Clive Efford

I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), on bringing the Bill to this point. I also congratulate them on listening to arguments about how we treat the vast resources that come in through TV deals and distribute them throughout the football pyramid, particularly in giving the regulator powers over parachute payments, if he deems it necessary—I sincerely hope he will—if we do not get an agreement between the English Football League and the Premier League. Those payments really distort competition, particularly in the championship. That needed to be addressed in this Bill, and I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Minister on doing that. I support the new clause and amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). They deal with how we identify the people who really began this journey: the sports fans. This started with the super league and the fans’ reaction to it. They are determined to stop clubs from breaking away from the premier league and forming a super league with other clubs from across the globe. The reaction of fans shocked the Conservative Government at the time into action; they could not really resist. The power of fans has brought us to this point. We need to understand how we can identify fans—bona fide supporters of a club—and consult them on how we regulate the game going forwards. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East is attempting to do that through some of his amendments. My hon. Friend has identified another very important factor, which is how we prevent assets being attractive to those people who look to take over a club, not because they are interested in football in any way but because they see assets of value from which they can make money. By running clubs into the ground, they seek to make a profit from those assets. Through the “asset of community value” powers or something similar, my hon. Friend is trying to prevent that from happening. If his amendments are not accepted or voted on tonight, I would certainly commend them to the regulator, who I hope will take heed of what my hon. Friend is attempting to achieve. One other amendment I added my name to is new clause 1, because I think the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), is on to something. Why do we treat other sports differently from football—why is football singled out? Well, I think we know the story of that, but it has been a long time since the issue of alcohol at football grounds has been looked at. There is nothing unreasonable about asking clubs and the football community to look at whether we can relax those rules in certain circumstances, so that where clubs want to do it, they can do it, and should do so in partnership with their fans. A review of that issue would not be a bad thing at all. This Bill is a giant leap forward for football in this country. I commend my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench for what they have achieved, and I wish the Bill a fair wind.