines, where there are independent funders and stand-alone teams, is to be seen, but the point is that women’s football can develop how it wishes to.

Can my noble friend the Minister give assurances that women’s football will be protected in this legislation? Can she confirm that the women’s football game will be assessed in all “state of the game” reports so that the Secretary of State may be advised whether problems are emerging that could require the scope of the IFR to be expanded? Is my noble friend the Minister able to give any indication of what conditions or circumstances might give rise to such considerations? How can this come about so that, should there arise concerns and problems in the development of and outcomes in women’s football, there would be a recourse of referral to the IFR? I beg to move.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, and thank him and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for their hard work on this issue and for highlighting its importance. I have just one question that I would like to put to the Minister. In looking at the regulator’s remit, it is vital that care should be taken that there are no unintended consequences for the women’s game, such as clubs disinvesting in their women’s teams as a method of meeting sustainability obligations when alternative measures are available. I should be very grateful when she comes to summing up if the Minister could answer that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to thank the Government for Amendment 90. It is the sort of thing that improves a Bill, improves the ongoing process of a Bill and means that it is not just dead when it finishes going through its parliamentary life. There probably should be far more of these in legislation, so I thank the Government.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 94D and in so doing echo the welcome that the House has given to the Minister on introducing Amendment 90. Amendment 94D focuses on the role of the FA and recognises that when the 2023 White Paper was written and supported by both sides, it expressly backed delegation as a good idea. We understand that the shadow regulator would also welcome the ability to both formally and informally delegate functions to competition organisers, especially around first-line areas such as monitoring and administrative elements of licensing.

My amendment does not require the Government to do more at this stage than recognise that, following the review of the Act, if that report concludes that the regulator’s objectives could be achieved more effectively by delegating an IFR function to the Football Association, at least on the face of the legislation, that would be possible. As I say, it recognises that in the White Paper the Government saw merit in sharing or delegating regulatory responsibilities in certain circumstances. It also begins to address the current complete severance of the umbilical cord between the role of the FA, as the national governing body of football in this country, and the contents of this legislation, and goes at least one step towards addressing the fact that it is imperative to protect and preserve the independence of the FA, not least in accordance with the FIFA and UEFA statutes. We know that legislation that compromises the FA’s autonomy as the primary regulator of football in England would be non-compliant with these statutes. This amendment at least opens the door a little to the FA undertaking its role as the sole regulator of football, which has otherwise been stripped bare by the other clauses.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I rise, rather unusually, to congratulate the Minister. I think this amendment is very important. I am not going to congratulate the shadow Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, only because he has been congratulated all night on Newcastle’s win, and I think, “Do me a favour; it’s not him that did it”. Anyway, I wanted to get that out and about.

We have heard some genuinely fine speeches in Committee and even on Report—some of the best I have heard since I have been in the Lords. Just today, the speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and his colleagues, by the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and by so many others were passionate and reasoned, with oodles of evidence, and so convincing. But sometimes the speeches have felt a bit more desperate, as though we were banging our head against a brick wall, tearing our hair out, with a tone of, “Is anyone listening? Do the Government understand the genuine concerns about this Bill? This is not just people messing around for sectarian reasons”. So I think it is important to acknowledge a couple of glimmers of hope.

Government Amendment 18 from the other day, saying that the IFR needs to have regard before it imposes any restriction and must consider whether it is necessary and whether a similar outcome could be achieved by less burdensome means, defangs a lot of the things that worry me about the Bill. It at least gives the regulator pause. Yet some of us, especially after today’s debate, are still very nervous about unintended consequences, anticipate trouble ahead and genuinely worry about what is going to happen to a game that has all the jokes about Newcastle and its fans and what it means to them. Imagine a whole nation being disappointed by this Bill if it does not deliver as they think it will and, not only that, damages the game that they are so passionate about.

Amendment 90 is very important. It is important to assess the extent to which the objectives intended have been achieved. I think, though, that it is important that the Government are not just allowed to mark their own homework there. It is one thing saying that there is a review, but who the reviewers are and the form of that review seem rather key questions.

It really is incredible that in the Bill we have a review that is going to ask whether the objectives remain appropriate after a few years; in other words, the objectives of the regulator can be completely changed. What is more, it asks whether those objectives could be achieved more effectively in another way. My answer now—before a review—is yes, which is why we do not really need the regulator in the first place. At least someone somewhere is asking that question.

This matters, and I think it shows that the Government and the Minister have been listening. I therefore urge the Minister to listen now to the smaller amendments in this group that enhance what the Government are trying to do with a little bit more detail. Will she accept this amendment as we finish Report and say, “Yes, I have listened, and we are not going to be an overbearing, overweening supporter of a regulator that will destroy football. We are going to do our best not to do that and will accept these amendments”?