My Lords, I want partly to echo what my noble friend Lord Hayward said. Given that the individuals concerned will be non-executive directors of a de facto non-departmental public body, they would be covered by the existing code of conduct for non-departmental public bodies, which I think dates from June 2019. It may have been updated by the previous Government; I do not think that the current Government have looked at it. Equally, they are governed by the Nolan principles, with which we are all very familiar—I am as familiar as anyone else, having been a special adviser and currently being a non-executive director of two non-departmental public bodies.

My point is about the restrictive nature of this wording. This is quite an unusual situation, where the individuals responsible for bringing disciplinary issues to the attention of the appropriate authorities in the independent football regulator will have no leeway whatever under this legislation. If it passes the threshold of criminal activity in civil law, legal representatives—the judiciary, magistrates and others—would have no leeway on this. Therefore, you would circumscribe the existing internal procedures.

Those of us who have a role in non-departmental public bodies know that there is a proper process. You would have a verbal warning. I also have a master’s degree in human resource management and have been an HR manager in my time—there are almost as many of us in this place as there are lawyers.