Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)

I will speak to my amendments in this group, and I want to extend the point that the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, has just made, as it is a very important one. I appreciate this may have been a painful experience for the Minister, the Bill team and others. We have spent our first two days in Committee looking at Clause 1 and the definitions of “the sustainability of English football”. However, as the noble Lord said, the lack of precision in the Bill in that regard is what has elongated our debates over the last two days in Committee and so concerned the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House. It bears repetition to draw the Committee’s attention to paragraph 3 of the committee’s report, published on 22 November: “The fundamental purpose of the Bill is to ‘protect and promote the sustainability of English football’. One must go through a series of definitions only to find that the Bill does not, after all, provide the definition of English football. Ultimately, the meaning of ‘English football’ depends on regulations to be made in due course by the Secretary of State”. That is why we have had some rather tortuous debates on the opening clauses of the Bill, and why we are concerned to ensure that this Committee brings the focus we need to the deliberations on this important Bill.