Football Governance Bill [HL]

Report (1st Day)

Clause 1: Purpose and overview

Amendment 1

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out subsection (1) and insert— “(1) The purpose of this Act is to protect the financial sustainability and success of English football.(1A) The Secretary of State must, in taking any action under this Act, have regard to this purpose.(1B) The Independent Football Regulator must, in exercising its functions under this Act, have regard to this purpose.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment alters the purpose clause to include financial sustainability and success, and to give legal effect by requiring the Secretary of State and the IFR to have regard to that purpose.

My Lords, I begin this first day on Report by thanking the Minister for her considerable engagement on the Bill. It is nearly two months since Committee finished, and I am sure that scarcely a day has passed in the weeks that have intervened without her talking about this Bill with the Bill team or with colleagues across your Lordships’ House. I am particularly grateful, on my behalf and that of my noble friend Lord Markham, for the many meetings she has had with us on the Opposition Front Bench to talk about it. I know she has spent a great deal of time talking to noble Lords from across the House.

I also welcome the government amendments that she has tabled, some of which develop thoughts raised on all sides of the House in Committee, demonstrating that she and her team have listened to some of the concerns that we raised in Committee and that she has heard those from all sides of the House.

I particularly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, who have seen a lot of the issues they raised—through, I think, more than 100 amendments in Committee—taken forward. I hope we might yet still be able to persuade the Minister of one or two others, but we thank her for the amendments she has brought forward.

My Amendment 1 is an amalgamation of several amendments we discussed in Committee, tabled by my noble friends Lord Maude of Horsham, Lord Hayward and Lord Moynihan. It seeks to alter the stated purpose of the Bill, which, currently, is

“to protect and promote the sustainability of English football”,

replacing that with

“to protect the financial sustainability and success of English football”.

That reflects a compromise suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, from the Cross Benches. He argued on the first day in Committee that:

“The word ‘sustainability’ on its own is too undefined”.—[Official Report, 27/11/24; col. 728.]

He suggested combining my noble friends’ amendments. The noble Lord, sadly, cannot be with us today, but I am glad to say that I have his support in bringing his suggested compromise back today. Amendment 1 therefore focuses the intent of the Bill and is in line with the language the Government have proposed in their Amendment 14, so I hope it may find favour.

I have also tabled Amendment 2 to highlight once again the importance of ensuring that prospective fans are included in the definition of fans under this Bill. This is not the time to repeat the arguments made in Committee on the precise nature of fans, but I think the consensus in Committee was that this should be as broad a definition as possible. Fans of English football come from every corner of this country, and indeed from across the globe.

As I said in Committee, we must ensure that this Bill does not create a “stasis” in football. The worst scenario would be for the beautiful game to be frozen in time. Its improvement and growth need to be promoted. The fans of the future are, after all, the future of football. It is for this reason that I have tabled Amendment 15, which seeks to ensure that the regulator does not act in any manner which undermines or harms the growth of English football. That is an alteration from the original iteration of this growth duty, which we considered in Committee. It is very similar to Amendment 14 tabled by the Minister. We welcome the fact that she has brought that forward.

I want to question the wording of government Amendment 14. It specifies “financial growth”, whereas our Amendment 15 talks about growth more generally. I know the noble Baroness also wants to see the growth in football reflected through, for instance, match attendance, the sale of TV rights, numbers of supporters and so on. If, when she responds to this group, she can say why in Amendment 14 they have chosen the tighter wording of “financial growth”, I would be interested to hear that.