Football Governance Bill [Lords] (Fourth sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Betts]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I do not intend to have a long debate on amendment 9, because I am sure that the Minister will agree readily to my suggestion. At the least, would she agree to reflect on it? The state of the game report is core to what we are trying to do with the football regulator—to look at the state of the game, what the problems are and what needs to be done to change it. Therefore, getting that report in place as soon as possible is the intention of my amendment. Why wait 18 months if it can be done in 12 months? I do not know what the regulator will consider and how long it will have to do so, but its primary job to begin with will be to look at this issue. Twelve months should be completely adequate.

In some ways, my second point is more important. Football does change, like the rest of society, and circumstances in football change, so I do not think it is entirely reasonable to say to the regulator, “Once you’ve done your job, you can sit back and wait another five years before coming to look at the issues again.” Three years seems a much more proportionate time. The Minister will probably tell me that five years is the end time, and the regulator could look at it in the meantime if it so wanted. Perhaps I am anticipating what she is going to say.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Member is seeking to do, but I am slightly concerned that perhaps he rolled over before he even rose to his feet, and will not press his amendment to a Division.

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[Joe Robertson]

I appreciate that we have a situation where one of the Minister’s Back Benchers is seeking assurances in this Committee, but does she accept that is not the equivalent of having something written into the Bill? With the greatest respect, if it is not in the Bill, her assurances here on what she expects from the football regulator is only her expectation—it is nothing more certain.

[Stephanie Peacock]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that part of the purpose of a Bill Committee is to give our intention as Parliament. Yes, I can give those assurances and I have done so at every step of the way.

[Joe Robertson]

rose—

[Stephanie Peacock]

I will take a further intervention, but I have not actually answered the hon. Gentleman’s substantive point. I want to answer it, if he gives me the chance.

[Joe Robertson]

It is a fundamental principle of lawmaking that, when interpreting the law, judges or anyone else do not go and look at what a Minister might have said in Hansard. I appreciate that she may have a long career, but the Minister will change at some point, and the law has to stand, potentially, for a very long time.

[Stephanie Peacock]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is new to this place—

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[Joe Robertson]

I am a lawyer!

[Stephanie Peacock]

The hon. Gentleman shouts his CV from a sedentary position.

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I hope that the Minister will accept this common-sense amendment and that the Committee will vote in favour of it. I fear that may be wishful thinking, but at the very least will Members acknowledge the principle behind it? Transparency is good for all regulators and for those who are to be regulated. The more shade the Government provide to the regulator, the more concerns we should all have about what goes on in the shadows.

[Joe Robertson]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler.

The shadow Minister, as ever, is a strong advocate for the fans and has set out a compelling case for supporting the amendment. I will not rehash all the arguments, but it is about transparency and reporting—indeed, the clause that the amendment seeks to change is about reporting. Clearly, the Government believe that an annual report should be made or that would not be provided for in the Bill. The report must include a “summary of the activities” undertaken by the regulator, with reference to a financial year, and yet there is nothing about that report’s including the financial impact, which would be fairly usual in a report by any organisation compelled to do one year on year in the interests of transparency.

We debated amendment 122 earlier, and that was more specifically about the impact of the regulator’s activity on match ticket prices. I recall that one of the Liberal Democrat Members did not support that on the basis that the cost of administering the regulator would, if divided up as on his fag packet between match tickets and clubs, add up to a small amount. Amendment 134 is much more compelling because it is about the cumulative impact of the costs of complying with the regulatory regime. It could be the case that the actual budget of the regulator remained reasonably contained, while the regulation that the regulator creates and its obligations on football clubs could balloon.

In my view, that is why the regulator should be compelled each year to include in the report the financial impact of its regulation and the full range of its activities, in so far as they have an implication for football clubs. If it creates a regulatory burden and hence a cost burden on clubs, there will always be the worry that that will be passed on to fans. Whether an individual member of the Committee believes that the regulator is a good thing, or that the cost is bearable, and whatever their view on how much cost is bearable, at the very least the regulator should be reporting this each year, so that the public and Members in this place in the future can form their views. This is a basic argument about transparency, and no one should seek to assist the regulator in not being transparent in financial matters. For that reason, I will back the amendment.

[Stephanie Peacock]

I thank the shadow Minister for his amendment. He gave a wide-ranging speech, and I will focus my remarks on the amendment itself, but I will first respond to a couple of points that were made. Towards the end of his speech, he commented that regulation has not been done well for the past 20 years—perhaps I should remind him of who was in government for most of that time. [Interruption.] Indeed, the past 20 years. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight East said that some members of the Committee may or may not think that the regulator is a good thing. But of course we all stood on a manifesto that included it, so I hope that most Members here think it a good idea; fans up and down the country certainly agree that it is.

In speaking to the amendment, I again remind the Committee that no changes have been made since the previous Bill. The Government agree that it is vital that the cost of regulation should not place an undue burden on clubs. That is why we have designed an agile and light-touch regulator that takes a collaborative approach with those it regulates. Unfortunately, the amendment could do the exact opposite of what I think it intends. If the regulator were to track and publish compliance costs every year, it would need all clubs to measure and report on that on an ongoing basis.

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[Lincoln Jopp]

Regulation does indeed evolve, but giving this football regulator carte blanche to evolve it without any recourse to Parliament is a key weakness of the Bill’s current drafting, which is why I support amendment 99.

[Joe Robertson]

The shadow Minister has already set out in great but necessary detail the reasons why amendments 99 and 100 have been tabled and should be supported. The issue is that subsections (3)(c) and (5)(b) of clause 16 provide a catch-all that allows the regulator to include such other information and documentation as it may specify when a club applies for a provisional operating licence. I support these amendments because I think those two provisions open the floodgates unnecessarily, and clause 16 already sets out the things that the regulator wants to see football clubs submit. To have that completely open floodgate is a problem for the reasons given.

If the Government were keen to have some flexibility here, they could have allowed the Secretary of State to specify any other such information in the future. At least there would then be some accountability via the Secretary of State’s being an elected person and ultimately accountable to Parliament. The particular issue here is that the regulator, once set up, does not have direct accountability, and therefore it would be easy for it to start stipulating all sorts of things. I support the amendments and I think that it should be tight, but the Government could have steered a halfway course here by retaining some powers for the Secretary of State, rather than the unelected regulator.

[Stephanie Peacock]

I thank the shadow Minister for tabling amendments 99 and 100, which are very similar in effect. The Opposition do seem to be getting carried away this afternoon. I noted down some of the phrases he used: “Politically led”; “unlimited power”; “a regulatory land grab”; and “dangerous for sport”. Then he asked whether the Government had written a blank cheque. Well, I do not think that is the case, but if they did, it was his Government, because there have been no changes to this part of the Bill since its previous iteration.