Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Con)

My Lords this series of amendments raises an issue that will come back again and again during Committee, which is a clash of priorities. I will introduce it by again reading out a section from Tracey Crouch’s original report, in which she refers to “the fragility of the wider foundations of the game. It is both true that our game is genuinely world leading and that there is a real risk of widespread failures and a potential collapse of the pyramid as we know it”. In other words, we are being told, on the one hand, that football is so financially troubled that we need a state regulator to guide it and, on the other hand—in this series of amendments and others to come—that we must load the regulator with additional responsibilities. As my noble friend Lady Brady said, these amendments relate to climate change, but we will have more on fan safety, the regulation of women’s football, the expansion of the regulator to other leagues and others on environmental sustainability. On and on they will come. There is a fundamental tension between loading the regulator with these responsibilities and the state of football as the Crouch report described it and as the Bill attempts to address. There may be other ways of meeting these environmental objectives. I will avoid being drawn into the adverse exchanges between my noble friends Lord Deben and Lord Moynihan of Chelsea. There may be other ways in which clubs that lead on environmental action can help clubs that do not. As matters stand, the regulator, were these amendments to come into force, would be imposing on clubs that have, for better or worse, not thought about these matters at all, requirements that would affect how fans come to the games, how they treat their pitches and how they deal with litter—all matters for which they are completely unprepared. If the Government are correct in stressing—as they have done throughout in talking to Peers; the Minister has been generous in doing this before and during the Bill—that they do not want the regulator to have a heavy touch, I look forward to the Minister explaining the other ways there might be to encourage clubs to take responsible environmental action besides accepting these amendments to the Bill, which might have effects we do not expect or want on clubs that are in financial difficulties—the very basis, after all, on which the Bill has been brought forward.