I am sure the Government Whip appreciates my comments more than that. The Government’s Bill, alongside the unprecedented and seemingly unlimited powers that it grants to their regulator, is, as we have argued already, putting English football at risk. The Government have assured us that their politically led regulator will be proportionate and risk-based, but the Bill as drafted grants it significant scope to expand its own powers, with limited checks on that unaccountable and seemingly unstoppable expansion of power, and the Minister did say in her previous comments that Parliament will not get a vote on this, so Members need to be aware of this as we go forward. The Government’s regulator is in prime position to commit a regulatory land grab that would belong more in a war documentary than in a sport that is supposed to be independent of the state.
We have seen this before. Regulators rarely stick to their lane; just look at Ofcom, who attempted to remove former colleagues from their role as broadcasters. They were found to be in breach of their own rules, so Ofcom changed the rule. What is to stop this regulator doing the same? Over time, objectives change and bureaucracies grow. What begins as a modest remit to protect financial sustainability can turn into a permanent presence in the boardrooms of clubs, pushing even more conditions, even more reporting requirements, even more intervention —all in the name of “compliance”. We believe that that is dangerous for sport, as a general rule. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne also explained how his experience of regulations supports our concern.
Clause 16 allows the regulator to require whatever documents it deems “appropriate” for a provisional licence application. That may include business plans, financial forecasts, ownership structures, or other forms of club data. Crucially, the Bill does not limit what can be asked for. Nor does it require that these requests be proportionate, standardised, or even necessary to the specific risk posed for each club. We believe that this Government have written their regulator a bit of a blank cheque in this area—one that empowers them to define their regulator’s own administrative burden and impose it unilaterally on clubs without giving clubs a say in how that starts to look, going forward, or the issues that it may create in clubs. As I have commented and other Members have commented, that is a particular issue for clubs lower down the leagues, particularly those in League One and League Two, or the National League—clubs that already operate with small margins and stretched resources. We have to remember that while some of this legislation is clearly aimed at the top level—the Premier League level—all clubs will be required to provide documents to the regulator. We must remember that those smaller clubs that may not have big human resources departments will be required to present their homework. Forcing them to comply with excessive or bespoke documentation requirements—there could be uncertainty about what those requirements will look like, going forward—drawn up by a regulator that answers to no shareholders, no supporters and, once set up, only loosely to Parliament—no vote for Parliament—will hit those least able to absorb the resource costs and financial costs the hardest.
More fundamentally, it sets a dangerous precedent. If the regulator is given the power to define its own gatekeeping rules without parliamentary oversight, we create a system where compliance is dictated not by statute but by bureaucracy. Once that door is open, it rarely swings shut, as we have seen with other regulators. We know how these things go. One year it is audited accounts. The next it is fan engagement reports, community impact statements, net zero transition plans perhaps—all well-meaning, but all cumulative, and all irrelevant in practicality to whether a club should be granted a provisional licence to play football.
The way that the Government have drafted and introduced the Bill and conducted themselves during this process shows that they have forgotten the key part of this debate: playing football. They have become more concerned, we believe, with the minutiae of football governance. It is clear that they have put favours over fans in their appointment, cronies over clubs and bureaucracy over the beautiful game as they seek to make it almost impossible for clubs to actually get on with playing football. We must not lose sight of the fact that this is about playing football.
Let me be clear again: we are not opposing things for opposition’s sake, but we will provide a robust and thorough challenge to areas of the Bill that we believe will have unintended consequences. What we must resist is a system where clubs are treated as supplicants—forced to second-guess what information a regulator may require, fearful that an honest administrative error might cost them their licence, or worse, the future of their football club. Currently, clubs are at real risk of being sacrificed on the altar of bureaucracy by this Labour Government.
I urge the Committee to vote in favour of these amendments that would remove the ability of the Government’s politically led regulator to increase its own powers and remit without any oversight. This clause as drafted by the Government includes no provision for Parliament or even for the Secretary of State—whoever that may be in the coming months—to reign in their regulator and reduce their powers, if need be. Once passed, reversing an expansion of power by the regulator will be exceptionally difficult.
This Government promised us and fans a light-touch, risk-based independent regulator. That was before they appointed their own donor to be chair and then returned the favour, we believe, not only by giving him a fairly large part-time salary, but by giving him a fairly blank cheque about how to increase his power over time, as they have voted against amendments requiring more transparency, and we believe the interests of football fans.
It is clear that the Conservatives want to protect fans, and we will press these amendments, which seek to limit the power of the regulator going forward, to a vote.