Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)

My Lords, our Benches at the back here have three amendments in this group. They cover modern slavery, human rights and slave ownership. The purpose behind the amendments is to flesh out from my noble friend the Minister how the independent football regulator may approach some of these issues. As we have heard on a number of occasions during debates on the Bill, football clubs are more than just businesses. They are community institutions; they have values, and they have provided some of the best examples of taking on social issues over the last few decades. We are trying to establish whether there should be a test that mandates having robust human rights due diligence and the ways in which owners can be held to account and prevent harm. State ownership and those two issues are inevitably bound up. We will recall from the ownership debates that circulated around Newcastle United when it was taken over some years ago the considerable concern expressed. In updating the individual ownership fitness criteria to include reference to human rights and modern slavery, we have taken account of Amnesty International’s proposed amendments to the previous Premier League test. The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which the UK was the first country in the world officially to implement through a national action plan, requires all states and businesses to prevent, address and remedy human rights abuses where they occur. It is our contention in putting these amendments forward that we need to have a view on state ownership but also on the role that the IFR may play in trying to establish thresholds and principles around such issues as modern slavery and human rights, because these things are important. They are important to football fans; they are important to the moral and guiding principles behind our businesses, and, more generally, we should use the opportunity of having a regulator for football that has a view on these issues when it comes to judging the merits—or otherwise—of those who seek to own important institutions such as football clubs. I beg to move.