Lord Hayward (Con)

My Lords, Amendment 51 stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Maude of Horsham. He has asked me to move it because he is, unfortunately, unavailable on this occasion. Perhaps I might observe that, out of the 300-plus amendments, some 120-plus of them come from the Government’s own Back Benches. This amendment deals with an area which I have touched on on a number of occasions during debate on the Bill’s clauses and subsections: the financial impact that it will have on the different leagues. They are not named in the Bill, but we all know which ones we are talking about. I am particularly interested to be talking to Amendment 51 on the basis of the Prime Minister’s own Damascene conversion—if I can refer to Syria as being the place in the public eye at the moment—to avoiding, where possible, impositions on the private sector by regulation. He commented on that in his speech last Thursday. It would appear that he is now of the view that regulation should be kept to a minimum, or that the Civil Service—I specifically exclude the civil servants advising the Minister, who have been very helpful throughout—is providing a “tepid bath” of steady decline. I think those were the Prime Minister’s words. Other Ministers have then been sent out to clarify on the matter, one of whom today described it as an attempt to take the approach of a start-up. Well, my noble friend Lord Markham has identified how to aim to start up and the funding needed when one actually takes that approach, which may not be conducive to the overall approach outlined in the Bill for football regulation.