Lord Birt (CB)

My Lords, Amendments 21 and 22 are in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Pannick, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. I strongly support the notion of a “state of the game” report, above all to encourage an evidenced and sophisticated dialogue between the leagues about fund flow, either in direct negotiation or as part of the mediation process if the backstop is triggered. But I will make three points. First, the Bill currently states that the report should include “information about any other matters relating to the state of English football”. One highly critical matter, which has come up more than once today, is the global position of the English game. The Premier League, as was said a moment ago, is the most successful sporting league of any kind in the whole world, its global broadcasting revenues now surpassing those raised domestically. We propose that the “state of the game” report should capture the position of the Premier League in relation to other major European leagues—the purpose of our Amendment 21. Secondly, producing the first draft of the “state of the game” report should not take, as the Bill suggests, up to 18 months. Football is an incredibly data-rich activity, as I have learned over these last few months, with enormous pools of relevant publicly available information at home and abroad. Six months to produce the report should be quite sufficient. Thirdly, the noble Lords, Lord Burns and Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and I will argue next Monday that a well-evidenced “state of the game” report should be the first step in a redesigned backstop process. But there is a problem. The Bill indicates that, after the first “state of the game” report is complete, future reports will be produced on a five-year cycle. We cannot be certain at what point in the five-year cycle the backstop might be triggered—this is all quite technical. Hence, our Amendment 22 suggests that, if the backstop is triggered and more than two years have passed since the last report, the “state of the game” report should be refreshed and updated before the backstop mediation process begins. I do not plan to test the opinion of the House, but we tabled these amendments in the hope that the Government will continue to refine the Bill, as they have been doing, as they take their next steps. We hope they will consider these points. I beg to move.