Football: Casey Review

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to The Baroness Casey Review: An independent Review of events surrounding the UEFA Euro 2020 Final “Euro Sunday” at Wembley, published on 3 December 2021.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice, and I declare an interest as a vice-president of the charity Level Playing Field.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, for her thorough and important review. Her report rightly highlights that responsibility for the reckless and criminal behaviour at the Euro 2020 final lies with a small minority of individuals who sought to undermine the day for the overwhelming majority of fans. The UK has a long and successful record of hosting major international sporting events. The Government will now work with the police and football authorities to consider the report’s recommendations in full.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he not agree with me that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has produced a truly devastating report, which everyone—the Football Association, the police and the Government—have to take seriously? She makes it clear in her report that we shall never know for sure how close we came to a huge disaster involving major loss of life, caused by 6,000 ticketless fans outside the stadium who were ready to storm inside had England won the penalty shootout. Will the Government pay particular attention to recommendation 6.a:

“Particular attention should be made to ensuring those entering through gates provided for wheelchair users and other more vulnerable members of society are not endangered by the reckless actions of others”?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness’s report is thorough and very significant, and it includes a number of very important recommendations for the football authorities, the police, the Government and many others. We will be looking at them all and making sure that lessons are learned so that the sorts of scenes we saw at the Euro final are not seen again.

Football Clubs: Ownership Test

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, a lot of Newcastle United fans would take exception with the way that the noble Lord characterises that. They certainly welcome the investment in the club and the opportunity for dialogue, which is such an important part of sporting endeavour.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare a slightly ancient interest: I was a vice-chair of the Football Task Force, whose report in 1999 was the last serious attempt to, in the words of the Independent, “deliver a fair deal” for fans. Our proposal for independent regulation was blocked by the Premier League, the Football League and the FA. Can the Minister assure me that Tracey Crouch’s excellent report will not go the same way as the Football Task Force’s final report? Has he seen these words in her fan-led review:

“The fit and proper persons test has failed to stop many owners who are not ‘fit and proper’. It’s a disaster of a system.”

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord is a committed fan and campaigner. My honourable friend Tracey Crouch will certainly not let the matter rest. She has led a very good review. She was in another place when it was debated last week, and I know that she will not let up on this important issue. It is also thanks to the contributions of many thousands of football fans, which have informed the review very well.

Racism in Sport

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. Social media companies follow every aspect of our lives and I think we are all surprised that they could not have anticipated better some of the events that have occurred in the last 48 hours. The Online Safety Bill will specifically address issues around anonymity.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome and endorse the tribute paid by the Minister and my noble friend Lord Coaker to Gareth Southgate and the England team. They are genuine role models in whom we can all take a great sense of pride. The Minister will recall that she answered an Oral Question from me on this subject on 23 March. She said:

“The police already have a range of legal powers to identify individuals who attempt to use anonymity to escape sanctions for online abuse.”


May I ask her what those sanctions are and what progress has been made in making football a specific priority in the hate crime unit looking at online discrimination against protected characteristics, as specified under the Equality Act 2010? She spoke about imposing a duty of care on social media companies with

“clear systems of user redress and strong enforcement powers from Ofcom.”—[Official Report, 23/3/21; col. 724)

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but half the time for this PNQ has already lapsed and we need to make more progress.

Dormant Assets Bill [HL]

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, I will be exceedingly brief. As the Minister has said, these are highly technical amendments. Like the noble Lord, Lord Davies, I am frustrated by so many amendments of a highly technical nature and confess that I have been unable to spend the time to get on top of the impact of those changes. I am therefore wholly reliant on the Government’s definition of them. Even my noble friend Lady Bowles was floored by this number coming at this point. I hope for assurance from the Minister that we are done with these technical changes. This truly is an unusual number for a Bill that everyone has been aware is coming for some time. On additionality, which the noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred to, and which I agree is exceedingly important, I have an amendment tabled for Wednesday which tackles that issue. I hope that he will have some input.

I wish to talk about the various amendments to Clause 3 relating to lifetime ISAs, which, in effect, can go into the scheme only if their transfer to a reclaim fund does not trigger a charge payable to HMRC. I am slightly taken aback. HMRC would not be getting its tax payments until the point of reclaim under normal circumstances, so by allowing the assets to go into the dormant assets scheme it loses nothing, not even the timing of the payment of tax charges, because without the reclaim there would be no tax due, as far as I can tell. That strikes me as extraordinary. Why on earth can these assets not be put into the dormant assets scheme? The tax relationship would probably need amending but that is surely not beyond HMRC’s scope. Surely we could ensure that the taxable event happened only at the point of reclaim, as it does right now, meaning there was a bigger pool available for very good causes. Can the Minister give us an idea of what kind of money we are talking about? How much is being denied to the fund because of this constraint that an event which is taxable under today’s legislation is not being amended to make it clear that it is taxable on reclaim, not on transfer to the fund?

I am getting a bit fed up with HMRC. Time and again we get its very narrow focus on tax revenue generation and very little interest in some of the consequences and external impacts of its actions. We have seen it on things such as the loan change, although this is an entirely different issue. Surely it has some responsibility to ensure that the dormant asset programme is as effective and generous as it can possibly be, and therefore making the effort to sit down and draft the various clauses that would in no way deteriorate its current or its proposed tax position, but would allow those assets to be transferred, is a reasonable expectation. I simply do not understand it.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

Lord Bassam of Brighton? I think he may have muted his equipment. Can he unmute?

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I apologise. I apologise doubly for being late and for failing to unmute.

I missed the Minister’s explanation as she introduced this group, but a few points occur to me. There are some 20-plus issues tied up in these technical amendments and clarifications. That is a lot and, while I am very grateful for the text explaining them, there are some fairly substantial issues here. My attention was drawn to government Amendment 17, which applies a new clause in the case of a wound-up unit trust scheme or a terminated sub-fund of an umbrella unit trust scheme. It sounds awfully complex, actually; it may well be technical, but I do not fully understand exactly what lies behind the wording.

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I have set out at length the extensive mechanisms in place to review the impact of dormant assets funding, the operational aspects and the mechanisms for unlocking future asset classes, and I hope that, for the reasons I have set out, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I naively had it in my mind when I spoke that I was speaking only to Amendment 4. I cannot come back on the substance of the amendments, but I have a couple of specific questions. First, in the formal consultation, and in the previous reviews, the Government said that they recognised

“the strong interest in the ways that funds can best be spent”,

even though it was outside the consultation, and that:

“Accordingly, we will consider whether this is an area that should be reviewed”—


in other words, other ways of spending the money. Is this what the Minister just referred to or is it a separate exercise that is being considered?

In the Second Reading debate, the Minister referred to the additionality principle in her introduction. She said:

“Money must fulfil the additionality principle, so it cannot be used as a substitute for central government funding.”—[Official Report, 26/5/21; cols. 1035.]


In response to the debate, she said:

“There was a lot of discussion about the additionality principle. This is set out in paragraph 9 of Schedule 3 to the 2008 Act and remains unchanged.”—[Official Report, 26/5/21; cols. 1084.]


Of course, I turned to the 2008 Act. It is far from explicitly set out; it is actually set out only at one remove. It refers to the need for the Big Lottery Fund to cover the issue in the annual report and to say how it complied with that requirement. It does not set out explicitly what is meant by additionality, so my second question is would it not be better to have a clear and specific definition of what is meant by additionality, given the emphasis the Government place on it as a pillar of the scheme?

Football: European Super League

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reform the governance of English football to prevent the breakaway of six Premier League clubs into a European Super League.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government will not stand by and watch football be stripped of the things that make millions across the country love it. We will continue to look at everything within our power to stop this proposal going ahead. The Secretary of State spoke to the FA, the Premier League and UEFA yesterday to give them the Government’s full support in pushing back on these proposals in the first instance. However, we stand ready to do whatever is necessary to represent fans and protect their interests.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the six English clubs that have signed up to this grotesque project have, in the words of Stephen Fry on social media yesterday,

“brought together the whole divided nation, indeed all of Europe—everyone united in disgust & revulsion at such greed and stupidity.”

I look forward to hearing more in due course about how the Government plan to stop it. Meanwhile, I welcome the announcement of the setting up of the Government’s fan-led review into the administration of English football, chaired by the excellent Tracey Crouch MP. Can the Minister assure me that the terms of reference for the review will definitely include the possibility of establishing a statutory independent regulator? Reform here is long overdue.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his warm welcome to the announcement of the fan-led review and its chair. I can confirm that it will cover the merits of having an independent regulator, as well as financial sustainability and governance.

Social Media: Offensive Material

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are planning to take to remove anonymity from persons who post racist and other similarly offensive material attacking (1) sportspeople, and (2) other high profile public figures, on social media sites.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are clear that being anonymous online does not give anyone the right to abuse others. We are taking steps through the online harms regulatory framework to ensure that online abuse is addressed, whether anonymous or not. The police already have a range of legal powers to identify individuals who attempt to use anonymity to escape sanctions for online abuse. We are working with law enforcement to review whether the current powers are sufficient to tackle illegal anonymous abuse online.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

Can the noble Baroness be more specific about what the online safety Bill will achieve? Presumably, it will force social media companies to take down the racist and sexist rantings of some of their customers and lead to prosecutions where the abuse goes far beyond any free-speech justification. How much has happened since the Culture Secretary’s welcome statement on 8 February that those companies can start showing their duty of care to footballers today by weeding out racist abuse now, and will football be a specific priority in the hate crime unit looking at online discrimination against protected characteristics, as specified under the 2010 Equality Act?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are absolutely committed to making the internet a safe place for all, and of course that includes footballers and other public figures, but it also, very importantly, includes children, other vulnerable people and the general public. A key part of making this work is the duty of care that we will be imposing on social media companies, with clear systems of user redress and strong enforcement powers from Ofcom. I am happy to take the noble Lord’s suggestions regarding the place of footballers within the hate crime unit back to the department and, in relation to the equalities issue which he raises, he will be aware that it was very clear in the 2019 social media good practice code that social media companies are expected to have regard to protected characteristics.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will call Members to speak in the order listed. As there are no counterpropositions, Members not listed may not speak and the Minister’s Motions may not be opposed. Short questions of elucidation after the Minister’s response are discouraged. A Member listed to speak and wishing to ask such a question must email the clerk.

Motion A

Moved by

Online Harms Consultation

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for welcoming this full response to the consultation. I am happy to echo them both in their thanks, in particular to Carnegie UK and the important work it has done. We hope very much that the Bill will bring us into an age of accountability for big tech.

In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, what is illegal in the real world should indeed be illegal in the digital world. This Bill, when it comes, will help us move towards that. He raised the question about the focus on individuals. Obviously, the level of harm—in terms of the more individuals who are impacted—will be relevant to the sanctions that Ofcom can enforce. But he also raised a wider and very important point about trust in our institutions; clearly, social media and big tech platforms are institutions where the level of trust has been tremendously eroded in recent years. We want to restore that, so that what the big tech platforms say they will do is actually what happens in practice.

Both noble Lords asked about the category 1 companies, how those are defined and whether we will miss important actors as a result of that definition. Category 1 businesses will be based on size of audience but also on the functionality that they offer. For example, the ability to share content widely or to contact users anonymously, which are obviously higher-risk characteristics, could put a platform with a smaller audience into that category 1. Ofcom will publish the thresholds for these factors, assess companies against those thresholds and then publish a list of them. To be clear, all companies working in this area with user-generated content have to tackle all illegal content, and they have to protect children in relation to legal but harmful content. We are building safety by design into our approach from the get-go.

The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about criminal liability; we are not shying away from it. Indeed, the powers to introduce criminal liability for directors are, as he knows, being included in the Bill and can be introduced via secondary legislation. We would just rather give the technology companies a chance to get their house in order. The significant fines that can be levied—up to 10% of the turnover of the parent company or £18,000, whichever is higher—are obviously, for the larger tech companies, very substantial sums of money. We think that those fines will help to focus their minds.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talked about legal but harmful content. This is a very important and delicate area. We need to protect freedom of expression; we cannot dictate that legal content should automatically be taken down. That is why we agree with him that a duty of care is the right way forward. He questioned whether this would be sufficient to protect children. Our aim, and our number one priority, throughout this is clearly the protection of children.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked a number of questions about Ofcom. I might not have time to answer them all now, but we believe that the Bill will give Ofcom the tools it needs to understand how to address the harms that need addressing through transparency reports, and to take action if needed. Ofcom will have extensive powers in order to achieve this. He also mentioned international co-ordination. We are clearly very open to working with other countries and regulators and are keen to do so.

Both noble Lords questioned whether the shift from age verification to age assurance is in some way a step backwards. We really do not believe that this is the case. We think that when the Bill comes, its scope will be very broad. We expect companies to use age-assurance or age-verification technologies to prevent children accessing services that pose the highest risk of harm to them, such as online pornography. The legislation will not mandate the use of specific technological approaches because we want it to be future-proofed. The emphasis will be on the duty of care and the undiluted responsibility of the tech companies to provide sufficient protection to children. We are therefore tech neutral in our approach, but we expect the regulator to be extremely robust towards those sites that pose the highest risk of harm to children.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also asked about our media literacy strategy, which we are working on at the moment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

My Lords, we now come to the 20 minutes allocated to Back-Bench questions. I urge noble Lords who wish to participate to keep their questions short, so that we can get in as many of the 16 who have asked to participate as possible.

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[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord McNally, again.

[Lord McNally (LD) [V]]

My Lords, not guilty, but happy to get in. Earlier this year, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, chaired a committee of this House which produced the report Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust, about the damage caused to our political and democratic system by online harm. The Government are choosing to ignore this. Does that not leave a massive stable door in the legislation? Will she assure me that the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, will be able to give evidence to pre-legislative scrutiny to make the case for action in this area?

Covid-19: Football League

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

To be clear, I said I was not aware of whether the Government were looking at this; I did not say that they were not. They have been incredibly active in supporting sports clubs across all the major sports that are really suffering from the lack of income from fans. They are working closely with the Treasury to resolve this as quickly as possible.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, may I press the Minister on my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton’s question about the timetable for the establishment of the fan-led review into football governance? When she has answered that, can she also say whether it will take account of the excellent report Saving the Beautiful Game: Manifesto for Change, published last month by the distinguished group chaired by the former FA chair David Bernstein? In particular, will it take account of its central recommendation:

“External involvement in the form of a regulator supported by statutory powers is required to reform the way our national game is governed”?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

With regard to the timing of the review, this is a manifesto commitment and we are keen to get started with it as soon as time allows, but all noble Lords will understand the pressure that our officials and Ministers are under at the moment. The scope of the fan-led review has not been determined, and anticipating the answers before we have set this might be premature.

English Football: Project Big Picture

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the “Project Big Picture” proposals for reforming the governance of English football.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question in my name on the Order Paper and refer to my interests declared in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, it is clear that this proposal has not been cleared with all those affected. We strongly urge the Premier League and the EFL to continue to work constructively to come up with a deal that provides a comprehensive package of support for the whole football family. The Government promised a fan-led review of football governance in their manifesto. Events of the past few weeks have made this look more essential than ever.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on that reply, with the contents of which I completely agree. The overriding priority is to agree a rescue package for members of the English Football League, especially those in the lower level, which can generally be regarded as community clubs and are in the deepest trouble. I am sure that she agrees that it makes no sense to use the present emergency as cover for a power and money grab by the wealthiest, mostly foreign-owned, clubs in the Premier League. Can she say a bit more about the fan-led review of football governance to which she referred? Will that consider proposals for a national football board, charged with distributing the wealth in the game more fairly and evenly?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord is right that this proposal risks conflating some of the governance issues with the immediate financial pressures that many in the football family are facing. The fan-led review that we have committed to will include consideration of the owners and directors tests but, more broadly, we are currently deciding on the scope and structure of the review and will liaise with football authorities while we do this.