Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mann. He is a man of great good sense and pragmatism. In fact, I could have agreed with most of what he said but, unfortunately, on this occasion I will not agree with his amendment. First of all, I will go back to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, which I agree with. It is very sensible, and the Minister would be wise to accept it. But his preamble was simply wrong. It presupposes that external forces are exerting inappropriate pressure on this side to make cases in their favour, which is completely untrue. I say that because we on this side are merely going through the proper process of scrutiny and oversight, which is our job, to test the efficacy or otherwise of the Bill. Remember: we had a general election, and we have a new Administration, a new Bill and a new Opposition. Therefore, we are quite within our rights to challenge the Bill on its face. I pray in aid figures from the past few years about the number of Committee days given over to various Bills in this House. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 had 17 sitting days. We have six. The Children and Families Act 2014 had 12 sitting days, and the Localism Act 2011 had 10. There are a number of examples. Much as I hugely respect the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, I respectfully disagree with him. I move on to the specific issues of, particularly, Amendment 156 from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and Amendment 249 from the noble Lord, Lord Mann. These are two quite insidious amendments; I find them quite Orwellian, actually. It is not that we do not trust local football clubs to do the right thing in terms of community outreach, working with their community and improving equality and diversity, but noble Lords are being asked to put those powers into a regulator that will develop a national template. Whether, therefore, you are Bristol Rovers, Brentford, Brighton and Hove Albion or Bradford City—to use some alliteration—you will be told what you have to put in place in terms of your EDI policies, which I do not think is right. It nationalises corporate philanthropy and community outreach. It is also a displacement activity, because it presupposes that that work is not already being done.