Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mann, makes a very good case and I hope that what I say is interpreted as supportive of it. My support for Brighton and Hove Albion is well known, and I declare it as a relevant interest in this debate. In fact, I have often thought that I should see if it is possible to change my title to Lord Bassam of Brighton and Hove Albion—I think it would be a novel thing to do. However, there is a serious point behind all this. It is a delight that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, is replying to this short debate, because I know from our many conversations that she loves football like I do and is a big Stevenage FC fan. She understands the economic benefits that football clubs bring to an area. The noble Lord, Lord Mann, asks about recognising the economic benefits of sports clubs and linking them to enterprise zones. These, as we know, confer several advantages to the businesses which choose to operate within them, as do freeports and investment zones. Most of the advantages are related to tax and business costs, and it is possible to get 100% business rate relief. Other tax reliefs and easier and simplified planning permissions make a very strong case. Major beneficiaries of enterprise zones are usually SMEs, which make up some 99% of businesses generally and some 60% of the private sector workforce. There is some debate about the relative merits of enterprise zones, with some observers believing that the estimated number of jobs created by them is lower than was originally anticipated. However, in 2025 the Government claimed freeports and investment zones had attracted over £64 billion in private investment; in 2024 it was thought that some 100,000 jobs had come directly and indirectly from freeports and investment and enterprise zones. We know that Sport England believes that the combined social and economic benefits of sport and physical activity in England is valued somewhere in the region of £125 billion, and DCMS in 2024 also reported that sport contributed £20.6 billion to the economy and 0.8% of GVA. Taking the Premier League as a case study, it believes that the combined value of the clubs operating in that league was worth nearly £9 billion in 2023-24 and contributed over 100,000 jobs and £4.4 billion in tax benefits. The Government acknowledge this and have stated that they also deliver indirect economic benefits to the local communities that the clubs serve, attracting visitors and bringing increased footfall to the hospitality, retail and transport sectors. There are downsides, particularly if you are a football fan and have to suffer the benefits of losing and winning—mostly winning in my case, but there we are. The Brighton and Hove Albion case is an interesting one. Had the club lost its league status in the 1990s, the impact on the city would have been, in my view, catastrophic. As it was, we were able to rescue the club with the local authority, and I was happy to play a part in bringing the club back to Brighton from Gillingham and ultimately helping it secure its new home of Falmer. Rightly, the club has undertaken over the years economic impact studies on its impact on the city’s economy. After its first year in the Premier League, it was calculated to have brought an additional £20 million to the local economy and to have created 1,000 jobs directly and indirectly. That was back in 2018, and I have little doubt that if the study was repeated now, those figures would be bigger, not least because the club itself has invested heavily in training facilities, merchandising and hospitality. Now the figure would probably be closer to £500 million a year. When the club brings back the women’s team from Crawley to our new stadium, which is going to be designed with women in mind and for women alone, I think those figures will grow again. I am very much in favour of creating centres of sporting excellence and, so far, the city of Brighton and Hove has argued that there is potential to add that second women’s stadium adjacent to the Amex and alongside the successful Brighton Aldridge Cricket Academy on the other side of the stadium to the west. There is an opportunity in my city to create a sports zone along with the Falmer academic corridor. We already have a major sports centre there and the sort of benefits that the noble Lord, Lord Mann, talked about of bringing sports science and physical sciences in alongside of that would be tremendous. It begs the question: would they or could they benefit from being designated as an enterprise or investment zone? Clearly, they could, particularly if the planning process was speeded up—and no doubt, being the good entrepreneur he is, Tony Bloom would very much welcome a reduction in his business rates. I think that football clubs outside the Premier League and the Championship that are essentially SMEs, alongside rugby, rugby league and professional cricket clubs, and perhaps some of the other track and field sports discipline stadia would get considerable benefit too. I am tempted by the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and I can see a particular benefit to football clubs and other sporting institutions where the economic margins can be tighter. It would work well, particularly for those clubs in the leagues below the Championship and those in non-league football—the National League North, the National League South and so on. This idea is well worth exploring. The benefits that it would bring to many of our harder-pressed communities would be well worth having and could unlock substantial extra investment. As the noble Lord, Lord Mann, says, there are plenty of entrepreneurs and investors seeking now to invest in the lower league clubs, Wrexham being a particularly good example. That regenerative effect has a multiplier that benefits communities much more widely.