Lord Markham (Con)

I shall speak to Amendments 125, 133 and 135. Hopefully, this will be a fairly uncontroversial, simple set of amendments, which try and set out clear expectations on timing. I am very aware that, while there is uncertainty as to what the discretionary licensing regime may be, that has an unsettling effect on both clubs and potential investors into the sector. We would all agree that this is not something that we want. We want everyone to know what the rules of the game are, so they can either get on with doing whatever they need to do to apply to those licensing conditions and/or, if they are looking to invest in the game, so they can have that degree of certainty as to what the rules of the game are going to be, so as not to have that potential chilling effect on any new investment. Amendment 125 tries to give the regulator a time limit of one month from the passage of the Act. I am very aware that there is a shadow regulator in place at the moment, so I hope that this is something that the shadow regulator is working on in the meantime. That is why I think that a one-month deadline is quite doable in that sense. Related to that is Amendment 135, which says that once a club has put a discretionary licence application in, it will receive a reply from the regulator within one month. Again, I am very much assuming that these things are not a binary process. I would expect the club to be in liaison with the regulator as it put this application in and be receiving advice as it did so—so a one-month timeline at the end of that is quite relevant. It is for us to set some expectations on the regulator in the Bill. In Clause 17(9), the regulator gets to set its own timing for it all, so it is quite appropriate that we are saying that, given the uncertainties placed on clubs, we expect these sorts of reasonable timeframes. Again, I am quite happy that we decide what those appropriate timeframes might be through our discussions on this, and there may be arguments to vary that slightly—but one way or the other, it is quite important that we set out what those timings and expectations should be. Finally, Amendment 133 tries to give more time for how long provisional licences last. We want to try and avoid a cliff-edge situation whereby clubs are suddenly in the provisional licensing regime and then do not get beyond that. We would all then have a set of circumstances which I do not think any of us have really planned for, in terms of what would happen and whether the club would have to stop taking part in the competition at that point. Amendment 133 tries to give a bit more time around the provisional licence, increasing it from three years to four. The main reason for these amendments is to make sure that these things are considered and that there is a good debate on what the appropriate timeframes are. It is reasonable that we put down what those timeframes should be, so clubs get as much certainty as possible in this. I beg to move.