Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, the “state of the game” report is one of those things that has been almost universally welcomed. It will look at this very big and complex industry, with a very successful top and struggling foundations—that is how the industry appears to many people. My name appears on this amendment alongside that of the noble Baroness because of things such as social impact. We are doing this because it is reckoned to be an important subject that matters a lot to people, and we keep being told that it is a big business—the biggest invisible earner going. If we get a report that is too narrow, we will not be looking at this huge social impact and what goes on. Many of the things that we are talking about here are out of scope of the main operation of the Bill, but they should be looked at somewhere. The women’s game is one that comes to mind, along with players, which these amendments propose would feature here. If we are not going to look at such things in the Bill, we should look at them in the “state of the game” report. It is a huge subject that we are talking about here; we have taken on something that is quite brave. If we do not find out how it is functioning and what is going on, we will be missing a trick. I would hope that we would do this as soon as we can—having slightly more frequent reports, at least at the beginning, would not be a bad idea. The “state of the game” report is a huge opportunity for gathering a great deal of very useful information.