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Lords Chamber

Volume 841: debated on Wednesday 27 November 2024

House of Lords

Wednesday 27 November 2024

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Winchester.

Northern Ireland

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to strengthen Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom.

My Lords, before I answer the Question, I will take a moment to share my sympathies with all those who have been affected by flooding as a result of Storm Bert over the weekend. The storm and resulting flooding are, of course, very concerning and distressing for those affected, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Caine, for his work on the flooding experienced in Northern Ireland last year.

The Government are committed to delivering for all communities in Northern Ireland by resetting the relationship with the NI Executive and working collaboratively to transform public services and champion investment opportunities. This Government will work tirelessly to fully realise one of our greatest achievements, the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, and its vision for reconciliation, equality, respect for rights and parity of esteem, making Northern Ireland more prosperous, more inclusive and safer for everybody.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her kind words and I associate myself with what she said about the flooding. A key commitment in Annexe B of the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper in January is for the Government unashamedly to make the positive case for Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom. This was to be supported by papers setting out the considerable mutual benefits—political, economic, social, cultural and security—gained by Northern Ireland being an integral part of the union. Can the noble Baroness confirm that these remain firm government commitments? Can she update the House on the schedule for publication of these papers and the steps being taken to ensure their widespread circulation in order to counter the arguments of those seeking constitutional change?

My Lords, this Government believe that Northern Ireland is a core part of the United Kingdom. As regards our commitments and those made in Safeguarding the Union, we are not reneging on any of the Command Paper commitments but remain committed to implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith and taking forward commitments in a way that best delivers for the people of Northern Ireland. I will come back to the noble Lord on the timetable for publication; we are still working.

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the constitutional future of Northern Ireland will be decided by the people of the region, as laid out in the 1998 Good Friday agreement negotiated by the British and Irish Governments and the majority of parties? That agreement enshrined reconciliation, parity of esteem and respect for political difference.

I absolutely agree with my noble friend: in accordance with the Good Friday agreement and the principles of consent, Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK for as long as its people wish it to be. At present there is no clear basis to suggest that a majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to separate from the United Kingdom. For our part, the United Kingdom Government are committed to upholding the Good Friday agreement, in letter and in spirit, and in that vein to respecting all constitutional ambitions for Northern Ireland as long as they are pursued by legitimate means.

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how the east-west council set up under the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper and the new Council of the Nations and Regions can be used, together and separately, to promote the benefits of the union between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom? How is that work going to be evidenced in Northern Ireland itself, and how will it be used to dismantle the current trade and other barriers within the United Kingdom that have been imposed on the people of the area?

My Lords, the east-west council is one of the important structures of intergovernmental relations and institutions we will use to improve relations and collaboration on policy. The first meeting was in March 2024 and we will announce the date of the second meeting shortly. On the Council of the Nations and Regions, noble Lords will forgive me for the laugh but the Question following this one is on that council. It is a manifesto commitment and core to us resetting and normalising relations across the United Kingdom to deliver for the people of every corner of our country.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that Brexit has had a profound impact on politics in Northern Ireland, including on its relations with the rest of the United Kingdom? Young people often feel that they have been particularly negatively impacted. Does the Minister therefore not agree that reconsidering the Government’s policy on the EU youth mobility scheme would be very positively regarded by young people in Northern Ireland?

My Lords, I live in a place where 73% voted to leave. This Government have been very clear on our approach to Brexit and its clear impact on Northern Ireland. We need to make Brexit work for everybody, including young people, and find the benefits of Brexit. I look forward to further discussions in due course.

My Lords, in the interests of strengthening Northern Ireland’s position in the United Kingdom and restoring trust in the rule of law, can the Minister tell us when His Majesty’s Government intend to table legislation to repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles Act and to restore the rights to inquests, civil actions and the possibility of the prosecution of alleged murderers, which were removed under the Act but are enjoyed by everyone else in the United Kingdom?

I thank the noble Baroness for the work she has done in this area and for meeting me to discuss next steps. The Northern Ireland Office is working every day on this issue to make sure that there is genuine consultation for what will happen next. I look forward to updating the House and working with noble Lords across the House as we move forward to repeal and replace previous legislation and to make sure that, as we explore the legacy of the Troubles, we deliver for the people who were affected.

My Lords, the noble Baroness will know that no one in Northern Ireland had the opportunity to vote for the Labour Party—the governing party—because the Labour Party has decided that you cannot vote Labour. You can join the party, because the GMB took legal action. Can she tell me why the governing party has a sister party, the SDLP, which wants a united Ireland? How does that strengthen the union?

I am not sure that is a matter for the Government; rather, it is one for the Labour Party. I am more than happy to have a discussion with the noble Baroness outside the House.

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register and, in particular, my chairmanship of InterTrade UK. The Acts of Union in 1801 were mostly predicated on trade, which is so important for Northern Ireland and, indeed, the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Does the noble Baroness therefore share my concern that some small businesses in GB are already saying that they are not going to trade with Northern Ireland because of the EU product safety regulations?

I look forward to working in the coming months and years with the noble Baroness in her role as chair of InterTrade UK. The updated general product safety regulation largely formalises the reality of how businesses are already operating in the UK. The Department for Business and Trade has been working closely with businesses to help them get ready, and will shortly publish more guidance to support them further. This Government—and I—will keep a close eye on this going forward and continue to help businesses trade freely across the whole United Kingdom.

Will the Government publish a checklist of the measures in the Command Paper that have now been implemented, together with an indication of when the other measures will be implemented? In view of the slight confusion that has arisen, will the Government confirm that they have completely scrapped the legal duties that had been placed on Ministers to promote an all-Ireland economy, as the Command Paper pledged?

My Lords, I have the full list of where we have delivered, where we are in progress and where we are tied to EU reset and business readiness; I will speak to colleagues about making that publicly available. With regard to the all-Ireland economy, the Government are committed to protecting the UK-Ireland internal market and the Windsor Framework, including all aspects of the Northern Ireland economy. Section 10(1)(b) refers to the joint report between the UK and EU negotiators of October 2017, which refers—among other things—to the all-Ireland economy. The all-Ireland economy is a fact and is greatly to the benefit of the businesses and people of Northern Ireland, as is Northern Ireland’s trade with the UK internal market.

My Lords, we have had the Northern Ireland protocol and the Windsor Framework, and now we have the Safeguarding the Union document. All of those are supposed to assist with trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but we still have border checks, a border in the Irish Sea and no resolution to the veterinary medicines issue. When will the Government resolve these difficult issues for Northern Ireland?

This is a priority for this Government and we will work at pace, especially on the veterinary medicines issue. We have established a working group, which continues to advise the Government and which met again earlier this month.

Council of the Nations and Regions

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they intend to report to Parliament on the work of the Council of the Nations and Regions.

The inaugural Council of the Nations and Regions met on 11 October in Edinburgh to discuss growth and investment. On 17 October, the UK Government published the terms of reference for the council and a communiqué summarising the discussion. A communiqué will be published following each meeting of the council.

I thank the Minister for that excellent Answer. However, does she agree that while the council has got off to an excellent start bringing the nations and regions of the United Kingdom together, it is a pity that large areas of England were not represented. What are the Government going to do to make sure that they are represented at future meetings of the council?

The Deputy Prime Minister chaired the first leaders’ council on 24 October, where she vowed to forge a new relationship based on honesty and respect between central and local government, helping drive economic growth and improving lives. The leaders’ council brought together Ministers and local leaders to tackle shared problems. The Deputy Prime Minister has also written to all areas with a devolution deal to invite them to come forward with a proposal. New mayors established through this deal will be eligible to attend the Council of the Nations and Regions.

My Lords, this council appears to have rendered obsolete the Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council. Does the Minister really feel that is an appropriate sign of respect to send to the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

I assure the noble Baroness that that is not the case. Before the first full meeting on 11 October of the Council of the Nations and Regions—which, to remind the House, was a manifesto commitment—the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and the First Ministers of all devolved Governments had a multilateral meeting with the Prime Minister, which would fulfil tier 1 of the IGR requirements. With the greatest respect to noble Lords opposite, that was the first time such a meeting had happened since 2022.

My Lords, as a former Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber and a strong supporter of regional development agencies, which the previous Government made a big mistake in abolishing, I welcome the establishment of the Council of the Nations and Regions. Can my noble friend the Minister assure me that she will encourage mayors and combined authorities to draw up strategies for the whole of each region, such as Yorkshire and the Humber, to complement their individual strategies?

I thank my noble friend for her support. The Deputy Prime Minister is fully committed to empowering mayors and combined authorities, and we are working with local leaders from across England to deliver the most ambitious programme of devolution that this country has ever seen. We want to see all partners collaborating regionally, which obviously includes Yorkshire and the Humber. Our upcoming English devolution White Paper will be published in due course and will set out details.

My Lords, one of the objectives of the council is to identify

“barriers that can be unblocked”.

Does the Minister accept the belief of the Welsh Government—which was raised by the First Minister of Wales, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Ely—that the Barnett formula in its present form is a barrier to effective provision of public services in Wales? Will she confirm that the council has triggered an investigation into this matter? If not, why not?

My Lords, the Council of the Nations and Regions is one vehicle where the Heads of Government meet, but we have regular conversations with all First Ministers, especially the First Minister of Wales. That is why we announced the largest-ever Budget settlement for Wales under devolution, including a £1.4 billion increase because of the Barnett formula. How it is spent is now a matter for the Welsh Government.

My Lords, I welcome the formation of the Council of the Nations and Regions and, particularly, the forum it provides for the Prime Minister to meet the First Ministers of the devolved nations and the mayors of combined authorities. I was pleased to read the brief minutes of the first meeting on the government website. The Labour manifesto committed to set out a new memorandum of understanding outlining how the nations would work together to strengthen the Sewel convention. Has that been done? If not, what progress has been made on it?

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Work is under way. This is about how devolution works, and therefore there will not be one person who announces that. We are working with each devolved authority to make sure that any changes and updates to the MoU on the Sewel convention work for all devolved Governments and will report in due course.

My Lords, can the Minister assure the House that the council’s activities do not duplicate existing structures or initiatives, particularly in relation to devolution agreements and inter- governmental relations? Is clear value for money therefore provided by the council for taxpayers across the United Kingdom?

My Lords, I think it is fair to suggest that, for the last 14 years, there have been challenges in conversations between devolved Governments and mayors and the Government. That has not benefited economic growth in any corner of our country. This is to fix that and is therefore value for money. On the substantive question of where the Council of the Nations and Regions fits into intergovernmental relations and bodies that already exist, all those bodies exist because of conversations that have happened with the devolved Governments, so we are working with them to make sure that this structure, and future structures, will work for them to deliver for the people of every corner of our country.

My Lords, given that the UK Government have recognised the distinctive identity of the Cornish through the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, can the Minister say whether there are any plans to recognise that identity within the Council of the Nations and Regions, irrespective of whether they vote for a mayor? I note that the Cornish do not take kindly to being called English.

That threw me, my Lords. I am assured that they will be recognised through their combined authority and will be able to attend future meetings. I will come back to the right reverend Prelate on the other points.

My Lords, for the last decade, the relationship between the UK Government and Edinburgh has not been—how can I put it?—the healthiest. In what way can the Council of the Nations and Regions ensure that those relationships are healthier and more productive in the next decade, not least for the people of Scotland, who have lost out because of that fractiousness between the two Governments?

That is at the nub of the creation of the Council of the Nations and Regions. It is about making sure that we deliver for every corner of the country, that we do not just reset but normalise relationships between the UK Government and the devolved assemblies. What we saw on 11 October at the first meeting of the Council of the Nations and Regions was a meeting bringing everyone to Edinburgh to have those conversations and to talk about what priorities should be before the investment summit that occurred in the following days. That delivers real investment. We heard a great deal from the previous Government about levelling up. This is about levelling up in action and making sure that we are prioritising every corner and not just those that shout loudest.

Notwithstanding that the Government gave more money to Wales in the Budget, is not the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, right that the Barnett formula, which is deeply unfair to Wales, needs to be looked at finally for the future, rather than brushed off and pushed behind a carpet?

My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that this Government are committed to a comprehensive plan for devolution in England, and that this plan will, for the first time, allow proper powers and proper money from the Treasury to be devolved to the authorities that are closest to the people and able to solve the problems?

My Lords, there will be an English devolution Bill, and I thank my noble friend for the work that he has done for decades on devolution. The White Paper is soon to be published. We are expanding devolution, devolving further powers to local leaders to drive economic growth and empower communities. It is a responsibility of this Government to make sure that we deliver for every corner of the country.

Landlords: Long-term Rentals

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what incentives they propose to introduce to encourage landlords back into the private rented sector for long-term rentals.

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as a vice president of the Local Government Association.

I thank the noble Baroness for her Question. The Government value the contribution made by responsible landlords who provide quality homes for tenants. They form a vital part of our housing market. Our Renters’ Rights Bill ensures that landlords have the confidence and support they need to continue to invest in the sector and we do not expect it to have a destabilising effect on the market. We have included provisions in the Bill to make sure that landlords cannot evict tenants simply to turn the property into a short-term let. Landlords and tenants are equally important. Landlords want good tenants. Tenants want good landlords. We hope that the Bill will make things better.

I thank the noble Baroness for her reply and sincerely hope that the Government’s aspirations are met, but note that most of the actions are going to be in the future. However, I know that the Minister is only too well aware of the crisis in temporary accommodation that is actually caused by over 110,000 households unable to find any affordable accommodation in the private rented sector, where demand is demonstrably not keeping up with supply. What can be done when those landlords that are leaving the private rented sector precisely because there is a shortage can then relet the same property to their own council at a higher rent? Incredulously, this practice is fuelled by councils and the Home Office bidding against each other for the same property, at considerable cost to the taxpayer.

I did ask what the noble Baroness felt could be done about it. I asked my Question first, but my question is: surely this is bonkers and can we not work out some protocol so that councils and government offices are not outbidding each other?

My Lords, of course the noble Baroness is quite right to flag up the issue of the terrible shortage of housing. The answer in the medium to longer term is just to get more housing built, and we are straining every sinew to do just that. In terms of the way that short-term lets work, we know that they can benefit economies through visitor spend and creating employment opportunities for local people. However, we appreciate that excessive concentrations of that in some parts of the country impact availability and affordability. I know that this competition between local authorities and government departments for housing is causing a real problem. We are introducing a registration scheme for short-term lets to protect our communities, abolishing things such as the furnished holiday let tax regime, to remove the tax incentive that short-term let owners have over long-term landlords. We recognise that more needs to be done to level the playing field between short and long-term tenures. Long-term tenures are important, and they need to be affordable long-term tenures.

My Lords, I declare an interest as a landlord and a former private renter, and I apologise for jumping up a bit early previously. Does the Minister accept that removing tax incentives and reliefs on mortgages for private renters has led to a diminution, in some cases, of the number of properties supplied to the sector, and certainly acted as a disincentive? As a result of that, together with other factors, more landlords are leaving the sector rather than coming in. The question of short lets has been mentioned. Increasing numbers of landlords are moving to platforms such as Airbnb, which are four times more profitable than long lets. Surely, in order to meet the Government’s housing targets, we need more long-term lets in the sector, not fewer.

I agree with the noble Lord that we need more long-term lets— I think I made that very clear—but there is no evidence of an exodus from the market. A study from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence looked at whether regulation and tax changes over the past 25 years in the UK and internationally had affected private rented sector supply. The report concludes that there is no evidence that that has had an impact. In fact, the PRS has doubled in size since 2002 and is now the second largest housing tenure, with over 11 million people living in the private rented sector.

My Lords, rather than incentives for reluctant landlords, could the Minister say whether the Government are considering incentives to landlords who want to exit the market to sell to the social housing landlords who can modernise the properties and let them long term on a secure basis at affordable rents to people who will not be able to afford the private rented sector?

I could not agree more with the noble Lord that for some people in the housing market, the only affordable housing is social rented. The Chancellor set out in the Budget that we will make an immediate one-year cash injection of £500 million into the current affordable homes programme. I can confirm that that can be used to purchase property on the private market. That will support the delivery of up to 5,000 new social and affordable homes. In addition, at the multiyear spending review next year, we will set out details of new investment to succeed the 2021 to 2026 affordable homes programme. That will deliver a mix of homes for sub-market rent and home ownership, with a particular focus on delivering homes for social rent. I hope our Deputy Prime Minister’s promise to deliver a revolution in the delivery of social homes will come to fruition.

My Lords, there will always be a market for rental accommodation and, under the Conservative Governments, the number of households in the private rented sector rose from 3.1 million to 4.4 million between 2009 and 2021. How does the Minister intend to ensure that the Government’s legislative agenda does not reduce the number of properties available for private renters and risk rent increases?

First of all, I would say that the number of people who were able to own their own properties actually fell under the last Government. I am surprised, with the record that we have heard many times in this House of the number of people who are currently on housing waiting lists and 150,000 people in temporary and emergency accommodation, that the previous Government want to stand up and question this issue in the House. The PRS has doubled in size since 2002. We will continue to do what we can to support both landlords and tenants in that sector. We are about to introduce the Renters’ Rights Bill to this House. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have already engaged on that. If there is anybody who has not yet, do get in touch with me, but I look forward to working with the House to deliver a very effective piece of renters’ rights legislation.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that two of the most profound underlying causes of children, the most reluctant tenants of all, being in temporary accommodation—150,000 of them in England alone—are forced evictions and affordability? Does she therefore, like many in this sector who care about this issue, have some cause for concern that the housing allowance has been frozen until 2026 and was not used as an opportunity in the Budget? I ask because there is very welcome legislation coming down the track—but right here, right now, tonight, for 150,000 children, what is the quick solution?

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising that important issue. We have looked at local housing allowance, but increasing that even slightly puts a huge pressure on the overall fiscal picture in the country. So it has not been possible to do that this time, because we had to fill the £22 billion black hole that was left to us as a legacy from the other side. We have put £500 million into delivering more affordable housing, taking us to £3.1 billion in total for affordable housing. We have also increased discretionary housing payments and have put back in the household support grant, which would have run out at the end of September because there were no government plans to meet those costs until the end of the year. That will provide some relief for the most deprived families.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a particular problem in Cornwall, where there are over 13,000 short-term lettings going on? The problem with those people who do short-term letting is that they seem not to pay much attention to the rules and orders of the accommodation where they stay. They keep people awake all night, very often, and have visitors coming whose identities are unknown. This is a security risk too. Will the Minister do something about these short-term lets?

It is great to hear about Cornwall so much this afternoon. I hope that people who are in communities will get in touch with their local council, which can act against anti-social behaviour. It is a matter for those who run Airbnb and other lettings companies. Generally, they are well run, but, where they are not, it is perfectly possible for communities to get in touch with their local authority to make the necessary complaints. We have introduced powers to charge 100% council tax on second homes, and things like that, and we are taking action on second homes. I hope that this will ease the position, but I urge anybody suffering from that kind of anti-social behaviour to contact their local authority.

Drones: RAF Bases

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of recent reports of drones flying over RAF bases in East Anglia.

The Ministry of Defence is aware of these reports and is working closely with the US visiting forces, Home Office police forces and other partners to respond to recent events. We will work with the civil authorities to prosecute those responsible. We take any safety issues seriously and maintain robust measures at Ministry of Defence sites, including counter-drone capabilities. My noble friend will understand that I am unable to comment further on the specific security procedures at our sites. This remains a live criminal investigation.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Answer that he was able to give. There have been additional sightings of unidentified drones over our aircraft carrier HMS “Queen Elizabeth”. It may be that these flights are not a coincidence. Does my noble friend agree that these are matters of potentially serious concern, given that drones are now so ubiquitous and given what we know their role is in warfare? The House will remember that Gatwick Airport was completely closed a few years ago by unidentified drones. As a result of that, the RAF has acquired new equipment, known as ORCUS, designed to deter drones. Do our Armed Forces have enough of it? Can my noble friend reassure the House that the Government are doing all they can to work with our international partners, especially the Americans, to find out what is going on and how best to protect our bases?

I thank my noble friend for the question. We are working with our international partners, including the United States. Of course, we are trying to ensure that we have all the equipment that is needed to tackle any of these attacks that we face. Similarly, with respect to the aircraft carrier, I can say that a civilian drone was observed in the vicinity of HMS “Queen Elizabeth” on 22 November, but it got no closer than 250 metres. I can reassure my noble friend that we take all of this seriously, and we will work closely to ensure the safety of all our sites.

My Lords, I am aware that there is a series of very effective assets which can be deployed to air defence. I do not expect the Minister to comment further on those, but I will ask him, specifically, how the ground-based air defence system is progressing.

That is obviously a matter of real importance, and the defence review is looking at what we should do with respect to air defence in the round, including defence of the homeland, as the noble Baroness asks.

My Lords, this is a question not just of defence sites but of much wider national resilience. We have seen the extensive use of drones in Ukraine against non-military targets. Can the Minister reassure the House that the Government will look at this problem in that much wider context? Quite clearly, we cannot mount air defence systems around every single part of our critical national infrastructure, and we have to ensure that we have some other method of protecting them against this new threat.

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that important comment, and I will make sure that it is reflected upon within the Ministry of Defence. He makes a really important point about air defence—of course that is an important aspect of it—but there are other ways of protecting our sites and other ways of conducting warfare. Ukraine has shown us the importance of hybrid warfare, and that certainly is something that the defence review will look at. But I will take his very important comments back to the MoD.

The Minister worked very closely with me and others during the passage of the National Security Act 2023. The then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, was very responsive and worked collegiately across the whole House on a cross-party basis. Section 4 of that legislation is the prohibition of drones in the vicinity of prohibited places, which include these bases. I ask the Minister to reassure the House on two things: first, that local communities are very aware of the national security legislation in these areas; and, secondly, when it comes to a national security threat, that the full elements of law and order will be deployed under national security legislation to ensure that there are no breaches.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for his question. He is quite right with respect to the National Security Act. Let us be clear, in various pieces of legislation, not just the National Security Act, it is illegal for drones to be flown over or in the vicinity of these military sites. People should be aware of that, and local communities should be reassured. In terms of national security, the same Act that he and I passed under the last Government ensures that there are penalties of up to 14 years for this sort of activity, and people should be aware of that. All agencies and parts of the state will work to ensure that we identify and do what we can with those who are conducting these acts.

My Lords, perhaps I might build on the question from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, if I may—or not.

My Lords, I think it is this side. I refer to my interests in the register as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. I too wanted to follow up the question from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. This is a widespread issue. Drones are comparatively cheap; they are easy to mobilise; they can be used, potentially, with an explosive or chemical or even a radiological payload; and they can be used for hostile surveillance. There are all sorts of uses, not just by hostile nations, but by criminal gangs and terrorists and so on.

This is not just a question for national defence against national defence assets, but it must be a question of the police around the country having the appropriate equipment and facilities. Can the Minister reassure us that we are going to have that country-wide, whole-of-government response to the threat from drones, which, as we have seen in other countries, can be extensive?

My noble friend makes a really important point. The defence review will address national resilience. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, has also said, of course air defence means missiles and other things in the conventional way in which we interpret that term. It also includes being able to deal with low- tech mass efficiently and cost effectively. Clearly, we will need to address that—and we will—as the hybrid threat and the low-cost, low-technology threat will be part of the warfare of the future.

The Minister has outlined some of the challenges that we face but there is a bigger issue here. Under Article 3 of our NATO treaty, we have an obligation to deliver national resilience in the UK. It is not just about the air threat—it is about guarding critical national infrastructure, not just military bases but power stations. We have not done this en masse for a very long time, and, like other noble Lords, I simply seek reassurance that we are thinking about this in the SDR because the manpower required is significant. I declare my interest as director of the Army Reserve.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, for the work he does as director of the Army Reserve. On national resilience, the threats and warfare of the future have been shown from Ukraine and elsewhere. It is not just tanks, it is not just aircraft—it is about national resilience to withstand hybrid attack, such as attacks on information and our critical national infrastructure. The ability to defend against physical and cyberattack is crucial to withstanding the threats that we will face in the future. That has to be a part of any future defence review, and it will be. Without it, we will leave our country weaker than it should be in the face of such threats.

My Lords, does the deployment of Armed Forces personnel indicate that the local police forces do not have the ability to investigate drones, as required by the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021?

The Gold Command for the sites in East Anglia is the Ministry of Defence Police. That force has the ability, knowledge and expertise to deal with some of the threats that the noble and gallant Lord has pointed out. His question demonstrates the need for the Ministry of Defence Police to work closely with Home Office police forces and other agencies to defend those sites.

As the operator of a registered drone under the CAA, my concerns are that in this country there is a considerable and increasing number of drones being operated by people illegally. They pose a direct threat, not only to military installations and the zones around our airfields, but around civil facilities. Can the Minister comment on how much policing is going on generally, and how many prosecutions of these illegal activities are taking place?

The illegal use of drones is certainly an area of concern for us all. In terms of the numbers of prosecutions, the best thing for me to do, which would be of benefit to the noble Lord and the whole House, is for me to refer to my colleagues across government for a satisfactory answer. I shall then write to the noble Lord with the statistics he requests about what action is taking place, and put a copy of the letter in the Library.

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Tuesday 26 November.

“With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a Statement on our Get Britain Working White Paper, bringing forward the biggest reforms to employment support in a generation, turning a department for welfare into a department for work, and taking the first steps towards delivering our bold ambition of an 80% employment rate in a decade of national renewal.

Nothing short of fundamental reform is needed to turn the page on the last 14 years, the legacy of which has left the UK as the only G7 country whose employment rate has not returned to pre-pandemic levels and with a near-record 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness, and almost 1 million young people not in education, employment or training and millions more stuck in low-paid insecure work. All those problems are far worse in the Midlands and the north, parts of the country that were deindustrialised in the 1980s and 1990s—the very same places that have lower life expectancy and chronic poor health that the Conservative Party repeatedly promised to level up but repeatedly failed to deliver on.

The result is an economic but, above all, social crisis, paid for in the life chances and living standards of people across this country, and by a benefits bill for sickness and disability that is set to rise by £26 billion by the end of this Parliament. We have ended up here because of the failure of Conservative Members to create good jobs in every part of the country, to deliver on the NHS and to properly reform welfare. Under our Government, that will change, with new opportunities matched by the responsibility to take them up: under this Labour Government, if you can work, you must work.

Our White Paper brings in three major reforms. First, we will create a new jobs and careers service that overhauls jobcentres: from a one-size-fits-all service that overwhelmingly focuses on administering benefits, to a genuine public employment service that provides personalised support for all. We will bring jobcentres together with the National Careers Service in England, beginning with a pathfinder early next year, backed with £55 million of initial funding. We will work closely with mayors and local leaders to ensure that our new jobs and careers service is rooted in local communities and properly joined up with local help and support. We will also work closely with employers to develop the service, because only one in six businesses has ever used a jobcentre to recruit, and that must change.

For too many people, walking into a jobcentre feels like going back in time to the 1980s or 1990s, so we will trial a radically improved digital offer using the latest technologies and AI to provide up-to-date information on jobs, skills and other support, and to free up work coach time. We will also test video and phone support—because in the 2020s, rather than go into the jobcentre only every week or fortnight, people can have a jobcentre in their pocket. Our front-line staff are our greatest asset, so we will develop the work coach and careers adviser professions, including by launching a new coaching academy.

The second major reform is our new youth guarantee, so that every young person is earning or learning. This comes alongside our commitment to provide mental health support in every school, our work experience and careers advice offer, and our plans to reform the last Government’s failed apprenticeship levy to give more young people the opportunities they deserve. Our new youth guarantee will go further, bringing together all the support for 18 to 21 year-olds under the leadership of mayors and local areas so all young people have access to education, training and employment opportunities and no young person misses out. Today I can announce that we will establish eight trailblazer areas for our youth guarantee: the Liverpool city region, the West Midlands, Tees Valley, east Midlands, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, west of England, and two areas within Greater London, backed by £45 million of additional funding.

I can also announce a new national partnership to provide exciting opportunities for young people in sports, arts and culture, starting with some of Britain’s most iconic cultural and sporting organisations, including the Premier League, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4, building on the brilliant work they already do to inspire and engage the younger generation and get them on the pathway to success.

This is our commitment to young people: ‘We value you, you are important, we will invest in you and give you the chances you deserve; but in return for these new opportunities, you have a responsibility to take them up, because being unemployed or lacking basic qualifications when you are young can harm your job prospects and wages for the rest of your life. And that is not good enough for young people or for our country’.

The third reform in our White Paper is our new plan to drive down economic inactivity caused by poor health. The Health Secretary is already taking action to get people back to health and back to work, with extra support to drive down waiting lists in the 20 NHS trusts with the highest levels of economic inactivity. We are joining up employment and health support, expanding individual placement support to reach an additional 140,000 people with mental health problems and delivering new WorkWell services, which include GPs referring patients to employment advisers and other work-related support such as the brilliant service in the Junction Medical Practice in north London we visited recently.

However, we will go much further and faster to tackle this issue. To meet the scale of the challenge, we will devolve new funding, new powers and new responsibilities to tackle economic inactivity to mayors and local areas, because local leaders know their communities best. We will support all areas in England to produce local ‘Get Britain Working’ plans, joining up work, health and skills support.

Today I am announcing eight trailblazer areas backed by £125 million of additional funding in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, the north-east, Greater Manchester, Wales, York and North Yorkshire, and two Greater London areas. In three of these areas—South and West Yorkshire, and the north-east—this will include dedicated input and £45 million of funding for local NHS integrated care systems. We are also funding a new supported employment programme called Connect to Work, backed by £115 million of initial funding for next year. This will be included in the integrated settlements of combined authorities, starting with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

Employers have such an important role to play in helping get people into work, and crucially to stay in work, so today I can announce a new independent ‘Keep Britain Working’ review, looking at the role of UK employers and government in tackling health-related inactivity and creating healthy workplaces. This will be led by the former chair of John Lewis, Sir Charlie Mayfield, and will report in the autumn.

Finally, we will bring forward a Green Paper on our proposals for reforming the health and disability benefits system, so that disabled people and those with health conditions have the same rights as everybody else, including the right to work; so that we treat disabled people with dignity and respect; and so that we shift the focus to prevention and respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of today’s health conditions. We will work closely with disabled people and their organisations as we develop our proposals, which we will publish in the spring.

This White Paper starts to turn the corner on the past 14 years, putting forward the real reforms we need to get more people into work and on at work, to give young people the very best start in life and to ensure our employment and social security system understands the fundamental issue that a healthy nation and a healthy economy are two sides of the same coin. This is how we get Britain working again. It is how we get Britain growing again, and I commend this Statement to the House”.

My Lords, we on these Benches welcome this White Paper and are very keen that it should work and deliver positive outcomes for people who are out of the labour market, people who are economically inactive, those with health problems, and young people trying to get a productive start in life. Many of the proposals contained in the White Paper are either based on or continuations of some of the work we started in government—our WorkWell pilot schemes, our youth offer with youth hubs, and the universal support schemes—but we are not quite sure about the carrying on of the fit note, so I would be grateful for some confirmation on that. It is critical that the outcomes of the White Paper proposals work and, to that end, we really want them to.

I will talk about outcomes, which are important when looking at the investment being committed to this important area of work. As many in this House will know, I spent many years working with others in this sphere, so noble Lords must forgive my passion and commitment to the subject. Let me give just a few examples. On ThinkForward, we put our advisers in schools, working with the teachers and the management team. Our job was to prevent young people becoming NEET in the first place. The outcomes were that 85% of the 14 to 16 year-olds showed significant improvement in their attendance and behaviour. Some 60% of the group achieved at least five GCSEs at grade A to C and —wait for it—96% of the 17 to 18 year-olds in further education, employment or training were still there after a year.

Then we put our advisers into doctors’ surgeries. Let me tell your Lordships about the outcomes: a 20% reduction in GP appointments, a 74% reduction in referrals to practice counsellors—not that there is anything wrong with counsellors—and a 34% reduction in antidepressant prescriptions. Some 36% of people who completed the course were in employment and 80% of the 36% were still in employment 12 months later. This was for one surgery with a cohort of 200 people, at a cost of just over £2,000 a job. The noble Baroness who was the Minister of State for Education visited the project and saw for herself how great it was.

My other point on outcomes is, as noble Lords have heard me say many times, that getting someone into a job is one thing but keeping them there is another. Will His Majesty’s Government publish a set of metrics against which we can judge the success of Get Britain Working? Will they publish quarterly performance data? This will allow us to see what is working—and, indeed, what needs to change—to make this policy more effective. There is nothing wrong with changing half way through or changing course; people who do not change their minds do not change anything. Once someone has a job, will they retain the support of their coach to help them stay in work to ensure that the return on the investment reaches its full potential?

On employers, economic activity is not a problem that the Government can solve on their own. Businesses are the engine of our economy. They create jobs. No Government can improve employment rates without creating an environment where business can thrive and grow. If people are to get off benefits and into work, there must be jobs for them to do. However, as a result of this Government’s Budget, businesses are saying that they will no longer be hiring. Some 50,000 jobs will be lost from this Budget alone, according to the OBR. Does the Minister agree that the Government’s decision to raise employer national insurance contributions has had a negative impact on the chances of finding employment? If the Minister wishes to help more 18 year- olds into work, I respectfully suggest—I was challenged on this many times here—that she might speak to the Chancellor who has made it so that from April it will cost £5,000 more for a business to employ someone.

The Minister might also take the opportunity to speak to the Business Secretary whose Employment Rights Bill will, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, make it less likely that employers will take on young people. Does the Minister agree that the Government’s policies are counterproductive and making it harder for people to get into work? Only employers create jobs—and they have a very challenging time ahead.

As much as the people we are trying to help need continued, robust support, so do employers. We will be asking them to try to integrate people with various issues into their workforce. Let me tell noble Lords about one project I was involved in. A very high-profile car company said it wanted to integrate long-term unemployed people into its workforce. We got a young girl booking the executive travel for the workforce. She turned up for work on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but on Friday she was a no-show. Our staff went round and knocked on the door. She came down in her pyjamas. We said, “What are you up to?”. She said, “I never went to school on a Friday and nobody said anything”. That is true. We told her to get dressed and took her to work. The next week, the same thing happened. We went round, knocked on the door and took her to work. The third week, she showed up and it was not a problem. That is an example of the level of support that people need.

We on these Benches fully support the review of the apprenticeship levy. It is much needed and will be welcomed by employers. But I am disappointed that those on the Labour Benches in the other place could not recognise the significant work that came before them on apprenticeships. We have had over 5.8 million apprentices earning while they learn since 2010, 225,000 of them at degree level since degree apprenticeships were launched by the Conservative Government. Over that time, we developed 690 high-quality apprenticeship standards in partnership with 5,000 employers, 370 of those in STEM subjects, ensuring that we delivered the skills the country needs. This is a record to be proud of and I know the Minister will be keen to build on it.

I come now to the merging of jobcentres and the careers service. It is good to see the continued cross-government working between the DWP, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care. It is really important that the Government work across departments. The merging of Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service is a significant move. Can the Minister tell the House what assessment and analysis has been made to result in this decision? What is the plan for the merged service to become operational and what do His Majesty’s Government forecast that the benefits will be? What is the plan for ensuring the staff have the skills to carry out their roles? What is the timetable to deliver the new service and when will it become operational?

The challenge to Get Britain Working should not be underestimated but do we really need to wait one to two years for it to gain momentum? I assure the whole House that we on these Benches want this to work; we want Britain to work. For the sake of the people, we all want to help. To quote my leader in the other place: we are here for you—let us help. I personally pledge any help I can give to making this work.

My Lords, on these Benches we welcome the encouragement the Government are giving to improving apprenticeships, reforming jobcentres and investing in the health service to cut mental health and other health problems affecting labour activity rates. The long-term sickness at the end of this Parliament, projected to be 2.8 million, is clearly completely unacceptable, and the social and benefit costs of that will be dire. We need to transform our training, career and employment services. The only problem is that we have been arguing and discussing this for more than 50 years of my political life. It comes up in every generation.

In this sort of debate or Statement, we should have in front of us all the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Moyo, from the Budget debate. She said that

“if Britain were ranked against each of the 50 US states in terms of wealth, it would be last, with Britain’s GDP per capita … below America’s poorest state, Mississippi”.—[Official Report, 11/11/24; col. 1614.]

Our per capital income in this country has not grown for 10 or possibly 15 years; 25 years ago our economy was larger than China’s, and we are now 20% of the size of China. Those are the warning signals, and therefore investment in training is absolutely fundamental to the Government’s growth strategy.

I have six points, which I hope will be helpful, on aspects that I am worried about. First, as I said, we have been struggling with our training, career services and jobcentres for more than 50 years. There have been so many initiatives. Does the Minister accept that it is not going to take one year, nor five years, nor possibly even 10 years? This is a 20-year programme to get this right. It needs investment and long-term planning to achieve comprehensive reform.

Secondly, are the Government worried that there is a huge shortage of resources here? There are a number of schemes in this White Paper devolving to mayors eight trailblazers; we are going to spend £45 million next year. That is just £6 million per region. It sounds like quite a lot of money but in reality it is not, so there is just a slight worry that this is a sticking plaster trying to deal with a long-term problem. Too many of these funding projects are just for one year, when we actually need a long-term plan. The White Paper seeks to bring together the jobcentres and the National Careers Service to transform our training arrangements. This is going to involve a major culture change. Any other organisation undergoing this would be planning for the long term and understand that it is going to take a major effort to achieve it, let alone make an impact. Do the Government realise this?

Thirdly, the youth guarantee is a fine objective, but in the White Paper there is very little mention of the role of further education. This is one sector, outside universities, that has been neglected and underresourced over the last few years, but it is fundamental to all this. Are the Government going to set some objectives and produce a reform of further education?

Obviously, the one priority that the Government have set—quite rightly—is that we must clear the backlog in mental health care and in the health services, but all the evidence is that early intervention is required to get people back into work quickly. Is there a conflict between the long-term need to clear the backlog and having resources to deal with the short-term, immediate need?

Finally, reducing the backlog in the NHS, which is behind a lot of these problems, is going to require real progress in social care. I know that the Government are struggling to come up with their reforms on this, but I repeat that releasing the NHS beds that are being used for social care is absolutely fundamental to providing beds to get people back into the labour market. They cannot get the care at the moment.

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their very constructive responses. It is a marked difference from the other place, but plus ça change. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, both for her welcome for the White Paper and for the constructive way in which she approaches these questions. I pay tribute to the work that she has done over many years at Tomorrow’s People and looking at this. I think we will find as we go on that she and I probably share more of an interest—a commonality—in these questions. I may differ with her on some of the choices that her Government made, but we share a view that we have to do what is right to get people into work and to support them to stay there.

Let me do the formal bit first. Yesterday the Government published the Get Britain Working White Paper, bringing forward what we see as the biggest reforms to employment support in a generation. We have already heard that the UK now faces a significant challenge. We have a near-record 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness or disability. Add to that that one in eight of our young people is not in education, employment or training. A stat that I had not seen before but that shocked me is that in England almost a fifth of working-age adults do not have even the equivalent of one GCSE. If we are starting from that position, how can we possibly carry on as we are and expect things not to carry on the way they have been?

Addressing challenges on that scale needs a different approach. We are determined to start a process that we know will take time but will continue to drive down economic inactivity and create opportunity. It will involve fundamental reform of the Department for Work and Pensions, focusing it firmly as a department for work. It will mean overhauling Jobcentre Plus to create, as we have heard, a new employment service, bringing it together with the National Careers Service in England.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, asked whether we would give people help to stay in work. She is so right: our aim is not just to get people into jobs. The whole point of the new service is that it will not just be for those out of work, because it will be careers as well. It is there to get people to get into a job, get on in work and then progress and develop a career. We have to turn this country from one of inactivity, low pay and low-opportunity jobs to one that can transform not just the lives of individuals but the country, so the system will be universal and do all those things.

Supporting young people has to be crucial. We will improve access to training and job opportunities and establish the youth guarantee that was mentioned, so that young people are earning or learning. As a first step, we are working with mayoral authorities to set up the eight youth guarantee trailblazers with £45 million of funding. I think there is a dialogue to be had between the two Front Benches, because one reason that we are doing trailblazers is that we need to know what works. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, is absolutely right: if we find out that something works, we do more of it; if we find out that it does not work, we do something different. That is why we need trailblazers to know what will work. How can we better get local and central government working together to give people better support when they are young and desperately need opportunity?

Local knowledge is crucial. The White Paper is based on the assumption that we want to empower local leaders to know best what is there for their community and show leadership. Every area in England will be supported to bring forward a local “Get Britain Working” plan, and there will be £125 million going out for those eight trailblazers, looking right across England and including one in Wales. Three of the English trail- blazers will also receive a share of £45 million for dedicated input from the NHS. So often, health is a barrier to getting people into work. We have to join up public services to have any chance of getting this right.

We also know that good work is good for health. We want to get the NHS and the wider health system working to improve employment outcomes, so we will target extra support on driving down waiting times. But we also have to address the key public health issues that contribute to worklessness. We will expand access to expert employment advisers as part of treatment and care pathways.

We are also committed to tackling the root causes of mental health problems. The youth guarantee will support young people to access and navigate their way through mental health services, and there will be specialist mental health support in every school and health professionals available in colleges. We have prioritised funding, despite the tough spending round, to expand NHS talking therapies and the individual placement support programme.

There is loads more going on. We have an independent “Keep Britain Working” review, in partnership with business and led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, who used to chair John Lewis. That will help us to understand the role of employers in creating and maintaining healthy jobs and healthy workplaces. We have set out the principles to reform health and disability benefits, to ensure that the system supports people who can work to start or remain in work, in a way that is fair but also fiscally sustainable. We have launched the guidance for Connect to Work, our new locally led supported employment programme.

I was asked a number of questions. I probably will not get through them all in the time, but there were a few practical ones. The noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, asked about fit notes. She may remember that there was a call for evidence about fit notes. That closed in July and we have received more than 1,900 responses. Those are being analysed at the moment, and the results will inform our approach going forward. On the question of work coach support, I completely relate to her comments about the Friday girl. At the heart of this is the relationship between the work coach and the people they try to support into work. If we can get that right, all kinds of things are possible.

I have long said—I think I said this to the noble Baroness when we were in opposite positions—that I have been worried for some time that the danger was that our system was still designed as though the major challenge facing the labour market was unemployed people who did not want to work. However, for quite some time it has been people who struggle to work for a range of reasons to do with health or disability, and the system has to be able to address all of that. We are trying to turn this around to focus on making sure people get the support they need, at the time they need it, in the way that works best for them, so they can get jobs and keep them.

The noble Baroness has loads of experience working with young people, and, if it is going to work, we need to make sure that work coaches have that. We will set up a work coach academy to make sure that we can drive up the skills of our work coaches. That will be at the heart of making this work.

I was also asked about GDP per capita and productivity. GDP per capita is essentially about growth and we have to get this right. If we are going to deal with growth, we have to deal with the fundamentals of the economy. I will not go through the pantomime of mentioning black holes because, hey, life is short.

Oh well. The reality is that it was quite clear to us that the Government needed to take some difficult decisions to deliver long-term stability and growth. Businesses need stability, infra- structure and a health service and transport system that function, to be able to operate.

We recognise the pressures on business, and our Ministers have been out there speaking to the Federation of Small Businesses, the Chambers of Commerce and the CBI. They are very keen to work with us on this, because they know that their members have hundreds of thousands of vacancies they cannot fill. One-third of those are because of skills gaps. They know that 300,000 people every year fall out of work due to a health or disability problems. We have to support them and support the individuals dealing with that. We want our jobcentres to serve business and to be not a place you go as a last resort when you cannot hire anyone but a place of first resort where you find people and get the learning, experience and support to make your business function.

I would really defend against the challenge that the programme is too small. This is one-year funding for a reason. It is because these are trailblazers to figure out what works. We know what does not work. If what we had been doing worked, we would not have 2.8 million people who are out of work due to long-term sickness or disability. We have to test processes to make sure they work. We are going to learn from that, but we know this is a long-term process.

I should add for the record that many of the policy areas described in the White Paper are devolved in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. To be clear, in those cases, the focus on the White Paper is on the actions of the UK Government in England. But we will be working closely with the Scottish and Welsh Governments to ensure that everything we do dovetails well with existing devolved support. We are keen to understand what works well across the UK and to learn from Northern Ireland’s experience of delivering employment and career support.

I recognise that these are ambitious reforms. I know they will take time and they will need help—not just from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, but from stakeholders and experts across the economy. But we can do this. Together, we can build a labour market that gives everyone the opportunity to be the person they want to be. Also, we can be the country we all want us to be. To do that, we need to get Britain working again.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the numbers of young people we are talking about who are not in employment or education. The Minister will know that earlier this year the Public Services Committee of this House set out a report based on a study of the transitional arrangements many of these young people experience as they move from school to employment, especially those with a disability or long-term health problems.

We had the extremes in the evidence. Some were simply brushed aside as being unemployable for a lifetime. For others, services and employers at local level got together and produced some wonderful opportunities to completely change the life chances of these young people. Could the Minister assure the House that the Government will look at this report and take forward the recommendations? They were considerable and intended to achieve some of the outcomes set out in this paper.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention and also of course for his many years of experience and work in the field of social policy and social care. I very much feel that what he described is what we are trying to do, and I absolutely assure him that the report will be looked at in detail and we will go through the recommendations carefully. One challenge we have is that it is too easy to write off young people. Nowadays, they are judged: the assumption is that they are not trying very hard and the expectations are there. Actually, I do not meet young people who do not want to be out there building a life. It is just that, sometimes, the challenges feel too big. If we can find the right way to support them—if we can get proper mental health support in place and if we can help employers to know how best to work with people who have mental health challenges—we can get people into jobs and they can stay in them.

In the years that I worked with single parents, for example, one thing I learned is that if people have found it difficult to get a job, if they find one that works for them, they are the most loyal employees anyone could get, because they have found a way in and something that works, and it becomes a brilliant relationship. So I am grateful to the noble Lord for that and I will take a careful look at it.

My Lords, on Friday morning, I was in a Jobcentre Plus office with a 50 year- old woman who has always worked—but not for the last two years, following a major spinal operation and rehabilitation. She is now ready to get back into work. When we went into that office, we were told that she was not entitled to any support from a disability job coach or adviser, although she is in receipt of PIP. The reason given was that she does not claim an unemployment benefit. What does the Minister suggest I do next to help this person? Why are we discriminating against disabled people wanting to get into work, whether they are claiming a benefit or not?

I am sorry to hear of the experience that the noble Baroness’s friend or family member had. What she said goes right to the heart of what we are doing. The point of the national jobs and careers service is that it is not just for people claiming benefits: it is for anybody who needs help getting into work, getting back to work or getting on in work. If we narrow it down to simply being about benefits, we will end up putting the incentives in the wrong place.

One thing that worries us about how the system has worked is that a lot of work coaches’ time is spent checking up to see whether everyone has ticked all the boxes and whether those on benefits have done all the right things. Of course, conditionality will always be a part of the system, but we want to see whether there are ways to reform that so that we can test different ways of making sure that people stay connected and work coaches can spend more time devoted to individuals —including the person that the noble Baroness described —to get them back into work if they want. There are 600,000 people out there who are long-term sick or disabled who want to work, but somehow they are not able to. We have to do something about that and we are determined to.

My Lords, there is much to welcome in these proposals for reform of employment support and their aim of better health and good work. But can my noble friend please assure me, first, that the emphasis will be more on carrots than on sticks? Secondly, can she assure me that transforming a department for welfare into a department for work will not mean further social security cuts or abandoning any attempt to repair the serious damage wreaked on the social security system over the past 14 years, at the cost of its role in addressing poverty and providing genuine security?

Let me reassure my noble friend of two things. First, we are absolutely committed to tackling the scourge of child poverty, and the Government are completely committed to making sure that how the social security system works is part of that—so I can reassure her on that front.

Secondly, we often talk in terms of carrots and sticks, but I am not sure that that is very helpful. Most people want to get on: they want a satisfying job that will be rewarding in itself and that will also feed them and their family. People want the same things that we want for them, but lots of things get in the way. Our job is to set the system up so that it is aligned to go with that—to get barriers out of the way, to support people, to give them all the help they can get and to get them over the line.

Obviously, some people will not be able to work on grounds of severe disability or perhaps sickness, or maybe their caring responsibilities do not make that possible. The Department for Work and Pensions is there to support them, as it is to support pensioners and those who need our help. A small number of people really do not want to work and, frankly, they should. We are quite clear that we will support them and, in return, we expect them to do their bit. But, in between, surely we can design a system that is not just carrots or sticks but goes with the grain and helps people to be themselves.

My Lords, I welcome the White Paper and the Minister’s comments. I know her total passion for trying to unlock the potential of young people. In that spirit, my question is about education and the links between education and skills. She mentioned one GCSE. I am concerned that the financial literacy of our young people is very poor and we need to lay particular emphasis on that. I would also welcome the support of the Government to unlock apprenticeships, with better conditions for employers to take on young people much earlier than they currently do.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, and commend her for her work in the field of financial services over many years. She makes an important point about financial literacy. It is an interesting question. To give a simple example, if I go into a supermarket, I will sometimes see an offer on four cans of tomatoes which will actually be more expensive per can than the single cans sitting next to them. If people do not have basic maths, they will not even have the life skills they need when they most need them. If people do not understand what an APR means, how are they to know whether they are getting a decent deal, never mind beginning to think about pensions? I absolutely agree about the importance of that.

I also think it is really important to get apprenticeships right. One thing we are doing is putting money into more foundation apprenticeships, to give more young people the chance to get in much earlier. If people can get a foot on the ladder, or just get in the door, they can be inspired by something: it is a chance to do something, see something, achieve something, often to just be part of a team. After that, who knows where it can go? The noble Baroness raised two important points and I thank her for them.

My Lords, I have two questions. I very much support the eight trailblazers for the youth guarantee, but what is meant by “the west of England”? Will the Government take further education to be as important as higher education?

The main trailblazers are based on combined authorities and the youth trailblazers are being negotiated, so I will have to come back to the noble and learned Baroness on the boundaries of the west of England. On further education, I am absolutely supportive of that. The Government have already invested an additional £300 million of revenue funding into further education to support young people to get the skills they need, and are providing £300 million of capital investment to support colleges to maintain, improve and ensure the suitability of their estate. If she has been to one recently, she will know how much that is needed in some parts. On the apprenticeships fund, £40 million is being directed into delivering shorter and foundation apprenticeships in key sectors. We think that is a way to help people to move forward in the skills area.

My Lords, following up on the point made opposite about apprentices, does my noble friend the Minister agree that nothing less than an apprenticeship guarantee is required? If so, what steps will the Government take, working with employers, to make sure that there is an apprenticeship guarantee, so that the many young people who are leaving school and are unable to get access to an apprenticeship will in future be able to do so?

My Lords, the aim of our youth guarantee is to go further than that. We want every young person to be guaranteed to get either high-quality training, an apprenticeship or a job, or the support to get into one of those places. There are many young people for whom an apprenticeship is absolutely the right thing; there are others for whom more training is necessary, and others for whom a job is the right way forward. That is what we want: at that age, that is the choice that people should have. They should be earning or learning, and a job, an apprenticeship or education is the way forward.

My Lords, I welcome this White Paper, especially the emphasis on supporting young people into work and recognising that there are lots of different pathways that are suitable for people. It is difficult to distinguish what parts are relevant to Wales. There is reference in the White Paper to the trailblazer in Wales, so can the Minister clarify how this will work and where in Wales it will be?

I share this: I have a grid that tells me which bits are devolved and which are not in different parts, because I struggle to keep track of it. The noble Baroness probably knows much more about this than I do, for which I pay tribute. Essentially, in Wales, as she will know, health is devolved; employment support, including youth, skills and training, is devolved; careers are devolved; and welfare reform is reserved. We are going to work with the Welsh Government; for example, there is already a youth guarantee in Wales, as I am sure she is aware. Some of the principles in our White Paper go with the grain of work that has already begun in Wales and we will work with the Welsh Government on a Wales-based trailblazer and to figure out how best we can join up with what they are already doing, where the gaps are and how we can learn together. It will be very much a partnership question. In Scotland, it is slightly different again—not that she asked about Scotland—because different parts are devolved. In Northern Ireland, it is pretty much all transferred. We have already begun speaking to officials in all the devolved Administrations with a view to taking this forward.

My Lords, paragraph 45 refers to the fact that the economically inactive are

“more likely (than the population as a whole) to have no qualifications, and some may also face other complex disadvantages, including homelessness, drug or alcohol addiction and contact with the criminal justice system”—

I stress that final point. In many cases, especially regarding criminal convictions and paper qualifications, these factors become insuperable barriers to gaining employment, even when they have no relevance to the actual requirements of the job concerned. Given that the best way to get a job is to have a job, I ask the Minister to look critically at these discriminatory practices, which are as prevalent in the public sector as in the private sector, and are not only damaging to individuals and their families but incredibly economically inefficient as they impact on hundreds of thousands of our citizens.

I thank my noble friend, and I do not need persuading of this. One of the most inspiring things I have seen in the DWP—I did not start it, so I can say this—has been work with prison work coaches. They are based inside prisons, working with those who are preparing to leave, to try to make sure that we can get them into a job. I am working closely with my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, and our departments are working together to try to find the best ways in which we can ease the transition from prisons into work. When we look at the levels of recidivism, which are staggeringly high—never mind what happens in young offender institutions—we know that, if we cannot crack this, it will not only be a potentially lifelong challenge for an individual, which they will never really overcome, but a huge problem for the state, both in the loss of opportunity for that individual and their talents and in terms of future crime. My noble friend raises a really important point.

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. Black and Asian women, particularly Bangladeshi and Pakistani women, have high unemployment rates and find it very difficult to get back into work after 15 or 20 years of caring responsibilities; for example, they may not have the digital skills they need. What are the Government doing to get these women into work? Are the apprenticeship schemes aimed at returners to work reaching these groups of women?

The noble Baroness raises an important point and I pay tribute to her work with the Muslim Women’s Network and with so many in her community. There is a range of support out there and I have seen some good examples. On Employability Day, I spoke to one programme which was doing fantastic work with women from a number of minority communities who were returning to work, or maybe had never been in work, after their children had grown up. They had very particular barriers and the scheme was designed to focus on them.

One of our challenges is finding a way to get people not only into work, which is really important, but to develop in work. I am sure the noble Baroness will know this better than I do, but if you look at the distribution of people who are in jobs at national minimum wage or national living wage, there are overwhelmingly more young people and older people, but also Bangladeshi people and Pakistani people are much more likely to be in low-paid jobs. The one thing we know from the evidence is that if you start at a low pay, you stay in low pay—it is very hard to break out of it. One of the challenges in the new system, which we are determined to get right, as we develop the new national jobs and careers service, is: how do we help people, whatever their background, to have the opportunity to get in, but also to get on and have ambitions?

My Lords, in opposition, the Labour Party said it would be the most business-friendly ever. However, since the last Budget, is the Minister aware that every single employer organisation, ranging from the CBI and the IoD to the NFU and the British Retail Consortium, have condemned the Budget as being thoroughly anti-business? Can she answer the question from the noble Baroness on the shadow Front Bench about how the Government are now going to repair relations with business? How can the Government deliver these programmes and strategies without the good will and support of business and wealth creators?

As I said earlier, we have been very grateful that business and business organisations have made it clear that they do want to work with us on this, because there is a clear area of common interest. There are currently over 800,000 vacancies in the economy and businesses need to be able to recruit people, but they cannot do so.

On the broader point, I try not to play the political pantomime game on the Front Bench, but I have to say to the noble Lord that if we had not had the economic crash we did, we would not have to take the measures we have done. We did not want to take them, but we have to repair the economy and our public services, and get our economy growing again, and this Government will do what it takes.

My Lords, the community and voluntary sector plays a key part in getting people into work, not only offering placements but actively working with groups that are difficult to reach. Does my noble friend agree that a lot of those voluntary and community groups are pushed out of this space because they are small and cannot bid for the contracts put forward by the DWP? That is an area she could look at, to ensure that groups such as the Just for Women Centre in County Durham, which does great work, can actually get those contracts.

My noble friend knows that the way to my heart is to mention County Durham. I should probably declare an interest, although it is so old that it is not an interest. Once upon a time I contracted with the then DWP to run employment programmes for single parents. That was about 100 years ago, so it is probably too old to be there now.

In response to my noble friend’s question, he is absolutely right that it is very hard for small voluntary organisations to bid for national contracts, yet they can often reach people that central government will never be able to. We have heard examples from around the House today. One of my hopes is that the more we can localise things, the easier it will be to involve a range of partners from an area, and people will know who the good players in their area are. Furthermore, the issues are different in different areas; as the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, explained, some areas may have a large Muslim or Bangladeshi community, and in other areas there may be large numbers of young people and single parents. Under this system, each area will have a better sense of what its problems are and which partners can be worked with. The aim of the trailblazer areas is to see what difference that system can make.

My Lords, I have received a message from a person in Birmingham with 20 years’ engineering experience who has been unemployed and is now a zero-hours contract worker. He says that engineering has been decimated by high energy costs and that our energy costs are more than double those of the French and four times those of the Chinese. When are the Government going to control energy costs and save skilled jobs? Over to you, Minister.

I never like to say that something is outside my range but sometimes it really is. The Government have a very clear strategy on green energy and building green jobs, and on building pathways to secure British energy. The creation of Great British Energy and the strategies around it will all make a difference. I am afraid that is the limit of my knowledge.

My Lords, not that many years ago, I had the pleasure of being chairman of the National Maritime Museum and got to know that area very well—it had a lot of unemployment. One day I was introduced to somebody who came along to the museum who was fourth generation on the dole. He said that it was not worth his while, considering the size of his house, to consider a job unless it paid somewhere near £48,000. I bring it up because everybody here, I would suggest, was born with a work ethic and was proud to get a job, but so many people now find all the ways possible to avoid doing so. I know how much this means to the Minister and my question is: how are we going to get people off the dole? There are millions of people who should not be on it at all.

This is such a hard one. I have no doubt that there are some people out there who really do not want to work and cannot be bothered. They would not get £48,000 in benefits—they would not be able to—but I am sure there are such people out there. However, I have been around this game a long time and my experience is that most people do want to work; there are just huge problems and the figures back that up. We do not have a massive unemployment problem; we have a massive inactivity problem. We have a physical health problem, a mental health problem and a crisis of sickness, disability and an ageing population.

The challenge of years gone by may have been to make sure that everybody wanted to work. The challenge of today’s economy is to make sure that everybody is able to work, and that they are able to get the job they need to help transform our economy. If we do not do that, businesses cannot fill vacancies, the economy cannot grow and nothing can happen. We are going to do it.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Committee (1st Day)

Relevant document: 8th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee

Clause 1: Purpose and overview

Amendment 1

Moved by

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out “the sustainability of”

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 2, 3 and 4, in the names of my noble friends Lord Hayward, Lord Moynihan and Lord Maude of Horsham. I look forward to hearing them introduce their amendments later.

I am very pleased to open this first day in Committee on the Football Governance Bill and thank all noble Lords for their evident interest in it. I repeat my thanks to the Minister for the time she has made available to me and my noble friend Lord Markham as well as to other noble Lords across the Committee. I also thank her for the letters she sent this morning following the Second Reading debate; they were greatly appreciated by all who spoke then.

It is fitting that we open this debate with perhaps the most fundamental of the issues under discussion: what will this Bill do, what are its guiding principles and what is its overarching purpose? The Bill states that it intends

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

The inclusion of the word “sustainability” in this initial purpose clause is a curious matter and the reason I tabled my Amendment 1. Why should English football be merely sustainable? Taken at face value, sustainability is a reasonable approach, and perhaps a reasonable one to take in this Bill. The Cambridge English Dictionary, which is far superior to dictionaries available from other universities, defines the word “sustainable” as being

“able to continue over a period of time”.

I would not argue against English football being able to continue long into the future—that is the reason that the Bill has been brought before your Lordships—but is that all we want from it? My Amendment 1 seeks to question and, I hope, to clarify what we are trying to achieve through the Bill. By removing the words, “the sustainability of”, from Clause 1, I am trying to highlight that the Bill should be aimed at protecting English football in toto.

As I set out at Second Reading, football has an incredibly long and rich history in this country. The Football Association was the first of its kind anywhere in the world, as was the English Football League. I spoke of the importance of heritage and how the distinct identities of each and every football club arouse the passions of so many people across the country and the globe. This strength of feeling and these passions are not best encapsulated by the limited notion of sustainability; they include something much more human and emotional, which we should have a go at capturing. Surely, through the Bill, we are also seeking to protect and promote these emotions and desires for the game.

I note that the provisions on home grounds and team colours seek to work to that effect, as do further amendments that my noble friend Lord Markham and I tabled, which we look forward to discussing later in Committee. However, if there are provisions relating to this in the Bill, why does the purpose clause at the very beginning—Clause 1—not address it? Sustainability is too limited a condition for success. If we leave it as it is, would we not condemn the regulator from the start to be inert? Would the regulator not be frozen in time and unable to look to the future and to the positive beneficial changes that could be made to the game? It is important that the regulator should have a forward-thinking attitude. It should not be merely content with the current state of football but constantly looking to drive the game forward. If it does not, this whole endeavour would be, at best, a wasted opportunity and, at worst, a failure.

That is why it is so vital to question what is meant by “sustainability” in the clause and seek to go beyond that limited and limiting definition, which risks putting the sport in a box or creating stasis. As my noble friends have pointed out through their amendments, which we will consider shortly, we could, rather than striking out words in the clause, supplement sustainability. My noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham, through his Amendments 4 and 4A, invites us to extend our focus to the success and growth of football. Those are two key goals and are important when we discuss the Bill and the game. No club would want to be frozen in time, never moving forward, eschewing new ventures or winning new glories. As has been pointed out by my noble friend Lady Brady, the many advantages of English football come from achieving the right balance between growth, competition and aspiration. Should we not look to place each of those concepts in the Bill or encapsulating them in its foundational principles? Those would give the regulator a clearer guiding path and ensure that it does not stray from the objectives that the Bill and this Parliament seek to set out.

One of the concepts that my noble friend Lord Maude mentions is growth; the Bill would stand to gain from its inclusion, focusing the regulator on moving the sport forward by growing the number of fans, the amount of revenue, the extent of viewership at home and around the world, and in other areas. I hope that this would entrench from the outset a forward-thinking vision, thereby preventing the independent football regulator from falling into the trap of other regulatory bodies, which have been blinkered in their outlook.

Like other noble Lords, I have been struck by the coverage we have seen this week from the all-party group that has looked at the work and conduct of the Financial Conduct Authority. Cross-party and cross-House concerns have been raised about the way in which the FCA has gone about its work. It is important, as we set up a new regulator, to give it clear instructions about what we want it to do and clear guard-rails about what we do not want it to do.

As I said at Second Reading, it is important that we get the Bill right. If we do not provide the regulator with the necessary tools from the outset, we would be setting it up merely to fail. That would have catastrophic consequences for the game and all those in this country who love it.

Football is, as well as a hugely enjoyed pastime, one of our largest and most popular industries. The Premier League makes up the largest share of the United Kingdom’s television exports, totalling £1.4 billion in 2019-20. Football is broadcast to over 1.5 billion people in 189 countries across the world. Through that export and shared enjoyment, it amplifies our values, spreads the best of British culture and generates hugely important economic growth for the whole nation. Football is undoubtedly a significant soft-power asset for the United Kingdom, and it is important to keep that in mind as we begin our detailed consideration of the Bill in Committee.

That is to say nothing of the millions of people who follow football here at home. To all those people in the United Kingdom and across the world, the ruination of English football would rip the heart out of communities across the length and breadth of the country. I am sure that Members of the Committee would not want that, and I hope that giving detailed thought to the purpose of the Bill and dwelling on its initial clause will be a way to lift our aspirations for it and seek a more important and meaningful goal than mere sustainability. I beg to move.

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for the eloquent way in which he moved the amendment and started the important debate on this group. It is important that we take time to consider this properly, because the Bill, if enacted in this form, will create a state regulator with an ability to impose a levy to make exactions on the football clubs that make up the football leagues. It is important that the tone of the regulator is set from the beginning.

The Bill starts in Clause 1 by setting out the purpose, which is pretty important, so it is right that we should spend some time considering it properly and fully. My concern with the word “sustainability” here is that it is actually incredibly timid and unambitious as a purpose for making this unprecedented state intrusion into this successful recreational activity, which is, as my noble friend has said, at the same time an incredibly successful business that yields significant export revenue for the country and for our balance of payments.

My noble friend said he was concerned that if this remained the sole purpose of the regulator in the Bill, it might make the regulator inert. I would not quarrel with that, to be honest: I would want nothing better than for the regulator to be inert and willing to intervene only on the most extreme occasions. My fear with the Bill is that the regulator has pretty much unlimited power to expand its size. We heard at Second Reading how so many noble Lords were already canvassing extensions to the scope and mission of the regulator. Inertia is not to be sneered at in this context.

The truth is that football has proved itself extraordinarily sustainable and resilient. In the more than 30 years since the Premier League came into existence, which started an era of extraordinary growth and success for English football in the world, it has gone through the global financial crash and Covid, with footballers playing to empty stadiums across the country. It has then been through the energy crisis caused by the invasion of Ukraine, and football has not only survived but continued to flourish. Sustainability is a very unambitious target or purpose for something like English football, which has seen such spectacular growth and success. We should want at the very least to see growth and success imported into the purpose of the Bill, so that it may have a chance of encouraging the regulator to see that as its purpose as well.

Sustainability—inertia, you might call it—is timid and unambitious. Also, steady state does not exist any more. We are no longer in a world where any organisation tries to improve itself to get to the point where everything is going to be fine, and then simply potter along on the same basis. Whether it is an organisation, such as a football club, or a sector, everything is either getting better or getting worse. If it thinks it is staying the same, it is getting worse—certainly relative to its competitors. Its competitors in these circumstances are other leagues, particularly other leagues in Europe, which are equally ambitious to grow and to supplant the primary position of the English leagues at present.

There is no such thing as steady state—you are either going forwards or going backwards. The danger with the Bill as it is framed is that by aiming only to be sustainable, English football will go backwards, because it is built into the warp and weft of the Bill that the regulator will have the power to make financial exactions on the clubs. One of the clear aims is supposedly to enhance the distribution of goodies through the football pyramid, which is already very substantial, but the amount in the pot available ultimately to be redistributed by the regulator will be less by definition.

Later in the consideration of the Bill, we will need to go through in a lot of detail how the calculations are done in the impact assessment, because we suspect that the methodology employed is defective, certainly in respect of the costs of establishing and running the regulator, which will be recovered from the clubs through the levy, and the compliance costs. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that there was no consultation with clubs at any point in the pyramid about what the compliance costs for them would be in terms of the extra staff that they would have to take on and the extra burdens, which would reduce their current success. It would be very good for her to respond on that.

My concern is that if the aim is only to keep it as it is, the result, almost by definition, will be that the financial position of English football will be less good than it is at the moment. That is why it is important for your Lordships’ House to seek to import into the purpose of the Bill a more aggressive, forward-looking and success-orientated purpose than is currently there.

The kind of progress that has been seen and which is widely recognised, with the Premier League being the most successful league in Europe and the Championship being the sixth most successful, is never completely linear. There are spurts of success and there are setbacks, inevitably. Without occasional failures, there are no big successes. We all know that organisations learn more from the things that are tried but do not work than from those that are tried and do work. Of course, there have been setbacks; of course, there have been clubs that have gone into administration. Overwhelmingly, those clubs have come out of administration. Only three clubs have gone into liquidation, but all of them have been resurrected and are back in the football leagues and doing well. A number of the clubs that went into administration—which is generally, one hopes, only a temporary thing—have then risen from that rebirth into the Premier League, the top level of the pyramid.

There are bound to be setbacks. That does not mean that they are incompatible with sustainability or continued and, one hopes, renewed growth. It is odd that, when this Government constantly say that the most important thing is growth, they introduce a Bill to regulate one of our most successful industries and sectors and, in effect, say, “All we want to do is keep it going”. Where is the ambition? What of the employment that is created through football? It needs to be a lot more than sustainable.

This is an important set of amendments. It is important that we spend time working through what is involved—the tone and the colour that will be imported into this incredible success story for England. We must set out at the beginning, very clearly, that the purpose is not just to keep everything going as it is but to promote growth and success and to build on what we already have.

My Lords, before I start my comments in relation to my amendment and the others in this group, I want to thank the Minister for her kind comments at the end of Second Reading, when she said she hoped she would not need to call on my refereeing skills too often. I appreciated the thought, but when she made that comment she was probably unaware that, when I qualified as a rugby referee, the laws said that the decision of the referee was correct and final. Given that breadth of my ruling, I am quite willing to use it on any number of occasions.

At Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, drew attention to our failures at national level, but, of course, this legislation relates specifically to the league clubs. In proposing amendments to the Bill in a number of places, I am not saying that everything that exists within the leagues is perfect—it is not; what I am asking in my amendments and in my probable support for others is whether this Bill needs substantial change.

I have tabled an amendment to insert “success”. I said at Second Reading that I was disappointed that there was no reference to success at any point within the Bill. My noble friend Lord Maude just referred to project creep. Clause 1 says that the purpose of the Bill is to

“promote the sustainability of English football”,

but the Explanatory Notes refer to

“the primary aim of ensuring the long-term sustainability and resilience”.

Somebody has immediately written in another element of what the regulator’s responsibility would be. There inevitably will be creep, and it is therefore important that we include some other terminology to which any regulator needs to operate.

The world of sport is changing and changing fast. We cannot, as the noble Lord, Lord Maude, said, work on the basis that one is going to have an English Football League and a Premier League, and that is fine, and it will achieve what it achieves now without any change. We see the NFL hosting matches in this country. Why is it doing that? It is because it wants to extend its footprint and income on a worldwide basis; it wants to challenge other sports. Equally, American college football has reorganised recently. If we look at tennis, cycling and every single major sport, we see that they are reorganising because they are trying to extend their footprints to a worldwide base. The IPL is a classic example of how a sport has been changed. I agree completely with what the noble Lord, Lord Maude, said about how, with the way this Bill is phrased, football will be surrounded in aspic, it will carry on, and we will protect everything; there will be no change. What will happen then is that other sports take over on a worldwide basis in terms of viewership, income, finance and therefore attention around the world.

My amendment would insert “success” in the first clause and in one or two other places. I looked at the impact assessment—I intend to return on a number of occasions to that, because to be blunt, it is not an impact assessment. As the noble Lord, Lord Maude, suggested, the figures are interesting; I would be generous to say that I think they are interesting. My understanding is that some of the clubs that were asked to give an indication as to the costs that would be involved said they did not know. I would like the Minister to indicate what detailed figures were identified by the clubs that were consulted.

I want to concentrate specifically on the impact assessment. It is a justification for the Bill. I did a word search on “success”: there are 11 occasions in the impact assessment where it is used. We might think that that is positive, but the first line of the first sentence starts “Despite the commercial success”. How negative can you get? The word is next used in a repetition of the same phrase on page 9, which starts “Despite the commercial success”. Those are the only two occasions in the impact assessment where the word could even be described as used in a vaguely positive manner.

On page 15 of the impact assessment, “success” is used as a derogatory term and on every other occasion. The third bullet point on page 15 includes:

“There are lots of examples of owners taking excessive financial risks to chase short-term success”.

That is the perspective of success that the Bill appears to be promoting, where the only possibility of success is in taking short-term risks. There are nine references to short-term risk in the in the impact assessment.

To put this into perspective, I did another word search in the impact assessment to find out how many times the word “Bury”, as in the town and the football club, was used. It is quite reasonable to refer to it, but with 11 references to success, nine of which are patently negative and the other two might be, “Bury” appears 17 times. In other words, one page in every four has a reference to Bury Football Club. That is why I say that the impact assessment is a justification for the Bill, because they do not set out to protect success. They instead refer to one of the major problems that the football industry has faced, and which has been tackled. But it is the repetition of one particular case that depresses me.

My noble friend Lord Maude has already identified “success”. If we are to have sustainability or resilience in terms of creep, words such as success should be included. Success can cover so many different fields; it could include, as my noble friend Lord Parkinson, identified, attendance, income growth, financial contribution to the economy and competitive success. There is a whole range of ways in which success should be taken into consideration in any piece of legislation.

We need to protect the business that is the Football League in all its different forms. We should be looking forward at how the football leagues can compete, not only with other football leagues but with other sports. If we do not, our football leagues will suffer and decline into irrelevance.

My Lords, I support the amendment moved by my noble friend on the Front Bench, and those spoken to by my noble friends Lord Maude and Lord Hayward. I will also offer some expression of sympathy to the Government, because it is not altogether clear what the origins of this word “sustainability” may be. I suggest that they go back to the original so-called fan-led review produced by Tracey Crouch, which I have here and which noble Lords will have read. The Bill is drawn expressly from the so-called fan-led review.

I say in parenthesis that “fan-led review” seems a strange title for it, since Dame Tracey emphasises in the report that its conclusions are hers alone. Although I pay tribute to the work she did and the consultation she undertook, she received 20,000 responses and there are some 33 million football fans, but we will leave that for a moment.

I will read the very opening of Dame Tracey’s foreword as it sets the tone for the Bill as a whole and for an element that is missing from it. She wrote in her introduction:

“For those who say that English football is world leading at club level and there is no need to change I would argue that it is possible simultaneously to celebrate the current global success of the Premier League at the same time as having deep concerns about the fragility of the wider foundations of the game. It is both true that our game is genuinely world leading and that there is a real risk of widespread failures and a potential collapse of the pyramid as we know it”.

So Dame Tracey made two points. One was about the success of the game and the other its fragility and the potential failures, but the oddity of the way the Bill is presented—my noble friends all picked this up and elucidated it in their speeches—is that the first part of the Bill refers only to the fragility of the system by using this word “sustainability”. There is nothing about success in it. I suggest to Ministers and to noble Lords that some reference to success would be a better reflection of what was originally in Tracey Crouch’s report and the balance that she gave between the fragility and the success of the game—for the two, after all, may be bound up together.

My Lords, I apologise for missing Second Reading. I feel like I am coming on at half-time into this debate, but sometimes if you come on at half-time you have a little bit more energy.

I want to address the sustainability issue, because it is fundamental to what we are trying to do. I am not sure whether any other Member of this House has been in the unenviable position I was in as a leader of a borough, when the local football club came to me and said, “We’re going to go bankrupt and go bust unless you financially support us”, which I had to do at Stockport. We offered all our support, and we did it for a reason. It is more than just a football club, as other speakers have said; they are part of the fabric of society and of communities. They are economic drivers for towns. Most of these football clubs were built in town centres. They kick off at 3 pm on a Saturday because men, predominantly, used to work Saturday morning and they would go to the football in the afternoon. As we watch global football now, we see football matches at 5.30 pm, 8 pm and 10 pm. No one cares about the supporters. When Newcastle played West Ham the other night, the last train home from Newcastle left before the final whistle.

There is a bigger picture at stake here about how you regulate and control football, so my opening comment is that the sustainability bit—the bit that says a football club must be able to sustain itself—must be core to what we are trying to do. On all this saying, “The Premier League will look after itself”, I wish people would not keep bringing the Premier League in as the golden egg. It is the Championship, League One, League Two and the non-league teams—that is your pyramid. That is part of the regulator’s job: to secure their sustainability.

I say to all Members when they go through the Bill —some things in it are quite laudable and supportable—that the aim is not to get into the situation we have got into before, where the six that were going to join the European league could have collapsed the pyramid. That needs to be stopped again. Owners buy a football club like somebody buys a yacht or a hotel. That has to be stopped, as does changing the colours a team plays in and changing the ethos of a club. That is regulation, but at the heart of it is sustainability. That needs to be woven into the Bill somewhere, if not on the face of it: sustainability absolutely must be included in the regulator’s remit.

My Lords, sustainability is an insufficient word to describe what the Bill should be trying to achieve. It is necessary but not sufficient. We need football to flourish, develop and innovate and the Bill should make that extremely clear. As I mentioned at Second Reading, I have been around a long time and remember when football was highly conservative. I remember when football bitterly resisted the notion of live broadcasting, which was completely and utterly to transform and create the modern game.

The regulator must not stop football developing, and that needs to be crystal clear in the Bill. Football needs to continue to innovate, as it has done over the last 30 years. The notion for the European super league was quite wrong and rightly kicked into touch, but there are other possibilities in the modern age for having European leagues based on merit and allowing the game to develop. Live-streaming games which are not broadcast live on a subscription service for fans would be a perfectly reasonable way to allow the game to develop. Let us ask the regulator not to stand in the way of the game continuing to improve as it has done so successfully over recent decades.

My Lords, I want to make a few brief comments, not least because, as I have been here rather a long time, I know what is happening when speakers use the words “word search” and “dictionary definition”. It is not exactly intended to accelerate the passage of a Bill. I will be brief even if others, perhaps, were not. I remind Members opposite that this Bill came out of an inquiry from a Conservative former Sports Minister and was a Conservative piece of legislation introduced in the other House, so it is not exactly rushed. In terms of sustainability, there are a heck of a lot of clubs that would settle for any guarantee that they had a future and that the future was more secure for them.

I have great respect for the noble Baroness, but she just made reference to comments I made in relation to word search. I believed that doing the word search emphasised the point I was trying to make in relation to the amendment that I had tabled and the comments that other people had made as well.

That is how the noble Lord saw it, and I will say it how I saw it. What I was going to say in relation to the last contribution was that, yes, we all want the football leagues—the Premier League and everybody—to flourish and be more successful, but football will be a success only if the whole pyramid can flourish and be sustainable.

I want to say a word about Amendment 10, which is just one practical suggestion that could be considered to help clubs manage their own financial stability. One of problems we have seen in football over recent years is a degree of optimism on the part of football management about what it can achieve by minimal investment. Amendment 10, which my noble friend Lord Bassam and I have tabled, suggests that regulated clubs under the Bill should meet a financial commitment to have resources for at least six months. Many businesses are under very similar obligations. Charities have to have some financial security, so it would be worth considering whether we should actually make that kind of obligation something that the regulator should look at because, unless we get the overall funding of football clubs more sustainable, the whole pyramid will not be sustainable.

My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 3, and in so doing will cover a number of other amendments in the group. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, that I see this as a Bill that is almost uniquely all-party. Both Front Benches are in favour of it. One introduced it in another place, albeit for another purpose; the Prime Minister at that time talked about dropping a legislative bomb in the path of a possible breakaway super league. It has morphed quite considerably since that time to take into account many other issues.

In a sense, it is a Bill of two parts, and they have not always completely aligned. On the one hand, there is the role of the regulator with regard to the financial success or otherwise of English football. We will come to what that means in a moment, because it is fairly important. On the other hand, there are the many recommendations that came out of the fan-led review. The noble Baroness and I have both been around a long time; it is about 40 years since I started in the other place, and I have rarely seen a Bill with 340 amendments tabled from all sides of the House before we got to Committee. That is because many Members of your Lordships’ House are interested in the fan-led review; equally there are those—I echo the words that she has just said—who are concerned indeed that a regulator should not diminish or damage the success of the football league on which the waterfall payments depend. The more successful that Premier League is, the better for football and the better for everything that we are looking at.

My noble friend in sport—dare I say that?—the noble Lord, Lord Mann, looked just a moment or two ago as if he felt that spending too much time on the Bill was nearly as depressing as three minutes before the end of the Swansea-Leeds game at the weekend, and some noble Lords opposite look as though that is how they feel. However, at the weekend he was awakened by a wonderful goal that led to a 4-3 victory by Leeds, which we both celebrated.

I want to focus first on the important issue of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, because it is important that we recognise and understand clearly what it stated. It said:

“The fundamental purpose of the Bill is to ‘protect and promote the sustainability of English football.’ … One must go through a series of definitions only to find that the Bill does not, after all, provide the definition of English football. Ultimately, the meaning of ‘English football’ depends on regulations to be made in due course by the Secretary of State—albeit by the affirmative procedure”.

The report stated:

“‘English football’ means ‘all regulated clubs and specified competitions, taken together’. A regulated club means a club that operates a relevant team. A relevant team means a team that is entered into, is a member of, or participates in a specified competition. A specified competition means a competition specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State”.

That means that the meaning of English football is deliberately left unclear on the face of the Bill that we are debating in this critical Committee. The answer will emerge only after the Bill is enacted, when the Secretary of State makes regulations to fill in the definitional gap left in the meaning of “specified competition”. As a result, the remit of the new regulator is presently unclear. The report goes on to conclude with a recommendation that

“the power of the Secretary of State in clause 2 to define ‘specified competitions’ should be removed from the Bill. Government policy is clear—that the top five leagues of the men’s professional game should be regulated. This policy should appear in primary legislation, not be relegated to secondary legislation”.

My noble friend who has just spoken from the Back Benches is also aware that, as we have discussed, there is a question of hybridity about the Bill. When the Minister comes to respond to this set of amendments, I would be grateful if she could say, first, what she intends to do to give clarity to the issue of English football and what it means in the context of this legislation and, secondly, answer the question on hybridity. Until we have answers to those two questions, we have a number of challenges. I think there is widespread agreement across both sides of this House that there should not be a whole series of major decisions left to secondary legislation. They should be in the Bill and we should be considering them in detail as we progress.

On the question of sustainability, which is key to this series of amendments and the first part of this legislation on the role of the regulator, I hope that Amendment 12 in the name of my noble friend Lord Maude commands widespread agreement across the House. It provides that football needs to continue

“to be globally competitive in relation to audience and quality … to attract significant domestic and foreign investment …. to grow economically in terms of commercial revenues, domestic and international broadcasting agreements, and asset and enterprise values”

and continue

“to produce industry-led agreements on the distribution of revenues”.

Capital will travel overseas if that is not the case. Fans will benefit from ensuring that they and their clubs see success in English football, and that success is driven by a successful Premier League.

We can debate at length how much money flows through to the rest of English football but, unquestionably, the more successful the Premier League is, the better for the fans and better for the clubs that should benefit from that. The regulator is appointed in part to opine on that relationship, so it is critically important that the regulator takes into account the success of the Premier League and of English football. Indeed, the Prime Minister is very much on that page as well. He has recently pledged to get rid of regulation: his view is that he would

“do everything in my power to galvanise growth including getting rid of regulation that needlessly holds back investment”.

So we need to explore in detail the powers of the regulator and what it is going to do—and immediately, that is a highly complex area of regulation.

The regulator that we are appointing here also has to work alongside the regulations put in place by the Premier League, the EFL, UEFA and FIFA. We have already seen what happened when UEFA came forward and said, “We don’t like one of the powers that you’re giving to the regulator”. The Government immediately said, “You’ve told us to jump—how high? We’ll remove that from the Bill”. We therefore have a highly complex tapestry of regulation and are adding significant further regulation to that. I am going to look, in further deliberations of this Committee, at how we align the work of the regulator to the UEFA financial fair play regulations.

The point that the Minister made in Committee was really about the number of Premier League clubs that have been in trouble over the years. She kindly referenced and name-checked my comment in her letter, which we have very much appreciated today. She said:

“The Noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referenced there having been ‘only seven liquidations since 1945’. For the fans and communities who bore the brunt of those failures, that is seven too many. There have also been over 60 instances of professional clubs entering administration since 1992”.

Yes, I agree that there have been seven liquidations since 1945 and seven too many, but that is nothing like the number of liquidations and insolvencies we see in society at any given time. The numbers for the country at large are substantially greater and football has been highly successful. Only last year, something like 25,158 companies went into liquidation in the country at large, with 2,827 of those being compulsory liquidations.

So I think that the success of English football has been underestimated by the Minister and by those have been compiling the arguments that, in some sense, we should not on the face of the Bill recognise the importance of growth, financial success and financial sustainability, which are at the core of the amendment that I have tabled.

With those initial comments, I will just add one other very important point for the consideration of the Committee. All the indications are that in France, which has far greater regulation, and in Germany, which has much greater regulation as well, there is no evidence that that regulation has forestalled the insolvency of some of the clubs made insolvent under those two regulatory bodies. On the contrary, it is not the regulation that stops insolvency after all. I am very happy to give way to the Minister on this. If there is a club that seems to be in financial trouble, what will the regulator do about it? At what stage will he or she intervene? At what stage will they therefore state whatever steps they feel should be taken at that point?

That is not on the face of the Bill because, no doubt, it is the Minister’s view that that should be left to regulation and it is up to the regulator. But the reality is that you appoint a regulator only if you really believe there is a serious problem and you know exactly what that regulator would do in any given circumstance. That has not been the case in either France or Germany, which are the two major case studies relevant to us at this stage. So I would echo the points that have been made. We need to make sure on face of the Bill that the regulator recognises that football should be as successful financially as possible, and that nothing the regulator does should inhibit the success and growth of the financial success of football. With those comments, I am supportive of both my noble friend Lord Maude’s amendment and, clearly, my own.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak in Committee on the Bill, and obviously at Second Reading as well. I put on record my thanks to the Minister for her helpful and comprehensive letter today, which also referenced my reference to Woolworths. I think she might have misunderstood what I was saying, but we will let that pass.

I will focus specifically on Clause 1, which is the centre of this Bill: it is the cause, the purpose and the raison d’être of this Bill. As I mentioned at Second Reading, if you cannot adequately identify what the problem is that you are seeking to solve, you are very unlikely to reach an efficacious solution. This Bill—this Act, assuming it gets Royal Assent at some point—will be a living document. It will be the Government, the state, via a large regulator with unique powers, intervening in what hitherto has been a very successful commercial activity—perhaps one of the most successful commercial and business activities in the whole of our country, and certainly one that is globally very well regarded.

Therefore, it is incumbent on the Government to look seriously at the excellent amendments put down by my noble friend Lord Parkinson and to take on board some of the points raised by my noble friends Lord Maude, Lord Moynihan and Lord Hayward. The odd thing is that the Bill is drafted in such a way that it ignores some of the key points made in the impact assessment. The first page of the impact assessment contains a commitment to “improve financial sustainability”, which is in my noble friend Lord Moynihan’s amendment. However, in the Bill the wording is quite opaque and that wording does not appear.

Equally, focusing narrowly on Clause 1—which is the reason the Bill is coming to this House—I note that it seems odd that the local community is not defined in primary legislation. Ministers will say, “That’s because we need the leeway to bring forward subsequent secondary legislation and statutory instruments for unusual circumstances”. That is not an ignoble or unfair interpretation, but it is a difficult proposition to put to this Committee when we have to judge what is in front of us and not what might happen in the future in a very complex market model. So that omission is still problematic, which is why I repeat it from Second Reading. The other issue is that clubs’ fans are not defined definitively in the Bill, probably for the same reason.

I ask noble Lords to ponder two words. The first is “resilience”, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hayward. What does that actually mean in terms of the intervention into this market? The second is “local”. In the city I live in, Peterborough, many of the fans are not local: they live in Fenland, in the fen towns such as Chatteris, King’s Lynn, March and Wisbech. Are they local? They are not within the city area of Peterborough. The supply chain that supplies the procurement needs of Posh—Peterborough United Football Club—may be in London, Birmingham or Leicester. Is it local? It is just as much a stakeholder in the success of that football club as a community asset.

The point I am making to the Minister is that the wording of this clause is so loose and, dare I say, not well drafted that it will give rise to misunderstandings and potential litigation. On that basis, the Minister should take the opportunity, perhaps on Report, to come back with a much tighter wording in order for us to understand the Government’s aims and make sure that it is litigation-proof as we go forward, because we are creating an unprecedented regime.

My Lords, I am intrigued by the amendments from the Benches opposite because there is a degree of amnesia in some of this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, moves to strike out “sustainability” from Clause 1. I have a copy of the Bill that was introduced in another place at the beginning of the year. In Clause 1, “Purpose and overview”, it says:

“The purpose of this Act is to protect and promote the sustainability of English football”.

That is the same wording as is in the Bill before us. I say to noble Lords on the Benches opposite that this Clause 1 is exactly the same as the Clause 1 that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, would have brought to this House, had he still been the Minister and had the Conservative Party not lost the general election. So I am extremely puzzled by the approach of noble Lords opposite.

Picking up that point, I think the noble Lord is trying to make it appear as if this is a partisan thing, but it is not. I would have tabled exactly the same amendments if this had been the previous Government’s Bill that he refers to. This is not a party-political matter at all; it is about a game that we are passionate about and that is a spectacular success. We do not want to see something done that damages it.

The noble Lord has the benefit of supporting Horsham FC. I have the benefit of supporting Brighton and Hove Albion, and I am absolutely passionate about my football club, which is one of the best clubs in the Premier League. I would not be party to wishing to do anything that damages the Premier League, and neither would my colleagues on these Benches. We recognise, understand and appreciate that the Premier League is an institution that is more than worth supporting. It is the best in the world and we know that.

The other thing that noble Lords need to focus on in this debate is that when the noble Lords opposite were in government, they were very keen to have this legislation. A DCMS report published in September 2023 quoted the findings of a research paper that showed that there continues to be

“a widespread issue of clubs being run in unsustainable ways from a traditional financial analysis viewpoint”.

That was then the position of the party now in opposition, and I am hoping that it has the same range of concerns about our football finances now as it did back then, because it was quite clear that that was the primary motive for the legislation, and it is the primary motive for the legislation today. It is about its financial sustainability.

If a product or a good cannot be produced in a way that is sustainable, it will not be, as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, made a great song and dance about, successful. That is why my noble friend Lady Taylor and I have tabled our amendments in the first group—to focus on making sure that the Bill and the regulator that the Government are seeking to create promote the sustainability and success of our beautiful game. That is why we are here today; that is what we are arguing about and what we are so passionate about. It is for that very reason that we tabled our Amendment 10 to Clause 1.

I hope that the party opposite is not going to suffer from this collective amnesia for too long, but that it will get behind the Bill, get behind the purpose and objectives set out very clearly in that first clause—a clause that, in government, it amply supported and gave voice to. We need to get behind the Bill and make sure that it is sustainable for the future.

My Lords, I declare an interest in the Register of Lords’ Interests, as the elected chair of a football supporters’ group with 13,000 members. On Sunday, the weather advice was that nobody should travel in south Wales. I and 3,000 others did travel in south Wales. On Sunday afternoon, we travelled, not of our choice but because football fixtures are being changed to all sorts of obscure times. We went, and returned very late, very happily. That will not be the case at all fixtures if I wish to attend this House. In the new year, we have three fixtures that have been shifted to 8 pm on a Monday, and that does not quite balance with the sitting times of the House. I am just one fan, but there are many thousands who face that.

Imagine trying to get to Plymouth by 12.30 pm on a Sunday. That is what we had to do. It is not an easy way of life, and it is not just the bishops who are losing custom by this odd scheduling. It affects people’s ability. If there were to be an added word in here, it should be “enjoyment”—enjoyment of the game. Yesterday, one club, Manchester United, announced its new prices for this season. For a child, the minimum price is £66. That was my first away fixture, supporting Leeds United, aged five. I was lifted over the barriers—in for free—as I was at Leeds until the age of eight or nine, because that was how children were welcomed then. I did not pay to go in for the very many hundreds of matches I went to in that age span, and now it is £66. Well, it is a business.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who has good football taste, was none the less slightly awry with the example he gave in terms of liquidation, insolvency and the problems. If we take where I live—I will take Lincoln City and Notts County at random—both were about to disappear. The only reason they survived is that the supporters saved them. That is the difference between this industry and other industries. There are countless examples. If they were private sector businesses, they would have vanished.

In some cases, the fans could not do it. In 1987, as a Leeds United fan living in London with a few friends, I got a season ticket for a club called Wimbledon. It was a good choice; we got to the cup final with Wimbledon. I had a young daughter and I could not get to Leeds all the time, so a group of us went to Wimbledon in our spare time. If you are a fan of Wimbledon and your club wins the cup after coming from nowhere, you see what that does for the area and the fans, and people in south London. Then, a few years later, your club is extinguished, gone, shifted to Milton Keynes—vanished. The fans had the wherewithal to set it up again as AFC Wimbledon, and build from the bottom up, which is what they are having to do at Bury.

I almost thought that one or two noble Lords were suggesting that the state should not intervene in successful business, and I will end on this point. If we combine Scottish and English football, the most successful moment in terms of success on the pitch was around 1971. England had won the World Cup; Manchester United were the first English team to win the European Cup. Celtic had won the European Cup in 1967; Rangers were about to win the European Cup Winners’ Cup. We had the Cup Winners’ cup and the Fairs cup, and a whole succession of English teams about to take on the European Cup through the 1970s and dominate world football. It was the one moment when both Scottish and English football were at their height.

On the 2 January 1971, at a high moment, 66 people died at Ibrox football stadium. The state did very little intervening then. Then there was the fire at Bradford— I knew people who were there—when the state had not intervened sufficiently in the industry, and people died. Then there was Hillsborough, where people died. The state has intervened in the sport and the interventions, when they have been hard and focused, have been transformative. It was not the owners of the clubs who brought in the model of football with all-seater stadiums, revenue generation and corporate hospitality. I shall tell you the first club that did it. It was Glasgow Rangers. After 1971, their manager, Willie Waddell, went to see how others across the world did it. They rebuilt the stadium before anyone else did because of his experience of seeing people dying in front of him—that is state intervention.

In the balance between the fans, the state, the entrepreneurship and people’s ability to put in money—if anyone wants to put money into our club, we would be delighted because we are not trying to stop that—we want to see a slight tilt so that the fans are listened to. If we end up shifted to the bottom like the fans of Bury—I do not think we will, but you never know—the state should allow us to do something that they were not able to do; that is, for more to be done along the lines of what was done by the genius of those Wimbledon fans. It took them years to get back up. Wimbledon Football Club, having beaten Liverpool in the cup final in 1988, should have been able to survive seamlessly with their fans. That is the point of this regulation, and it is why I hope the Opposition Front Bench will be reluctant to further push this line of argument.

There are interesting issues that should be explored in getting that balance right. It will be legitimate to go into them and hold the Government to account, to question and even amend. Sustainability means that I, as a fan, will have my club in the future, whether it is badly or well run. That is what is critical about this legislation, and I commend the Government for bringing it forward.

My Lords, I refer the Committee to my interests, which are declared in the register. I want to give the noble Lord, Lord Mann, a bit of comfort in that had he been going to a Premier League away game, he would have paid only £30, because there has been a cap on the price of away tickets for the past five years.

I rise particularly to support Amendments 1, 4 and 4A. My concern with the word “sustainability” is that it means different things to different people. In the Premier League, what is sustainable for Southampton is very different from what is sustainable for Manchester City. In the EFL, what is sustainable for Stoke City is very different from what is sustainable for Carlisle. However, for rules to work, the same rules have to be applied to every club in the same league. Every Premier League club would have to abide by a common set of rules on sustainability, as would the EFL. Sustainability is not defined in this Bill; it is replaced with words such as “financial soundness” and “financial resilience”, as has been said. But both sustainability and resilience have no end state; you can always be a bit more sustainable or a bit more resilient, so it is not helpful that there is no definition.

This regulatory model has been inspired by banking regulation, with the imposition of tight controls on liquidity, cash flow and debt. Football has very few similarities to banking, where stability and safety necessarily trump all other concerns. In sport, you have to balance those concerns with the necessities of genuine sporting jeopardy, competitive tension, dynamism, ambition, risk-taking and aspiration. Those are fundamental to creating a competition people want to watch. If the sustainability lever is pulled too hard, or without sufficient co-ordination with the other regulators in the game, it is guaranteed to upset the competitive balance that drives the appeal and value of competitions.

That is why we need amendments to the Bill that would deliver a more co-operative model of regulation, with greater co-ordination between the leagues and the regulator, and stronger checks and balances to prevent overreach and overregulation. After banking regulation failed in the run-up to 2008, financial institutions were deemed too big to fail. The risk of this Bill is that it will make clubs too safe to succeed—every club might be guaranteed safety, but none will be allowed to dream. We all want regulation to protect clubs from crooks and bad owners, but we must not create a framework that protects established clubs from competition.

The debt in the Premier League currently stands at £2 billion, and I am told the debt in the EFL stands at around £400 million. This is a risky business; as the West Ham United anthem states, “Fortune’s always hiding”—I am pleased it was not hiding on Monday night in Newcastle. It is a risk trying to get promoted; it is a risk trying not to get relegated; it is a risk trying to get into the Champions League, and it is a risk trying to get into Europe and stay there. All football owners know these risks, and each one has a different way of managing, calculating, and understanding them. Some take on debt; some put in equity; some sell assets—their footballers—if the risk does not pay off, but they go again.

The problem with the idea of sustainability, which is undefined in this Bill, being the purpose of the regulator is that it can get in the way of ambition and aspiration, of calculated risk taking, and all the things that make the Premier League such an exciting and competitive league. Those are the reasons it is the best league in the world, and it is that competitiveness which drives the commercial broadcast values which are the revenues that underpin the entire football pyramid.

I am told that EFL clubs are likely to lose around £450 million in this current football season, and I think the noble Baroness said something similar. The regulator in this Bill, which is focused primarily on financial sustainability, is surely a good thing for football regulation because it is trying to make sure that those clubs—yes, involved in the business of risk and jeopardy—are financially sustainable and have a duty to their communities, and that their activities do not risk the future of those clubs. The point of the legislation, from the previous Government and our Government, is to make sure those clubs can be sustained and not have undue financial risk.

I thank the noble Lord; he made his point very well. The Bill does not say “financial sustainability”. Sustainability is not defined. If you put sustainability above overall success, growth and the competitive nature of the game, you might have a safer league, but you will have one that no one wants to watch. You might, notionally, have a more sustainable ecosystem, but it will also be smaller, more boring and poorer. If sustainability is the number one aim of the regulator, can the Minister explain to us what she and the Government consider to be the definition of the “sustainability” of English football? Can she also explain why sustainability does not include supporting the sustainability of the success and growth of the Premier League?

My Lords, I intervene briefly as an impartial Cross-Bencher. In the interest of productivity, I am aware that we are still on the amendment to:

“Clause 1, page 1, line 4”—

although many of us are still discussing line 1. I will suggest a compromise. The word “sustainability” on its own is too undefined; I suggest that it should be “financial sustainability and success”—thereby combining Amendments 1, 2 and 3.

However, I do not agree with Amendment 4. On growth, I would go back to the banking sector. I know that football is a very different industry, but banking and the financial services in the noughties had the most phenomenal growth rates and we are still all picking up the tab as taxpayers. That was not financially sustainable. So my suggestion is that the words should be “financial sustainable” and “success”—those two together.

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 1, 2, 3 and 4, because words matter. We have been debating the words “sustainable” and “sustainability”, but I will mention the word “unpredictable”—as was my team this weekend in trouncing Manchester City 4-0 away; a completely unpredictable result by all accounts. That is exactly what the Bill is trying to work against—if somewhat inadvertently.

Having spoken to many organisations in the professional game, I get a sense that the Bill is trying to establish a vision for the game that it does not need to. That vision needs to be left in the hands of this successful industry. That is why there is a general feeling that, when we are focusing on whether it is sustainable or on how much we are listening to fans, we are stepping in to an arena that we do not actually want to control and should leave to the people who have been so successful so far.

Many views have been expressed—including, with respect, those of the noble Lord, Lord Mann—on football’s past, but we should be cautious of looking back through rose-tinted spectacles at the history of our game. Yes, it is celebrated by fans, but the future is about innovation, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said. Whatever we say, the game will evolve—because of pressures from fans and commercial pressures. The European Super League did not succeed, but have we seen what UEFA has done with the Champions League? It has evolved again, with more games and more clubs. I am not sure that I completely understand the process it works in at the moment, but it has created a whole new league. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said, maybe the Church is losing some of its customers, but these leagues and clubs are gaining customers, eyeballs and commercial contracts that are only getting bigger. So something is succeeding and it will continue to succeed and drive the evolution of our game.

I say in conclusion that, as we go through the Bill and look at the regulator, can we say that the regulator does not drive the vision of football—leave that to the successful industry—but steps in if there is going to be significant failure? That is what a good regulator should do.

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for withdrawing from the Second Reading debate at short notice because of an urgent personal matter, and also draw the attention of the Committee to my declaration. Like the noble Lord, Lord Mann, I have occasionally not paid for football tickets as a guest of the EFL and the Premier League, mainly in my former role as shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary.

It is right that we focus on definitions, and I should like to point out a couple of the amendments in this basket. We are saying that we want to protect the sustainability of football and are effectively or explicitly saying that football is so unsustainable that the state wants to intervene in a market to such an extent that we are going to create a new regulator—another regulator. I have been in politics for about 40 years and I have been in many debates where people often talk about the failure of regulators and regulation. If there is one lesson that I have learned from that, it is that the politics of regulation are this: you can always delegate power but you can never delegate responsibility.

What we are saying to 1.5 billion people on the planet is that we are so concerned that your weekly viewing of English football is so unsustainable that politicians, the ones who moved Clause 1 last year and the ones who are moving Clause 1 this year, are taking responsibility for your hopes, desires, heartache and disappointment every week when you watch English football. Well, in the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, that is about the bravest and most courageous decision I have ever seen taken in either House of Parliament. Good luck with that.

My second point is this: I have been in another bit of the territory, trying to get the Secretary of State to define what she means by “football fan”. Whatever you think a football fan is, an English football fan—the ones I am thinking about today watch a lot of football, including the World Cup and European Championship —wants everyone in this House to guarantee that our national team will be able to play in every international competition.

The noble Lord, Lord Maude, has spoken to Amendment 6, which he has told the Minister is very helpful to the Government. On this occasion, I agree with him. This is explicitly saying to English football fans, “We will not allow our regulator to allow the rules of UEFA or FIFA to be breached such that there is a threat to England playing in future competitions”. We are not going to resolve this discussion today, but I guarantee that by the end of the passage of this Bill, this Parliament will have to say to 1.5 billion English football fans that we will guarantee that England can play in an international competition. I should be grateful if, in his summation, the Minister could reassure at least this English football fan that that will be the case at the end of this Bill.

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 4, to which I have added my name. I must admit that I am slightly surprised that it seems controversial to want to make it clear in the legislation that the purpose of the Bill in setting up the new regulator is to ensure the continued success and growth of English football. That is exactly what the regulator, or part of the idea behind the regulator, is supposed to do. To achieve sustainability and resilience in the game, the regulator will need to preserve and encourage the conditions for growth and continued success. So, I do not quite understand the issues around having those objectives added to the Bill. As we have already heard, there is huge success that can be built on.

However, as I also highlighted at Second Reading, the measures in the Bill and the new approach should also be assessed against the words of the Prime Minister, who has been very clear that the key test for regulation is that it does not inhibit growth. Indeed, since Second Reading, the Government have gone even further and announced new growth-focused remits for a number of existing regulators. The Chancellor said in her recent Mansion House speech:

“The UK has been regulating for risk but not regulating for growth”.

I do not quite understand why, if this is the direction of travel that the Government are pursuing, they do not feel it is right to include growth in the purpose of the Bill, to make sure that it is a defining feature of the regulator. It seems to me that this is part of the Government’s drive, so I hope that the Minister might look favourably on this suggestion. If not, I just ask why, for this particular regulator, a specific growth duty is not relevant, yet they are applying it to numerous other existing regulators. I would be very grateful for that clarification.

I must admit that I am similarly scratching my head over how the debate seems to have gone into whether it needs to be one or the other—whether there is somehow a trade-off between sustainability and success. I am just surprised that success is not something that we would all want. I do not just mean success in terms of England playing in all the tournaments, which I hope we would all agree we want, and I do not just mean success in terms of taking on responsibility, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, says, for how well the teams do. We are talking about the success of the game in terms of the financial wherewithal.

I am a big believer that in life you want to maximise the size of the cake before you argue how you divide it. How do you maximise the size of the cake? Certain measures are vital to that. TV viewership is key—not just because of how much people enjoy watching the game, but that is what the media rights companies pay for. That is what is paying for the game, so why would we not want that as one of the criteria? I think the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, was absolutely correct. Why is there not room for both? Why, all of a sudden, as the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, said, has growth become something we do not want here? Surely we all want growth; the Government are saying, quite rightly, that they are all about growth. I could not agree more, so why would not we want a measure of success here in the objectives of the football regulator to have growth?

I hear what the noble Lord is saying, and as I have been chairing the Industry and Regulators Committee, I have heard a lot about growth. What worries me is that in one moment he and his colleagues are complaining that the regulator is going to be interfering too much, but in the next, we are hearing that the regulator should do more—it should be responsible for growth, for getting more fans and for getting more viewers. Is it more or is it less?

I am very glad the noble Baroness mentioned that. When you set the objectives of any organisation, you want to set out the balancing factors. If it is only sustainability, you can get into the lowest common denominator, because a regulator would have absolutely done its job, by the nature of what is set down, just by the survival of all the clubs. There is a very easy way to do that: just dole out all the Premier League money to all the clubs straight away. That would make them all sustainable, giving the money to all the clubs. I think we would all agree that that would be a pretty nonsensical way to do it, but that would achieve the objective. If you set only a single objective, it is very one-dimensional.

Why would you not want a regulator to take into account that the overall financial health of the game is dependent on the TV viewership? That is what drives the money. What drives the TV viewership? It is how competitive the games are—not just the top games but all the games through the league? As I mentioned at Second Reading, and as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, mentioned, we are people who have sold and bought media rights around the world. The reason why countries as far flung as Nigeria, Thailand and everywhere else will pay so much for the rights is that every game is competitive. There is a chance that Bournemouth will go out and beat Liverpool, so everyone cares about it. The Premier League does not have a God-given right to be successful. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said, many years ago, the Italian league was more successful. The difference today is that you do not have just two or three top teams, as you see in Germany, Spain and Italy. You have a whole host of teams which are all competitive in the league, so every game becomes interesting to watch.

My concern in all of this is if the only criterion set down is that of sustainability, it is so one-dimensional that the regulator could just decide to discharge its duties in that way. I hope it will not, but when it comes back to the scrutiny that we are all saying it should have, the regulator could sit here among us all and say, “Look, I have made all these clubs sustainable. Okay, too bad that the TV viewership has gone down and too bad that a load of the games are no longer competitive, so the TV rights money has gone down, but they are all sustainable, because I doled out all the money”. I do not think that is what any of us would want. I really do not understand why this should be. This is not a political point; I really do not understand the objective at all. I am literally scratching my head as to why there should be a problem with that.

That is why in our later amendments we try to put in other criteria of success. Those are designed to be the ones that are all about maximising the size of the financial pie, by making sure that TV viewership and attendance are high. People forget in all of this—

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Would he like to comment on the Premier League vote of last week? Some clubs, led by Manchester City, wanted to grow the amount of money coming into football by allowing different forms of sponsorship, which were designed purely and precisely to put more money into certain clubs—for example, Manchester City, which is obviously why it is in favour. That would obviously be growing the amount of money going into the game, as the noble Lord said. Is that an issue that the regulator should be deciding or, on his argument, that the clubs should be deciding?

I definitely do not want the regulator to be involved in every nook and cranny, but when the regulator is sitting here in front of us and we are assessing whether or not it has done a good job, to me, the only criterion is not whether all the clubs are still out there in existence. That is a pretty limiting move. Why would we want to narrow ourselves down to that measure? I do not understand why any noble Lord would not want an objective to be that TV viewership goes up or that media sports rights money goes up. I will sit down to give noble Lords a chance.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, asks: would we want a matter such as that to be decided by the regulator or the clubs? Well, the clubs made the right decision. The decision was: “We want the Premier League to remain very competitive to prevent those who have access to, in effect, unlimited funds being able to stack the odds in their favour”. The clubs made a decision that this would not become a less competitive league than it currently is.

I thank my noble friend for his point. I would totally include in that measure of success, as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, says, enjoyment. That is absolutely part of it, because it is the enjoyment which means that people will pay a lot of money for their TV subscriptions, but it is all about the financial health of the game.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, I know that in terms of Clause 10 and the funds for six months, the amendment is well intentioned and sounds quite reasonable. However, I have been speaking to a different Premier League chair—I am sure that we have all been speaking to club chairmen—and from one of those clubs that is very respectable. They are afraid of having to lock a lot of money into escrow for their sustainability. They said that all that this will stop them doing is investing in their team and their players. They look at their club as a balance sheet, with assets and liabilities. If the worst came to worst, they would look to sell one of their players, because they are assets. That is what businesses do; it is what clubs do. You do not need to say, “You’ve got to lock six months’ worth of money in there, £30 million, so you can’t afford a striker”. It is, “If you want to buy that striker, take the risk,” as my noble friend would say.

Would the noble Lord agree that many other businesses have constraints on the kind of reserves that they have to have and that charities certainly have constraints on the reserves that they have to have? One of the difficulties, when many clubs go under or are on the verge of going under, is that there is a category of football creditors who have special access to any money that might be there, so lots of local businesses, as well as many fans, get really hit if things go wrong. Even discussing this seems to be alien to him. I am not saying that the wording of that amendment is perfect, but it is an area that is worthy of consideration if we are going to improve the future of clubs throughout the pyramid going forward.

The point that I was trying to make is that I absolutely agree that the noble Baroness’s amendment is well intended in terms of sustainability. I am worried that, as we all get back to the mission creep point and try to resolve all these things, we get into the law of unintended consequences. I know from speaking to a club chairman that if you put that money aside in that way, all you will do is deter their ability to invest in players. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, if we want to make ourselves unpopular in all this, it is by starting to do things that stop clubs buying players and investing. We think that VAR is unpopular today. Suddenly, you make all the clubs put £30 million to £40 million in escrow and they cannot buy those players. That would be a very brave decision for a Minister.

Following up on my noble friend’s point, looking at the finances of some clubs, you do wonder. Would the noble Lord, who has been in business himself, tolerate a situation where he only had five hours’ worth of reserves? Nottingham Forest last year spent something like £58 million on wages but had just £25,000 in cash reserves. I know that this is not uncommon across the world of football, but is that a highly desirable state of affairs? Is that not something that we should focus on? Is it not why we want good financial sustainable regulation? That is why we have got to this point where both sides of the Chamber have accepted the need to have a football regulator.

The noble Lord may be looking down the wrong end of the telescope. It is not that they have got only £25,000 in cash. You have to look at the whole balance sheet. The fact that they have a load of players who are worth a lot of money, who they could sell, means that they are fine financially. There are loads of companies out there today in positions of net debt. Most FTSE 100 companies have debt as a vital part of their balance sheet. You would be saying to them, “Oh, you haven’t got much money in your account, you’re in a net debt position”, when the value, when you look at all the assets too, means that it is in the FTSE 100 and is a very successful company. That is an example of why the whole area of us as politicians trying to get involved in setting criteria worries me. We will put things forward that are well intended but have unintended consequences. We will come on to this in later debates on the Bill.

I will finish. I hope that noble Lords understand that the reason why we have gone over time is that we have had a good discussion. It has been helpful in terms of the questions that have been asked. I would be pleased if the Minister could say why we would not want those measures of success as part of the criteria.

The simplistic argument is, “Well, I can just sell a player”. Actually, you cannot just sell a player. We have a one-month window in January and the end of the season. If it is mid-October and that happens, you cannot sell a player. What do you do then? That is the point. You cannot run a football club on a shoestring because it makes them competitive. That is not the name of the game. The noble Lord’s argument seems to be that if we give them all the money, they will not try their hardest anymore. That is fanciful; it is not true. Football clubs need to be sustainable. They need to be able to pay their way. I could not buy a car if I could not afford the deposit. I could not buy a Rolls-Royce tomorrow saying, “I’ll give you the deposit, but I don’t have it with me today, so give me the car and, when I do quite well, I’ll give you the money”. That is not how life works. Football is a business like every other business. The noble Lord seems to want it to run in a way that is foreign to every principle of business.

Speaking as a former chief financial officer of a FTSE 250 company, I would say that, in those examples, if you found yourself in a situation where you could not sell a player until the next window, that would be very poor financial management by the CFO, who would probably get sacked pretty darn quick if they led their cash flow into those sorts of situations. In extremis, if you needed to do that, the bank would lend the money against that because there are assets on the balance sheet that they can borrow against. Every FTSE 100 company is set up in that way. They meet their cash requirements by looking at their assets and raising debt where they need to against them.

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Lord has sat down. I just want to make a few comments on some of the points that have emerged in a very interesting debate. The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Maude, talk about success—

My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House for the noble Lord, Lord Markham, to make it clear now whether he has not completed his remarks, in which case it would be appropriate for the noble Lord to wait a moment, or if he has sat down.

We have had a good debate. When the Minister replies, can she explain why it is not felt appropriate to have these measures of success to get the overall financial wealth of the game? I will now sit down.

I thought that the noble Lord had indicated that he had finished. On success, which the two noble Lords that I mentioned talked about, the whole question seems to me to be totally subjective. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, said, what is success for one club is not success for another. I suggest that for at least half the clubs in the Premier League, success is not being relegated rather than winning anything.

Just to clarify, I said that what sustainability is for one club is different from what it is for another, not success.

That is interesting. Someone in the debate said that we should have financial sustainability and success. I think that in this setting the two, if not interchangeable, mean very similar things.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and others, talked about the competitiveness and the jeopardy. As you can hear, although I am an AFC Wimbledon season ticket holder, I do not come from south London. When I lived in Scotland, my club was Dundee United. They were Scottish champions in 1983. Next season, Aberdeen were Scottish champions. There has been no team but Rangers or Celtic as Scottish champions in the 40 years since. That is a low bar, perhaps, but in fact only two clubs have won the Premier League more than twice in the 32 years of its existence. It is all very well to talk, as the noble Lord, Lord Markham, did, about Bournemouth beating Manchester City. Yes, it is always possible, but a club such as Bournemouth could never aspire to winning the Premier League. Only a very small number of clubs could realistically—

I am going to come on to that in a minute. Only two clubs have won the Championship more than twice. Three clubs have won it once. If you ask people how many times Liverpool has won the Premier League they will probably say four or five. No, it has won it once, the same as Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers. Of course there is jeopardy; many clubs can be very competitive within a game, but winning the league is something different.

I know that noble Lords have talked about selling television rights and said that it is a very attractive league across the world, and I accept that. However, we have to tone it down a bit on the competitiveness of the Premier League, because there are not really all that many clubs that can aspire to become its champions. That is not to disparage it, but it is just a fact of the past 32 years.

Will the noble Lord accept that since 2000 the four major leagues in Europe—Spain, Italy, Germany and England—have effectively produced the same number of different champions in each case, either six or seven?

Yes, I can accept those figures. I accept the noble Lord’s general premise, although I am not sure about Spain. I do not think that more than two clubs have won La Liga; actually, the two Madrid clubs and Barcelona have won it.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, talked about comparing England with France and Germany. I am not sure that is a fair comparison because in Germany the clubs are fan- owned. No club can have more than 49% ownership—51% is owned by the members of those clubs. There is not a direct comparison there. Yet Germany has been disproportionately successful in European competitions over that same period.

I want to move on to something else that my noble friend Lord Mann talked about— the opposition of many on the Opposition Benches. Unless I misinterpreted my namesake, my noble friend Lord Watson seemed to say that he was not in favour of the regulator having the powers that the Bill suggests. On the question of the role of the state, I thought that my noble friend Lord Mann was going to say that the Taylor report, which followed the terrible events of Hillsborough, was driven by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Quite right—I do not think anybody would object to that. There are cases where state intervention is appropriate and the only answer. If it had just been decided that we would hope all clubs produced all-seater stadiums for safety reasons, we would still be waiting for some of them.

That is one of the issues that we will probably come to later. The other one is the question of who is a fan. It is not for today, but it is very important to define what a fan is. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, talked about Peterborough and how Posh fans are spread right across the fen-lands and beyond. If you are defining a fan, it really has to be a season ticket holder, because otherwise you cannot pin them down. Manchester United and all the big clubs have fans across the world. You could not possibly consult them. I am sensitive that noble Lords will not necessarily agree with that. What about somebody who cannot afford a season ticket or who is not physically able to go to a match? I accept that, so we have to try to pin that down, and it will be one of the most difficult aspects of the Bill, because if we are going to take the views of fans into account, we have to have a means of corralling them and then taking those opinions. At this stage, I do not see how we can do that beyond season tickets.

My noble friend Lady Taylor talked about the sustainability and the success of English football, not just the Premier League but right down the system. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, talked of Stockport County. They sunk right down to level 6 in the National League North after going through some very traumatic periods, but have been able to come back up to level 3. My noble friend Lord Mann talked about AFC Wimbledon; in nine years they came from, basically, parks football to being back in in the Football League. It is natural that we tend to concentrate on the Premier League, but there has to be some understanding that the clubs below them are important. I am being opportunistic, but the Labour Government have talked about fixing the foundations. In any sense, when you look to go forward, you must have strong foundations. The foundations of English football are right down at the grass roots. I am not talking about the amateur level.

The noble Lord references Amendment 10 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. Will that amendment not potentially embed in primary legislation an economic concept of moral hazard? It is an economic term: a situation where a party has an incentive to take risks because it does not have to bear the full costs of those risks. That is going to be on the face of the Bill for the new regime, and will be directed by the new regulator. Is that not the case?

We will have to see how that comes out in debate. I am not quite sure what the import of that amendment is. That is one of the issues about the role of the regulator. Noble Lords, particularly on the other side of the Chamber, are seeking to give him or her greater powers or influence than intended in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, said at one point that we do not need a regulator because nothing is wrong. There is something wrong, because the Premier League and the English Football League have been unable to reach agreement on the disbursement of the funds from the top level to levels below. That is one of the problems in the system at the moment.

There is a deal in place agreed by all parties on how funds are distributed; 16% or £1.6 billion is distributed. It is also important to note that the Premier League has more title winners in the last 15 seasons than La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A, and the fewest number of titles won by one club than any other top European league over the same period, which shows it is competitive. That is why it is the best league in the world and the most valuable, and that is what we have to protect, because without that broadcast revenue the whole pyramid suffers.

I know the noble Baroness has experience with one of the major Premier League clubs but, in a sense, she has made my argument for me. The other leagues are less competitive, but I am just saying that if only four clubs can win the championship twice in 32 years, it is not spread very wide, and I would like to see it spread more widely, as many other people would—no doubt including those at her own club.

I think the noble Lord misunderstands what I meant by competitive. It is not just which teams can win the Premier League overall and, as the noble Baroness showed, more teams can win here than anywhere else. It is the competitiveness of every single game, because the value is that you have so many games that people all around the world want to pay to watch, so they are interested in watching all the games. Brentford might not win the league, but they know they are going to be competitive against Man City and Liverpool and Arsenal, and they are the games that people want to watch. When we talk about competitiveness, it means that every single game is competitive and that is what the viewership wants to see, and drives the value up of the rights.

That point was made earlier. I would not say every game is competitive, but I take the noble Lord’s point. I do not want to say any more at this stage because it is important that we get some clarity on how we go forward after this initial debate, because there are many important sections of the Bill that we need to look at in detail. The regulator will have a role, and we have to use this to make sure that it is absolutely clear. Some of the issues raised by noble Lords are legitimate, and until we can have our debates on each of these, we cannot quite see what shape this Bill and the role of the regulator will have. I thank noble Lords for the points made, and I think there are a lot of issues that we will follow up.

My Lords, if we do not get up to Amendment 36, we have a big job ahead of us, so I am going to be very brief.

Take the BBC. The director-general, the chair and the board really try to work hard to meet its objectives. It is there to entertain, to inform, to educate—and those objectives live in the same organisation. I do not know why, in the same way, the regulator cannot see its job as one of sustainability and success as well as growth.

I used to support Manchester United, but when they sacked one of their managers I left. When I was in York, I decided to attend York City. It was a very disappointing club, but I wanted it to be successful; I wanted sustainability to be paramount and I wanted it to grow. They always remind you how they beat Manchester United in the FA Cup, but that was a long time ago.

People ask questions, but I would have thought that those three words, without putting finance before sustainability, could live together. The regulator has to ask “Is this sustainable? Is it successful? Will people work hard and succeed? Will it grow?” The little clubs all have aspirations to get into the Premier League and win the FA Cup. That is what drives them. So, please, we should not just look at the Premier League. Yes, it is important, yes, it is great, but the little clubs do not just want to be sustained—they want to grow, to be successful. So I cannot see why these three words cannot live together without qualification.

My Lords, when trying to sum up these several hours of debate, I felt at times that we were dancing on the head of a pin. Sustainability —what actually does it mean? What do the Government think it means? That is the one question I would give to the Minister. Does it mean sustaining a successful Premier League? Well, I would hope so. Is sustainability making sure—remember, this Bill encapsulates it—that those five tiers of professional football are functioning? That is what is in this Bill—five tiers of professional football. That is what has allowed the resurrection of teams which got it wrong—there was somewhere to go.

Making sure that that is sustainable means that the fans want something. I hope I never cross the noble Lord, Lord Mann, on this subject because there was a great deal of fire in the belly there; my noble friend Lord Goddard might have got close at times, but I think we will give the noble Lord that one on points. The fans want something and are hugely emotionally and physically invested in this structure. That is what is behind the Bill. Football is not another business; it is not even another sports business. It is not—and may all that is holy be thanked—WWE. It is not something that we will throw away; it is embedded in the identity of much of our society. I say that as a rugby player. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, is my friend—I will say yes to him and “sir” when he is refereeing, but only then.

So it is that that comes through. The question here is about the word “sustainability”. What do the Government envisage it is? Let us get it out here now. Where will this be backed up? Where will it be shown so that we can know what is going on? Pepper v Hart is clearly not enough here. If we can get that, we can move on, but we must remember that we do not want the Premier League to be damaged, because it provides the money for the other good things to happen. That is the balance we must achieve—or at least get close to.

We cannot guarantee that it will be the best league in the world for ever. Will there be government intervention to make sure that it is successful? That would be a strange position for many noble Lords who have spoken.

The point is that the government regulator should not make it less successful by over- regulating, mission creep and making it so difficult to keep it competitive that it ends up having a detrimental effect.

My Lords, we come back to semantics, definition and interpretation. How do you interpret success? Is it by lack of regulation or by intervention? I do not think FIFA and UEFA would be terribly happy if it was felt that it was possible for a regulator to interpret success.

I hope that the Minister, who will have better access to this information than anybody else here—at least, I really hope she will—will be able to say what sustainability is, where does it go and what is the Government’s vision? That is what has happened here.

The Bill is about keeping five tiers of professional football functioning, with an escape route when it goes wrong, if we want to be terribly mercenary, for the top clubs. It gives a chance to rebuild and come back. That is difficult—Leeds have done it briefly; the noble Lord, Lord Mann, is smiling at me—but that is what is behind the Bill. It is not just about the Premier League, it is about the whole thing. I hope that the Minister will be able to correct—or rather, clarify—these points.

My Lords, this has been a long but I think helpful debate, particularly towards the end when the more conversational changes that Committee allows exposed some fundamental differences, if not in party politics then in political philosophy and outlook. It is very valuable that we start our scrutiny of the Bill by reminding ourselves of the differing views and hopes of not just your Lordships in Committee but the many fans whose hopes ride on the job that the regulator is being asked to do and the way in which it is being asked to do it. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, said that it felt at times like matters of semantics, but it is important to make sure that the words in the Bill are carefully chosen and that the Government’s intentions behind each of those words are properly probed. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister about the Government’s intentions for the regulator and the way it will and will not carry out its duties.

I do not want to dwell too long on the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton; I do not want to be accused of playing for time, as they do in football. However, I want to reassure her of the spirit in which those of us on these Benches are scrutinising this important Bill. As she said, and as my noble friend Lord Moynihan and others said, the Bill has enjoyed cross-party gestation and support. I made that very clear in my comments at Second Reading. It arises from the fan-led review led by the former Conservative MP, Dame Tracey Crouch, which was introduced to another place in the last Parliament. It has been changed by the new Government, as is their right, and we want to make sure that when it gets to the statute book it does so in the right shape and form. My noble friend Lord Moynihan noted that there are 340 amendments already tabled, and more than 100 of them are in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, and the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I think it is a strength of this House that we will look at each amendment and give it the airing it needs, and that we scrutinise the Bill and read the Bill documents as carefully as my noble friend Lord Hayward has done. I know that your Lordships will not demur from that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, set out clearly and powerfully the case for her Amendment 10, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, particularly in the exchanges with my noble friend Lord Markham. I hope that that helped bring some clarity, both to the argument the noble Baroness was advancing and counterarguments from across the House. The exchange on her amendment chimed with our concern that “sustainability” is too imprecise or insufficient a term to stand on its own. She gave a practical and useful example of the way in which the Bill might expand on how we guarantee the sustainability of football and football clubs. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, was seeking a cure for amnesia, understandably. I never had the pleasure of being the Bill Minister for this Bill, but he will remember from our many exchanges when I sat on the other side of the House that I was looking forward to the Bill coming to your Lordships’ House. He will also remember that, as a Minister, I had the pleasure of taking a number of Bills through and faced keen scrutiny from him and other Members on the Opposition Front Bench, carrying out, as was their right, the Opposition’s duty to scrutinise government legislation. I hope that he remembers, as he does not suffer from amnesia, that I was always open to ways of improving Bills, including those I took through as a Minister. If he thinks I am being too careful or conscientious in my scrutiny, it is only because I learned from the best.

This is important because, as my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham said, the Bill brings about an unprecedented intrusion by the state into a sport and an industry that is a resounding success story. My noble friend extolled the benefits of inertia, and I agree. We want the regulator to be carefully constrained, but we want it to be respected and able to fulfil its duties with authority. That is why it is important that we make sure it is not backward looking, nor that it seeks simply to preserve football as it is today in aspic, but can demonstrate to football clubs and to fans around the world that it shares their aspirations for the future of the game.

My noble friend also struck an almost Schumpeterian note by reminding us that sustainability, particularly in this complex ecology of the football pyramid, has sometimes been delivered through new clubs, new tournaments and new successes emerging from the ashes of previous failures, so sustainability can be delivered in ways that may feel turbulent as we go through them. I thought that was a useful point. We want to ensure that we avoid the unwitting or avoidable failures, such as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, so powerfully set out in the example he gave, and to make sure that the clubs that matter so much to their communities are protected—they are not, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, like just any other business; they have a social purpose, which we have already well considered—but it is the nature of sport that there are winners and losers. We also have to bear that in mind as we look at the regulator and the way it will carry out its work.

We could probably save ourselves a lot of time if we heeded my noble friend Lord Hayward’s referee’s whistle and just accepted his rulings on everything. I am glad that he had gone through the impact assessment so carefully. I agree that there should be more references to success than to Bury, for instance, in the impact assessment and some of the accompanying documents.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, was right to warn about the inadvertent danger of sending the message that a sport loved by 1.5 billion people around the world is not sustainable without a new law, a new regulator or the intervention of politicians. My noble friend Lady Brady pointed out in both her speech and her interventions that sustainability can mean different things to different people and that, as something with no end state, it is very difficult to define. I think that is why we have given it so much attention in our debate on this first group.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, was very helpful in saying that sustainability is a necessary but not sufficient term. My amendment would strike out the words, not because I disagree with them but because I do not think they are enough. The way he put it was right: the regulator must not stop football developing.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, made a powerful case for adding the word enjoyment. I enjoyed not only the way he did it but also his powerful reminder of the necessity of government and state intervention in the past in football, particularly in relation to the disasters and terrible incidents that he rightly reminded us of, which we want to avoid happening again.

I was struck by the compromise from the Cross Benches from the noble Lord, Lord Londesborough, and his suggestion of “financial sustainability and success”. I wonder whether the Minister will set out her thoughts on that, as well as on the point that my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park made about growth. This is something, after all, that chimes with the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the work of the Government more broadly. We want to ensure that the regulator is a growth-focused one that helps the growth not just of the game but of our economy.

This has been a long debate, but in debates on the Online Safety Act, which I had the pleasure of taking through your Lordships’ House, we spent a lot of time talking about having a declaration of purpose at the beginning of the Bill—the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, pressed me hard on it from the Opposition Benches. I remind your Lordships that we made that change and put it in the Bill because I thought it was important for the regulator to be given a clear message from Parliament and in legislation about what its role should be and how it should do it. I was glad to make that change.

The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu, reminded us in his analogy with the BBC of the Reithian principles, which we also inserted into the Media Act—again a Bill that I took through. I was happy to amend it to make sure that that Act also reflected important statements of intent and ways of working. So I make no apology for having invited the Committee to spend some time thinking carefully, as we embark on our scrutiny of the Bill, about the role of the regulator and the message that we send through the Act of Parliament that we pass about the way it should do it.

I thank noble Lords for raising the amendments in this group. This discussion has arguably gone into extra time, although I am assured that we have not got to the point of a penalty shoot-out—although that might be one way to arrive at a conclusion, given that I no longer intend to take up the refereeing option from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, having heard very clearly what he said.

It is clear that the enthusiasm for talking about football demonstrated at Second Reading remains strong. I am not surprised, however, given the time we have spent on this group, that my noble friend Lord Watson of Wyre Forest appears to have contributed on the next group. I will respond to his points then.

Before I get into the substance of the amendments we have discussed this afternoon, I want to make a general point that was made succinctly by my noble friend Lord Bassam: it is clear that the party opposite has very unfortunately caught an element of collective amnesia. It appears to have forgotten that it was a Conservative Party that was in government and brought forward a very similar Bill just a few months ago—a point made elegantly by my noble friend Lady Taylor. All serious parties—I include the Conservatives in that—had a commitment to introducing an independent football regulator as part of their manifesto.

Notwithstanding the length of the debate, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, made an interesting point about growth that has not been substantially covered by the notes I have. I would welcome further discussion on this point with her and am happy to meet to discuss it further.

Taking each amendment in turn, unfortunately, I have to disagree with the principle of Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and of Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham. The fan-led review, led by Dame Tracey Crouch, laid bare the facts of English football today. The review is the justification for the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked for, and the basis of the Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, asked for when he asked what problem we were trying to address. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for highlighting Dame Tracey Crouch’s point that the game is both a success and fragile at the same time—a point reflected, in my view, in the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Ranger.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friends Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Mann, gave other examples of where the state has intervened in football. Although, as a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, said, it is undoubtedly hugely successful in many ways and has grown substantially since the formation of the Premier League in 1992, and our football is a global export that we should be proud of, the game’s financial model is broken. Too many clubs are in financial distress, fans are not being listened to, and just a few years ago top clubs attempted to break away from the Premier League to join a European super league. That move undermined the very principles of football in this country. The Bill is designed to combat these issues, identified by the previous Government.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for Amendment 3 and for his contribution to this debate, not least for highlighting the cross-party support for an independent football regulator. In response to his point on hybridity, I think we will come on to this in a later group, but this is a matter for the examiners, not the Government. I am happy to discuss this and others points in the debate on the relevant group, which I believe is the eighth group. We will potentially come to that at some point in the near future.

Unfortunately, the Government do not agree with the intent of Amendment 3 to narrow the purpose of the entire Bill specifically to financial sustainability. The purpose of the Bill is sustainability, as already defined in Clause 1. I highlight to noble Lords that they will find the Government’s definition if they turn from page 1 to page 2 of the Bill. I hope this answers the query from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the Government’s intent in this regard. It is about a continuation of service—to continue to serve the interests of fans and contribute to the well-being of the local communities that regulated clubs serve.

I listened with interest to the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, and all noble Lords will recognise her passion and expertise. I welcomed the passionate description from the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, of what the Bill is about. It is about those fans and the communities. Of course, financial sustainability is an important part of this. If a club suffers financial collapse, it cannot continue to serve its fans and community. I cannot agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, that this is exactly the same as any other financial club, a point echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

However, there is more to it than this. If a club’s balance sheet remains healthy but it ups sticks, moves 60 miles away and changes its name, badge and shirt colours, that is not a continuation of service either. Clause 6 sets out the regulator’s objectives, breaking down the overarching purpose of the Bill into its component parts. That is where noble Lords will see the club financial soundness and systemic financial resilience objectives, alongside the heritage objectives. That is the right place for them, and we believe this structure appropriately conveys the regulator’s aims and priorities.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, asked whether all clubs in a league would have to adhere to the same rules. The regulator will be proportionate and adaptive in its approach, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach that requires all clubs, regardless of their level, to adhere to the same approach.

Moving to other amendments, I thank my noble friends Lady Taylor of Bolton and Lord Bassam of Brighton for Amendments 10, 53 and 63, which raise interesting points about how much funding is required by individual clubs in the pyramid. On Amendment 10, the Government understand that the intent is to explicitly define sustainability in Clause 1 as the ability for a club to meet its financial commitments for at least the next six months.

This amendment would also effectively seek to alter the purpose of the Bill by adding to the definition of sustainability in relation to English football as a whole. As I have already stated, we believe that sustainability is already appropriately defined in Clause 1. I have no doubt that my noble friends’ intention was to define the financial soundness of a club as per the regulator’s objective in Clause 6. However, here we do not believe that it is necessarily appropriate to define general financial soundness in this way. We believe that there are circumstances in which the ability to meet financial commitments for six months may be an appropriate measure, but it is a blunt one and may not also and will not also be the case.

It will be for the regulator to set out exactly what it considers constitutes financial soundness. We think this is the right approach. However, the Explanatory Notes to Clause 6 clarify that:

“‘Financial soundness’ is a measure of a club’s expected ability to continue meeting its liabilities and debts in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances … This will involve an assessment of a wide range of factors and circumstances relating to a club’s long-term financial sustainability and resilience”.

I hope my noble friends are reassured as to the benefits of this approach.

The Government also recognise the good intent behind Amendment 53, which is to clarify that the regulator should be concerned with the financial resilience and sustainability of English football. I hope I can reassure my noble friend that, in our view, the desired intent is already achieved by the wording of the regulator’s objectives in Clause 6, and the purpose of the Bill in Clause 1.

Care was taken in the exact choice of the wording. “Financial resilience” feels appropriate in relation to the wider football system, as an established concept regarding the ability of the system to withstand shocks. “Financial soundness” feels more appropriate when referring to individual clubs, as an established concept regarding the financial health of organisations. “Sustainability” feels appropriate when referring to the overarching purpose of the Bill to ensure a continuation of service. To repeat “sustainability” in this objective could risk confusing these concepts and how they interact. I again point all noble Lords to the Explanatory Notes, which provide more detail on these various objectives and, I hope, provide some reassurance on the points raised.

Amendment 63 seeks to ensure that the financial position or soundness of regulated clubs is not diminished relative to other, non-regulated clubs. In line with its objectives, this regulator will be tasked with protecting and promoting the financial soundness of regulated clubs. Therefore, I hope my noble friends will agree that it is not necessary to place this additional requirement on it to not adversely affect financial soundness.

Amendments 4A, 7A and 62 are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, and Amendments 2, 209, 226 and 231 are in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. In response to the surprise from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, that this is included, I understand the desire to ensure that the success of English football is protected and would like to be explicit that we believe this is achieved in the Bill already. As previously stated, the Bill is largely the same, not least in the part we have been discussing this evening so far, as that published by the previous Government, in which the noble Lord served.

As part of its secondary duties, the regulator must have regard to avoiding impacts on important outcomes in football. This extends to domestic sporting competition, the competitiveness of our clubs against international clubs, and investment into football. Actively pursuing these outcomes will remain the responsibility of the industry rather than the regulator, but the regulator will avoid unduly harming them while it strives for sustainability.

On Amendments 2, 4A and 7A specifically, if, as part of the purpose of the Bill, the regulator were required to protect the success as well as the sustainability of English football, it would not be afforded the flexibility needed to solve the clear and present issues within football currently. As someone who at Second Reading admitted to supporting Oxford United—who, sadly, lost their most recent games—I feel that success would be a hard ask of any regulator.

Similarly, my noble friend Lord Mann mentioned enjoyment. I know that most noble Lords will appreciate that sometimes that enjoyment can be quite painful as well.

I think the Minister did not quite understand. She was talking about success in terms of success of teams. The point about success that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and I were trying to make was about TV viewership, which drives the media rights value. I have not seen that anywhere else in the Bill, and I would be grateful if the Minister could say where it is addressed.

I might have been being flippant, so I apologise to the Committee. After the length of time we have been discussing this, I came up with some flippant remarks. That was not to undermine the noble Lord’s point.

Much of the success of English football has come from investment, and we do not believe the Bill will in any way deter this. Nor do we believe that the regulator will detract from the noble Lord’s point about what might be measures of success. Indeed, a stable, more certain regulatory environment is likely, in the Government’s view, to attract investors with a more long-term, prudent approach to stewarding and growing these community assets.

These amendments would require the regulator to bring into scope anything that relates to the growth of English football. This would include things such as broadcasting revenues—which the noble Lord referred to—transfer fees and sponsorship deals, alongside many other areas. Not only would this dramatically widen the scope but the regulator would be required to become actively involved in these areas, potentially causing unintentional harms when looking to advance these worthy objectives. I am sure noble Lords will agree that this is not a space we necessarily want to have the regulator interfering in.

The noble Lord, Lord Maude, asked about the development of the impact assessment. I want to reassure him that, in the deve