Lord Moynihan (Con)

My point was that that is not the case. I do not want to go back into our debate on the first group, but the financial stability in the English system is no different. It is very similar to the financial stability in both the French and German systems. The levels of insolvency are, broadly speaking, the same. It is therefore not the level of regulation that is creating financial stability. If it was, the argument that we needed more regulation to create financial stability would hold water, but in practice it does not. My point on this set of amendments is simply that if we all agree on this legislation and the role of the regulator, which is not comprehensively defined in the Bill, despite its length—the Minister has said, rightly, that we do not know the details of how the regulator will use its powers in any given situation—the one thing we can be sure about is that we do not want that regulator ever to use its powers in contravention of the UEFA and FIFA guidelines, by which we would have admission to play in European competitions and the World Cup. Should that be the case, there should be no difficulty in placing in the Bill that the whole operation of the regulator should be “within the rules laid down by FIFA, UEFA and the International Olympic Committee, relating to the autonomy of sport from government influence and control”. I added the International Olympic Committee because the same principles of autonomy apply, albeit that the British Olympic Association does not enter a men’s football team at present. It certainly enters a women’s football team and would wish to continue to do so. The Bill would enable, by secondary legislation if necessary, the Government to include the women’s game within the scope of this Act, as it would then be. I am thus also looking to have protection of “the autonomy of sport from government influence and control” in the Bill for the International Olympic Committee. For those reasons, I put these two amendments before the House. I beg to move Amendment 5.