Baroness Brady (Con)

My Lords, I rise to speak to a number of amendments in my name in this group, but first I lend my support to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Parkinson, which would allow the parties to contract for longer than a five-year period. I remain surprised that the Government believe that two consenting parties should be actively disincentivised from ever contracting for the long term by the automatic availability of a dispute mechanism. This cannot be about fairness, transparency or sustainability; it is about turning the backstop into a ratchet, ensuring that no long-term agreement between the Premier League and the EFL, no matter how mutually beneficial, can ever provide genuine stability or be truly relied on. The EFL, in its briefing for today, says that it would oppose these amendments because they would “incentivise a larger league to try to coerce a smaller league into a longer agreement that suits its strategic objective over those of the other league, using its financial muscle”. In one sense, that is right. Basic commercial logic means that the Premier League would be prepared to pay more, to be more ambitious, to do things like selling the EFL’s international rights, which it has asked us to do, and to offer a fixed percentage of pooled revenues, which is the EFL’s big idea, if it enabled long-term certainty. The same basic logic suggests that shorter-term deals will therefore be less ambitious, result in less of a partnership, deliver less regulatory certainty, offer less in subsidy and therefore be less beneficial to both sides. Let us be in no doubt as to the EFL’s positioning. The Government’s support for its agenda is delivering for the EFL clubs in communities and constituencies across the country. My Amendment 73 introduces what I would call a new “funder assurance principle” into the backstop process. Unless there were compelling reasons not to, this principle would require the regulator to select the Premier League’s proposal if—and only if—that proposal fully meets the IFR’s objectives. This is not about giving the Premier League what it wants; in this scenario, the league would be giving away billions of pounds of revenue in a forced redistribution process. No one could describe that as a win for the Premier League. This principle creates powerful incentives for the league to continue to step up to the plate, but it does so while offering some security and certainty, reducing the intolerable risk of a disruptive, damaging and extreme proposal being selected. That is what is so difficult—legally, financially and political—about the crude and binary backstop process. My Amendment 74, which could be seen as an alternative position, would place property rights at the heart of the decision criteria. It would simply require the regulator to recognise, and have particular regard to, the fact that mandating the distribution of revenue constitutes an interference with property rights. This is not a controversial principle; it is the cornerstone of our legal system. It is, in fact, language taken directly from the Secretary of State’s ECHR memorandum to the Bill. I hope that, given how extraordinary this backstop process is, the Minister will not object to putting the most ordinary of safeguards as a statement of existing law into the Bill. It is surely important for the IFR to be reminded of the public law principles that it must have in mind when taking property from one party and transferring it to another.