Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)

My Lords, I rise to oppose the question that Clause 15 stand part of the Bill—and, indeed, Clauses 15 to 25. I do that not because I disagree wholeheartedly with this huge swathe of the Bill but because it provides opportunity to ask some questions about the nature of the licensing regime, which these clauses relate to. I hope that the Minister will be able to answer those questions and assuage some of the concerns that lie behind them. I want particularly to discuss how the Government plan to deal with the possibility of clubs seeking to leave the licensing regime en masse. What would be their response if football clubs simply wished to be unlicensed? If several clubs opted out of the regime and established a rival competition, how would that work in practice? We have touched on this a little but not in great depth and, when we have, the Minister has said that the Government’s solution and the design of the Bill for clubs that attempt to skirt around the legislation and operate in an unregulated competition would simply be to use the delegated powers in Clause 2(3) to make such a competition a specified and regulated one. There would be a sort of game of cat and mouse if that scenario played out. The Minister has argued that allowing this to happen in delegated powers allows for greater agility, but it is worth pondering just how much agility it really can deliver. A statutory instrument made under Clause 2(3) is subject to the affirmative procedure as per Clause 91. It therefore must be laid before both Houses of Parliament and approved by a resolution of both Houses. There is therefore a limit on how swiftly the Government would be able to make such regulations and have them approved by Parliament. It is worth also drawing attention to how this new licensing regime will interact with the existing licensing requirements from league organisers and UEFA. How do the Government envisage the regulator working with those bodies, which already license clubs, to prevent duplication of regulations and unnecessary further burdens? Amendment 173 in this group, which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Markham, would remove the power of the Secretary of State to amend discretionary licence conditions by statutory instrument. This provision of the Bill is yet another example of where we do not have sufficient clarity or certainty for clubs and of the open-ended powers for the Secretary of State. Once again, we see a scenario in which the clubs will have to abide by rules but without the requisite certainty to enable them to plan effectively for the future. Today, we are debating the discretionary licence conditions in the Bill, but allowing the Secretary of State to amend the conditions specified in the Bill on a whim, if he or she wishes, surely defeats the purpose of putting them in the Bill in the first place.