Clive Betts MP: speeches

Speeches

• 3 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is a fair point, and it does not happen often enough these days. We can think back to how often the cup is won by someone different, and in past years it has been almost the same teams playing each other all the time. I think Crystal Palace were underdogs; I am not sure that Newcastle and Tottenham can really classify themselves as underdogs. But it was a point well made. There is a point I want to emphasise and ask the Minister to have a look at. Does she accept that the regulator, with the powers that it has to safeguard the heritage of English football, can look at the impact on domestic competitions and on all the clubs within the pyramid—the clubs that play in the FA cup and the League cup—from other competitions, where the calendar fixtures of a small number of clubs detrimentally affects those other clubs?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  There is a matter of procedure and process here. I cannot think of another example where a public servant’s salary has been written into primary legislation, either as an actual or a maximum. Does the shadow Minister accept that we would have to have a new Act of Parliament to amend that figure in 10 or 20 years’ time? Surely that is appallingly bad practice.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman will not tempt me down that road; if he did, I am sure you would stop me fairly quickly, Sir Jeremy. Let us stick to the matter in hand and look at the heritage of the game. It is absolutely right that the Government acted. The Bill, through a clause retained from the previous Bill, acts to stop clubs engaging in competitions that are not accepted by the regulator. That is an important part of the Bill, and it comes from the European super league suggestion. However, there are other developments in the game that I think are undermining its heritage.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am interested to know where the hon. Gentleman is trying to get to; I am not quite sure that he knows, at this stage. He is saying that anyone who has a role with influence in any of these matters should not be a media commentator. Does that go for MPs? I understand that the hon. Gentleman’s ex-colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared as a presenter on GB News while he was still an MP. Is there not a conflict of interest there, or are such conflicts very specific to this one job?

• 3 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I want to refer particularly to clause 6(c). When we finally get to the football issues in the Bill, I am sure a lot of them will be about the ownership of clubs and how owners behave. Just in passing, and without going into detail, the EFL has once again taken action against the owner of Sheffield Wednesday, Dejphon Chansiri, for failing to pay the players’ wages. I have said before that he does not have the resources to run the club, but we will come to that later. The other major issue we will come to will no doubt be the financial distribution within football. However, let us remember why the Crouch review was established. It was actually kicked off and stimulated by the suggestion that there might be a European super league, with certain clubs going off and playing by themselves and detaching themselves from the rest of football. The then Prime Minister got rather upset about that and decided that action needed to be taken. So the review was essentially about protecting the integrity of the established football competitions—the leagues, the FA cup and the League cup. Clause 6(c) refers to the need to “safeguard the heritage of English football”, or the heritage objective. Our objective is to protect the Premier League and the EFL—what has been the English league game and the pyramid for a long period—together with the FA cup and, more recently, for the last 50 years, the League cup. That is the heritage that needs protecting.

• 6 May 2025 · Middle East Update · Hansard source

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  I agree with the Minister’s comments and condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza. The problem is that I have agreed with him every time he has made these condemnations of Israel, and the whole House generally has joined him in that, but the reality is that Israel is taking absolutely no notice of the Government’s position. Its actions now in Gaza—the starving of the population and the threats of wholesale movement of that population away—are completely unacceptable. Will the Minister consider a rapid recognition of a Palestinian state, hopefully together with France and other allies, and will he seriously consider sanctions against Israel if it pursues the wholesale removal of Palestinians from their homes?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The Bill is very much rooted in what Dame Tracey Crouch recommended in the fan-led review. I asked the shadow Secretary of State if he could detail any ways in which this Bill deviated from what Tracey Crouch recommended. He mentioned independence and went on about that for some considerable length of time. No other proposal in the Bill differs from the fan-led review—not a single one. The reality is that the shadow Secretary of State did not even convince himself with his arguments today. There is a phrase that football fans chant—“You don’t know what you’re doing”—and it seemed to apply to his speech today. I am sorry about that because I respect his past contribution to the previous Bill, which is the framework for what is before us now, with one or two improvements. Dame Tracey’s recommendation H is clear and is key to the fan-led review: “Fair distributions are vital to the long term health of football. The Premier League should guarantee its support to the pyramid”. That is key. The pyramid is uniquely British. The strength of the pyramid is uniquely British. We therefore need to preserve it, but we need a fairer distribution of resources in order to do that. One change proposed in this Bill is the potential to include parachute payments when the regulator comes to a view on what the distribution should be. Instead of simply ignoring parachute payments—pretending they do not exist, as the previous Bill did—this legislation recognises the problem that currently 92% of the distributed funding for football goes to 25 clubs: the premier league clubs and the clubs receiving parachute payments. Those clubs receiving parachute payments have basically 10 times more resources than the clubs getting payments through the solidarity fund from the Premier League. This is a nonsense. We can see the difference now between the championship and the premier league; this year is, I think, the first when all three promoted clubs have been relegated straight back down, and there is a great difference between their points totals and the points total of West Ham, just above them. This is not sustainable—not at that level nor going down the leagues, as clubs simply struggle to survive.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am sorry, but we must kill this myth that somehow the Bill is going to kill the premier league. It is not. This Bill is designed to sustain the rest of the football pyramid. We should look at the resources the premier league has: it has twice as much money as any other major European league. That is the difference. Taking a proportion of that away to support the rest of the pyramid will not undermine and destroy the premier league. It will help sustain the rest of the pyramid, and that is the message that we need to get across. On the rest of the Bill, the issue of the sustainability of the pyramid is absolutely key, but I am still a bit wary about the rigidity of the backstop powers. There is some room for debate about giving a bit more flexibility to the regulators on that; I hope we can discuss that in Committee. The other key element is about ownership. We have heard stories about the problems that clubs have had with owners who simply are not fit for purpose, and I have no doubt that we will hear more. I was talking to colleagues in Reading on a Teams call the other day, along with other Sheffield MPs, and we discussed the problems facing Sheffield Wednesday supporters. We should stop clubs having to face such problems in the future. On Sheffield Wednesday, the owner is not a bad man; he has put a lot of money into the club and he has not ripped it off, but he is clearly running out of money to make the club sustainable. He could not pay the players’ wages last month, and he could not pay the tax dues a few weeks ago. Another failure to pay will mean the club is subject to a transfer embargo for three transfer windows. That would completely undermine both the competitive and the financial basis of the club. That is not acceptable. The chairman is the only owner and the only director; he does not have a board of directors and has no chief executive. He runs the club from Thailand by remote control, and when he could not pay the bills he said, “Well, my companies are owed money, so I don’t have the money to pay the club’s bills.” We do not know what companies those are in Thailand. As far as we can see, he has no companies that earn money. We suspect that the money comes from the family trust that owns Thai Union Frozen Products, which owns John West and other brands. In other words, he is reliant on his family members to give him the money to pay the players’ wages. That is not sustainable. This Bill compels the regulator to make sure that owners have the funds to sustain their club, and that the sources of those funds are transparent and open for all to see. That is absolutely key, not only for Sheffield Wednesday but for lots of other clubs. Finally, I am concerned that the owner, like owners of other clubs, has separated the ownership of the ground from the ownership of the club, and I hope we can strengthen the Bill on that issue. I do not think that was done for malevolent reasons; it was done to try to get around the financial fair play rules, and to help the club—that was his view. The fact is that the ground and the club are separate. Other clubs have that problem as well. In future, if an owner wants to separate the club and the ground, the regulator can step in to ensure that that is for proper reasons, and done in the proper way. Unfortunately, when ownership of the ground is separate from ownership of the club, there is a challenge. I would like a measure in the Bill that says that in order to get a licence, the owner has to prove that they have not only financial funding but a ground to play on. That should be locked in. Changes and improvements can be made, but the Bill really helps football. It helps fans to ensure that their club is sustainable, and it holds owners to account. It is great that fans will now have a real role and involvement in their club. They can be properly consulted about what happens at Hillsborough; currently, there is an engagement panel for fans, but the chairman chooses who goes on it. When people join the engagement panel, they have to sign a document that states that they will not talk about what has been discussed outside the group. What sort of accountability is that? It is nonsense. The Bill will strengthen the hand of fans, so that they can properly engage with a club. I fully support it, and hope that the House overwhelmingly supports it, too.

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Getting down to details, the right hon. Gentleman praises Dame Tracey Crouch’s review, which everyone welcomed and supported. Will he now set out the specific measures in the Bill which contradict and differ from what Dame Tracey recommended?

• 28 Apr 2025 · Football Governance Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  May I return the Secretary of State to the Conservatives’ position on parachute payments? I welcome the fact that the Government have not ruled out taking them into account when the regulator does his work. Surely the purpose of the “state of the game” report is to look at the health of the football pyramid as a whole, but before that report is published, the Opposition want to rule out allowing the regulator to take account of parachute payments. As 80% of the help that the Premier League gives the rest of the league is spent on parachute payments, surely that is a nonsense and at least should be considered for the future.

• 22 Apr 2025 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  The Government have my full-hearted support for the action they have taken with regard to Scunthorpe, which is important for not merely Scunthorpe itself and the workers there but the supply chain as well. In that regard, I want to raise an issue of concern that I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will look into. I have had a letter from Ian Walker, who is the chairman of Rotary Engineering, a long-established, highly regarded specialist engineering firm in my constituency. It provided services to British Steel last November, and it is still waiting for payment for those services, despite regular correspondence that has been ignored. If Rotary Engineering is having this difficulty with British Steel, many other small and medium-sized enterprises could as well. Will my hon. Friend look into this as a matter of urgency, find out what British Steel has been doing and try to ensure that these important companies—important for not merely British Steel but our whole engineering industry—are paid and able to survive?

• 22 Apr 2025 · Ukraine Update · Hansard source

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  I very much welcome the comments from my right hon. Friend about the need to spend more of our defence funds on buying weapons made in this country. It is a really helpful comment. The other day I was at BAE Systems, which is building a new factory in my constituency to produce artillery weapons, some of which I hope will go to Ukraine. Can my right hon. Friend commit that we will supply those weapons to Ukraine while-ever Ukraine wants them, and we will treat with a degree of scepticism and complete contempt the comments by Putin, trying to manufacture some sort of fake peace to suit his own ends?

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  We will go to the Front Benchers at 1.40 pm, so if Members who are called could be as brief as possible, that would be appreciated.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank all Members for their help in being brief for the last few contributions, but unfortunately we have time only for a final Back-Bench contribution. I call Sir Jeremy Wright.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I call Dame Harriett Baldwin for the official Opposition.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  Thank you for that. If Members can keep contributions to around three minutes, that will be helpful. I call Liz Saville Roberts.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind Members that each contribution should take no more than two to three minutes.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  I call the Minister. I would appreciate it if he could leave two minutes at the end for the mover to wind up.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  I now call the spokesman for the official Opposition.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  I thank everyone for their co-operation. We now move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople, each of whom has, as a guide, around 10 minutes, but we clearly have more time than that if people want to take it.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  Speeches should be about seven minutes; that is guidance, not an absolute limit. I remind Members not to refer to any cases that are active before the courts, because they are sub judice.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Non-disclosure Agreements · Hansard source

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  The Front-Bench speeches will need to start by 10.28 am. I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Gaza: Israeli Military Operations · Hansard source

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  Let me try to approach this in another way. It is obvious that Israel has been emboldened by the explicit and implicit support of the US Government for what it is doing—that has been a fundamental change. The US Government have ruled out a two-state solution, as I understand. What has the Minister been doing, or what can he do, to work with our colleagues in the European Union, and with the Arab states, to develop a clear plan for a two-state solution, and a clear timeframe for all countries recognising a Palestinian state?

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  I remind hon. Members that it is up to the Member who is speaking whether they take an intervention. If any Member wants to speak in the debate, they must have got the agreement in advance of the Member in charge and the Minister. They cannot just get up and speak. They must have done that in advance, according to the rules that apply in this debate.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  Order. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).