Unauthorised Entry to Football Matches Bill

Second Reading

Moved by

That the Bill be now read a second time.

My Lords, I confess to your Lordships that I have blatantly plagiarised this speech, if copying oneself can be categorised as plagiarism. I kicked off this Bill in the House of Commons in 2024, albeit with one slight tweak from its current incarnation. It is not unique for someone to introduce a Bill in the House of Commons and get it through Second Reading. Another Member is doing a similar thing right now. In the House of Commons I got it through Second Reading and Committee, only for it to fall as a result of a walk in the rain taken by Rishi Sunak and the subsequent snap general election. It is nice to be able to reintroduce it here in the House of Lords. I hope that with your Lordships’ support, this time we can get it to the final whistle.

On Sunday 11 July 2021, the final of the men’s Euros football tournament at Wembley Stadium could have resulted not just in the sad loss for the England football team on that occasion but in a tragic loss of life. That was the finding of the independent review conducted by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, into the events of that day. It suggested that we narrowly escaped a disaster that could have resulted in fatalities or irreversible injuries.

For everyone here, I am sure that the mere thought that such a catastrophe is still possible in this country at a football match in the 21st century, after the tragedies of the latter part of the last century, is profoundly unsettling. Those present at the Euro 2020 final, which took place in 2021 because of Covid, witnessed at first hand the reckless behaviour of some people seeking to enter the stadium without a ticket. When the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I was a member at the time, undertook an inquiry following the Euros, I admit that I was genuinely shocked—I think that I was not the only one—to discover that entering, or attempting to enter, a football match without a ticket is not a specific criminal offence.

That is why the committee acknowledged the need for the Bill, which I introduced, in a recommendation in its Safety at major sporting events report, published in December 2023. It demonstrated the broad cross-party recognition of this problem and the consensus on the need for legislative action to put it right. All the members of the Select Committee at that time who held seats within its territorial scope—England and Wales—were named as co-sponsors when I introduced the Bill in the other place. After the 2024 general election, the Bill was picked up by Linsey Farnsworth MP, who has done a sterling job in steering it skilfully through all its Commons stages and improving, with a slight tweak, on my original.

The Bill would bring into law recommendations that came out of the Select Committee’s findings and the review by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, by amending the Football (Offences) Act 1991 to introduce a new offence of unauthorised or attempted unauthorised entry to football matches. It is estimated that, at the Euro 2020 final, somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 ticketless individuals were able to gain entry. Many people will have seen the disorder, overcrowding and safety hazards that resulted from those events. Those actions not only compromised the safety and security of stewards, police officers, spectators, players and officials, but greatly tarnished the reputation of the sport and of this country. On the security of stewards at the ground, I had a brief conversation before today’s session with the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington, who I see is still in his place having spoken on the previous Bill. He confirmed to me that in a past life he was a security guard at Wembley Stadium and frequently witnessed this kind of behaviour and dangerous activity going on. I thank him for his support of my Bill.

My Lords, I support the Bill. I congratulate Linsey Farnsworth in another place on the initiative she has taken and, particularly, the work that the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, has done on the Bill, both in another place and indeed here today. I wish him well—all my comments will be in that context, because I think there may be some areas where we can seek to strengthen the Bill and consider some of its implications.

I too will share with the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, a bit of past experience on this. The Football Spectators Act 1989 was a Bill that I piloted through the Commons as Minister for Sport. The subsequent Act that he referred to, the Football (Offences) Act 1991, addresses broader forms of football-related disorder, allowing for the banning orders, which do not make, as has rightly been pointed out, unauthorised entry itself a prosecutable offence. It is important and may be helpful, especially when we get to Committee, to reflect on the conversations that took place at the time of the original Bill, during the Thatcher and the Major Governments. Thirty-five years on, some of those same arguments were raised by Katie Lam in another place and echoed during the Bill’s proceedings.

No law can be effective unless you have the resources to bring the perpetrators to justice, and the cost of policing will be substantial. As Katie Lam clearly stated:

“It is … right that we give police and organisers the tools that they need, not just to remove people in the moment, but to prevent repeat offences through banning orders”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/25; col. 1253.]

When the original legislation was first considered, this proposal came up, and concern was expressed by the police, some of the clubs and politicians about how well the offences could be policed and how much additional policing costs and stewarding would follow.

My Lords, I endorse the Bill and the principle of the amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I will repeat nothing of his points but merely make observations to add to them.

I think Members of the House would be shocked at the prices for the average secondary market ticket for the Premier League today. The amount of cash and profit that can be dispensed to others in precisely the way the noble Lord articulated is greatly underestimated, as are estimates of the number of tickets in the Premier League going through the secondary market. This is very big business.

One point that the noble Lord did not make but that needs adding is that the majority of these tickets are being bought online electronically from abroad. Dublin is a huge centre for that but there are many more outside this country. That is the business model. The term used to me by the people with the most expertise in this field is organised crime, and that is what this is. It is not the old school of freelancers or interesting characters with a flat cap running a cash-in-hand business outside a stadium, who are still recognisable on occasion at sporting events. They are only a tiny bit of the problem. This is organised crime, big money, and that needs serious consideration. Another minor issue that needs serious consideration in Committee is whether FA Cup fixtures should be included, because then you have the potential of a range of other grounds that will suddenly have a huge fixture, and the problems associated with it, away from the norm.

There are many ingenious ways in which football fans will attempt to see fixtures. At Oxford United last March, I witnessed—although the police intervened after 10 minutes—the most ingenious of attempts. A van was parked in a public car park adjoining the smallest stand. A ladder, which was more like a window-cleaning device, was raised and, in great comfort, two fans started to observe the fixture from on high. Such was the angle of the ladder that they may well have technically been inside the stadium. I use that as an illustration of the many ways in which the true fan—but one without a ticket—may attempt to see a fixture.

I cannot leave that anecdote without recalling a story that I hope I am allowed to share, in the spirit of this debate. I had to introduce the football Bill back in the days when the House was completely packed. On the day when I was winding up, the House was totally full because the Bill was a major issue at the time. There was that moment before the Minister winds up when the House goes silent, and Dennis Skinner looked at me and said, “It’s all right for him. He can get in under the turnstile”.

My Lords, that shows the ingenuity that doubtless may have been attempted. I am considering when that could be used, before the Bill becomes law, to assist the noble Lord in accessing a certain match that he is keen to watch.

There are other points that need considering by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, and the Committee. First, facial recognition is coming in. Serie A already has facial recognition; it is not in widespread use, but the technology is required in Italy. There are certainly two Premier League clubs that are bringing in facial recognition for part of their stadium at the moment. I do not say that the interesting question of facial recognition “coincides”, but it sits alongside this.

Secondly, there is the issue of political agitators, whose aim is to get on the pitch—they have attempted to do so—and the question of players’ safety in relation to that is a factor. I think the last recorded case was an environmental protester of some kind getting on a pitch, but that is a serious issue in relation to player safety, which has rightly been taken as more important in recent times. That would actually back up the crusade of the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, to have this legislation come into place.

Thirdly, on policing issues, the last time this was a major problem in English football was not the Euro final. It was on 30 November 2023 at Villa Park, the home of Aston Villa. In a UEFA fixture, a club called Legia Warsaw from Poland were playing. The police and the safety advisory group of Birmingham City Council had not banned Legia Warsaw fans; in fact, 1,002 tickets had been sold to them, and they came to the fixture. Their numbers had been restricted, but another 1,000 came and attempted to force entry into the stadium, causing huge safety issues and immediate action by the matchday commander from the police and Aston Villa Football Club, who then closed the turnstiles and created other disorder outside as fans, both with and without tickets, could not get entry. That issue was identifiable; Legia Warsaw has had 35 fines from UEFA for fan behaviour.

May I remind the noble Lord of the advisory speaking time in this debate, please?

I shall be brief, because this is the last point I want to make from the report. It says:

“Several people were injured, five of whom were treated in hospital”.

Those five, I can confirm, were Israelis. It continues:

“Twenty to thirty Israeli supporters with minor injuries were taken in by the Jewish community”.

Now that is from the report of the chief of police. It goes on to detail the people who were arrested and where they were from. There were 49 Dutch arrested and 10 Israelis during that period. There were more Dutch arrested in the consequential days. That is a statement of fact from René de Beukelaer, the chief prosecutor, and the police chief, Peter Holla.

I remind the noble Lord that he is now well over his time. Can he please bring his remarks to a close?

The relevance of this is that the purpose of the Bill is to ensure safety at football matches. The interaction between the Bill and the need for guidance and guidelines, including for the police, on how it would be best used is fundamental to its success. Otherwise, what happens is that people will put things on social media suggesting that they are the facts of what happened, but those facts are fundamentally inaccurate. Having the Dutch system of a statement of facts as a potential amendment to this Bill would make a big difference.

My Lords, thank you very much for allowing me to speak in the gap. I fully support this Bill and congratulate my noble friend Lord Brennan on it. The comments from the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and my noble friend Lord Mann have been fascinating. I have a slight interest to declare, having consulted the clerk, as I am the patron and former chairman of Manchester United Supporters’ Trust. That club’s ground is certainly one that you would not be able to use a ladder to look into.

I am particularly concerned about the mechanics of enforcement. If you have 3,500 people breaking into a ground, how on earth do you even begin to do this? I implore that when this Bill goes into Committee, how to deal with that is considered. Tailgating, which is where you follow in behind somebody, whether you do it above or below—I would probably be below, like the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—is really quite important, but tailgating is something we see all the time on the Tube. I have seen it at Old Trafford: usually, the person doing it is 10 times my size, so I let him get on with it, but the reality is that it could be caught by CCTV.

What I am concerned about is how we deal with enforcement and who is ultimately going to pay. The Bill focuses on the football clubs themselves; I suspect that while they will not want to, they may find themselves having to bear the burden of this. I look forward to hearing what happens about enforcement. I wish the Bill well and I congratulate my noble friend again.