Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Mann, is one of those that reflects real life. Anybody who has set up any club of any structure at any point knows that, if you are working between two bodies—I have seen it very much at junior level between rugby and cricket clubs—their interests seem suddenly to contradict each other under a new set of circumstances. I hope that the Minister will have a reassuring answer about the flexibility and ability of the regulator to intervene and try to find a way forward, because this is a real problem that will occur every now and again. It is probably not a structural thing, but “Is the flexibility there?” is a genuine question. I do not think any of us wants one of our regulators to suddenly start having a negative effect. My Amendment 70 in this group basically says that support should be available for the women’s game. We have already covered this issue at some length, so I will not go much further than to say that we should not exclude giving the women’s game some help, because it is developing and going forward, and it is very important to the foreseeable future of developing elite-level sport in this country. We should address that by having another look and asking what the capacity is. I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, is ready to speak to her amendment. Can we find out what flexibility there is and what the regulator is seen to be doing to handle these not quite down-the-line situations, where there are positive outcomes that we hope would be facilitated by it?