Contribution
I hope that this proves to be a quicker debate, because I would hope that what we are talking about here are not controversial measures but measures that go to the heart of the regulatory framework we are trying to establish. It is a shame that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is not in his place. Although we are supportive of the principles of regulation, as my noble friend Lord Hayward said, we are trying to make sure that that regulation is set up in the right way.
Our debates in Committee stage so far have all been about the first few pages of the Bill, which are about the regulatory framework and objectives; the point of my Amendment 56 is that if you only have an objective of sustainability, it is one-dimensional and that is not good for the game. I will freely admit that I have spoken to a Premier League club which wrote to me about that—Brentford—and I hope that noble Lords would agree that Brentford is exactly the sort of club we should listen to in this sort of debate, because it is a club that has come through the divisions and is seen as a well-run model club—and one definitely not guaranteed its place in the Premier League. So it has an important contribution to make to this debate.
The letter that Brentford wrote to me and to local MPs says: “a regulatory framework that prioritises stability above all else would be disproportionate. It could mean the regulator financially constraining some Premier League clubs more than others. For Brentford, a club that has risen against the odds to the Premier League, such restrictions risk stifling our ability to grow and compete with larger, established clubs”. That is why I tabled this amendment, to expand the regulator objectives. Otherwise, there is the danger exactly as written in the letter, which I am happy to share with all Members here and which has also been sent to local MPs.
The exact concern of Brentford’s chairman is that, if the regulatory framework is just based on financial sustainability, it risks entrenching the closed-shop nature of the top clubs and will restrict the ability of the Brentfords of the world to compete. From its point of view, having an objective that promotes the growth of all English football, protects financial investment in the game and means that you know you can reap the rewards from investing in a club is very important. Amendment 56 seeks to add this, and is, I hope, uncontroversial, because who would not want to promote growth? We know that that is the Government’s number one objective, and it is fundamental to the Bank of England’s remit and a lot of other regulators also have growth objectives.
In the new clause proposed in my Amendment 58, subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b) refer to the “financial soundness” and “resilience” of clubs and aim to ensure that the regulator takes into account the whole financial picture of clubs, looking at their assets and liabilities—their whole balance sheet—and their ability to meet any future liabilities. In other words, we want a holistic picture of their sustainability. Funnily enough, that is akin to what the Chancellor announced in the Budget about government spending and so-called “persnuffle”—or PSNFL—which looks at assets and liabilities to make sure you have a rounded picture of the health of the Government’s, or the country’s, finances. Amendment 58 tries to encourage a similar approach to looking at the overall wealth of a club and its overall balance sheet strengths.
Proposed new subsection (1)(c) looks to make sure that the heritage of English football, which we all agree is vital to all this, is rounded out in its definition, while proposed new subsection (1)(d) looks at all the things that are key to the health of the overall game. It would make sure that the regulator, when it looks at how it acts in this space, looks at the overall health of the game—the growth of football in terms of TV viewership, matchday audience, fan engagement, number of clubs and number of fans. I shall not repeat the arguments that we made earlier, but noble Lords will be aware that these are the key things—that media rights go to the heart of the value and TV stations around the world pay to back those media rights, for the health of those sorts of objectives that we would like to see it have.
That is why, in introducing this amendment, I am trying to make sure that we have a much more rounded definition, going to the heart of the framework of what we hope the regulator would look to do and have in place. I hope that noble Lords will be able to support what I hope is a very sensible objective and will take on board the concerns of the Brentford chair—if it was only one-dimensional and looking at financial sustainability alone. I hope that the Minister will be able to take those points away for further consideration. I beg to move.