Oral Answers to Questions

Yuan Yang Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

4. What steps she is taking to help improve the sustainability of lower league football clubs in Wolverhampton West constituency.

[Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)]

8. What steps she is taking to help improve the financial sustainability of English football clubs.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)]

We are proud to have introduced the Football Governance Bill, which will establish an independent football regulator to protect the financial sustainability of English football clubs, and we recognise the key role that lower league football clubs play at grassroots level.

[Lisa Nandy]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he has done in supporting his local clubs. Across all sports, Sport England invested over £57,000 in Wolverhampton West in 2023-24. The Government are committed to continuing to support local clubs through investment in the multi-sport grassroots facilities programme, as well as through Sport England, which invests over £250 million of lottery and Government funding each year.

[Yuan Yang]

The Sport Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), was kind enough to meet me and Reading football club fans last year to discuss the urgent need for an independent football regulator. Since then, the legislation has been held up in the other place by Conservative peers, and I was appalled to hear that the Leader of the Opposition sees an independent regulator as “a waste of money”. Fans and staff in Reading will be able to tell the Secretary of State the importance of the need for a regulator, so will she visit the stadium in my constituency to meet them in person?

[Lisa Nandy]

I would be delighted to support my hon. Friend as she continues to fight the good fight for football fans in her constituency. Like her, I was appalled by the Leader of the Opposition’s comments. The independent football regulator began life under the last Government; it was in the Conservative manifesto, it was in our manifesto, and we were elected to deliver it on behalf of millions of football fans. I very much hope that the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew) will disassociate himself from the Leader of the Opposition’s appalling comments.