Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)

My Lords, I want to pick up one particular word that my noble friend Lady Brady raised: divisive. There is no doubt that this Bill has turned what was intended to be a backstop—a last resort or nuclear option, however it was described—into something that can be used pre-emptively. Some of the amendments proposed tonight—which would make it more aggressive and interventionist, and more able to be used pre-emptively—have behind them the sense that this is bound to be aggressive, antagonistic and adversarial. I want to contest that. The truth is that, wherever a club is in the pyramid of English football, it has an interest in the whole pyramid being strong. There is no benefit to the Premier League in keeping lots more money to itself and weakening the rest of the pyramid, because it depends on the pyramid; its strength is drawn from all the way through the pyramid. It is really important that we try to take ourselves away from the sense that there is a finite pie of limited size and so we should work out how to enable different parts of it to get more for themselves. English football—the whole pyramid—has seen tremendous growth. It had the huge challenges of the pandemic, but it survived and came out strong. As we have repeatedly said, the Premier League is not just the most successful football league in the world but the most successful sporting league in the world. The Championship is the sixth most successful and richest league in Europe. It is strong and it will grow more, but it will not do so if the whole mindset behind how this is constructed just puts one set of interests against another. The aim should be to ask how we grow the pyramid further and encourage the different parts of it to work together and see the mutual benefit, to make two plus two add up to five, rather than—as I fear the danger is in how this is constructed—add up to three. I urge the Government to take this away and look again at how it is constructed.