Contribution
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble and right reverend Lord.
As the new football season approaches, those of us who are season ticket holders at these debates relish the prospect of further discussion on this important issue. I pay tribute to the Minister for the care she has taken with this. All of us will be conscious that she has many other responsibilities, and I know she has listened very attentively, along with her colleagues in the department, to consider genuine concerns that were raised in these debates in your Lordships’ House at earlier stages.
This is a better Bill than it was. I think the fact that, as the Minister said, a commitment to such a Bill appeared in the manifestos of the three major parties is a dire warning of the dangers of consensus, because there are many of us for whom this Bill is definitely in the not proven category. The case for having it is not proven, in that what it is intended to rectify is not obviously a proven defect. The current system has not been perfect, for sure, in allowing wealth created at the top end to cascade down through the pyramid, but it has been pretty effective at doing that.
Sometimes, in these debates, it has been assumed that the bottom of pyramid is the bottom of the EFL and, of course, that is not the case. It is significant that the leadership of the National League, several tiers below the EFL, has been very sceptical about the need for regulation. I speak with a particular interest as Horsham Football Club has just won promotion to National League South. My interests in football are in the Premier League, where I admit that my—our—football club did well in Europe, but not quite so well in the domestic competition. But in the National League, the clubs are much closer to the grass roots—in many cases they are the grass roots—and they are much closer than even League Two in the EFL. There is a scepticism there about whether improving the mechanism —creating a wholly new mechanism for cascading wealth down through the pyramid—is really necessary at all.
We have to remind ourselves, as my noble friend Lady Brady has done, that the Premier League is the most successful sporting league of any kind anywhere in the world. There are competitive winds: side winds and head winds. There is state-sponsored money being put into creating alternatives. Competition is healthy, but we should not assume that the golden goose that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, referred to will continue to lay golden eggs for ever. It is incredibly precious, as various noble Lords have commented. This is a sport that is much more than just a sport or a competition; it is a passion that attracts enormous depths of loyalty. The Premier League attracts a deep commitment, not just from British citizens but from fans right across the world. We should be very chary indeed of taking steps that jeopardise that.
So, while this definitely a better Bill and there are clear improvements to the backstop arrangements which reduce the risk of permanent damage being created, I hope the chair designate of the new regulator—about whom I hear nothing but good things—will bear in mind the need for the regulatory hand to be used with great lightness of touch. There is something very precious here. It looks like it is solid and indestructible, but that success—what the Premier League earns every year, from which the whole of the pyramid of football benefits—is a right and that wealth has to be earned. It has to be earned every week of every month of every football season that there is. So I urge the Government to bear in mind the need to tread lightly on this success, and for the new regulator to bear very much in mind the concerns that have been raised on many occasions in this House. I am grateful to the Minister and her colleagues for listening to some of them and responding, but the concerns remain.