Football Governance Bill [Lords] (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Clive Betts and James Naish

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

Absolutely. I accept that the Government have been listening to the arguments—not all Governments do, but this one clearly have. That is an important step forward. One of my worries, which we will look at further when we come to later clauses on the distribution of funding, the effect of parachute payments and the role that they may play and for how long, is that unless we give the regulator slightly stricter time periods, we could get to the end of this Parliament and find that nothing has changed.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

My concern when I read the legislation was that five years is one Parliament. One report per Parliament feels like the regulator is being quite lackadaisical when it comes to producing reports. I hope that there can be a more regular publication on the state of the game, given its centrality to life in our country.

[Mr Betts]

Absolutely. I ask the Minister just to think about it. As my hon. Friend just said, the current provision is one report per Parliament. We can look back over the past five years and see that a lot has changed—there is a lot more money in the game—and if the regulator is going to be there, its main role will be to look at this issue. Allow, encourage and make it do that a bit more quickly. If the Minister cannot accept the amendment today, could she at least indicate that she might give it further thought and have discussions about it before Report stage?