Lord Moynihan (Con)

I thank the Minister for that. I think it is self-evident from her comments that once you remove the foreign and trade policy objective and put in place the significant influence test, you have a massive problem in the Bill. That massive problem is that it is self-evident, as has been discussed many times during the proceedings, that the Crown Prince—as chair of and in control of the PIF, with significant influence over it—would automatically come within the scope of significant influence as defined so far in debate on a number of occasions. I have no problem with that, and I do not think that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has any problem with that. If that is the case, so be it, and let us be honest about it. If it is not the case, “significant influence” is meaningless, and we should come back to it on Report and simply delete “significant influence”, which, incidentally, goes far further than any other regulator in Europe. We have control tests that are applied by UEFA, by the Premier League and across football. We do not have this significant influence test, and that is what is causing the problem. You remove the foreign and trade policy objectives and apply a significant influence test. The Minister was very clear in response to me on Monday that the Crown Prince would be absolutely full and central in any clear interpretation of that test. For the first time, she has put the definition of significant influence into the long grass as she said that it would come back in secondary legislation, that the Government do not actually know what it means and that she cannot give an answer to that in Committee or when we return on Report. But it is critical, because it comes to the very hub of political influence: what is the status of the Crown Prince? What is the status of Abu Dhabi? What would be the status of the Qataris if they wanted to buy a club in the Premier League, or indeed in any other league? My recommendation is that, given the uncertainty in the response that the Minister has just given and the absolute clarity on Monday evening and earlier this afternoon on the yes/no answer, we leave it for the time being and return on Report and analyse this in depth.