Contribution
My Lords, my name is to amendments in this group which will undoubtedly be accused of a bit of creep from the mission on the Bill. Having said that, what inspired this creep was Clause 1(3)(b), which says that football is sustainable if it
“continues to contribute to the economic or social well-being of the local communities with which regulated clubs are associated”.
There are two issues. The most substantive amendment is Amendment 245 and I apologise for the paving amendment, but it is the way I could get the matter discussed.
Nothing has the reach of football in our society. It is seen as a local totem in which we seem universally to be interested—I speak as a follower of an oval-shaped ball, not a round one, so with a bit of envy—so there is the ability to go forward and make changes. We might hear about the good contributions made by certain clubs. They do things within their own environments that are of benefit to their communities. I thought, “Why don’t we use football as a basis for helping the rest of the voluntary sector?” The voluntary sector tends to be dependent on itself: amateur sport, music and drama and the likes of environmental schemes where people put their hands in their pockets to go out to do things that have a social benefit.
Let us face it: we are taking on a Bill here because football, at least tiers of football, are in a mess, but we think they are important so we want to keep them. I do not think it unreasonable that they should help voluntary groups. In Amendment 245 I suggest that these clubs, which are great institutions with local kudos and power and structure, should undertake the very small duty to train people to run those local groups. Okay, it may not be about football, but it is about the local community. I suggest not that the clubs do it for those groups, but that they train them in how to do it themselves and be the treasurer, secretary or chairman. Noble Lords might disagree with that list, but these things contribute to the whole of society. It will also enhance the position of the football club. Unless it is done in a mean-spirited way, it will be something that reaches out.
Also, it is a fact that all groups like to sit in darkened rooms and talk about themselves to themselves. My amendment would force clubs to look out of that room to somebody else and appreciate that other people will help them. When I said that to the Minister in one of our meetings, she said that football manages to sit in a darkened room and does not talk to most other groups, but we will let that one fall. We can get something that helps groups that help society to run. The difficult bit for an amateur as the treasurer is to be constructive with a balance sheet, or as the secretary to figure out how to run a DBS check: “What am I legally supposed to do with it?” People will say that other groups do this, but nothing has the centralised pull of football. My amendment is a probe. Its wording is very general. This expertise might be pulled together. Sports have governing bodies that will run this, but most other organisations do not have that structure. I just cannot resist the image of the local am-dram group finding itself sitting beside the local rugby union team for the same class. It appeals to me somehow, but they all have the same problems, and they all have the same virtue that they are local, running it for themselves, and they benefit the community. I hope that we have at least some support for this idea and this structure.
The other amendment is about encouraging professional football clubs to get people to play football. It is an odd thing, but it struck me earlier: that is not really what the Bill is about. Perhaps the Government do not want it to be about that, but I would have thought that getting people to play football—getting the benefits of exercising as opposed to just watching—might sit reasonably well with the Bill. Certain clubs might have schemes that do good things, but why do we not bring them together and find out which ones work best? Football does some of this, because it has competitions and gives awards for who runs the best community scheme. I know because I have attended them, and I thank the EFL for doing that. I do not think that making sure that clubs take on some role in the community is unreasonable, as a reward for the amount of time we are putting into make sure this structure is sustainable. There are certain limitations here, and I have accepted that those should be put forward if these ideas are accepted, but we may just be pointing to good practice. I hope we will do this.