English Football League Governance: Derby County FC

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on matters of English Football League governance surrounding the administration of Derby County football club.

I am appearing at the Dispatch Box in place of the sports Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston)—who is taking a Bill through Committee. Like many Members across the House, I know how important football clubs are to local communities, and I appreciate how worrying it is to see them under jeopardy. I feel that particularly as a fan of Crystal Palace, a proud south London club that went through a similar experience about 11 years ago. It went through administration and was bought out by Steve Parish, avoided relegation, and is now in the premier league, so there is always hope, even in the darkest hours. Because the Government understand how important football clubs are to our local communities, we launched a fan-led review of football governance, and are working at pace to respond to the excellent report from my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch).

I turn to Derby County. The situation is worrying for fans, the local community and football alike. No one wants to see a founding member of the Football League in administration and facing threats to its survival. Of course, Derby County has won silverware in the past, and I pay tribute to Wayne Rooney for his sterling work as manager this season—I never thought I would hear myself saying those words in the House of Commons.

We should be clear that the governance surrounding the administration of Derby County football club is a matter for the English Football League, the administrator and the club. However, the Government take a close interest and are receiving regular updates. The sports Minister spoke to the English Football League last night to understand exactly what is going on, and to urge all parties involved to take a pragmatic approach to securing the future of the Rams. I call on the English Football League, the club and the administrators to play an active and urgent role, within their remits, in seeking to facilitate an urgent solution to the situation.

I thank the Minister for his words. I spoke to the sports Minister last night, and I place on record that many Derbyshire colleagues completely support what we are doing to try to save the club. Derby County football club cannot be allowed to be removed from the English Football League on 1 February. If this can happen to Derby, which was one of the founder clubs of the Football League in 1888, it can happen to any of the other 71 clubs.

These clubs are so much more than businesses. They represent the heart and soul of communities, nowhere more so than in Derby, and they are huge drivers of economic growth and part of the cultural fabric of our country. Can the Minister assure me that in his discussions with the EFL he has been reassured that it is acting in the best interests of Derby County’s fans?

I understand that there are ongoing legal proceedings between Derby and other clubs, but the reason the potential takeover cannot happen is that the EFL is refusing to rule on whether those claims could constitute football debts—a matter for EFL rules, not for the courts. Will the Minister confirm why the EFL is refusing to rule on the matter? If the EFL cannot or will not rule on it, Derby County believes that it could rely on new insolvency rules, approved by this Parliament, to exit administration. Will the Minister please confirm that he will investigate why the EFL’s insolvency guidelines are not up to date, which is causing such difficulties for Derby County?

Furthermore, although the EFL’s delay is effectively holding up the takeover, it appears to have set an arbitrary deadline of 1 February, at which point it can remove Derby from the league. Is the Minister convinced that the EFL is acting fast enough to resolve the football debts issue before the deadline, or will it extend the deadline accordingly?

Finally, I would like to mention the administrators of the club. Fans have no accountability mechanisms over those individuals, who themselves have no connection to the club. Will the Minister please assure me that he is in constant contact with the administrators to ensure that they are acting in the fans’ best interests and as quickly as possible?

As always, my hon. Friend is an outstanding advocate for Derbyshire and for matters that concern her constituents and football fans across the county and the broader region. I agree entirely with her point. Football clubs are an integral part of the fabric of their local communities; I certainly feel that in south London with Crystal Palace, and I know that colleagues across the House and their constituents certainly feel the same about their football clubs.

The sports Minister has been in close contact with the English Football League. We want to see it working urgently, pragmatically and rapidly to resolve the outstanding issues standing in the way of a takeover by a new owner, who we hope can invest the money needed to turn the club around. The sports Minister is pressing the English Football League very hard on these points; I am sure that he will do so again and that the English Football League will be listening to our proceedings this afternoon, hear the message from this House and act accordingly.

On my hon. Friend’s final point, I am afraid that I do not know whether the sports Minister has spoken to the administrators yet, but since she has raised the point so forcefully and eloquently, I will certainly ask him to do so as soon as I leave the Chamber.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for bringing this urgent matter to the House today. Once again, one of our great historic football clubs—a founder member of the Football League—is in danger. That is not the fault of the players and staff, who have performed remarkably in the circumstances; it is not the fault of fans; once again, it is the fault of mismanagement by owners. It is an example of the problem that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) identified in the fan-led review of football governance: owners gambling everything on aiming for Premier League status without proper safeguards in place, leaving the club in danger. It is further evidence that football governance is broken and that we urgently need the changes recommended in the fan-led review.

We appreciate that the specifics of the current situation at Derby County are complex and that there are a number of parties involved—the EFL, potential buyers, administrators and other clubs making claims to legal challenges. Labour urges all those parties to work together to sort this out. But even bearing that in mind, may I urge the Minister and the sports Minister to do everything in their power to secure the club’s future for the sake of fans, players, staff, the city and the wider community?

The question that many fans will be asking is “How did we get here again?” The review by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford has already put forward a strong set of recommendations that would overhaul football governance for the better. Introducing a new statutory independent regulator requires new legislation, but a shadow regulator fulfilling the same function could be introduced straightaway. Such a regulator could have flagged up the issues that put Derby County in jeopardy long before we got where we are today.

The Government have said that they will respond fully to the review’s recommendations in the spring, but does the Minister accept that this latest crisis demonstrates that that is just too long to wait? Is the crisis not more compelling evidence that the Government need to act quickly to implement the recommendations of the fan-led review and ensure that football has a governance regime that safeguards our great clubs and our national game?

I thank the shadow Minister for her question. Clearly, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire, is doing everything he can to urge the various participants, especially the English Football League, but also the administrators and the other clubs involved, to find a resolution to this complicated situation.

I would add two points. First, I would not tar all football owners with the same brush. Those clubs I know about, particularly Palace, have been well managed, so it cannot be said that football owners as a whole conduct themselves badly. Secondly, the problems at Derby County are long-standing, and long predate the fan-led review. We are moving at pace to make sure that the fan-led review is implemented, and that work will happen as quickly as possible.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing the urgent question and pay tribute to her Derbyshire colleagues, some of whom are unable to be here today but who I know are as concerned as she is.

My inbox is full of Rams fans who are understandably concerned by the perilous situation the club is in. The football review panel met Mel Morris near the end of the process and after the interim recommendations were published, and I asked him specifically whether he thought that the club would be in a different situation if an independent regulator and real-time financial monitoring had been in place. His answer was, “Yes, without a doubt.” Given that clubs think that the recommendations in the review would lead to greater sustainability in football, will the Minister—I appreciate he is standing in for the sports Minister—give a bit more detail about the pace at which implementation of the report’s recommendations is being considered and will be responded to? Many would argue that they are urgently needed so that no other club and its loyal, committed, lifelong fans will suffer the threat of ceasing to exist.

Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend for the tremendous work that she has done in convening the fan-led review and producing such a comprehensive and detailed report. I can assure her that the Sports Minister is working on this as a matter of urgency. We have accepted the key principles of the fan-led review. It is a detailed review with a large number of detailed recommendations, and we want to make sure that we get the response right while doing so as quickly as possible. I can assure my hon. Friend that that work is happening very quickly, and I would be happy to ask the sports Minister to meet her to discuss the implementation timetable. I spoke to him earlier this afternoon and he is fully seized of the need to move fast.

I can confirm everything that the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) said about the importance of this issue in the city of Derby and across the whole area, as can be seen from the Members here today. Long ago, when this all began, I was one of those who took part in a meeting with the Football League in which it assured us of its earnest desire to see this matter resolved and Derby County continue. The Minister said in his opening remarks that no one wants to see the club go under: well, some of us are beginning to wonder. I assure him, and through him the Football League, that if, inadvertently—because the Football League is unable to remove the obstacles that at the moment it appears to be putting so firmly in Derby County’s way—that were to happen, none of those participating in it would be forgiven.

The right hon. Lady makes her point with power and eloquence, and I echo her sentiments. As I said in my opening comments, I hope the English Football League, the other clubs involved in this saga and the administrators are listening to our proceedings this afternoon and to the message she just gave, which probably commands support across the House. I hope they listen and act accordingly.

A little over a year ago, the sports Minister and I were in almost daily communication about the EFL’s financial crisis. Through that communication and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s actions and public hearings, we dragged the Premier League kicking and screaming into a £250 million deal to bail out the EFL. In the light of that action, does my hon. Friend agree that it is beholden on the EFL, which has benefited from financial help in the past, to show decency and understanding to Derby County football club—a former league champion club—in this, its hour of need? What is more, we need to speed up the football review and get legislation on the statute book. We all know there is limited time to bring forward legislation, but this is clearly an urgent priority, so will my hon. Friend commit today to give us a timetable for when legislation will come forward?

My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee echoes the sentiments so powerfully expressed by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) a few moments ago. There is a significant burden on the English Football League and on the other clubs involved to get this matter sorted out urgently, and I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments in that regard.

On the timing, a number of details clearly need to be worked through. The fan-led review’s recommendations were very detailed, and primary legislation will be required. As my hon. Friend will know, the Government need to work through a number of pressing legislative priorities. I cannot make a commitment on behalf of my colleague the sports Minister—it would be wrong to commit a fellow Minister in respect of his portfolio—but I will ask him to speak to my hon. Friend, as well as to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), to discuss the timing.

I have to say that there will be real disappointment among Derby County fans that the sports Minister is not here to respond to this question. I understand that he is serving on a Bill Committee, but arrangements could have been made—[Hon. Members: “Here he is.”] Well, it would be good to hear from him, because with the greatest respect to the Minister responding, he has not been able to answer the fundamental question.

The Minister has spoken about the problems that Crystal Palace had previously, but one thing about this situation is different: the threat of legal action from Middlesbrough and Wycombe and the impact of commitments that may exist in the future on the possibility of a takeover happening now. Will the Minister tell us what the sports Minister is doing to ensure that Middlesbrough and Wycombe’s claims against Derby County’s previous owners do not prevent the club from being purchased? When clubs have debts in the future, they go out of existence altogether, as we saw with Glasgow Rangers and Bury; if clubs have debts in the past, it can be resolved. That is the key issue we need to hear about today.

If I may say so respectfully, the hon. Member’s comments about the sports Minister at the beginning of his question were rather unfair: he was in a Bill Committee, taking primary legislation through Parliament, and has now arrived on the Front Bench, having completed that important task. That was an extremely unfair remark.

On the other football clubs, legal proceedings are currently pending, but I think a pragmatic solution should be found. I know the sports Minister has been in touch with the English Football League about finding a pragmatic solution. There were similar issues with Crystal Palace 11 years ago—I think it was to do with Lloyds Bank—and a pragmatic solution was found; I expect the same pragmatism to be displayed in this situation.

Finally, the fan-led review touched on some of the issues in respect of debts. When that review is implemented, it will address the issues that the hon. Member raised.

It is a pity we cannot have a substitution of the Minister now that the sports Minister has turned up—that might be allowed on the football pitch, but it is not here.

I know the Minister is a keen football fan; does he, like me, remember how close Middlesbrough came to going out of business until Steve Gibson saved the club a few decades ago? Would it not be ironic if Steve Gibson’s claim, which many of us think is probably a stretch, was what now pushed Derby County over the edge? Will the Minister urge Middlesbrough and Wycombe, in the spirit of football solidary that fans are showing, not to press their claims and to let new owners be found? Does he agree that the Government may need to act because we cannot have, in our elite professional leagues, one club suing another because it does not like the outcome of the season? That is no way to have a sports competition with integrity. If we are going to have legal cases to decide things after the fact, we will not know what the final title decider would have been until the years go by.

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There are obviously legal proceedings ongoing, but I think it would serve everybody’s interests—the interests of football more generally, as well as those of Derby County in particular—if those involved show pragmatism and help a proud and long-standing club to survive. As I said a few moments ago, when Crystal Palace was in a similar situation, the bank concerned did show pragmatism, and I call on all those involved, including other clubs, to show the same kind of pragmatism.

Derby County is the latest club to find itself in difficulty, but without major and urgent reform it will not be the last. The system is broken when the club finishing at the bottom of the premier league receives 10 times more than the club at the top of the championship, despite their being separated by just one place in the football pyramid. Can I ask the Minister what work is being done to ensure that English Football League clubs are put on a financially sound footing, including agreement on an equitable distribution of the TV money?