Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on these amendments. I think she was very wise to bring this before the Committee, because this is a case where many of the international governing bodies and federations— the IOC in particular—have taken a lead. Without this legislation reflecting that, we would be seen to be behind what are important international obligations set by organisations such as the IOC. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, so there is cross-party support for his amendments. Whether the wording is right and sufficiently enabling is a matter for the Government to consider. I declare my interests. As the Minister knows, in 2012 I was chairman of the British Olympic Association, a member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and a member of the Olympic Board.

I will develop my argument and the reasons why. The International Olympic Committee has what it calls sustainability essentials, and any city bidding to host the Games has to meet those sustainability essentials when it bids. It then has a sustainability strategy, which it expects governing bodies around the world and all the national Olympic committees associated with the IOC to follow. When it comes to bidding for major events such as the ones we are talking about this afternoon in the context of this Bill, those who are bidding have to meet exceptionally high standards of sustainability and environmental protection, and it is right that they do.

I declare the fact that I sat on two commissions of the International Olympic Committee considering bids from other cities and then advising the members of the International Olympic Committee on the merits of those bids. One of the critical aspects of that was sustainability and the environment. If a city failed to meet those standards, it was very unlikely to succeed. For that reason, in the very early days of working closely with Ken Livingstone, the British Olympic Association sought to place sustainability right at the heart of the London bid that was judged in 2005. When I complete my remarks I will come on to the exceptionally important point that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made about judging the environmental legacy.

All credit should be given in this Committee for the work of Sir John Armitt and the Olympic Delivery Authority. Sir John Armitt is one of the most outstanding men of his generation when it comes to engineering and the work he did as chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority—the body that organised the building of the venues, facilities and infrastructure for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games—and the key environmental measures he implemented over several strategic areas, including waste management. He diverted 100% of operational waste away from landfill. An impressive 99% of waste generated from venue construction and decommissioning was reused or recycled.

On energy and emissions—an important point for the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, on every occasion that he contributes to a debate such as this—it was incumbent on the ODA to cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least 20% compared with standard practices, so even where it was expected that we would see reductions, we had to go 20% further. The Olympic park energy centre utilised a combined cooling, heating and power system alongside biomass boilers burning sustainable fuels—far more sustainable than at Drax, I might add. Then there was the sustainable construction. The Olympic Stadium was built to be the most sustainable in Olympic history, repurposing old gas pipes and reducing materials.

Water conservation was important. Water was a serious challenge to the organisers of the Games in 2012, because the quality of the water that we had to achieve was tough to meet. For the organisers of the Games, it took many days of discussions with Thames Water at the time to meet the standards that the International Olympic Committee required in its contract with London to host the Games.

On the biodiversity side, the ODA implemented an Olympic biodiversity action plan to restore local rivers. Everyone knows what the East End of London looked like before the work started to bring the Games to London. They planted over 300,000 wetland plants and installed hundreds of bat and bird boxes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talked about public transport. It was a requirement that, when it came to hosting in London, we had to design a public transport Games that banned spectator parking at venues and instead relied entirely on public transit, walking and cycling networks to manage emissions.

I mention those as examples, but there are many more. Many committees were put in place to implement one of the most impressive sustainability Games there has ever been. That was made even more difficult at the time because the transformation of the Lower Lea Valley into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park required the most comprehensive environmental enabling works ever undertaken in the United Kingdom. Before 2007, when the work started, the 246-hectare site was nicknamed “London’s scrapyard”, serving a neglected, heavily polluted brownfield site packed with light industry, active landfills, a soap factory, gasworks and overhead power pylons. A great deal of work was done on site clearance and deconstruction. Over 98% of all demolition materials were recycled and directly reused in the new infrastructure. Workers removed 52 massive overhead electricity pylons and buried 13 kilometres of power cables in deep underground tunnels.

Then there was the green cleaning up: the soil washing. The soil was choked with a century of industrial toxins, including oil, tar, arsenic, lead and cyanide. Soil hospitals were created. The Olympic Delivery Authority, again under Sir John Armitt, set up onsite laboratories and five industrial soil-washing machines. A huge amount of work was done, and I would be very happy to talk at length about it because I am proud of the work that we did in London 2012. The reason for mentioning a number of these examples is to reinforce how import it is that, with legislation of this kind, when we are sending a signal to the world of sport that we want these major events to come, and they are going to pick up this Act, as hopefully it will then be, and look at it, if they do not see a real commitment to environmental sustainability on the face of the measure, they will question why, especially since we cover so many other aspects.

We need to find the right words that make it enabling. We must not be too prescriptive, because the prescription may be even tougher when it comes to the International Olympic Committee, FIFA or an international federation. But there is merit in looking at this seriously and I hope the Minister will respond positively. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has done a service to the Committee by tabling these amendments, as have the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and my noble friend. If we can attempt to find a framework to add to the Bill along the lines that they have suggested, the Bill will be significantly improved.

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

I was not going to speak on this, but I thought I might follow the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, because we both spent many years of our lives grappling with the London Olympics.

I first became involved in the London Olympics in 1999. The first meeting on day 1 was with someone called Richard Sumray, someone called Paul Brickell and myself. We met at the Bromley by Bow Centre over coffee and began to wonder, first, what would it be like to take on Paris in 2012 when it was the next city on the list? And where on earth was there enough land to do such a project?

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In conclusion, it is simply about taking the opportunities of these human-led technologies to enable the experience of the event, to drive efficiency and effectiveness in the planning and the delivery of these events, to make them more secure and safer, and to make sure that when the flame goes out at the end of the event and the athletes, players and the media go to Heathrow or other airports and departure points, everybody has had an inclusive, safe and secure experience, powered through human-led technology. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I support my noble friend Lord Holmes’s amendment. Just over a year ago, Jarrod Bleijie, who is the Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development in Queensland, came to visit this House and listened intently to a debate on sport. One of the aspects that he focused on was that Brisbane was actively integrating digital twin modelling into the preparations for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The technology is being utilised across several phases of development, including urban planning, venue design and, as my noble friend mentioned in particular, transport optimisation. The points that my noble friend made are very relevant, because the Queensland Government’s SEQ—South East Queensland —digital twin initiative is leveraging predictive analytics to model traffic congestion, crowd movement and transit scheduling. This was exactly the point that my noble friend made about modelling in the locality. On the construction side, foundational projects such as Cross River Rail have built immersive replicas to test structural functionality and simulate passenger flows prior to their completion. There is no doubt that the importance of digital twin modelling in all major spectator sports events is now both understood and implemented.

My noble friend is right to alert the Government to embracing within the Bill, in some form, in the right terms and with the right phraseology, the challenges of integrating digital twin modelling as it stands. It will unquestionably morph into more sophisticated forms in the future. It would send a signal to potential bidders that we are very much on top of this technology and legislation.

Amendment 96 is focused on a cyber resilience plan. I do not want to be pedantic, but we really need a cyber security strategy, because that would provide the framework for what I think my noble friend seeks to achieve. We absolutely need to redouble our efforts to prepare for and prevent cyber threats. Everybody involved in major spectator sports events around the world now is completely focused on this important factor. There are too many bad actors out there looking to disrupt major events. Unfortunately, the major events that command global television coverage are targets for them, as was seen in the many cyber threats on the Paris Olympics. This will only increase.

The more we highlight the importance of these issues by placing them in the legislation in a suitable way to indicate that we are very cognisant of the importance of this as a part of preparing for any bid and, indeed, for the delivery of games that could face these threats in the future, the more we will be well-received internationally. The whole purpose of the legislation is to send a signal to the international federations—the IOC, FIFA and others—that we are not only prepared but aware of the major challenges that we face and that we are responding to them as a country. With those very few remarks, I absolutely support my noble friend’s intent.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, the point about cyber is really important. At Second Reading I referred to my involvement in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Prior to the Games I had the opportunity of visiting the transport management hub, a group that, among other things, had put gizmos in all the traffic lights throughout London so that they could change the lights at a moment’s notice to enable traffic to move through. A cyber attack on that would have brought the whole of London to a standstill.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, raised this as an important issue, but he did not point out that this is a reality for sports organisations already. The latest research shows that 84% of the major sporting bodies around the world report that they have had at least one cyber attack recently, and 57% say they have had more than one. This is a very real issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response. It is vital that we have it included, ideally on the face of the Bill.

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[Lord Markham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes, and all other noble Lords, for what I hope people will see as a good debate and a helpful contribution. We hope to make sure the UK is best placed for the best planned events, so I hope this will be taken in the spirit of helpfulness. As ever, my noble friend Lord Holmes brought us to the cutting edge of technology in the need for digital twins, and my noble friend Lord Moynihan set out the perfect example of Queensland for what is happening on that. He was absolutely right to remind us of the dangers from cyber attacks. With my other brief in my science and technology role, I am all too aware of that; it was brought out very clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, with his traffic light gizmo example. I would quite like to have one of those for my way home.

What the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was getting to on the infrastructure and accommodation points was in some ways similar to the point we tried to make in our amendments on Monday to enable an Olympic development-type agency. As he said, it is not a championship-type event; it is a much bigger scale. These are all coming at the Bill from different angles to make sure that if this is to be enabling legislation, it is broad enough that when bodies of that scale are needed, this framework legislation is able to do it. I very much take my noble friend Lord Hayward’s point that we need to make sure we do not build overbearing full-time bureaucracies here.

The amendments in my name, and that of my noble friend Lord Parkinson, are trying to make sure that the UK is the best place possible to host these events. That is why we are asking the Secretary of State to make a report within six months on some of the impacts on and barriers to that. Noble Lords are only too aware that the recent changes to employer NI increases the cost of a worker by about £900 per year, and the minimum wage changes add another £1,000 per year to the cost of each worker. These are exactly the type of people needed to man these events and make them happen. Unfortunately, these recent changes and tax increases will have a disproportionate impact.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

When it comes to further consideration of the importance of Amendment 76, to which my noble friend is speaking at the moment, the noble Lords, Lord Mawson and Lord Addington, may well agree that we possibly need to expand on this so that we have the opportunity, not just within six months but within a year, five years and 10 years, to see that there has been an appropriate sporting, social and economic legacy, and indeed a sustainability and environmental legacy. It is really important, because so many commitments are given at the time of hosting a major sporting event. Admirable as it is to have a review after six months, for legacy this is vital. By working together we can learn a lot of lessons that can benefit other host cities around the world for major sporting events. I put that to my noble friend. Does he agree that we can at least look at that before we come to Report?

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

It is a rich conversation, and it is really important that we learn this lesson. One of the things we did not achieve with the London 2012 Games—and it is no one’s fault—was to have someone caring about the legacy and really worrying away on day one when we won those Games.

When we first had that meeting in Bromley-by-Bow in 1999 to worry about all this, we were blue-sky thinking and thought, “How on earth do you make movement on a thing that’s going to be impossible? Paris is going to win—they’re the next one on the list and the IOC has decided already”. Fortunately, through a good friend of mine, Ian Hargreaves, at that time the deputy editor of the Financial Times, I was taken one Saturday morning to meet the architect Richard Rogers at his house in Royal Avenue. I had never met Richard before. We had a conversation to check whether we were mad in pushing this kind of idea. When I shared the thought, he was quiet for about 10 seconds, and I thought, “He thinks we are mad”. But Richard was actually a great risk-taker and had built some amazing things. He said that he thought building a mixed community was the right idea, and that he would like to join us, with his mate Mike Davies, who was just finishing the Millennium Dome at that point. At our second meeting, we began to worry about not only where the venues might go on those 248 hectares but the detail of, for example, the press and broadcast centre. None of us had ever done this before, and we had a conversation about how many journalists there would be; we thought maybe 100 or 200. Richard said he would go away and find out. He had an interesting idea of putting the press centre under the stadium, in a way that only Richard Rogers could have thought of. He came to the next meeting and I asked, “How many is it?” He said, “Andrew, it’s about 100,000”. The press and broadcast centre was a building bigger than Canary Wharf.

During the journey, because no one was at that point owning the legacy, into that building went a massive cable that all the press could use—fantastic value despite its cost—that was then going to be removed in legacy, along with that massive building, at the taxpayer’s expense. Unless a few us—including Gavin Poole who built the Here East development, now a fantastic innovation hub in the middle of the East End of London generating jobs, skills and university investments —had owned that issue of legacy, and the significance of that cable coming into that building, it would all have been lost. My thought to government is this: how do we ensure that on these big events some individual is owning those questions from day one? When Governments put millions of pounds into these things, they need to have longer legs than just six weeks.

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[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Parkinson. It comes to the heart of this Bill. This is, in effect, an enabling measure. It is agnostic about the events, but it is clear that it is about the major spectator sporting events of the future. It can provide a framework that will help to convince international federations, the IOC or FIFA that we are prepared, willing and ready to host one of those events. It is a pity it is agnostic because, as we heard on the first day in Committee, there are many events that would like to be included in this and, at present, we are unsure whether Wimbledon, the Open Championship et cetera could be covered.

Since the focus is on major events, such as a potential Olympic bid in 15 or 20 years’ time, it is concerning that what appears to have happened here is that we have enabling legislation that will come back to Parliament in the future through statutory instruments. When it comes to spending £10 billion at 2012 prices, that is simply not going to be acceptable to Parliament. We will require primary legislation. We will require a money Bill in order to consider whether that significant public spend is appropriate—even more so when you take the 2012 example, where the original bid was costed at £3.4 billion and it ended up at more than double that, and that is before accounting for the excellent work of the country’s intelligence and security services. I was present at a major debate about whether you included the security services’ work and costed it or you accepted that the security services would be working on something else at the time, so there was no additional cost as they simply switched across to the protection of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Leaving that aside, the important point is we had circa £10 billion-worth of public funding, and there is no way that secondary legislation on a regret Motion in your Lordships’ House is going to be sufficient for parliamentarians to come to a conclusion on that.

That brings me to the second point about the way that international sport is run under fiercely protected autonomy. To take the example of the Olympics, the bid committee is not initially set up by government to bid. The bid committee is the National Olympic Committee, and for us that is the British Olympic Association. The bid committee comes forward with the proposal for a city and it is responsible for preparing the bid documentation, which is known as the candidature file. That is formed by the city that is bidding, in the case of the Olympics, and the Olympic association of the host country. They go to their Government.

On the financing of a major event such as the Olympic Games, the role of the Government is to provide legally binding guarantees regarding, above all, funding. That is what is looked for from the Government: a legally binding guarantee regarding funding, taxation, customs and immigration. I shall take a few minutes to demonstrate this point and bring it to life in the context of what happened in London 2012. The guarantee that the Government provided in support of London 2012 was,

“to provide all necessary financial support to the Games”.

That was clearly made as a commitment by the providers of the public funding package for the Games. It was absolutely right that Parliament questioned that and asked what that guarantee meant.

The applicability of the guarantee in the context of London was confirmed by the Government in three concrete cases, where third parties requested additional assurance in respect of obligations undertaken by the organising committee. The first was Ticketmaster. The arrangement with Ticketmaster required assumption of responsibility for the refund of ticket purchases should the event be cancelled. The Government needed to step in to provide that security. Ticket revenues were a significant element of the organising committee’s budget and its cash flow. In lieu of requiring either that funds be held in escrow against potential refund claims or the provision of a costly letter of credit to support LOCOG’s undertaking to refund, Ticketmaster agreed to provide LOCOG with ticketing funds as received and recognised its obligation to refund as a binding and enforceable contractual obligation. The guarantee from the Government established the Government as the ultimate guarantor of any such shortfall. It is incumbent on a Government to let Parliament know that that is a potential financial requirement and to allow Parliament to decide whether that sort of decision can be taken by the Treasury, in the absence of coming back to Parliament, or by the relevant Minister—in the case of London, the Minister for the Olympic Games.

Another interesting point concerned the London Borough of Greenwich. One of the conditions specified in the grant of planning permission for the use of Greenwich Park required the organising committee to put in place arrangements to provide financial assistance so that the reinstatement of the park after the Games was funded and completed as envisaged in the planning applications. Again, to make sure that everybody was happy in that context, the Government provided the funding support.

In the IOC broadcast refund share agreement pursuant to the host city contract, the IOC made advance payments to LOCOG from the fees paid to the IOC by broadcast rightsholders, but, importantly, if the Games were cancelled fee rebates were due to the broadcasters. These were subject to a written assurance from the Government as the back guarantor.

I mention those three cases because I think they are important. They are significant, given the exposure of the Government and their support for that international event—in this case the Olympic Games. It is essential that, in providing that sort of support for a major international event, where the public are particularly interested in all aspects of it, the Government come back to Parliament and put into a finance measure or primary legislation the requirements that the Government are being asked to make by the International Olympic Committee, which owns the rights to the Games.

I hope the Minister will stand up and say that she accepts my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s request. He put it admirably. I have tried to add colour to it and to explain what it would mean in the practical reality of a major event. I very much hope that, if the Minister cannot accept the wording that my noble friend Lord Parkinson has put into his amendment, we can revisit this. It is of such importance for parliamentary accountability that issues of this nature should be considered in primary legislation or in debates in both Houses, rather than simply in a one-hour debate on a regret Motion.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, Lord Markham and Lord Holmes of Richmond, for tabling the amendments in this group. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington. We do not believe the amendments are required either.

Amendments 68, 72 and 73, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Markham, are intended to require parliamentary approval before financial assistance under Clause 25 can be given in relation to sporting events. This Government completely agree that scrutiny and transparency when it comes to public spending are vital. However, we do not believe that these amendments are necessary. First, for the avoidance of doubt, the funding power is not intended to lead to spending above and beyond what would have been provided anyway. Rather, it is a legal mechanism intended to ensure that any funding provided to sporting events has a clear statutory underpinning. This is in line with the principles set out in Managing Public Money.

Secondly, I want to be clear that this funding power is in line with established precedent for similar funding powers. Parliament already has responsibility to authorise government expenditure in this area through the supply estimates process, such as allocations for bidding for and staging major sporting events and legacy programmes.

These amendments, however, would go much further, effectively requiring the Government or devolved authorities to seek the approval of the relevant legislature every time they rely on this funding power, be it to fund a smaller-scale, grass-roots event or arts and culture programmes affiliated to sporting events. This has the potential to require parliamentary approval numerous times over the course of each year. To put this in perspective, over the past decade alone the UK secured and delivered almost 150 major sporting events, many with the support of government investment, and that is even before you count related activities. Once we add funding for domestic sporting events to the mix, the potential number of funding cases within scope goes up significantly.

I hope noble Lords understand therefore why the Government’s view is that these amendments are disproportionate and would place an unsustainable burden on Parliament. However, I assure noble Lords that, where financial assistance is provided by relying on this power, it will rightly remain subject to the same existing processes and ministerial accountability as any other spending of public money. Departments are required to produce robust business cases when spending public funds, in line with public Treasury guidance. Where funding needs are significant, this will also require a departmental spending review bid to His Majesty’s Treasury to be subject to even further scrutiny. There are a number of existing mechanisms which provide Parliament with additional ability to scrutinise such funding, including the Public Accounts Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, as well as committees in your Lordships’ House.

Amendment 71, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, would require organisers of major sporting events to publish, and commit to comply with, an environmental, social and governance impact compliance plan before funding can be provided where it exceeds £1 million in aggregate to a single recipient. As I hope I have already made clear, the Government are in full agreement with the point being made by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes that, where public money is given in support of a major sporting event, it should be used responsibly, secure value for money for the public purse, and ensure that benefits are shared with local communities. This is something the Government will be thinking about even before we consider funding a major sporting event.

As already noted, the Gold Framework is clear that, where event organisers are seeking government investment, they must demonstrate the social value of these events, including with regard to many of the criteria the noble Lord sets out. Among other expectations, it outlines that event organisers must have meaningful plans in place to generate this positive social impact even before the event has started. Where the Government do decide to support a major sporting event, this requires a robust business case proportionate to the expenditure, in alignment with Green Book and Managing Public Money guidance. These frameworks expect departments to consider environmental, social and distributional impacts, including those set out by the noble Lord, such as through the public sector equality duty and environmental principles policy statement assessments.

Finally, as has already been made clear, Clause 25 already sets out that event funding can be given where needed, subject to conditions. This could absolutely include conditions related to all these areas, where warranted. Furthermore, international federations and event owners often specify their own expectations and requirements with regard to the social and environmental impacts that prospective bidders would be required to meet. For instance, UK bids for World Athletics events are required to comprehensively integrate sustainability to align with the governing body’s mandatory Athletics for a Better World standard, with the Glasgow 2024 World Indoor Athletics Championships having secured a platinum rating, which is the highest rating possible under the standard. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, to withdraw his amendment.

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[Lord Doyle (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want to build on what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said in one specific regard. He is obviously right in what he says about London 2012, but I want to reflect that there was an initiative that attempted to deal with this—which I know very well because I worked for it at the time—called Join In Local Sport. Indeed, Members of this House kindly got involved in events that we held.

I shall focus on what we knew was a core challenge. The noble Lord, Lord Coe, spoke to us about this at the start of our initiative: after the 1984 Olympics, on going back to his sports club, he saw that there were queues of young people there who suddenly wanted to participate, but the key resource that they were missing was volunteers. We do not speak enough about the role of volunteers or the barriers that there are for people who want to be coaches and to support teams. Parents often get involved when it is their own child who wants to participate, but we need to keep them around and supported as volunteers for longer. As we look at participation in sport, I urge the Government to make sure that one of our key focuses is the pathways, incentives and encouragement that we can give to get more people to feel valued as volunteers within sport.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I am not sure the Government are going to accept these amendments as drafted, although I very much hope they will. For the record, it was the noble Lord, Lord Willis of Knaresborough, who chaired the parliamentary Select Committee that looked at the sports legacy from London 2012. We suggested in an earlier amendment that there should be frequent reviews—maybe after one year, after five years and after 10 years—of the sports legacy, the urban regeneration legacy and the social legacy of the significant investment that is put behind major sports events that are covered by the Bill.

It is wise and helpful to end my few remarks by saying that I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Doyle. We lost the opportunity after London 2012 to continue to encourage the many outstanding and wonderful volunteers who made the Games. It was the volunteers who made the Games, and they could so easily have been captivated by the atmosphere of a great sporting legacy and gone down to their clubs or initiatives such as the noble Lord’s excellent initiative and continued to be involved, but we lost those people.

I shall quote from the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, when we reported to the House on the sadness that the sports legacy had really not been delivered while so many other legacies had. The regeneration of the East End of London was outstanding, for example, and the Games themselves were historically wonderful in everyone’s memory, particularly the Paralympic Games, as well as the Olympic Games—they matched each other. This is what he said:

“How is it possible that the UK is world-leading in elite and professional sports, that 3 billion people across the world watch our Premier League matches in over 187 different countries and that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has consistently said, at Olympics after Olympics we are near the top of the league in terms of our elite activities, yet for decades we have failed at grass-roots level to get more people from more diverse backgrounds to be more active, despite all the investment that successive Governments have made?”

The point that he was really emphasising was that this was successive Governments; it was not a party-political point. He concluded:

“With one-third of the adult population at the moment getting less than 150 minutes of moderate activity each week; with schoolchildren doing consistently less activity both at school and at home; with PE marginalised in the school curriculum and no longer inspected by Ofsted while, as we heard in our evidence, many primary school teachers get less than three hours’ training in a three-year degree course, which is shameful, so physical literacy in most of our primary schools means nothing, frankly, because it does not appear on the league tables; with access to facilities ever more difficult; with local authorities closing swimming pools and leisure centres to save resources; and with transport non-existent for large parts of the day for large swathes of the community, we have become one of the most lazy, inactive nations in the … world. Those sections of the population with the poorest diets and the worst levels of deprivation are, not surprisingly, the least active, too, and of course the pandemic has disproportionately affected all the target groups”.—[Official Report, 4/2/22; col. 1208.]


That is the concern that many people on all sides of this Committee feel has been underestimated by successive Governments, and it is why the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has brought forward his amendment. The spirit of his amendment, and what he intends to do to remind us of these important facts, are vital. I welcome his work in that context. I hope the Minister is in a position to respond positively.

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[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, on Amendment 83. As I said earlier, this amendment is just basically wrong—end of.

On Amendment 86, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It conforms with my experience that you have to be flexible; you have to understand about local events, and you have to keep the structure going. Clarity is required here about what is wanted, so I hope we step towards that clarity or at least find out when it is coming. That is one thing about Bills in Parliament: you do get a chance to pin a Minister down for a worthwhile answer. I hope we have assurances on both of these.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I will be equally brief, but let me preface my remarks by saying that I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, is contributing to this debate. We both have a long history in Lewisham, and Lewisham East in particular. It is a very sporting constituency, as it happens, with Chris Chataway being the first Conservative Member of Parliament for that seat. I was nothing like as eminent as he was when he was a fairly impressive pacemaker in the historic 1954 Bannister run, when he broke the four-minute mile. The noble Baroness is a much-loved mayor in Lewisham, very hard working and very respected, so it is great to see her contribute to a sports debate.

Equally, when the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds, acting as Minister at the time just now, spoke of talent transfer, it is important to recognise the outstanding work that the noble Baroness, Lady Grainger, has done in that context in UK sport. Talent transfer has been an absolute pillar of the success of many of our sports in recent years, since we really professionalised elite sport. My friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Grainger, was critically important in that work, and it is a great delight to see her in your Lordships’ House.

I support the comments made about Amendment 86 in the name of my noble friend Lady Sater. It is very important indeed that these CQC regulations remain on the agenda, and I hope the Minister is going to give us some comfort today and say that they should be looked at again in the context of the smaller events, the ones that local authorities run. The noble Baroness, Lady Dacres, was completely right in what she said about the role of local authorities in grass-roots sport. These CQC regulations are really quite critical now to the cost of running those smaller events that are so important in the development of sport. I hope they can be kept under review and looked at again by the Government. My noble friend Lady Sater’s amendment, and the comments made in particular by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, just underline how important it is to be reviewed now so that it does not do irreparable damage to many of the sporting events that we are talking about.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Markham, for introducing and speaking to the amendments on behalf of the noble Baronesses, Lady Davies of Devonport and Lady Sater, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton.

Amendment 83, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, would carve out a broad category of criminal conduct from the preventive football banning order regime by seeking to exclude behaviour framed as “expression”, even where that conduct has crossed the threshold into criminality. This carve-out is intended to include conduct at sporting events to which the Bill applies, or banning orders resulting from offences under the Bill. On the latter, to be clear, the offences under the Bill will not be added to the football banning regime. On the former, football banning orders may be imposed only by a court and are a very serious measure. They arise either following conviction for a relevant offence listed in Schedule 1 to the Football Spectators Act 1989 or where the court is satisfied that the individual poses an ongoing risk of involvement in football-related violence or disorder. As the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, said, this amendment is not the bar we want to set. Sport should indeed, as the noble Lord said, be the best of us. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, echoed that sentiment.

Your Lordships’ Committee will recall the disgraceful racist abuse directed at Black England players following the Euro 2020 final. The noble Lord, Lord Doyle, rightly pointed out the lack of out gay male footballers in the sport. That behaviour at Euro 2020 was rightly condemned across your Lordships’ House, and it underpins why the banning order regime was strengthened to include communications offences to ensure that those who engage in such hateful, harmful conduct can be excluded from the game. It would therefore be inappropriate to carve out a category of criminal behaviour from the football banning order regime simply because it is described as “expression”. Parliament has already determined that such conduct can meet the criminal threshold. Weakening that framework risks undermining the ability of courts and police to deal effectively with those who jeopardise safety and enjoyment for the vast majority of decent fans, and indeed for sportspeople.

Amendment 85, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Davies of Devonport—who is not able to be in her place today—proposes, in the context of events to which the framework provisions are applied, a duty to ensure provision of single-sex competitions and facilities. It also sets out that where the rules of a sporting competition are framed by reference to the gender or sex of the participants, that reference must be to biological sex. Any events to which the Bill’s framework will apply must comply with existing legislation and guidance. In the UK, the Supreme Court ruling provides clarity around the definition of sex within the Equality Act on the basis of biological sex. The EHRC’s updated statutory code of practice has been laid before Parliament, providing essential legal clarity for sports providers, national governing bodies and participants around the country. National governing bodies of sport, local authorities and sports organisations also have guidance and policies in place. We will continue to engage closely with our arm’s-length bodies, Sport England and UK Sport, and the wider sporting sector as Parliament considers the updated EHRC guidance.

Amendment 86 was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, and introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Markham. I accept the spirit in which this amendment was laid, and I noted the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who also spoke to this amendment, as did the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. This amendment requires a review of the impact of recent regulatory changes that allow the Care Quality Commission to regulate the treatment of disease, disorder and injury—TDDI—at sporting and cultural events. These regulatory changes bring sporting and cultural events in line with other settings where the treatment of TDDI is regulated, such as within hospitals and care homes.

The change means that TDDI health provision at sporting and cultural events will be delivered by professionals with the right set of skills, training and equipment so that the audience and participants receive the right type of help when they need it. It means it will be easier for organisers to pick skilled and safe providers, as they will be listed on the CQC website. As noble Lords are aware, the changes were made following the recommendations by the Manchester Arena inquiry.

During its parliamentary passage, it was clear that Members of both Houses were concerned that this change may have unintended impacts. Ministers at the Department of Health and Social Care have undertaken to work with stakeholders to consider options to mitigate any unintended consequences. The concerns included the impact on events staffed by volunteers, or on specific groups such as search and rescue teams and athletes. Noble Lords who spoke to this also spoke about volunteers, which was a theme in the debate in the Grand Committee I was present at.

This work is ongoing. The Care Quality Commission has met with a broad range of representatives as part of its consultation on this change. DHSC officials are due to meet with chief medical officers from a range of sporting and cultural bodies to discuss this matter further, and I will attempt to clarify when those meetings will take place. Department of Health and Social Care Ministers are in the process of convening a round table with the Peers who spoke during the debate on the statutory instrument on the CQC regulation amendment on 15 April, and I will ask my noble friend Lady Merron to make sure that those who spoke today but were not present at that meeting will be invited. I will also make my noble friend aware of this debate. In the meantime, I ask that the noble Lord withdraw the amendment.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Moynihan]

8: Clause 2, page 2, line 10, at end insert—
“(2A) Before making regulations under this section, the appropriate national authority must take all necessary steps to comply with any relevant host contract.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that the appropriate national authority will comply with a host city contract or a host nation contract before making regulations applying the sporting events framework.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, a former chairman of the British Olympic Association from 2005 through 2012, and, throughout those seven years, a member of the International Olympic Committee, which had oversight of the Games. I was very sorry not to be present at Second Reading. I was not a Member of your Lordships’ House at the time, but I am delighted and honoured to be back in a different capacity. I read the Second Reading debate with interest, as well as the Bill and the Explanatory Notes.

Let me say from the outset that I share with the Government the view that every possible assistance should be offered to bring major international sporting events to the United Kingdom, and this Bill can and will send a signal that we are keen to encourage international sporting events to come to the United Kingdom. However, this Bill is event-agnostic. It is seeking to provide a common legislative framework to assist that process, but it is very unclear which events are covered by that process: an issue that I know my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park will address in future amendments.

I support the comments made by my noble friends during the debate on the earlier group of amendments and I contend that there will be a need for primary legislation. Because there will definitely be a need for primary legislation, should we ever bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games to come to the United Kingdom, or hold a FIFA World Cup here, it is incumbent on the Government at least to accept the principle that there will need to be primary legislation at that time.

I will start with a very important point. There seems to be an underlying theme to the Bill: that it is for the Government to decide whether we host international events. Let us take the Olympic Games. It is for the British Olympic Association, as an independent organisation, to decide whether we will bid for the Olympic Games. On many occasions in the past, the association has held a competition between different cities to encourage one or a number to come forward before choosing the preferred city. Once the association has identified the city, it then sits down with the mayor, as it did with Ken Livingstone in the early years of this century.

There was a major debate about whether the Olympic Games should be in the West End or the East End of London. It was wisely decided—not least because Ken Livingstone urged this point and said it was conditional on his support—that the regeneration of the East End of London could be achieved by hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012. That regeneration, which would have happened anyway at some stage in the future, was accelerated to 2012, because it had to be done by that date. At that point, there was a discussion with the then Government. With the Government’s support, those involved, particularly those from the British Olympic Association, were able to table a request to the International Olympic Committee to host the Games in London in 2012.

The first and most important point is that it should be recognised that the role of the Government in hosting international Olympic events, or international sporting events, is one of support for the bidders for those events. In tabling my amendments, I am reinforcing that point. This is a simple enabling measure. It provides a route for government support to be channelled through secondary legislation. I simply say to the Minister that if, when we host the Olympic Games in the future, the idea is that it is going to be debated on the Floor of your Lordships’ House for one hour, covering all the detail that will be required for what was, in 2012 figures, north of £10 billion of investment, it is inconceivable that Parliament would not sit back and accept that.

At the moment, I just remind the Minister that it would require a statutory instrument as per this Bill to be debated on a regret Motion, and that regret Motion would be limited, as it is at the present time, to an hour in your Lordships’ House. Therefore, if we are going to put all the framework in this Bill into regulations, I really do not believe that that is sufficient time for Parliament to consider all the many issues that will be required if we were to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the future.

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[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, for tabling these amendments. I am grateful to him for taking an interest in the Bill, and it is genuinely good to see the noble Lord back and elevated to the Opposition Front Bench, albeit in another department. How could the noble Lord go to another department? The contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, have been noted by a number of speakers today. We are privileged to have the expertise of the noble Lords and the noble Baroness, who have taken part in the process and been part of that work to define the vision required to win bids.

I hope I can give all noble Lords reassurance that legacy matters to this Government and, as a former London Assembly member, I am clear on the physical legacy that this city received from the 2012 Games. On the question from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, as to whether it is wide enough as a framework, we believe that it is and I will go through the amendments in turn. I hope I can give noble Lords some reassurance.

Amendments 8 and 13 seek to ensure that the appropriate national authority will comply with a host city contract or a host nation contract before regulations applying the sporting events framework can be made. There are numerous agreements and contracts to which this could apply and, in our view, it would not be appropriate or necessary to make the time that regulations would be made and brought into force contingent on compliance with them all. The framework is designed to bring into effect commitments made by national Governments at the point of bidding for an event. The regulations applying the sporting events framework are therefore the closest equivalent to complying with a host nation contract, in so far as one exists; they provide the means for Governments to meet their guarantees to event owners.

Compliance with a host nation contract and the creation of regulations to apply the framework are the same stage of the process, so one cannot come before the other. Host city contracts are made by a combination of local authorities and event delivery companies directly with event owners. These relate to local event needs and are signed in advance of the event. It would not be appropriate to make a national authority a signatory of that agreement, when the provisions contained within it are for local delivery and the national authority is not responsible for delivering them.

In some cases, the appropriate national authority may extend provisions in the framework to enable a local authority to fulfil its hosting agreement—for example, to enable the local authority to take enforcement action against unauthorised advertising and trading in a restricted zone. But, as with the host nation contract, any host city contract that relies on this framework would be complied with only at the point when the regulations are made, thereby making this amendment redundant.

On Amendments 18, 20 and 21, I understand that their intent is to further narrow the conditions for applying the framework, requiring an event to be of significant international interest, to bring economic but not social benefits and to have a sporting legacy in the United Kingdom. However, the Government do not agree with this approach. While major sporting events generate international interest and build the UK’s standing around the globe, they also deliver other significant and wide-ranging benefits, as was widely acknowledged during Second Reading. These are not restricted only to economic benefits, nor the sporting legacy of such events, although I agree that that is significant. They bring sport to different communities and demographics; they improve opportunities to increase participation in sport and physical activity; and they generate moments of collective experience that contribute directly to social cohesion and advance our national story.

The Bill is drafted to ensure that these kinds of major sporting events can still be captured by the Bill and that while international interest is one important factor, it is not the only factor on which an event could access these provisions. International interest is a broad category and may be shaped by many factors, including global and regional politics, changing media trends and the diplomatic ambitions of the Government. This amendment would need a highly specific definition of international interest for it to be required as applicable. Those thresholds would be entirely arbitrary, set at a point in time and potentially irrelevant or outdated soon after. What is deemed significant international interest can vary significantly. For instance, particular events may generate extremely high interest in certain parts of the world and relatively little in others. The test of international interest as currently framed provides flexibility to consider a range of factors on a case-by-case basis.

I am happy to talk to the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and other noble Lords further on the points raised in this debate. I know and appreciate that all noble Lords taking part in the debate want the Bill to deliver what we intend. However, for the reasons I have set out, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has participated in the debate, particularly my noble friends in sport, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I did not live up to their expectations; I was first of the losers, getting only a silver medal at the Olympic Games while they had many gold medals to their names—albeit that I got a silver medal by 0.6 of a second behind the East German eight, who subsequently sued for the damage that the drugs they took during that event had done to them. But that did not prevent them retaining their gold medal. To be honest, all sports men and women know that it is the event on the day and the memory of that event that matter most.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, maybe I can set my noble friend Lord Fuller’s mind to rest. Along with colleagues in the shadow DCMS team, I have spoken to a number of the major sporting bodies, which are keen, as some of our noble friends said, to avail themselves of some of the opportunities of the Bill if the scope could be broadened to allow them to do so. That is the key test: where they wish to do so. My noble friends are right, as we have been throughout the Bill, to talk about some of the restrictions and burdens that come with it, but it is very clear that there is an appetite in the sporting world beyond the one-off events—such as the Olympic, Paralympic or Commonwealth Games, which we host from time to time—for some of our major sporting events that happen on a more regular basis to be included in the framework and for us not to be playing second fiddle.

At Second Reading, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, challenged us to be a bit bolder in the Bill, and this has been a very good group of amendments and debate that have encouraged us to do that. We heard a huge number of examples of the major sporting events, which bring delight to people across this country and across the world on a regular basis. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and particularly my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park, for bringing their amendments, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, to see if we can be bolder and give those advantages to many other sporting organisations as well. My noble friend Lady Evans described these events as the ones that that define Britain as a major sporting power. It would be unthinkable to imagine some of them disappearing from our calendars.

I pay tribute to my noble friend’s work with the London Marathon Foundation. As my noble friend Lord Hayward noted, it is marvellous to see that the London Marathon will extend to two days next year, including many more people. Of course, it is competing with so many other marathons around the world. People come to these shores because they want to run on the streets of London and because it is such a well-organised marathon, but we are competing constantly with the potential for people to go to other cities and parts of the world.

There would be consternation in my house if Formula 1 did not include a race in the United Kingdom. The UK is one of only two nations to have hosted a Grand Prix every year since Formula 1 began in 1950, and for that not to be the case is unthinkable. I am glad that Silverstone is secure through its current contract until at least 2034, but that requires hard work by the organisers. There is constant competition. This is a sport whose global popularity is increasing. We have to keep on our toes and make sure that we continue to deliver the brilliant events that people are expecting. As my noble friend said, the British Grand Prix attracts more than 500,000 people annually, generates £100 million in local economic impact each year and contributes to a wider Formula 1 ecosystem in the UK that is worth over £12 billion annually. When one thinks of how many of the teams are based in the United Kingdom, the supply chains and R&D that ripples from that, just to take one sport for as an example, we can see the benefits. The key question is how we can broaden the Bill, if possible, to allow those that wish to do so to take advantage of some of that boldness—

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I anticipate that the Minister may say that it is quite difficult to broaden this without being specific. I have one thought, having listened to this debate and been very supportive of what has been said. If, for example, the R&A for the Open golf wanted to avail itself of the benefits of the sporting events framework that we are putting into legislation, would it not be possible to distinguish between the international federations that recognise these events as international events on their calendars?

Take Wimbledon, the marathon or golf’s Open Championship. All are recognised by the relevant international federations and placed on their calendars. If we are looking for a way to put this into legislation, it might be worth considering defining it along those lines, overtly avoiding the problem that everybody might be able to apply for their own event. That would rule out, for example, the Boat Race. I can see significant problems with the transport provisions of the Bill if they were applied to the Boat Race and the whole west of London on Boat Race day. I give that as an example and a helpful contribution that I hope the Minister can take away and consider.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I thank my noble friend, who has rowed in the Boat Race, for his constructive and very good challenge. We are looking for a way of broadening the Bill in a rational way. He is right to draw the distinction with events that are internationally renowned. As my noble friend Lady Evans says, these are the ones that define our well-earned sporting reputation for being able to host such major events on the global stage. Whether it is done through that or another metric, this is well worth looking at in greater detail as we head to Report.

My noble friend Lord Fuller asked where this all ends, but the question really is: where does this begin? We are promised a major events strategy from DCMS. I understand that the Government have taken the legislative slot that is available and proceeded with the Bill now. They are right to do so, but it is a shame that we did not have that strategy in advance of this Bill. It would have informed some of the debates here and answered some of the questions that noble Lords have raised on cultural events, music events and ticketing provisions that apply there as well. Perhaps the Minister can say a bit more about when we might see that major events strategy, how it is designed to feed into this framework and the thinking that has gone on in her department in drawing up this Bill in advance of that strategy. It is slightly unfortunate that we are discussing it this way around because of the legislative time available.

I thank noble Lords for their amendments in this group. If we can work constructively, as my noble friend Lord Moynihan and others suggest, we can take the opportunity to be a bit bolder and help the organisers of major sporting events—which do so much to enhance the soft power and renown of this country—to do so even better in the future.

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Debate on whether Clause 5 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, it may seem surprising that I oppose Clause 5 standing part of this Bill, given the fact that I have argued many times in your Lordships’ House for taking tough action against the abuse of the secondary market in ticketing. The reason I do is that I think this is in the wrong Bill. Going back to 19 November, just last year, the Government announced that they would introduce new rules to prohibit tickets for concerts, theatre, comedy, sports and other live events being resold for more than their original cost. They made a significant policy announcement that the British Government would introduce new rules to ban ticket touting. They then said they would introduce a Bill in this Session. They did not. They introduced a draft Bill that would make it illegal to resell a ticket at more than its original cost, cap service fees, make it illegal to resell more tickets than you are entitled to buy, place obligations on resale platforms, and empower the Competition and Markets Authority to impose tough fines. Whether we get the legislative timetable for that is yet to be seen.

In this Bill, for potentially three or four events in the next 10 years, there is very tough action, which I support in principle but it should apply to all sports, cultural, arts and music events, and it should be in primary legislation, as promised by the Government. It is simply inconsistent to put some extremely tough and onerous measures—which I fully support—in this Bill for three or four major sporting events that might take place over the next 10 or 15 years and not fulfil their clear obligation to the country to introduce primary legislation as soon as possible to cover this in detail.

We are in danger of having a series of different restrictions on secondary market sales. The original one covered football and was brought in for a completely different reason—it was about segregation of football fans. More recently, we have had further legislation in an excellent Private Member’s Bill, which was introduced in the last Session. There is no reference in this legislation as to how that would be implemented with major international events that we are trying to attract to this country.

Then there is the London 2012 Act, which had the full support of the House at the time. It looked specifically at relevant legislation for hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games in this country and criminalised the abuse that we saw in the secondary market for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. I am in no doubt at all that the technology that will be used in ticket touting in years to come will change rapidly. By the time we next host the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, we will need to consider in detail legislation that will be very different from this Bill.

It is inconsistent not to introduce primary legislation to cover this in detail for cultural events, music events and festivals, as well as the overwhelming majority of sporting events that are not covered by this Bill, but just for the three or four international events that we are trying to attract to this country over the next 10, 15 or 20 years. It is that inconsistency which concerns me most of all and is why I object to Clause 5 standing part of the Bill.

Very briefly, and less relevantly, because it would be appropriate for me to put my arguments forward on the significant abuse of the secondary market another time, it is sad that the CMA is the nominated enforcement agency here. I recommend that the Government seriously consider removing it. It has prosecuted no one. It has done very little. It has looked into all sorts of cases and achieved far less than National Trading Standards, whose work has led to people being jailed. National Trading Standards is on a £13 million budget—a very small budget—but has been particularly effective. It has taken down social websites and been really effective in this area. I regret that the Government feel that the CMA will be more appropriate.

Next, if we are talking about specific international events then I am concerned about FIFA. When it came to the World Cup that we are enjoying at present, FIFA decided not to take specific measures in the host nation contract with the US, Canada and Mexico, partially, no doubt, because of the interests of President Trump, who has no appetite to ban touting in the US. But at the same time, FIFA has now set up its own retail site and is taking 15% off the seller and 15% from the buyer. How that fits with this legislation is an interesting question, particularly if it changes its approach to ticket touting in the future. I have no doubt whatever that FIFA will want to protect that source of income post the current World Cup.

It is important that DCMS is seen to be very even-handed in considering this important issue. It is taking very tough action in this Bill but, as I have mentioned, for potentially three or four events and not for the world of sports and the world of music. Those involved in those industries are desperately keen to see tough action taken, as the Government promised, but there is little evidence that they are going to pursue that. Yet Eric Baker, CEO of StubHub and Viagogo, has been publicly professing how happy he is that he has kicked the can down the road and educated the Government, which is why the Bill is not currently before Parliament. I hope that is incorrect. I hope there is no evidence to that effect and that what he is saying publicly is erroneous. As I understand it, he has had five meetings with the department, yet there have been no meetings for those who, quite rightly and understandably, feel very strongly that very tough action should be taken against the abuse of the secondary market, which is what I am focused on here.

Finally, we should make sure that football is included in this. It is an Olympic sport and would need to be covered by this legislation, clearly. There could not be separate legislation for football if we were trying to attract an international sporting event, either a FIFA or IOC event. We should also be very cautious about how it applies to debentures and hospitality. Unpicking that for touting will be a significant challenge.

I want to state on record that I am absolutely in favour of the direction that the Government have taken in this Bill, but I think it is in the wrong place. It is in the wrong Bill at the wrong time, and it should be more appropriately introduced before Parliament as the Government promised. Parliament should be allowed to determine what that should look like, and then the decision of Parliament should be implemented in the context of this legislation moving forward.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 31. I wish to associate myself with the words of my noble friend Lord Moynihan. This is an unnecessary provision in the wrong Bill. At Second Reading, I posed the question: what is so bad about somebody who has bought a ticket to the match but suddenly finds they cannot go and offers it for sale to friends on Facebook that justifies a 50 grand fine?

You have a spare ticket. Perhaps mum has fallen over at home so you cannot go. Perhaps the girlfriend you had planned to go with is now seeing somebody else. Perhaps you have gone down with some sort of food poisoning or perhaps even gramps, who you had planned to sit next to, has died. It happens. In all those circumstances, there are draconian penalties for moving on that ticket. The ticketing activities are enumerated in Schedule 1: selling an event ticket, offering for sale an event ticket, exposing for sale an event ticket or advertising that the ticket is available for purchase.

The £50,000 fine is a level of punishment that outweighs the typical criminal penalties for shoplifting, burglary and serious breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. I am not sure there is an equivalence between passing on a ticket and negligently permitting an employee to fall to his death from height. How have we found ourselves in a situation where the state ranks the desire to cut your losses as worse than all these crimes? It is two-tier justice.

Why are we compounding the sadness of the girl whose boyfriend does not want to go to the game with her any more? We are going after the wrong people. Can we not just get a sense of perspective and materiality here and recognise that somebody who buys six tickets for them and their rellies is not a member of a crime family? My amendment would limit it to six tickets for an event and provide a carve-out to the penalties in the Bill—the abuses that my noble friend has referred to.

At Second Reading, I explained that the organisers and selected ticket agents have not done enough to stop the bots and their industrial hoovering up of the tickets. We all want to ensure that real fans get a fair shot at going to the game; that is common ground. The truth is that the sellers have not tried hard enough to stop this. The truth, as my noble friend has just alluded to, is that the status quo suits them just fine. They can carry on as they are, clutching pearls, pretending to be concerned by the bots while trousering all the cash and filling the cash box on day one. This Bill, if passed, means that they do not even have to try to fix this problem. We are letting them off the hook by law.

There are all sorts of technical ways of matching claimants to people. If we cannot authenticate individuals, the economic basis of society—whether for banking, passport applications or driving licences—cannot proceed. This is a problem that has been solved. Indeed, if it had not been, the hated ID card scheme would be even more dead in the water than it is today.

I went to a wedding last weekend, and a lady I met—I was with my wife, but there was another lady—told me that she had been banned from Tinder for having two profiles, an A one and a B one. She was banned for life. If Tinder can see through multiple personalities, it should not be so difficult for Ticketmaster. If Tinder can suss out the dupes and the fakes, why can agencies such Ticketmaster—others are available—not do so? It is a simple question and one that needs to be answered by the Government before they go after the jilted girlfriend or the grieving son.

My approach would be to ensure that the organisers go the extra mile to authenticate ticket purchasers in the secondary market. The Government’s solution is victim blaming, going after the little guy—the buyer whose mum fell over at home and has a black eye. The Bill has this the wrong way around. Why should we go to the millions of fans when the organisers have the tools to sort it out, if only they could be bothered? Instead, we are being asked to give them the legal cover not to bother to fix this scourge at source. It is just not good enough.

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Recognising the interest in these matters, I commit to hosting an all-Peers session on this matter in the coming weeks, with relevant officials, so noble Lords can get clarity on where we are and where we are planning to go. I will endeavour to do this before the Summer Recess. In the meantime, I respectfully ask all noble Lords not to press their amendments and to be content for this clause to stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her quite extensive, albeit rapid-fire response. Many of us will read it in greater detail and come back with any questions after we have had that opportunity. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that, while we might have disagreed on my recommendation that we oppose Clause 5 becoming part of the Bill, he at least recognises that it is effectively a probing amendment. The reason I put it down in those terms was that there were many good amendments that were already tabled on this subject. I wanted to highlight a really important point: by simply placing it on the face of this Bill, given the Government’s commitments, we lacked consistency across the country.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

That is my point exactly, and that is why this is an important debate to have had this evening. I congratulate the noble Lord on his observations and comments.

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[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am grateful for that intervention: I echo everything he said: everything he said, in terms of detail, is to be supported.

The second point is this: we have to be incredibly careful, in discussing this subject, about the autonomy of world sport. We are looking at major sporting events and we are seeking to encourage UEFA, FIFA or the IOC to award the right to host those events in this country. We are not telling UEFA, the IOC or FIFA what to do; that is not the way world sport works. I hear in the response from the Minister, “We expect them to do this”, “We expect them to do that” and “We expect them to do otherwise”. We can expect as much as we want: it is UEFA, or the event organiser, that decides.

What I was pleased to hear, in that context, was that this is clearly drafted with the agreement of UEFA for the Euros 2028, in the same way that there was unique legislation introduced for London 2012 to reflect what the IOC wanted. That is why the contribution from my noble friend Lord Holmes was so valid. The IOC listened carefully to what LOCOG—the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games—had discussed in great detail. They had discussed the need to criminalise the secondary market from selling tickets, to criminalise touting, so they could totally control the ticketing operation for London 2012, which they did highly successfully, not least because it allowed them to make tickets available to schools as my noble friend Lord Holmes said. They looked holistically at the overall ticketing for that event, unlike FIFA for the World Cup in the United States at the present time.

It is incredibly important to recognise that, when we are talking about appropriate arrangements for ticketing in the Bill, we are talking about sitting down and listening to what the organisers of these major international events want, in association with the organising committee, and putting in place appropriate legislation for that. It would be very different if we hosted the Olympic Games in the future. We would need to come back with event-specific legislation—a point I keep making. It can be easily remedied on the face of the Bill, and all these issues could be put to one side if the Government recognised that, in addition to this framework, they will require, possibly, event-specific legislation to host major international events here—as I desperately hope they will—in the future.

My concern was that we are being tough on touting on the face of this Bill for a small number of events that the Bill relates to. We may have found a way, in government, to talk tough and do nothing for the vast majority of people who are really concerned in this country about the abuse of the secondary market, and about the need for the Government to legislate. To bring forward a draft Bill, having said they were definitely going to legislate, with no commitment to implement legislation in a future session of this Parliament is not what the arts world, the music world, the sporting world, and the likes of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and myself—

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I would not normally intervene. However, I was clear that we are going to introduce a draft Bill and will introduce legislation in due course, so I feel the noble Lord is going slightly beyond my response. I am happy to sit down and talk to any noble Lord about the ticket touting measures coming up, but I cannot accept that we are not taking it seriously, as the noble Lord suggests.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

That is an extremely important and welcome intervention, but the Minister said “in due course”. Can she commit that that means during this Parliament?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I cannot commit to a timescale, but I have offered to have a meeting where we can discuss that in further detail.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

To fail to commit for the whole of this Parliament, when we have years to run, is disappointing, given the strength of the comments made by the Prime Minister and other Ministers in recent months. It is vital that the Government indicate by the time we get to Report whether they will legislate during this Parliament.

The public have longed to get legislation on to the statute book to protect people from being ripped off and turning up at many concerts, having paid a lot of money to bring their kids down from wherever they live, to find out that they have a forged ticket. That must be stopped. We must have tough legislation. That is why I share with the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, the need to legislate on this and why we were so pleased that the Government were willing to come forward with legislation that Parliament could consider. To know that this might not happen in the current Parliament would be deeply disappointing.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My noble friend emphasises the importance of tackling touts in a broad piece of legislation that does not cover just these events. Could he also emphasise, as my noble friend Lord Fuller raised, ensuring the obligation of those selling the tickets to maximise the controls to avoid touting?

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I absolutely endorse that comment. As my noble friend, who has sat with me on this subject many times over the past five years, will know, ever since the Waterson report and many others, I have sought to table and introduce legislation—sometimes successfully—to give far greater clarity and visibility on tickets and to make sure that when people sell tickets, they follow the conditions that the organiser of the event has brought forward. If the organiser has set the condition that it should not be sold on the secondary market, it should not be. We have needed legislation to be introduced in order to achieve that.

I am absolutely tough on this subject, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, knows. I have the privilege of co-chairing the All-Party Group on Ticket Abuse. We have to take action on this. I really hope that, following the Minister’s response, she will be able to go away and consider before Report an absolute commitment that this Government will honour their word and introduce legislation not during this Session but during this Parliament.

Clause 5 agreed.

Draft Statutory Guidance on the Meaning of “Significant Influence or Control”

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Moynihan]

That this House resolves not to approve the draft Statutory Guidance on the Meaning of “Significant Influence or Control” in the Context of the Football Governance Act 2025, as it creates uncertainty regarding the eligibility criteria; increases the likelihood of legal and ownership challenges; creates a conflicting regulatory regime for the licensed football clubs; and has the potential to damage the financial success and growth of the regulated leagues.

Relevant document: 41st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I have initiated this debate because the question of who is captured as a person of “significant influence or control” under the Football Governance Act inextricably links to the regulatory regime they will have to follow, and that will determine the success or failure of the Act. We need to get it right; clarity is the key word here. We need clarity to have effective regulation, and good regulation is essential for the success of EFL clubs and Premier League clubs alike. Unlike in debates during the passage of the Bill, we are all at one on this. We need to get this right, because that is the best way of ensuring the financial success of professional football.

Just one reason was given by the Minister for Sport in introducing the statutory guidance in another place on 27 October. She stated that the purpose of the statutory guidance on the meaning of “significant influence or control” under Section 1 of the Act was to

“ensure that fans can identify the real persons exercising control of their clubs, notwithstanding any opaque or complex ownership structures. This will give fans the much-needed transparency they deserve”.

She added just one further observation:

“This delivers the Government’s election promises to combat poor governance and financial mismanagement of football clubs in this country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/10/25; col. 1WS.]


Unfortunately, as drafted, it does no such thing.

As the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, helpfully contributed during the passage of the Bill, the concrete benefits to fans are a few statutory protections, mainly of heritage items, typically club names, crests— courtesy of my noble friend Lord Parkinson—home colours and home ground; and consultation, which already exists in most of the professional clubs in this country. There are no fan veto powers. What it does is create far tougher owners’ and directors’ tests than exist anywhere in the world, and it overlaps with UEFA and the Premier League and EFL’s requisite regulation.

There is no clear definition in the guidance of the meaning of “integrity” or “competence”, or indeed “source of funds”. In fact, the stated objective of the regulator is to go further than the Premier League does at the moment, requiring each and every club to list in the personnel statement those of “significant influence and control”. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that the final rules on guidance and regulation will come before the personnel statements that are requested from clubs.

Most Premier League clubs sit inside a multi-club organisation and most of their owners live in jurisdictions abroad, where identifying those with “significant influence or control” is exceptionally difficult to determine. To say that the ownership of professional football in this country is complex is an understatement. In the Premier League, only two clubs have a solitary shareholder. The staggering complexity of the challenge for clubs is clear when you realise that the ownership of Premier League football clubs is primarily international. As of this summer, American ownership is 40%; Chinese, 5%; Saudi Arabian, 4%; Swiss, 4%; Egyptian, 2%; international institutions and others, 2%; Greek, 5%; the UAE, 4%; Uruguayan, 2%; and Czech, 1%. UK ownership stands at 22%. Yet clarity is everything, so let me ask the Minister about just one club. Since the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, and I are both avid supporters of Leeds United, I have chosen that club.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I will have to defer to the Box on that point, but I will be happy to pick that up with the noble Lord afterwards.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her response. I will pick up on some of the points she has made and try to answer the other interventions that came from the packed Benches on the Government side, which I am delighted to see for this debate. I have rarely been called a trout-fishing terrier. I love trout fishing and I also love terriers, so I take those both as compliments. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, that I am passionately committed to football, both amateur and professional; I always have been in 40 years involved in sport. There is no one who would regard my intervention on this subject as coming from any other position than being passionate about sport and football.

The Act is detrimental to the future of professional football; it is a view I spoke about a great deal in Committee. This evening, I did not address any of those points but focused exclusively on the guidance. I say to the Minister and to others that the debate this evening does not stop the regulator for one day. The statutory guidance is laid before both Houses until 5 December, and there is the opportunity to debate it in either House until that point. It is not a delaying tactic; it does not delay the regulator getting on with its job. To say that and to imply that is fundamentally wrong. We cannot do anything about this until 5 December, when both Houses will have had the opportunity to consider it. We have had the opportunity in advance of that to have a debate.

I say to the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Watson, who are passionate about sport and highly knowledgeable about football—they may not take this as the greatest compliment coming from me, although it is meant to be a compliment at the highest level—that I tabled this Motion because, if we have secondary legislation, we have the opportunity to review it in the normal way, but if we have draft statutory guidance the only way we can debate it is by tabling a fatal Motion. I have no intention of pressing it to a vote, but I absolutely intended to make sure that what we looked at during the passage of the Bill—the decision to bring forward statutory guidance on this so that the whole of Parliament could consider it—was given due consideration.

Having read the guidance, I made it clear to the House this evening that I was concerned it went too closely along the lines—which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said was inevitable and important in the drafting—of being kept purposefully and precisely vague, to use his phrase. I was a little nervous that, in responding, the Minister might do exactly what the noble Lord encouraged her not to do and provide clarity and precision. Understandably, she could not, because it is vague, and intentionally so.

I say to the Minister that this could be far better written. I genuinely believe that it is important to take it away and write it with greater clarity, because the guidance needs to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the need for the regulator to look into significant interest or control and, on the other, having to think about investors and the best interests of every club. It is my firm belief that, if you go too closely down the road of being so precisely vague and wide ranging, it could deter investors in professional football. That is why I felt it important to have this debate.

This Motion does not delay the regulator at all and gives this House the opportunity to consider something it requested in Committee on the Bill and which the Government granted. This debate has been very well attended. I am exceptionally grateful to those who have contributed. I avoided completely going down the line that the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, thought I might by focusing exclusively on and going into detail on this guidance. Having placed this on the record, I hope that the regulator and the world of football will be able to go away and consider whether there are ways to improve the statutory guidance and that, when we sit down with the football clubs, we avoid overlapping with the regulatory frameworks of UEFA, the EFL and the Premier League, which is also vital and to be avoided here.

I am grateful to the Minister for sitting through another debate on football and for the very helpful contributions from, in particular, the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Watson, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Sentamu. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, feared that we will see this in case law; I fear that he is absolutely right.

It may help the noble Baroness, Lady Debbonaire, if I repeat one point. I was absolutely opposed to this legislation all the way through and thought that it would be bad law. I believe it is bad law. I thought Boris Johnson’s knee-jerk reaction to go to legislation on the Monday after the Saturday announcement of the super league was wrong. That is not the right way for professional sport in this country. But I did not go down that road this evening. I focused on this because I want to make it as good as possible and passionately want this Act to succeed now that it is in statute, in the interests of football and investors as well as of regulation. I wish the regulator every success with this. I hope it gets it right and has the opportunity to reflect on what has been said on both sides of this House. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The Government are clear that there should be operational independence for the police; it is one of the fundamental tenets of our democracy. The safety advisory group role has been much debated, but it is generally seen as a role that works consistently and has an advisory function. What would have been desirable here would have been for those discussions to have taken place and been escalated sooner, before the decision was made. That is a matter for the MHCLG to deal with going forward; however, at the moment MHCLG is working hard on the immediate issue around community cohesion. I think it is right that we allow operational decisions to be made by the appropriate people, but we also need that to happen within the wider context. Clearly, there was a much wider context, and there were much wider potential repercussions of the decision. That will be a matter for MHCLG to discuss with local government.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, the Statement says:

“It is a long-established principle, set out in law, that the … safety advisory group are operationally independent of government, and that it is for them to take decisions on safety”,


as the Minister has repeated today, but would the Minister agree that this is only half the story? The Safety of Sports Grounds Act, in legislation which I piloted through another place as the Minister responsible, ensures that safety advisory groups must routinely consider relevant government advice and policies, such as from the Home Office on crowd management. Why did it take until the weekend to offer clear, unequivocal advice that nobody in our country would be excluded from football matches because of who they are or their legally held beliefs? Can the Minister assure the House that discussions are under way with safety advisory groups to ensure the full protection of Jewish community fan groups at matches this weekend and in the future?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

In relation to the second point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, absolutely: the safety of Jewish fans is of the utmost importance and priority to this Government. On the safety advisory groups, I have not been party to all the discussions with the people concerned, but my understanding is that the resource implications did not get escalated to the right level. That is not an excuse for it happening, but now that we know it happened, we can address it for the future. I know that my colleagues across government are desperately keen to make sure that this happens.

Football Governance Bill [HL]

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Tuesday 15th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two football interests I should declare: one is historical and the other current. The historical one is that I served as vice-chair of the Football Task Force 25 years ago and in one of the four reports that we produced, the case for a football regulator was argued very carefully. We thought we had won the argument, but we were not able to persuade the Government of the day—not a Conservative Government, but a new Labour one—of the merits of football regulation.

The fact that we now have all-party support for a football regulator is an indication of how far that debate has progressed. I would like to add my congratulations, first, to my noble friend Lady Twycross for the brilliant way she steered the Bill through this House, where it suffered no defeats whatever in any Divisions; and to the Ministers in the House of Commons who, with support and willingness to listen, were able to change the Bill and, I readily accept, improve it.

This takes me to my current interest. I am vice-president of the National Football League, to which the noble Lord, Lord Maude, just referred. Its scepticism was there in the beginning but as far as I understand it, that has now gone, and it is satisfied with the form of regulator in the Bill and looking forward to playing its part. As he said, it is a very important part of the football family and the element closest to fans at local level.

There are two groups of people I want particularly to refer to, and I will be very brief. One is the Football Supporters’ Association, without whose support this Bill would never have come to light. It was, as noble Lords will recall, the product of the fan-based review and the interests of fans have been very strongly taken into account and represented in the outcome. It deserves a great deal of congratulation for the part it played in the debate. The second group are the supporters of Wimbledon Football Club—the club I was proud to support in the 1970s and the 1980s—who found that their club was being taken away from them and moved to another part of the country against the wishes of the fans, the local community and everybody concerned with it. That was the sort of dictatorial decision which will be impossible as a result of this Bill going through, as it will prevent the removal of a club to a new location against the wishes of its supporters. Wimbledon supporters’ ability to start a new club—which has been extraordinarily successful and, indeed, was promoted from the Second Division of the Football League to the First Division at the end of last season—is a testament to their resilience and skill in making the case.

Above all, I congratulate the Minister in this House and the Ministers in the other place on producing a Bill that even the Premier League is now willing to accept and work with, and that is very commendable.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, while I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, on many aspects of sports policy, I have to say that, in character, I am afraid I disagree with him again on what he opened up with this evening. It would be remiss of this House not to seriously congratulate Chelsea on winning the FIFA World Club Cup. To put three goals in the back of PSG’s net in the first half of a final—an often impenetrable net this season—was remarkable. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is one of the great football occasions in memory. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, an avid supporter of that club, on the extraordinary and magnificent performance of Chelsea only a few days ago. It matched the success of England’s cricketers in the Third Test.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, just for clarity, I am staying this week in the Chelsea Football Club hotel, and it is a fantastic set-up and a fantastic ground.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I am glad the noble Lord added that because otherwise, I would have kicked his name off the register, if I had been him.

The key amendments before us this evening are undoubtedly improvements, and I thank all the noble Lords who worked so hard, not least the noble Lords, Lord Birt and Pannick, to bring those amendments to us this evening and worked so hard with the Government to gain those improvements. But, as my noble friend Lady Brady, has said, for many of us they do little more than remove some broken eggshell from the omelette, which many in the other place joined with us in describing as unpalatable to both the fans and professional football clubs.

One constant theme throughout my consideration of the Bill’s details has been the layering of regulation that exists within football and the dangers of adding an additional regulator to what is already quite a complex and competitive structure of football regulation. In respect of Clause 61, can the Minister say whether the changes have been approved by UEFA and FIFA, and whether they now see no conflict with the position that they stated very clearly only a matter of months ago?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords for a constructive and good-natured debate on the amendments made in the other place and for their very kind comments, not least from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, recognising why I took the risk to bring the Bill back, which was to ensure that we get a better Bill. I am very grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Pannick, and noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House, including the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, for their support for changing the backstop mechanism. I am grateful too for the support for, and confidence across your Lordships’ House in, the Government’s preferred candidate.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, is right that we need to see the regulator as taking a light-touch approach, and I am grateful to all those involved in helping us get this over the line in a much more match-fit state than it left us. I note the concerns of the noble Lords, Lord Maude of Horsham, Lord Moynihan and Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brady. I will send a transcript of the debate to the chair designate, although I am confident that he is following the debate and is already aware of the need—and their call—to tread lightly.

The noble Lord, Lord Burns, asked how we would incorporate evidence from the “state of the game” report. Under the amended model, it would be explicit that the regulator must use the “state of the game” as the basis for its decision. The regulator must explain in its notice how its solution addresses the evidence from the “state of the game” report. Leagues must also submit supporting evidence alongside their proposals, which the regulator must take into account. The regulator can request additional evidence as well as gathering its own information to ensure it has a wide evidence base for making a decision. This is a more evidence-based and data-driven process than before. We are also proposing an extension of the final proposal stage to allow for more time for the regulator to come to a considered solution based on evidence.

The noble Lords, Lord Moynihan and Lord Markham, asked whether UEFA is content with the Bill as it stands. As noble Lords will know and as I have stated previously, UEFA has written to confirm that it is content with the Bill and the FA has confirmed it. Its issues were with the previous Government’s version of the Bill and requiring the regulator to have regard to the Government’s foreign policy, something we have removed and something your Lordships’ House clearly debated at some length.

Past examples of Italy and Spain legislating in relation to football broadcasting without facing repercussions from UEFA should offer reassurance. Italy in 2008 and Spain in 2015 legislated setting out how TV rights are to be sold and how the revenues are to be distributed. Neither association has faced consequences from UEFA. I will return to exactly where we are with the process a bit later.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

I do not want to prolong this at all except to just place on the record that both the examples the Minister has given us are totally different and in fact reflected the model that the Premier League had in place, which was effectively a non-legislative agreement. Just for the record, we need to be clear that the very short legislation introduced in both those countries did not bear any resemblance whatever to the substantive Bill before us.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Appreciating the noble Lord’s point, I can confirm that UEFA is content with the Bill as it stands.

I am going to return to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Markham, on where exactly we are with the chair’s appointment. The lines I have in my pack do not entirely reflect his question, so I will try to answer it rather than just use the line in the pack.

In closing, I thank several noble Lords who have been involved throughout the passage of the Bill. In particular, I thank my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton, who was not able to be here today, and my noble friends Lady Taylor of Bolton, Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Grantchester. I also thank a number of Labour Back-Benchers who have been really restrained at various points in what has been a very long process, by rationing their contributions to try to get the Bill to move forward. As noble Lords are aware, most noble Lords—probably with the exception of the noble Lord, Lord Addington—are absolutely passionate about the game, so to not contribute as much as they wanted was quite painful for a number of them.

I particularly thank my noble friend Lady Blake of Leeds for the excellent job she has done in supporting me, which continues now, and officials whose patience has been outstanding, and I was pleased that this was noted by noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House. They have worked with me, the Minister for Sport, the Secretary of State, stakeholders and many noble Lords to redesign the backstop over the past few months.

I also thank the noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench, the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Lord Markham. It is always a pleasure to face them across the Dispatch Box—occasionally, I might have wished it was slightly less late into the night. I particularly thank noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Goddard of Stockport, not least for their good humour and constructive approach to raising and resolving their concerns, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who took the time in his contribution today to focus on the fact that this is about how football speaks to local communities—that is at the heart of why the Government have pursued this.

I am particularly grateful to the noble Lords on the Cross Benches, particularly the A-team of the noble Lords, Lord Birt, Lord Pannick and Lord Burns, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. They raised issues that made us pause to consider. I was sorry we were not able to bring back amendments before we got to Third Reading, and I hope noble Lords understand why this was. We are keen now to make sure that the football regulator can get on with the job.

Human Rights: Sportswashing

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, for leading this debate, which provides a valuable opportunity to consider the link between the role of international sport and human rights. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I emphasise that I draw in particular on my time as chair of the British Olympic Association at the time of the London 2012 Olympic Games. I also believe it is important to review the recent World Cup in Qatar.

Far from sportswashing human rights records, the hosting of major sporting events in countries where concern rightly exists about human rights actually does the opposite. It brings with it a spotlight into the darker recesses of the country, which generates action and change, in a way that, when the sporting spotlight is turned off, international attention and calls for change diminish. This debate effectively bears testimony to the fact that sport provides a platform to highlight, not hide, human rights abuses, as we have just heard through Najah’s story. I have long taken an active stance on issues concerning human rights. All Governments need to act decisively on human rights abuses, wherever they exist, by making the strongest representations to the country concerned. However, the question raised by today’s debate is about not condemnation of human rights violations but whether the cancellation or boycott of an international sporting event is the best way to promote change in the country concerned.

For example, was a boycott of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing 2022, for both able-bodied athletes in the Winter Olympic Games and disabled athletes in the Winter Paralympic Games, reasonable, proportionate and effective as the right way to change the course of Chinese domestic policy on human rights? If we are to ask sportsmen and sportswomen to walk away from their careers and close off the chance to compete on the ultimate stage for which they have made a lifetime of sacrifices then the athletes will rightly ask whether the Government are taking action on a much wider front. Calls for a boycott would be very different if trade, cultural exchanges and diplomatic relations were curtailed, rather than seeing growth in trade, the promotion of cultural exchanges and the strengthening of diplomatic relations, as was the case in Beijing.

I remember, as an athlete, being called on to boycott the Olympic Games in Moscow. The team was being turned into a single political pawn to assuage the conscience of the Government of the day, who opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. No other action was proposed. I appreciate that it is not an easy question; indeed, it was made more difficult when, during the same month as the calls for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games on the grounds that the Government were sportswashing their human rights record, with criticisms of the international governing bodies aiding this practice, Governments around the world overwhelmingly elected China—as a champion of human rights—to the UN Human Rights Council, achieving 139 votes out of a possible 193.

Looking beyond the athletes to sports boycotts in the past, we find that they have a patchy record of effectiveness at best. Boycotts have been used to express opposition to patterns of gross human rights violations and to communicate the repugnance of the international community as a whole, or at least a large part of it, at the policies and practices of a particular nation or nations. All have been ineffective tools in this regard, with the one notable exception of South Africa. With the benefit of hindsight, few would deny the significant contributions, certainly at the moral and symbolic level, that the boycott made to the overthrow of the apartheid regime, but it was part of a much wider package of measures taken by the international community on the trade and diplomatic fronts.

There was a very personal sense of outrage at the heart of the apartheid debate—namely, abhorrence over racial discrimination anywhere and at any time. The success of the sporting boycott was due to the fact that the international community was in broad agreement over taking a wide and comprehensive range of punitive political measures against the South African Government, of which sport was actually tangential but important.

It is my view that, for actions of this kind to be effective in tackling what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, has defined as sportswashing, they must have the broad support of the international community and be the product not of posturing or reprisal but of an astute and practical moral calculus, including a wide-ranging package of trade, travel and diplomatic measures to lead to action that will best advance the cause of human rights and the well-being of those whose rights are violated. Because surely all of us agree that politics and sport, regrettably, are intricately interwoven.

To address human rights issues in relation to international sporting events in isolation from the broader diplomatic framework would, I contend, serve no useful or realistic purposes. I absolutely respect the strength of feeling on human rights in this Chamber and count myself as part of that coalition. It is almost 50 years to the day that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and I went to the Philippines as young MPs to write a critical report on the Philippine Government’s human rights abuses, but the reality is that life has changed in those 50 years.

As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, rightly said, the centre of gravity in professional sport is effectively on the move. The 150 years during which the legacy of de Coubertin made its home in western Europe has shifted to the Middle East, and it will not come back to the West. If we pick out sportsmen and sportswomen to act as our champions to assuage our conscience over human rights abuses, we will have missed the central point: that the only losers in this scenario are actually the sportsmen and sportswomen concerned. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, that sports boycotts, which are the necessary corollary of avoiding the concept of sportswashing, when used in isolation from the many tools at the disposal of Governments, have failed and are never likely to succeed. I do not see our Government imposing widespread economic and political sanctions and a trade ban, for example, on China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia or India, to name a few.

On the contrary, I take the view that the significant advantage of international sporting events is their high media profile. This ensured that the spotlight of international attention shone brightly on Qatar during the World Cup. This spotlight, as it ranges over countries where human rights are a concern, will, in time, assist in bringing dividends. I take the view that international sport is a force for good in itself; that engagement is preferable to isolation; that precedents show sports boycotts rarely achieve their goals; and that seeking to impact countries through avoiding sporting contact is highly unlikely to achieve positive improvements on the ground. It could become a symbolic gesture, which would isolate and punish countries, and potentially prove to be a counterproductive and retrograde step.

Ultimately, and to me this point is overlooked by those supporting ceasing sporting contact with countries of concern regarding human rights, the greatest damage will befall sportsmen and sportswomen, and, in the case of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the overwhelming number of athletes who are not motivated by money. Neither the Olympic nor the world sporting movement, nor indeed anyone, should have expected sport alone to bring countries into line with international human rights standards. Expectations of sport-led metamorphosis are simply unrealistic, and real change in a country requires consolidating the position of that country’s domestic reformers and a wider international public recognition of human rights. I do not believe that international sport should be expected to solve a problem to which the Governments of the international community have yet to find an answer.

At the same time, it would be wrong to underestimate the growing international influence of sport as the centre of gravity moves to the Middle East—here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. Just as China’s human rights record fits uneasily with the Olympic ideals, so does the idea that sport can harbour prejudice, geographical or otherwise. Sport is about humanity, and the benefits of the Olympic Games continue to contribute to, not detract from, the changes we all seek.

The same underlying principles underpin international football. The moment Qatar won the bid, it recognised and knew that the spotlight during the World Cup in Doha would be focused on its human rights record. Qatar was in need of comprehensive reforms to its labour market, and I argue that the World Cup has in part led it to adopt labour standards that are the best in the region. It invited in the International Labour Organization and invited it to stay after the World Cup—the only country in the region to do that. The fiercely independent International Labour Organization’s reports on material improvements in occupational injuries and heat stress-related disorders were really important. Qatar reacted—it had to react—to international pressure and implemented measures to prevent passport confiscation, with the full removal of exit permits expanded to all workers in 2020. Of course, more can and must be done, but I argue that it is the very spotlight of international attention on major sporting events that accelerates progress in the alleviation of human rights abuses, in the same way that the immovable date for the opening ceremony in 2012 accelerated the regeneration of the East End of London by 10 years.

I well remember that, just after the curtain came down on the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, I was sitting near here with representatives of human rights groups, whom I got to know well during the build-up to the Games in Beijing. A prominent and greatly respected senior campaigner looked at me and said, with a wry smile, that he privately wished that the Games would be hosted in Beijing every four years. For the human rights organisations, having the Games every quadrennium in Beijing would have been ideal, because the powerful Olympic torch, fuelled by the Olympic ideals, shone into the deeper recesses of China and gave strength to their important campaigns. But, sadly for him, the Games moved on to London, and the challenges to human rights records in China moved with them.

Commonwealth Games

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, we fully recognise the important economic boost that hosting major sporting events can bring. Sport is estimated to be worth over £38 billion a year to our economy. The hosting of the women’s Euros in 2022 generated economic activity of £81 million across the eight host cities that welcomed visitors and supported 1,200 full-time equivalent jobs. It also saw a 140% increase in participation among girls in the season after the tournament—so the benefits are manifold. The Commonwealth Games Federation is exploring all options to secure the long-term viability of the Commonwealth Games. It has committed to putting a firmer plan in place by the time of its general assembly in November.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister will know that the highly successful 1908 summer Olympics in London was a multisport event that ran for seven months, with many sports being organised sequentially. Given how expensive it is to run the Commonwealth Games and how few countries can afford to do so, would the Government consider supporting a Commonwealth Games where different Commonwealth countries were invited to host different sporting events in the same year? It would make the Games a great festival of Commonwealth sport that would be more affordable and would allow more sports and more countries to be added to the Games’ agenda.

Musicians and Creative Professionals: Working in the European Union

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, particularly because he added the phrase “and other creative professionals”. He will know that this immediately gives me the opportunity to speak on a subject with which he has become familiar every time he introduces debates on this, namely the vital importance of the work of the snowsport community in the Alps. They are among the most creative of professionals.

As my noble friend Lord Cormack knows, gone are the days when you can win a snowboard title with a cork. Slopestyle, superpipe, big air and freestyle are all highly artistic forms of winter sport, and the professionals who work in this area need access to coach in the European Union. This debate gives me an excellent opportunity to seek reassurances from my noble friend the Minister about the work being undertaken to improve the ability of our snowsport professionals to work in the European Union. I do not expect answers to all the questions I will raise, but I ask the Minister to write to me after the debate with an update that I can pass on to everybody interested in the sector.

As my noble friend the Minister knows, the Government have been lobbying effectively, in partnership with the Alpine Sports Group, to ensure that support is provided to governing bodies, regulators, associations and professionals in this sector as they work through the process of securing qualification recognition in various EU member states. This time last year, representatives of the Alpine Sports Group met government representatives, as well as the FCDO attaché to the British embassy in Switzerland, to discuss how to minimise the negative consequences of Brexit on UK alpine sports. All these representatives have been focused on negotiations with the EU on the recognition of professional qualifications, the mobility of UK nationals within and across the EU, and the UK’s policy towards the EU on these topics.

I would be grateful if the Government could confirm that they have now formed a new recognition arrangements team to provide winter sport professionals with support as we continue to negotiate agreements with our counterparts in EU member states. The ASG was left in no doubt that it now has the support of the Government, for which I thank the Government, irrespective of whether they pursue bilateral agreements with the individual states or a master recognition agreement.

The situation is still exceptionally difficult. Working in France as a snowsports professional, whether for coaching club teams or athletes, or for instructing purposes, remains a tightly controlled activity. The UK’s exit from the EU means we no longer benefit from the right of establishment as snowsports instructors or coaches under the delegated Act. This very much leads to a case-by-case approach, depending on individual resorts and the attitude taken by the ski schools in them. That process is opaque to this day. There is a requirement for a carte pro, but how you get it differs in different parts of the Alps. We need to work with our friends in Europe to overcome the difficulties faced by many instructors and coaches seeking eligibility for a carte pro.

Even when you have a carte pro, there is uncertainty over the issuing of visas. If you are a British citizen, do not hold any other EU passports and have not benefited from the terms of the withdrawal agreement, you need a visa, but there is no certainty that British nationals will receive one. That again is a concern to people whose livelihoods are based, as winter sport professionals’ are, in the mountains.

Finally, I will give the example of working in Switzerland. Switzerland comes into this context because it has an arrangement with the European Union on the recognition of snowsports instructors. There are significant variations here between federal law and its regional application. Swiss cantons are allowed to interpret certain pieces of federal legislation, notably the Foreign Nationals and Integration Act and the legislation relating to admission, stay and the exercise of gainful activity, especially where local snowsports tuition and services are offered and the activity in question is a regulated profession. It varies substantially from one ski resort or one canton to another.

I conclude by at least welcoming one canton, Bern, which recently stated that

“we recognize the long tradition of snowsports in the United Kingdom and also understand the interest of the Swiss ski schools in securing access to ski instructors from the UK, who make a valuable contribution to the Alpine economy in particular in our Canton.”

I urge all noble Lords to go to resorts in Bern this winter.

Champions League Final

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The inquiry is for UEFA, and I am confident that UEFA is committed to a thorough review. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his first-hand observations, which I am sure will have been heard, but I shall gladly pick that up with him after this to ensure that they can be fed to UEFA so that the lessons can be properly learned.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, pursuant to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is my noble friend confident that adequate preparations have been made to avoid similar events at the England v Germany game tomorrow evening?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, my honourable friend the Sports Minister has that match very much in mind. We of course hope that the emerging lessons can be learned very swiftly, as well as the detailed lessons which will be learned once the full facts are established and publicised following UEFA’s review.

COVID-19 Vaccinations: International Athletes

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

Pursuant to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, will the Government confirm that they will work with the organising committee and the WHO in particular to reach out to all 53 Commonwealth countries to promote vaccination and support the 98% vaccination level which was achieved at the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, we are working with Games partners and public health partners and are learning lessons from recent events such as the Summer and Winter Olympics to make sure that the message gets across very loudly and clearly that we are strongly recommending that everyone be vaccinated.