Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th July 2026 Lords Chamber

I think that is what the Minister is saying to me; I would like her to confirm it. Therefore, I am not going to move my amendment tonight, for obvious reasons. I would have liked the Government to be slightly more explicitly forthcoming, but I thank the Minister for her engagement in any case.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to Amendment 47 in my name, which would place a clear time-bound duty on the relevant local authority to keep the areas around a sporting event clean during the event and to clear them within a fixed period afterwards.

I will not detain the House with the full catalogue I set out in Committee. Noble Lords will recall my description of the morning after Arsenal’s title parade, with residential streets strewn with broken glass, bottles and cans, and with bins overflowing and left in that state for the best part of two days. The parade itself was a joy; the aftermath was a disgrace and it was avoidable. In Committee, the Minister was courteous and, I think, sympathetic. However, sadly, I did not get any of the follow-up meetings that other noble Lords did. The Minister agreed with me about the rapid clean-up after the Notting Hill Carnival, so these things can be achieved with the right resource and planning, and I am grateful for that. However, when I asked how the Bill would guarantee it, the Minister offered me three existing powers, and I want to explain very briefly why none of them answers the case.

The duty in Section 89 of the Environmental Protection Act binds only so far as is practicable, and the code beneath it grants authorities a recovery window in which the street may lawfully remain filthy. It is this very regime that allowed my neighbourhood to stay as it was. The Minister pointed next to the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provisions, but those are available only for conduct of a persistent or continuing nature and only after a written warning, and they are appealable. To deal with a parade of tens or hundreds of thousands, the Government basically offer a power designed for the neighbour who will not clear up their front garden.

Lastly, the Minister pointed to the litter conditions that may be attached to traders’ authorisations, but those reach the litter of a licensed stall, not the crowd, and that is the whole problem. The Minister’s best example was Brent Council, which cleans diligently around Wembley. But Brent chooses to do that. Islington chose not to. That contrast is the entire argument for a statutory floor. My amendment is for the residents who do not happen to live in a borough that chooses to do the right thing.

I have redrafted my amendment to meet every point the Minister made. It applies in addition to Section 89, so it duplicates nothing. It writes in the timescale the code omits: clean within 12 hours, and broken glass within three. It covers processions and assemblies on the public highway and it answers the resourcing question the Minister rightly raised by allowing the cost to be met centrally or recovered from the organiser. I should like a commitment in principle and a meeting before Third Reading to discuss it in more detail before I consider whether to divide the House.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

I shall be brief. I have signed Amendment 48, which it seems to me should be in the Bill, especially as we are living through what we are living through right now. A UK government report in 2025 exploring the financial implications of climate change on grass-roots sports estimated that climate-related disruptions already cost grass-roots sport in the UK £320 million annually. Some £200 million of that goes in repairs and maintenance, and £120 million goes in lost revenue from cancelled matches. Every age group is affected. On 19 July 2022, when the temperature soared to 37 degrees, a 23 year-old playing cricket in Durham ended up in an ice bath in hospital because he was hit by the heat. We suffer from heat in this country just as much as people in hotter countries because we are not used to it.

What is important now is to use sport. The FIFA World Cup is the most watched event in history. At the moment, 14 of the stadiums face climate risks. By 2050, 90% of host stadiums could face dangerous heat and 11 host stadiums could face completely unplayable conditions. It is a real risk, but football itself is starting to adapt. We are seeing cooling breaks, heat protocols and schedule changes. The reality is that this hits the highest levels down to the grass roots. Pitches are damaged, seasons are disrupted, water scarcity affects maintenance and community clubs face rising costs from climate-related damage. This is about the future of the entire football system, not to mention other sports, because it is local parks, schools, amateur clubs, academies and national leagues. It is the all the things we want to foster in a country that prides itself on community groups and, especially, on football.

Sport has a unique role to play in helping to drive climate action, because it can, on a practical level, do all sorts of things. Emotionally, sport, particularly football, is one of our most powerful storytelling platforms. Already, 86% of fans of the big clubs say they want clubs to speak out on climate action, and 91% say they would feel even prouder of their clubs if they took proper action.

We know what to do. We just need to move fast. We need investment in sports grounds. We need to protect people from future climate change. We need public information, shade and trees. This is stuff we know. This will improve the quality of life for everybody, and sport is a brilliant way through. Quite honestly, if sport does not give that kind of message, what kind of message does it give? It is meant to represent the health and the best of this country. Everyone will be watching this football match. We need to act on this, because it tells the right story that our Government ought to be telling.

Sporting Events Bill [HL]

Lord Harlech Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Thank you. I am so sorry I was not at Second Reading. This is very much the sort of thing that I feel very strongly about. My three amendments in this group are on three different topics. One is transport, one is sustainability reporting and the third is on climate duty, all of which I feel very strongly about. I am going to find it hard not to bring these back if there is not progress.

It is extraordinary that this week, the hottest June day ever for the UK has been measured in Surrey. We are hotter here than California’s Death Valley, and that is saying something. We really are not weatherproofed and we are not heat-proofed. We are very lucky in this Chamber. I sat in Portcullis House at 9 am this morning: it was baking. We stewed in there. Of course, a lot of people do not have the advantage of air conditioning like this in their offices and in their public places.

I find it extraordinary that, in a week where parts of Britain have once again seen record temperatures, when red warnings have been issued because of extreme heat, and when climate change is impossible to ignore, we are debating a Bill that contains detailed provisions on transport planning for major sporting events but does not mention climate impact once.

Schedule 5 goes into considerable detail about transport plans. It tells organisers what they should consider, how they should co-ordinate and what arrangements should be put in place. Yet there is absolutely nothing about the environmental impact of those transport arrangements. For major sporting events, transport is often the biggest source of emissions. At the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, spectator travel accounted for more than half of the event’s carbon footprint. At Euro 2024, fan travel accounted for almost 80% of emissions. We need to be serious about reducing the environmental impact of major sporting events, and transport is the obvious place to start.

This amendment has two components. The first is that transport plans should have regard to sustainable travel options,

“including public transport, walking and cycling”,

and should seek to “minimise greenhouse gas emissions”. I am sure the Minister is well aware of all the work that happened in Ken Livingstone’s period at the London Assembly: we achieved a lot. The Government already tell us that rail is one of the greenest ways to travel. The Government’s own active travel investment strategy tells us that walking and cycling help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So we need to tell event organisers to take account of what the Government already recognise to be the lower-carbon options. Parliament has gone much further before, such as in the London Olympics, the majority of which was planned in the period of Ken Livingstone in London, and I am suggesting that we can do that in my later Amendment 88.

The second element concerns integrated ticketing. If we want people to leave their cars at home, we need to make the alternative the easy option for them. Again, we have a very recent and very successful example. Every match ticket for Euro 2024 came with a 36-hour public transport pass built into the ticket price. The result was a success, because more than 80% of fans travelled to venues by public transport and fewer than 5% travelled by car, and hundreds of thousands of rail journeys were made between host cities. This was achieved by making the sustainable choice the convenient choice. Integrated ticketing also benefits spectators. It is easier, cuts costs, and helps avoid congestion around venues. It improves the experience of fans while reducing emissions.

That seems a rare example of a policy that is good for the climate, organisers and the public. If there were ever an example of why we need to be adding in these amendments and preparing for climate resilience travel, it is today, when trains are cancelled due to heat and people are being asked not to travel. The Climate Change Committee has warned that climate risk will increasingly affect the operation of major events. When tens of thousands of people are trying to reach a venue within a narrow timeframe, those risks become particularly acute. What would it look like if we had today’s weather on the day of the Euro 2028 final?

Asking those preparing transport plans to think about sustainability and resilience is absolutely vital. The Government’s own impact assessment argues that legislation is necessary because voluntary arrangements alone do not provide sufficient certainty and consistency. If legislation is needed to ensure transport plans work effectively, why should climate impacts and climate resilience be left entirely to chance? Given the climate challenges we face and the examples of best practice we have already seen across Europe, that seems the very least we can expect.

On Amendment 87, on sustainability reporting, we hear the same language every time a major sporting event is bid for, such as world-leading sustainability, greenest games ever and low-carbon legacy, and it all sounds incredibly impressive at the time. But I get a bit fed up with the gap between the promises made and what actually happens. The Paris Olympics, for example, set itself up as the lowest-carbon games yet. In some respects, it did better than previous Olympics: emissions were lower than London or Rio, largely because they reused venues, cut down on new construction and made some sensible choices about energy and materials. But when you look a bit closer, the picture gets more complicated. Transport still dominated emissions; international travel still drove a huge carbon footprint; and, in the end, we are talking about millions of tonnes of CO₂. Yes, there was progress, but it also showed something else very clearly: without proper reporting, it becomes very hard to know what was genuinely achieved, what was just assumed and what was simply good marketing.

That is the point of this amendment. We should not be relying on glossy bid documents and press releases to tell us whether promises have been kept. If we are serious about sustainability being part of these events, then we need to be just as serious about checking afterwards whether it actually happened. Right now, too often, the pattern is this: big promises at the bidding stage; celebration at the event; and very little scrutiny afterwards. This amendment says that, if you make environmental commitments before the event, you report on them afterwards—accurately, obviously—so that we can see what was delivered and was not.

Of course, there are already sustainability requirements for major sporting events, but they are patchy and inconsistent. Some bids are strong, while others are vague; some report properly, while others barely report at all. That makes it very hard to know what is actually being delivered. We need something more uniform: clear expectations that commitments are measured properly and reported before and after the event. Without that consistency, we are not tracking progress; we are just collecting promises—and, quite frankly, people are getting tired of empty promises.

Amendment 88 is on climate duty. We have had this kind of duty at past events—for example, in the London Olympics framework, where sustainability and wider environmental considerations were explicitly built into delivery. What we are seeing here in the Bill is a step backwards from that approach, just at the point when climate risks are more immediate, not less. We are told, including in the Government’s forthcoming major events strategy, that major events will continue to drive economic growth, enhance the UK’s soft power across the globe and strengthen social cohesion. Of course, they can do those things, but they cannot only be about that, and they certainly cannot deliver those benefits at the expense of our climate and environmental responsibility.

At the moment, the Bill is built around delivery, organisation and facilitation, but it is silent on sustainability. We need to put in place something that should already be clear here: a clear duty that, when exercising functions under the Bill, we must have regard to greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable transport, waste reduction and the UK’s climate and environmental targets. We can continue with a system where climate is assumed to be somebody else’s problem, or we can put in place a basic duty that ensures it is properly considered every time decisions are made on these events. I beg to move.

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

My Lords, my Amendment 91 seeks to insert a duty to clear up waste after a sporting event. This is a probing amendment that puts a clear, time-bound duty on the relevant local authority to keep event areas clear of litter and refuse during the event and to clean them at its conclusion. It extends explicitly to the public processions and assemblies connected with the event—the parades, fan zones and crowds—not only the stadium.

Why is this needed? I speak from lived experience and may incur the ire of the noble Baroness sat near me. Three weeks ago, as an Islington resident, I saw exactly what happens when no one is clearly responsible. On the morning after Arsenal’s title parade, the residential streets around me were strewn with broken glass, vomit, bottles, cans and bins overflowing. In its own guidance before the event, the council said, “We’re not putting any additional Portaloos out, so you’ll just have to find a pub or cafe to go in”. I pity people who live in the area who have a garden.

It is just crazy. Arsenal is not a poor club. It has just won the league. It is known to be a very financially successful club. Either Islington Council did not charge it enough money for the clean-up or the council funnelled the money that it got into another expense. Either way, it was unacceptable, especially considering the extortionate amount of council tax that I pay.

It stayed that way for the better part of 48 hours. There was no overnight clean-up. I had to steer my child around broken glass on the way to nursery drop-off. It is completely unacceptable. I am not a party pooper, I think the parade should absolutely have gone ahead, but residents already had to live through the parade; the least that could be expected is that it would be cleaned up properly afterwards.

For an example of how it can be done differently, turn your mind to Kensington and Chelsea and another big multi-day event that happens—with millions of people, so we are talking about exactly the same kind of scale. I know it has its fans and detractors, but Notting Hill Carnival happens over two days and by the Tuesday it is absolutely spotless on those streets. That is because the council gets a grip of the situation. I dare say Arsenal Football Club has a lot more money and funds available than the organisers of Notting Hill Carnival. So, there is something to be looked at there.

Why does this matter for the Bill? This is the framework for the events that we want to host the most: the Euros, the World Cup and the Olympics. They bring processions and assemblies across many host boroughs, over weeks rather than hours. If a single club parade can leave one London borough looking like it did for two days, picture a multi-week tournament with no clean-up duty written into the framework at all. The Bill covers ticketing, advertising, trading and transport, but the most basic civic question is absent: who keeps the streets clean and clears them afterwards?

My amendment would make the duty event specific, time-bound and explicit about processions and assemblies. It would close the gap that residents fall through. I am not wedded to the drafting. I am seeking a commitment in principle. Will the Government ensure that the framework does not leave host communities living with the aftermath and that host authorities are properly resourced to meet this duty, whether funded centrally or recovered from organisers?

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, which follow up the remarks by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, in that we ought to write into the Bill the requirement for the sports industry to recognise the effects of climate change and the need to adjust sporting facilities, materials and stadia to the fact that over the next few years we will see significant changes.

There is already a problem. Those of us who have been following the football in America have seen different stadia and different degrees of comfort for players and spectators. I think we need, at least for major events, to look at ways in which we can anticipate this and get the sporting industry to make its contribution towards the modification of climate change in this country and to adaptation to climate change.