Sporting Events Bill [HL] (Second sitting)

James Naish Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Stephanie Peacock]

Clause 17 and schedule 5 work together to provide a practical transport framework for major sporting events where extra co-ordination is needed. The basic point is straightforward: major sporting events can place real pressure on local roads and transport networks, and those impacts do not stop at local authority boundaries.

Schedule 5 provides the framework for dealing with such impacts, allowing transport plans to be prepared, reviewed and revised, where needed, and it provides for temporary road traffic measures to support the safe and effective operation of an event. That framework is practical and proportionate. It requires consultation with the relevant authorities, including local traffic authorities, local authorities and the police so that local knowledge is built from the start. The powers are also temporary and time-limited. They are there to deal with a specific transport impact of a major sporting event, not to create a permanent change in how local roads are managed.

Clause 17 complements that framework; it recognises that some events will affect more than one local traffic authority area, and that effective traffic management may therefore require authorities to work across boundaries. The clause allows regulations applying schedule 5 to designate one or more local traffic authorities for the purpose of paragraph 3. In practice, that ensures that the temporary traffic arrangements can operate in a joined-up way where an event affects more than one area. However, I will be clear about the safeguard: a local traffic authority may be designated only with its consent. This is not about taking powers away from local authorities, or about overriding them; it is about enabling co-operation on an agreed basis, where that is needed to manage the real-world impacts of major sporting events.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

When one authority consents, but a neighbouring authority does not—I have the River Trent as a genuine administrative boundary between Nottingham city and Nottinghamshire county council—what are the provisions? In that scenario, the county might say yes, but the city no. If that is not clear, will the Minister consider the matter further?

[Stephanie Peacock]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. Whenever we plan major sporting events, we want to do it with consultation and in collaboration. We would have that ongoing conversation. I will come on to outline the reserve backstop power if that simply cannot happen. He provided a hypothetical, which is hard to comment on—I can speak to him in slower time outside Committee—but we have a backstop power if we cannot get agreement.

Schedule 5 contains a reserve backstop power for the Secretary of State. That exists for a straightforward reason: if essential temporary traffic measures are needed for an event, and a local traffic authority has been asked to act but has failed to do so within the period set out in the schedule, there must be a way to ensure that the measures will still be put in place. The backstop is not the normal way of working; it is a fall-back to protect delivery where necessary. Taken together, schedule 5 provides the framework, and the clause helps that framework work properly across local boundaries. They are practical and proportionate provisions, with consultation, consent and clear limits built in.