Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay:

Moved by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay

8: Clause 1, page 2, line 2, after the first “of” insert “current and prospective”

My Lords, in moving the amendment, I shall speak also to my Amendment 9. Amendment 26 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, also touches on many of the issues that concern me and motivated me in bringing my amendments; I look forward to hearing him set out the case for it later in the debate.

My amendments in this group probe the Government’s definition of a football fan. In any other context, the exact definition would perhaps be academic, but fans have had an important role in the process that has led to this Bill. As the Minister and many others have said, the Bill seeks to put fans’ interests at the heart of this legislation. It was, after all, the fan-led review chaired—refereed, if you like—by my former honourable friend Dame Tracey Crouch which led to the Bill in its former iteration under the previous Government and which continues to inform the work that the new Government have taken forward in the Bill that they have brought before your Lordships. It was the fans’ voices in that process that were so important, and which began the path to where we now find ourselves.

We on these Benches agree with the Government that fans must be consulted and that they will have an important and ongoing role to play not just in the future of English football but in the operation of this new regulatory regime, but we cannot empower fans, or listen to their views, if we cannot say who they are. Through Amendment 8, I put it to the Government that both clubs and the new independent football regulator should seek to serve the interests of both “current and prospective” football fans. This expands the point that we have made about growth and making sure that the Bill is not simply seeking to preserve football in aspic.

In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in November 1790, Edmund Burke wrote:

“Society is indeed a contract … it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born”.

That may be a high-falutin’ way of putting it, but it is the principle that underlies my Amendment 8. Football must not be governed as a game merely for the fans of today, nor should it simply seek to preserve the game in a form that fans of the past have enjoyed; it must also continue to be a game for the future. That is surely what the Government mean by the sustainability of football which, as the noble Baroness said in the debate on the previous group, is the key concern of this Bill.

We on these Benches feel that prospective fans—whether they be literally unborn, as Burke would point out, or those who are not yet alive to the joys of the game—should always have their interests served by clubs and the new regulator as well. Only if we are seeking to serve the interests of prospective fans as well as existing ones will we truly secure a sustainable future for English football.

My Amendment 9 similarly seeks to expand the definition of the communities whose interests are served by the Bill. The purpose clause in the Bill seeks to serve only “local communities” with which regulated clubs are associated. I was keen that the Committee should probe the inclusion of that word, “local”. We had the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester with us for earlier deliberations in this Committee. I am taken to understand that not everybody who is a fan of Manchester United or Manchester City lives in the city of Manchester. If a large group of people from London or another part of the country were to follow Manchester United or Manchester City during a period of success for one of those clubs, would it be right for those clubs or the new regulator merely to serve the interests of local communities in Manchester, or should they consider the interests of fans who follow those teams and who have a stake in them no matter where in the country they are based?

One reason why I have been interested in this Bill is the European Super League proposals that previously happened—the possibility of clubs’ owners deciding that they are going to play two or three games in the United States or two or three games in the Middle East. By defining “local”, are we not ensuring that there is some protection against the aspiration that some owners may have to meet the needs of fans who might be numerous in the Middle East or the United States, but we want regulated clubs to be looked after here in Britain?

That is the question I am trying to probe with this amendment. Are the interests of fans of, say, Manchester United or Manchester City really served only if, as the Bill currently defines it, English football is contributing to the economic or social well-being of the “local communities” with which regulated clubs are associated? Surely Manchester United is associated also with Weymouth, for instance, or other parts of the country where people might choose to be a fan of that club, even if they have never lived in Manchester.

As I set out at Second Reading, I am not the world’s biggest football afficionado, but I know that people do not have to be born in a specific town or city to feel an affinity to, pride in or excitement from certain regulated clubs. I am interested in whether the sustainability of those clubs should also serve people in Weymouth and people across the country. The noble Lord makes an important point about the growing tension with growing the international following of football, but, as we have heard in previous debates, that, too, is a good thing. It is an important part of the soft power of the United Kingdom. It brings inward investment and greater glory to the UK. That is a separate point from the amendments, which look at the work of the sustainability—

I interrupt to comment on the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Knight. It is quite extraordinary. Are we little Englanders who think that our only role is in this country? There is a vast amount of soft power created by what is probably the UK’s most successful industry, so it is really odd that the noble Lord claimed that there are major problems with it. If there are major problems with our most successful industry, we are in trouble.

To make another point, a few weeks ago, two of the top American football teams came to play at Wembley. It was enormously popular: people from all over the UK flooded in to see those games. Are we saying that US American football teams should come here and give great enjoyment to the people of this country, but that we will regulate our teams and stop them going elsewhere to provide great joy to citizens around the world?

I hear the words “friendly game” mentioned behind me. The element of competition, unless it is banned by this new EDI proposal, is a hugely important part of any game, and friendlies are not the same as the pure thing. But whether friendly or not, why would we want to ban our famous, successful teams from playing abroad? I submit that this is quite extraordinary.

I do not think anyone is talking about banning; it is about preserving our Premier League and some of our domestic competitions, and it is for fans of clubs in those leagues who want to follow their team, home and away, and their ability to do so throughout the fixture list of that league. Clubs such as Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal—and West Ham, I am sure—go on tour overseas pre-season to meet the needs of fans who are overseas, and maybe mid-season for all I know. Our teams are playing too many games. It is not sustainable for them to play the number that they are at the moment, but there are opportunities pre-season for fans from around the world to visit.

I love them coming to this country. When I am at the Emirates Stadium and I see all the banners from fans from all over the world who have come to see Arsenal it is a great joy, but we need to be constrained in the regulatory purposes of this to preserve our Premier League and domestic league competitions.

Noble Lords need to understand exactly what the previous speaker was talking about. It is about preserving our leagues. The fan base of a club is not 200,000 people in South Korea or 20,000 people in New York. The fan bases of these clubs are in this country. The unintended consequence of what is being proposed could occur very quickly, easily and suddenly.

I am quite appalled by the number of noble Lords in this House who have two or three football clubs. You should have one football club; it is the club you support. I do not have a second or third club. I have one club; I am indeed suffering for that pleasure at the moment, but I have one club, through thick and thin.

What is to stop someone setting up a supporters’ group for my club somewhere else, without honourable intentions but with the intention of doing my club some difficulty or harm? That is what muddies the waters and it is where you get all this involvement. The supporters are local supporters. The other supporters can be supporters but, if local groups are going to be set up, they should be there for 12 months or two years. We need to know their history and regulatory rights. They are not being set up by football clubs, because that is another way that this could be done—to set up your own shadow group that plays lip service to this.

Noble Lords know that football supporters have robust views, and chairmen who really understand that tend to meet them regularly. Lots of Premier League clubs do that; they go and meet their supporters—working-class people in areas and towns, who will give them their honest views, which the clubs usually do not like. United is now increasing the prices for all tickets, which is not going down well with all the United fans, but there is still a 10 or 15-year waiting list for a season ticket. That is why the club can do that, but it is not really supporting the fans.

Let us just bring it back from this existential conversation about Burke and the father of the son. Does that go into politics—“I was a Conservative so my son’s going to be a Conservative”? That is changing—we all know it is—and it is a reasonable evolution. If you are the son of a miner, you might end up a Conservative Minister. That is great, that is the opportunity that this country offers, and it should be the same with football supporters.

But football supporters support their own club and are very wary about suddenly involving any number of supporters, because the numbers then become detrimental to doing what we are supposed to be doing here, which is protecting the pyramid. It seems that these debates are all leading in one direction: “Leave the Premier League alone, let it run football, and the rest of you can have the crumbs off the table”. That is the feeling I am getting from these conversations, and that is wrong.

I have a slight fear that I may be intervening in the intervention on an intervention on the answer to an intervention, but still. Among my interests is that I am a director of Chelsea Football Club and director of its foundation. I also had the honour to be a member of the fan-led review committee.

I urge that the Bill and the debate should define “fans” as widely as possible. I am afraid that I think the noble Lord is completely wrong, certainly as far as my club is concerned. We have hundreds of thousands—indeed, millions—of fans all around the world. We care deeply for them and I am very much engaged in our fan mechanism, in involving them. I am committed to the principle of fan engagement that the Crouch committee laid out. We want to talk to our fans all over the globe and we have an interest in prospective fans, not only current fans.

Of course, the fans who attend Stamford Bridge, which is where Chelsea play at home—I feel that I have to explain that—are very dear to us and play a core part in the definition of who a “fan” is, but they are certainly not the only fans. It would be a mistake for the regulator to start its work thinking that that is how the Bill considers it.

Regulators do not define who fans are. Regulators define fans for the purpose of consultation in pursuit of their duties. I am a Liverpool fan. Wherever I go in the world—whatever I am doing—I always find the local bar, and there are lots of Liverpool people there to support the team when a game is on, and I make lots of new friends. Liverpool as a club should of course take those fans seriously in its commercial thinking, its tours and other long-term strategy, but the idea that the regulator should consult with the San Diego Liverpool chapter when it is considering issues to do with implementing the Bill is ridiculous. I do not think San Diego-based fans will want that either. The club should take those interests into consideration. We are talking about the connection between a regulator and the pursuit of its duties, and the issue of protecting communities.

Is the noble Lord saying that he thinks the club should not ask those people as well as other fans? If he thinks that, why should that not be part of the definition of the “fan” under the Bill?

I did not say anything about what the club should do. We should not tell clubs what to do about their conception of their own fans. I am talking about the relevant categorisation of what “fans” means for the purpose of the regulator pursuing its duties.

My Lords, it would be useful to determine who has the Floor.

My Lords, it might be convenient if we get to the stage of the amendment being moved, and then we can have such a general debate.

Noble Lords:

Oh!

I am very grateful to the Deputy Chairman of Committees and to the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, for trying to bring us back to the point.

This underlines the importance of the debate we need to have in this group. I was tempted to intervene on the noble Lord, Lord Wood of Anfield, but seeing as it was an intervention on me, I do not think that I could have done.

We do not need to focus so much on consulting fans of Liverpool in San Diego. I am interested in the opening clause of the Bill and whether the interests of fans of Liverpool who are based in Weymouth, Whitley Bay or Walthamstow should be taken into account at the moment when we are defining “sustainability”. The Bill currently says:

“For the purposes of this section”— referring to Clause 1(3)—

“English 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”.

Liverpool do great work not just on Merseyside but for fans across the country and we need to have a useful debate about the inclusion and the limiting factor of the word “local” there because there is a domestic point to be made. But, as the intervention from my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea pointed out, I think we should also avoid looking like little Englanders and being too restricted simply to the domestic benefits here. There is a large group of fans in Thailand, Japan or South Korea, where I was over the summer and where people came up to me and asked which team I supported and wanted to talk about football. I am sure noble Lords across the House have had the same experience when travelling overseas—whether we have places such as Anfield in our titles or otherwise, it is one of the first questions we are asked.

It is a source of pride for this country that a sport we invented and export is something that 1.5 billion people across the globe enjoy watching and can take some of the social and economic benefits of. Through my Amendment 8, I am simply testing whether “local” really ought to be the limiting factor here. I think there are two stages that would be helpful to consider: across England—and, indeed, perhaps the United Kingdom—and across the globe more broadly. I think it would be helpful at this point if I let the debate continue to move by now moving Amendment 8.

I am sorry, but I hope it is appropriate for yet another Liverpool fan to intervene in this debate. I think we have to segment the fan base and that is essentially what is happening, so I wonder how much we are really disagreeing with one another. As I said at Second Reading, my grandad was brought up 200 yards from Anfield; my father had to walk to the match; and when I was young, I had to take a train and a bus. We all know about those intense fans that live locally. They are chiefly the fans who go by train to away games and love the game and it is a critical part of their whole life. Any organisation which segments its fan base is going to pay a great deal of attention to that cohort.

But we live in different times from my grandfather and my father. Television changed all of that and created a fan base for a high proportion of clubs, not just those in the Premier League, right across the country. In more recent times, in the satellite age, the fan base is truly global. Any organisation benefits from a dialogue with its customers, and the fan base broadly defined is the customer and it is that fan base that provides the investment into the game. It provides the investment at local, national and global level, chiefly through the agency of television rights. Any sensible organisation—whether it is the regulator, the leagues or the clubs—should engage with the full complexity of that fan base. Like any good business, you talk to your fans, you listen, you learn, you adapt and you grow and that is surely what, in one way or another, I hope most of us could agree with.

When the league made the bad mistake that we all know about of saying there would be a closed shop in Europe, the fan base, broadly speaking, rose up in 24 hours and it was knocked out of the equation. I happen to think it would be a mistake for the Premier League to play “home games” in another country, because it antagonises the fans who have the most intense feeling. But we do have to talk to and be informed about the totality of the fan base, whether local, national or global.

I totally agree with what has just been said about segmenting the fan base. I do not support a team that has the wide support that Liverpool has, but I was once at a football match in Buenos Aires where I was asked by local people which team I supported. When I mentioned Bolton Wanderers, just about everybody around me said instantly “Nat Lofthouse”, so these things travel. I accept that, but when we are talking about this Bill and about consulting fans on ticket pricing, the club’s heritage or moving grounds, then it is the locality that is in question, and we should not lose sight of that.

My Lords, I shall first pick up the comment from my noble friend Lord Moynihan of Cheslea. Whether it was an intervention on an intervention, I intervened from a sedentary position, and he heard my comments in relation to friendlies. I was not denying what he was saying; I was expressing support to the extent that pre-season friendlies take place to a substantial amount already and they achieve, to use the word currently in the Bill, an element of sustainability because they provide income from matches all around the world. The noble Lord, Lord Wood, commented earlier on. If ever there was an indication of the strength of support for a football club in another part of the world, all anybody has to do is type in “Liverpool” and “Melbourne cricket ground” to watch a full 100,000-plus Liverpool supporters singing their anthem at the start of a match. That is the extent of the support that our clubs have around the world, and it provides substantial income to the club. There are not many as large as Liverpool, but there is support right around the world.

My Lords, the complexity of this debate—it is structurally complex as well as dealing with complex issues—illustrates how important it is that we explore these issues, because in every debate that we have another layer of the multifaceted success that is current English football becomes exposed and illuminated.

My noble friends’ amendments suggest that the regulator should be required to consider future fans as well as current fans and to take into account all fans not just fans in the locality. The truth is that, 20 years ago, there would not have been support across the world, particularly for the major clubs. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just said, this is not limited to the top level of clubs. This is a moving scene. Globalisation, for all its critics, has not come to an end; this is more of a global village than it was. Top-level football in England is much more international than it was in terms of the background of footballers who play here, and that is unlikely to become less so. As more and more of the world’s population have access to a variety of television channels, there will be more. We can only expect the degree of global interest and support for English football clubs to grow. This is a moving scene, and we should be clear that if we are going to have this regulator, the regulator should think in those terms and to be aware of it.

Of course, there will continue to be an incredibly important local fan base for every club. I was a Tottenham supporter when I lived in Oxfordshire, when I lived in Warwickshire, when I lived in London and now when I live in Sussex. My son, who is also a Tottenham supporter, feels it so strongly that he bought a house five minutes away from the marvellous Tottenham stadium, so he has now become a local supporter having been a distant supporter. This will continue to be the way in which support for football clubs develops, and it is important. My noble friend does us all a service by raising the point and developing the complexity of the issues that we are dealing with here and that we might, if we do not get this right, be putting in jeopardy.

My Lords, I will speak primarily to Amendment 17A in my name. Before I do so, I want to reflect on some of the contributions that we have heard, largely on the last group of amendments but spilling over into this one. I am a bit concerned that, while the Bill is about the regulator of English football, several noble Lords have said that it would be appropriate to extend it beyond the confines of England.

I understand the economic arguments for that. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan of Chelsea, who asked: are we really saying that we do not want English football equivalents of American football teams coming here? I saw American baseball at the London Stadium this year and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I do not care about their leagues. I do not care what effect it has on their leagues or their fans; it is up to them.

I do care about the effect of sending games abroad, as other noble Lords have said, and playing competitive matches: not touring matches, as my noble friend Lord Knight said, but competitive matches in other countries. That would be, to put it mildly, a very slippery slope and it would impact on something that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said in the last debate about comparing other sports. There is a very worrying trend of other sports—such as the grand prix that took place at the weekend—being funded to outrageous extents by foreign, often repressive and undemocratic Governments, to ensure that sports go to their countries. I do not want to see that sort of magnet placed in the way of football clubs in this country.

Can I clarify what the noble Lord has just said? He described the sporting events in the Middle East over the weekend—which were cricket, rugby and motor-racing—as “worrying”. Receiving literally millions of pounds of income for a football club or other sport in this country—is that really worrying?

It is absolutely worrying. These countries have the right to do what they like with their money, but we have a right to say, “I don’t really wish to engage with that”, because we become tainted if we do that to an unlimited extent. That is a slightly different argument from that of playing competitive matches in other countries. That surely is something that we all agree would be bad for the future of English football. There are plenty of ways of bringing money in from all sources—if clubs want to do that, it is up to them—but playing matches outwith this country is surely not where we want to go.

That impacts on the whole question of fans and my amendment, which is: what is a fan? I do not know whether my amendment is the way we should define it, but I think it is the narrowest definition of a fan that I have heard so far in relation to this Bill. How do you define the Liverpool fan in San Diego? What does she or she have to say about what is happening in the Premier League? They may watch it on television and that is fine. They may express a very definite preference for one club, and they are entitled to do so. But they do not have a vested interest in the club in the way that someone who pays their money to go and see a match does.

I will repeat the point that I made last week. Some people are unable to afford the price of tickets, particularly in the Premier League—although I have to say in all honesty that I bought a theatre ticket last week, which cannot really be equated with the cost of a Premier League football ticket. But the other question is whether some people are physically unable to go. It may be somebody who has been going since they were 10 years old; they reach the age of 70 and find they are no longer able to go. I would sympathise with that.

However, we have been talking in the Bill about the regulator ensuring consultation with fans. You cannot consult somebody if you do not know where he or she lives. There has to be a list somewhere of the people you are going to consult. You cannot just open it up online and say, “Anybody with an interest, let us have your view by email”. That is not consulting—or at least consulting properly. So people who have bought into the club by having a season ticket: that is a reasonable way of saying, “These are the only fans we can genuinely define”. You can put them in a box and say, when it comes to consultation, “That’s the group of people because they have put their names in”.

They do not go to every match, of course. I often laugh when I read the football results and they show the attendance. I do not mean any disrespect to Arsenal, but I will use them as an example. They are going rather well at the moment, but they were not going well five years ago in the latter days of the Arsène Wenger period. You would see a match the Emirates Stadium and it was perfectly clear that there were almost as many empty seats as filled seats, yet the next day the papers would say the attendance was 100 short of capacity. That means the club is saying, “Ah, now, but we’ve sold those seats. Season ticket holders have bought them but they’re not very happy at the moment so they haven’t come”. My argument is, “Okay, that’s fine, but the key to the attendance is the word ‘attend’. If people don’t go, there’s not an attendance”. Still, the point is that these people have made a financial commitment to the club, and that is a basis on which to go forward.

That is why I disagree with the other amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 26 from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 17 from the noble Lords, Lord Markham and Lord Parkinson, which refers to those

“who have an interest in seeing the club succeed”.

That is so vague; we have to have some way of pinning it down. If there is a better way of doing that than through season ticket holders, I am open to that suggestion and I will consider it. But, until then, I believe that is the only basis on which we can do it. I also want to see it in the Bill.

Suppose we base it on season ticket holders. If you take a club such as Bournemouth, whose capacity is 11,000-ish, it will probably have 4,000 season ticket holders—but they would not represent all the views of every Bournemouth supporter in the whole world.

In relation to supporters around the world, if a supporter gets on a plane from Sweden to watch Bournemouth play, are they a supporter or not? Some 5% of inbound flights to the UK involve taking in a Premier League game—I mean, the Premier League could run a successful airline. Putting that point to one side, though, it would be impossible for a regulator to try to rank supporters of the club in order of priority. We all know, respect and love our season ticket holders, but not everyone is lucky enough to get a season ticket—particularly if you are a Bournemouth supporter, because the capacity is only 11,000-odd.

On the noble Baroness’s last point, I do not want the regulator to be doing this. That is why I want it in the Bill. This is not an issue where there can be any subjectivity. There has to be something tight.

Bournemouth may have season ticket holders in Sweden, I do not know, and if they come, they come. If they do not come, though, they are still a season ticket holder, so they are entitled to be consulted. But, if there is no financial commitment, I just do not understand how you can possibly meaningfully take the opinion of someone who just says, “Yeah, I’ve been at a couple of Liverpool games, I always watch them on TV and I’ve bought a scarf”. I am open to suggestions as to how we might pin this down better, but pin it down in the Bill we must.

My Lords, when it comes to taking opinion, I would rather not complicate things, but the divides that appear to be there are rather false ones, talking about issues that are not contained in the Bill but are contained on other issues.

I currently chair a supporters’ group that has branches all over the world. It has members—some season ticket holders, some not—who attend football. I am quite satisfied that the Bill says that supporters’ groups of different kinds should be consulted on issues that are of relevance to them.

I have a slight liking for “current and prospective” in the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, but possibly for different reasons from him, and I am not sure it can be encapsulated in statute, so I do not warm to the wording, even if I do to part of the meaning.

There is a danger at the moment that football, especially the Premier League and the higher echelons of the Championship, is full of people who are more like me, rather than young children. Season ticket waiting lists in the Premier League are prodigiously difficult to get up. There are long queues and many children are in them, which is a dilemma. Unless stadiums get bigger and bigger, which I would encourage, how do we get in the next generation of fans? If you do something as absurd as a team in Manchester has done and make it £66 for a child, in the long term you will probably lose competitive advantage. But the family and the children are losing something which is quintessentially British and English: being able to support their local team and occasionally go.

On the first amendment, I think the issue is: in football, should there be some thought in relation to the next generation? That is very valid but I do not see how it can be brought into statute. On the second amendment, that is not what the debate has been on and the amendment is fundamentally flawed. “Local communities” in this subsection are in the context of the economy and the social economy. If Bolton Wanderers, Bradford City or Worksop Town, or even Leeds United, lose a fixture—wrongly and badly, and desperately so—that has an impact across that locality. Sometimes it is a big impact and the more crucial the result is seen to be, the bigger it is. That impacts on the local economy, as has been known over the decades and today.

People are in different moods on the back of a fixture. Season ticket holders who are members of my organisation and who have come over from Norway or Sweden—some from even further afield—will be equally distraught at a bad result such as last Saturday’s, having been in Blackburn and having flown in from places such as Sweden; but the impact on the local economy is felt in the local community.

There is more that pulls people together on this issue than divides us across the Houses, but one of the good negotiations that I managed to conclude with my club was to allow advance purchase of tickets, with a special early availability for overseas fans. Our argument was that if you were having to get them three weeks before a fixture, you would spend a fortune on the flight. If you can save £500—that is the figure I cited—on coming from Oslo or Stockholm to a football match in England, you are likely to spend that £500 anyway, possibly on the club merchandising, much to the delight of the club, but certainly in the vicinity.

One of the ironies of scheduling these days is that, if you buy tickets six months in advance, you cannot say, “I am going to get a day return on a Saturday for a 3 pm kick-off”. You have to arrive on Friday and unless you are really taking a few risks, depart on Monday. What people do is to make a weekend of it, and they make tremendous additional contributions to the local economy. That is to the good of UK plc, so the second amendment rather misses the point on local communities.

People who live in Sweden should not be deciding whether Leeds football club moves to somewhere such as Harrogate, Huddersfield or Bradford—or other equally distressing possibilities, at least in theory—because it is set in Leeds. But if they want to have a say on other matters and the club wants to consult on those, there is more potential flexibility. The Bill can achieve that, but we do not want to miss the point of how local economies are impacted by this sport and its importance. The regulator certainly has to take that into consideration.

My Lords, I hope I might be allowed to say a few words about my amendment in this group, if everybody is okay with that.

I asked for a definition of “fans” because I had a nightmare, and this discussion featured largely in it. A fan is a self-selecting person who has made a commitment. If there is another definition out there, save it, please.

A financial commitment.

They have made a financial commitment or signed a pledge—I do not know, but they have made a commitment. They have said that they are a part of this and there is no compulsion; they have made a decision. That is why I felt we should have this in the Bill.

Apart from anything else, this is British law we are talking about, and the English leagues. I do not know why we are bothering discussing what people in South Korea or San Francisco are doing, because we can only deal with what is in our own legal framework. If they join a group over here and make a financial or long-term commitment, maybe then they are consulted. But it is here in the UK that you have to make a commitment; it is about the local base. These people are committing to something which is located in a place. That is why I tabled this amendment. My noble friend got to the guts of it when he said that it is an emotional commitment.

We need some guidance on what the Government are going to say. You are not going to keep everybody happy, clearly, but let us at least know why we are unhappy, and we will see what we can do about it at another stage if that is appropriate. That is what my amendment is for, and I hope we can reach that point with all rapidity.

My Lords, I declare an interest of a kind as a season ticket holder at Wycombe Wanderers, who are still top of League One, as they were when I spoke at Second Reading. Therefore, I would count as a fan under the definition in Amendment 17A, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. However, I want to describe a group of people who would not count, as I think it casts some light on our proceedings as to what the regulator might say and the Government’s view.

Last year, a Spanish-language YouTube channel, La Media Inglesa—I hope I am pronouncing it correctly; it is apparently the largest football YouTube channel—wrote to every single EFL club asking why Spaniards should support their club. Wycombe Wanderers were the only club to reply in Spanish. As a consequence, 100 Spanish supporters turned up to see Wycombe play Derby County at Adams Park, then again for a game against Sheffield Wednesday, and then again to Fratton Park for a game against Portsmouth—and so on, and so forth. They greatly enlivened the proceedings by waving their scarves, chanting loudly and showing commitment—to pick up the word just used by the noble Lord, Lord Addington—to their team.

The point we are trying to get to the heart of is not exactly who we think is a fan, but what the regulator’s view will be and what the Government believe the regulator’s view might be, given that “fan” is not defined in the Bill. There is obviously common sense in the approach just taken by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, among others. He suggested that, logically and intuitively, there must be some sort of difference, in respect of interest in the ownership of the ground and the prices of tickets, between fans who live in the broad locality and fans—however committed—who travel to the ground from a great distance away.

That is precisely what we need to hear a view about from the Government Front Bench. What I suspect the Minister will say—knocking the issue back across the Benches—is that these are matters for clubs to decide for themselves. If that is the Government’s view, then the Minister in due course should tell us.

My Lords, I rise to speak to my Amendment 17. What we have seen today, and I am glad that the Chief Whip has been here to witness it, is a passionate and informed debate. Perhaps it will give him an understanding of why the debate may be lengthier than one might have hoped. Not surprisingly, 15 or 20 noble Lords have spoken and we have probably had 21 or 22 different definitions of what a fan is—so none of us underestimates what a complicated area this is, but what we are all united in is that it is vitally important and, as such, it should be in the Bill. That is what we are asking the Minister to reply on.

I am probably biased, but I happen to think my Amendment 17 tries to take those different aspects into account, saying that fans are

“individuals who … identify with the club, engage with the service the club provides, and have an interest in seeing the club succeed”.

Bringing in the service that the club provides is trying to take into account that wider commitment and interest in it. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that the most dedicated version of that is the season ticket, but we also know that there are massively long waiting lists for season tickets. Does that mean that people who are on a waiting list or people who cannot afford a season ticket somehow count less? That is why my wider definition talks about people who engage with the services of that club to try to take that into account.

I think we all agree with the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in his amendment that giving the independent regulator a definition to work to is vital, because this is at the core of what a club is. In any consultation that a club has to undertake, it needs to be clear who it is consulting with.

My Lords, I rise to speak against Amendment 17A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and in favour of Amendment 17, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Markham. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, has clearly thought very carefully about this and I agree with a great many of his nuances and analyses of what a fan is. I also agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said, although not about the localism.

Why are we talking about San Francisco or South Korea fans? It is because, surely, the purpose of this Bill is to sustain and continually improve the commercial and financial success of football, not to introduce some more nebulous—indeed, I would say suspicious—metric that we could conjure up on social grounds or whatever. If we are here explicitly to damage the commercial and financial success of football, let us admit it—but, if we are not, let us then look at the consequences and implications of that.

What is a fan? Can it only be a season ticket holder? The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, said about fans, “These are working-class people”. As an unregenerate member of the middle classes since childhood, I sort of resented that, but let us go with it. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is a champion of the working classes, but how many of the working classes can afford a season ticket? When I was 10 years old, I would jump on a number 11 bus and go down the King’s Road to Stamford Bridge. I only got there once a month maybe, by not having a gobstopper or a Barratt sherbet every day and saving up the five bob it cost me to get into the ground. I could not afford a season ticket. Fine, you could say that I should not be consulted, either, any more than children of 10 should be allowed to go on social media.

When I was an undergraduate of 21, I could not afford a season ticket but I was a fervent Chelsea fan. Later, I became a season ticket holder. Did I suddenly become worthy of consultation because I had managed to get a job that helped me afford a season ticket? Then when I moved abroad for a couple of decades, to study and work, did that disqualify me from being a fan? Then when I came back and got a season ticket, was I suddenly qualified to be a fan again? It is nonsense. If we are thinking about the commercial and financial success of this industry, we should follow the commercial and financial logic: my noble friend Lord Finkelstein was quite eloquent about that just now.

The wider point I would like to make, which I made at Second Reading, is that there is an awful smack, in the entire Bill, of, “We know best”. Do we? Do we really know best, in such detail, as to define who the fan is and what games should be allowed to be played where? Have we in this Chamber such an enormous track record of commercial and financial success that we decide that we are in a position to overrule what a club would like to do and say, “No, we know best. You can’t have that game. These are the fans you’ve got to look after; these are the ones we will consult and they are the only ones we’ll listen to”. Do we really believe that we know best? Could we not be a little more humble, step back a little and leave it much more to others to define “what’s what”, “how’s how” and what these clubs, in the most successful industry in this country, should be allowed to do?

My Lords, as I sat through the whole of this fascinating debate, I thought I might as well throw my penny’s worth in on the issue of what a fan is. I am a football fan. I do not have a season ticket. I was on a list for a season ticket for many years until Arsenal moved stadium, when they scrapped the waiting list and you had to start again. The only way I show my fandom, really, is to listen or watch matches whenever I can and get into arguments in pubs with people from other teams. Just saying.

My Lords, very briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s excellent amendment. I think it is unarguable that in the last hour we have demonstrated why we need that amendment, because no one agrees what “local” means. I think that is a very important point. This whole debate reminds me of Humpty Dumpty in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, when Humpty says:

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less”.

We do not really know what “local” means. My noble friend Lord Moynihan of Chelsea talks about the importance of international fans. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that I fundamentally disagree with Amendment 17A because I think it is socially regressive and would lock out many people. It would actually go against my noble friend’s Amendment 8 in terms of getting new generations of fans involved: not everyone can afford a season ticket.

I accept that, and I hope I made that clear earlier—but how do you consult the other people? You do not know who they are.

The noble Lord asks a very reasonable question. I actually pray in aid the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, because, for all his frustration with this debate, his Amendment 26 has at least tried to answer the question of what a fan is and what “local” means, and therefore I am quite predisposed toward that amendment. My only problem is that it absolves this House and Ministers from solving the problem, by kicking it into the long grass, so to speak, of the independent football regulator. So I agree with that amendment, but the noble Lord’s amendment is too restrictive.

When I was a child, I used to go to Charlton Athletic, the Valley, which in the good old days had a 66,000 capacity. Because I was a Charlton fan, vicariously, through my father, does that mean I could not be a fan of Millwall, which is in almost the next borough, the London Borough of Southwark? Could I not have been a fan of Crystal Palace, in the London Borough of Croydon? Could I not have been a fan of Leyton Orient, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest? You get into a rabbit hole of really difficult decisions if you do not properly talk about what is “local”.

I will finally finish by reminding your Lordships that, at Second Reading, I mentioned the importance of supply chains, because although fans are important, so is the wider football community. That includes businesses, commerce, supply chains, the people who sell the hot dogs and the prawn sandwiches, the people who provide the footballs, and the people who do the advertising, etcetera. We are dancing on the head of a pin, because—with all due respect to the people in the Box—the Bill is not well drafted. We have a responsibility to point that out. For that reason, I implore the Minister specifically to support my noble friend Lord Parkinson’s Amendment 9.

My Lords, I will make a point on Amendment 17A of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the complexity of what we mean by “fan” and indeed “season ticket holder”, because there are so many options to be a season ticket holder. You can be a season ticket holder for Premier League clubs, just for those Premier League games. You also have cup games, like the FA Cup and the Carabao Cup. There are also Champions League tickets. If you cannot get a season ticket, as an individual you can apply for those individual cup games. If you wish to become a forwarding member for £20, you are in the position to receive a ticket from a season ticket holder. It spreads up; the number of season tickets available is very complicated indeed for cup games.

Not only that, but you also have corporate tickets. Corporations can buy a whole suite of tickets for their employees and also for their clients. To establish somebody who would go as a guest of a corporate individual or who had been forwarded a ticket further complicates it. The point I am making is that it is not straightforward. It is very complicated—there is not just one season ticket holder at any club.

My Lords, this has been a lively debate. Even before I moved the lead amendment in it, a lively debate had been engendered. It is an important one, because fans are sown throughout the Bill. There are various points at which the regulator, the Government and others have to consult fans, so it is important that, as we proceed through Committee and look at the Bill line by line, we are clear about and understand who the fans are that the regulator, the clubs and the Government need to consult, where they reside and where they do not, and how their views will be ascertained.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, for the clarity with which he put this in speaking to his Amendment 17A in this group. There has to be something in the Bill, and it has to be something tight; otherwise we will continue having this sort of nightmarish debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, foresaw, and which has been borne out a bit this afternoon. Each time fans are mentioned, we have to decide—as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, put it—what is relevant to them in this instance, and whether this is something that affects them. The fan-led review that led to the Bill would mean that fans take a view on all of the matters that the Bill sets out in each of its clauses.

I am not alone—and your Lordships in this Committee are not alone—in confronting the inherent difficulties involved in trying to attempt to define a fan. My noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough previously mentioned the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee of your Lordships’ House, which has pointed out the importance of trying to put this definition in the Bill. It is so central to what the Bill tries to achieve that its omission is really very striking.

The European Club Association, in its Fan of the Future report, has also pointed out that

“The anatomy of a football fan has evolved significantly”.

Its research highlights the role of social media, the decline in linear television viewing and the diversification of football content distribution, to give just a few examples. Those factors have fundamentally altered the way that people access information about football and watch their favourite team play. Indeed, 70% of respondents to the association’s survey said they consumed some form of football content online. All of that points to a trend of an increasingly international fan base for English football—a point that noble Lords have borne out repeatedly in the debate on this group. We, the clubs and the regulator will have to grapple with that trend, which I am sure is only growing, if we are all to meet the fan engagement requirements set out in the Bill.

There was a lively debate on consultation and the limits thereof, geographical and otherwise. I should probably state for the record that I do not necessarily believe that fan consultation should include fans from South Korea and all over the world or, as the noble Lord, Lord Wood of Anfield, put it, Liverpool fans in San Diego. There are obviously practical and burdensome difficulties here. I also acknowledge the point made by various noble Lords that fans who are more directly affected by their club, either from living in its vicinity or through its work, have an especially special bond.

I was struck by the comments the noble Lord, Lord Birt, made about the gradation that clubs already make between types of fans. However, as we refer to fans again and again throughout this Bill, it is important that we try and specify what constitutes a fan, and not leave it so vague. This issue requires clarity for our future deliberations in this Committee, and I would be grateful if the Minister could provide it when she responds. Before she does, I want to say a few words about Amendment 17, tabled by my noble friend Lord Markham. This amendment attempts to provide that clarity and specificity by seeking to define what constitutes a fan. If the Minister does not like Amendment 17’s definition, then it is important she provides an alternative.

I am also interested in the solution the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has proposed with his Amendment 26. In essence, his amendment requires the regulator to tell us what it counts as a fan when it conducts its duties under the Bill. It is important for fans, for clubs and for everyone that this is clarified. The noble Lord’s nightmares were well spent if during those night-time hours he formulated the ideas that led to Amendment 26, which has been helpful.

I also want to touch on Amendment 17A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie. This amendment, again in the spirit of helpfulness, tries to define a fan as somebody who holds a season ticket for a regulated club. I do not doubt the noble Lord’s intent here; season ticket holders are some of a club’s most stalwart supporters. However, as the debate on this group has shown, that definition is restrictive, limited and problematic. Thousands of club fans may not be fortunate enough to hold a season ticket: it may be too expensive; they may live at the other end of the country; they may find themselves on a waiting list—as the noble Lord, Lord Mann, noted; and they may find themselves behind corporate interests, as my noble friend Lord Evans of Rainow has set out. All of those things could prevent fans from becoming season ticket holders. It would not be right to say that those people are not fans, or that they are not the sort of fan who needs to be consulted on the future of their club or who would have an interest in it. Therefore, although Amendment 17A’s definition is a helpful attempt, it is not quite the answer.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mann, for his tentative and cautious interest in my amendment on current and prospective fans. I hope that he agrees that it is important that we have a definition of a fan in the Bill to avoid this sort of confusion as we go through the debates on later clauses. I know that he chairs a fan group for Leeds United. Would every Leeds fan feel that they were represented by the group that he chairs? Would they all agree with what he says? I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. Fans come in different shapes and sizes, and they have many views, but we need some clarity as we go through our debates to understand in each instance where and whom the regulator, the Government and the clubs themselves must consult.

I hope that not all fans agree with my supporters’ group, because we have a very distinct approach from other fan groups. My point is that there is a range of groups and that different fan groups have different perspectives, interests and ideals. Therefore, to attempt to define them in the Bill is so complex as to be impossible. That is why it is sensible to take the approach that the Government are taking: one that has some flexibility built in.

I will not go into great detail on the different kinds of fan groups. I believe that West Ham has nine, and you could argue about how many we have because there is the question of whether some are really fan groups or not. That is the complexity—and they have different perspectives.

I will not prolong the discussion any further; it is important that we hear from the Minister instead. As we do so, I hope that we hear from her on the tension between the need for flexibility, which I understand, and the need for clarity so that the duties on the clubs, which are successful businesses, and on the regulator, which is a powerful new body, are also specified. We need that so that everybody, when they follow the Bill when it becomes an Act of Parliament, is clear on what they have to do, whether they are speaking to the fan group of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, or another about each of those duties.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, Lord Markham and Lord Addington, and my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie for tabling these amendments and for the thorough discussion on this group. There is an amendment in a group specifically on clubs playing overseas, which I will come back to during a later stage in the Bill’s progress. I have been told by my noble friend the Chief Whip that I should not comment on gobstoppers, as tempting as it is to do so.

I am glad that we all agree on the importance of fans to the game. The Bill also recognises that importance. As noble Lords are aware, it is based on the fan-led review, so it should have fans at its heart. I suspect that we will never get full agreement on how we should define a fan or group of fans—we have seen that in the debate on this group. However, I welcome the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, that—to paraphrase—there is quite a lot of agreement on this element, so noble Lords are at risk of debating something that, when it comes down to it, many of them will agree on.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, tabled an amendment that would look to add further detail to the definition of the sustainability of English football. I reassure him that both prospective and current fans would be considered in the existing requirement. As he will be aware, this is in line with the Bill introduced by the previous Government in which he served. Football would not serve the interests of fans if the game were unattractive or unwelcoming to new fans. As the Explanatory Notes to this clause clarify, continuing to serve the interests of fans

“means meeting the needs of present fans without compromising the ability of future generations of fans to enjoy and benefit from the club”.

Amendment 9, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, looks to remove the specific reference to “local” communities from the definition of the sustainability of English football. One of the best things about football in this country is that it fosters community. I welcome the passionate defence of local fans made by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport. This is something that noble Lords from across your Lordships’ House recognised and spoke passionately about at Second Reading, and we wish to protect it.

The local area surrounding clubs can often develop communities and economies dependent on the football club. It is important to recognise that not all communities are grounded in the local area. As noble Lords have mentioned, they can be online, far-reaching and even international. These communities are also important, as was highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, Lord Maude of Horsham, Lord Hayward and Lord Moynihan of Chelsea.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brady, mentioned international flights. I understand that such is the Norwegian enthusiasm for football that weekend flights are scheduled to allow fans to travel to watch UK games. However, as communities become less rooted in the local area or directly related to the club itself, it would be harder for the regulator to control or even predict how its actions may influence their economic or social well-being. We do not want the regulator to be set up to fail because it cannot feasibly meet its statutory purpose. If the regulator were required to consider more detached and far-reaching communities, it might never be able to completely deliver a sustainable English football.

We should also remember that it is often the local communities that are most vulnerable and can suffer most directly from any crisis at a club. As my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton made clear, the locality matters. We have seen in places such as Bury and Macclesfield the hole that is left in the local community, including the economic impacts, social impacts and job losses. None the less, the regulator must of course consider the impact of its actions on the wider community of fans. That is why the Bill’s purpose, as drafted, includes English football serving the interests of fans, with no requirement that those fans are “local” to their club.

The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, appeared to conflate how fans and communities are defined. I want to be very clear that, while Clause 1(3)(b) specifies “local communities”, Clause 1(3)(a) does not specify that it applies only to local fans. So, the noble Lord’s points on Manchester United fans in Weymouth would still be considered in this definition of “sustainability” as it pertains to fans.

On Amendment 17 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Markham, I understand that its intention is to set in the Bill a definition of what makes someone a football fan. His amendment draws on the Explanatory Notes. I welcome the perspective of the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, as a member of the committee on the fan-led review. For a definition of a fan to be in primary legislation, there is a significant risk of unintended consequences that it will end up being either so loosely defined that it lacks precision or too narrow that important and passionate fans are excluded from engagement. I know that noble Lords from across the Committee would not wish to exclude any passionate fan from the engagement that the regulator intends clubs to carry out. This is because the make-up of a fan base will differ from club to club. It is this diversity that makes English football so special.

In our view, there is also likely to be the need for clubs to be able to consult different groups of fans on different issues. For example, on ticket prices, we would reasonably expect that clubs may wish to focus on consulting regular, match-going fans. However, on stadium relocations, we might expect them to consult a broader group of fans from across the community. From my engagement with Members from across your Lordships’ House, I know that there are many different views on the definition of a fan. Indeed, there are probably as many definitions as there are Members in this debate, if not many more. Therefore, although I understand the desire for more clarity, I am extremely reluctant for the Government to provide a specific definition that would be limiting.

The Government do not see themselves as the arbitrator of who counts as a football fan; instead, it is something that fans and clubs themselves will be in the best position to understand and discern. The regulator, once established, will be able to provide guidance for clubs on how to best consult fans, rather than be bound by an inflexible and potentially unhelpful definition. This will ensure that clubs have an appropriate framework in place that allows them to meet and consult fans regularly on key strategic matters and supporter interests, utilising pre-existing fan structures and other engagement mechanisms.

As Amendment 17A in the name of my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie demonstrates, there are multiple ways in which others may define a “fan”, all of which would capture vastly different groups. At some clubs and on some issues, the definition as set out in the amendment may be sufficient, but for others there could be large numbers of dedicated fans, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who would not be captured if the club considered only season-ticket holders. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Brady, that this would be too narrow. For example, it would mean that those unable to attend matches as a season-ticket holder due to reasons of finance or health, or due just to their lack of luck in a ballot, would be excluded from the consultation. My noble friend Lord Mann noted the waiting list for season tickets. As a Labour Government who think that financial criteria should not exclude people of limited financial means, we feel strongly that the emotional commitment highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, should take precedence over any financial ones. This demonstrates the need for nuance and discretion in the definition, which clubs and the regulator are in the best position to arrive at.

On Amendment 26, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, is right that the regulator would have an important role in ensuring that clubs understand and meet the fan engagement requirements placed on them. The Government agree, and they expect that the regulator will need to produce guidance to provide more detail and information on who to engage with, and how, to meet these conditions. However, it is important to understand that, for the most part, individual clubs will be in the best position to understand the demographics of their fans, with significant variation between clubs. There is a risk that the amendment could inadvertently place a limit on fan engagement and limit clubs to meeting only those who are members of an official fan body. Many fans will not be part of a formally constituted body; that does not mean that they should not be represented. For example, if a club is seeking to move ground or make changes to home shirt colours, a wide range of fans should be consulted and not just a formally constituted body. The Government have designed the legislation to allow for a bespoke approach to fan engagement shaped by the regulator’s guidance, an approach that the previous Government also supported.

However, although many clubs will be best placed to discern who they should engage with, if it is felt that a club is misusing this to select only agreeable fans or to exclude another group, the regulator can and should intervene. As is made explicit in paragraph 272 of the Explanatory Notes, the regulator can take action in such instances and will be able to specify how any representative group of fans should be engaged or informed. As I said at the start of my response, I am delighted that there is so much support across your Lordships’ House for fans being at the heart of the Bill and the debate. It is a theme that we will no doubt return to on many occasions, and I look forward to future discussions. However, for the reasons outlined, I am unable to accept the amendments from my noble friend and the noble Lord and ask that they do not press them.

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her response. In relation to my Amendment 8, I have been in her position of having to explain why, while agreeing with the spirit of an amendment, the Government are not minded to put it in a Bill. However, if she says that the Bill is about current and prospective fans, as my amendment seeks, why not say it in the Bill? I hope that between now and Report she might reflect a bit further on that.

Regarding my Amendment 9, the Minister said that I had conflated the issue with fans. After the slightly confusing debate that we had, it is not unreasonable that she thinks I might have done. Perhaps it was unhelpful to have grouped these amendments together and to have had one debate on them. However, I am clear that Clause 1(3)(b) relates to communities and not to fans. The question that I am asking is whether, as we work towards the sustainability of English football, we should limit our ambitions to the economic and social well-being of local communities that stand to benefit rather than our community more broadly? For the sake of clarity, I wanted to de-conflate those. I am not sure that we have quite cracked this matter but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Amendments 9 and 10 not moved.