Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)

My Lords, I am very grateful to all those who have spoken in this appropriately sober debate, especially to my noble—and non-footballing—friend Lord Norton for coming in and sharing his expertise with us. I suppose it is scarcely surprising that those noble Lords who are sceptical of state regulation favour the sunset clause, and those who are supportive of it are not. The Minister did not fully answer the argument I put to her. I find it hard to see why a panel appointed by her, which could be trusted to be fair-minded rather than biased one way or the other, would deliberately frustrate the regulator if that panel of experts thought the regulator was right. But these are matters to which we may be able to return on Report. In the interim, I will simply make two points. First, it is very encouraging to see that there is agreement throughout the Committee that there needs to be more effective post-legislative scrutiny. This point was made briefly but very forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. My challenge to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, is this: if noble Lords do not like the sunset clause as a means of post-legislative scrutiny, let us come up with something else specific, rather than simply issue the general wish that things can somehow be made better. Finally, a noble Lord said, “Fans want this”. Once again, I say that something like 33 million people watch football. Some of them will be unaware that this is coming down the tracks. I predict that many fans will find themselves in the position of the noble Lord, Lord Birt. I suspect that he has sat through more of this Committee than I have—and I have sat through a great deal of it—very quietly assessing what is going on. He is pro the principle of independent regulation, as licensed by the state, whereas I and many of my noble friends are either sceptical or opposed. But he has recognised, as we have dug more deeply into the weeds of this matter, that it is problematic. I am sure we will return to these problems on Report. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.