Lincoln Jopp MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 17 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that the new clause is not asking for the ban to be lifted. It is very much in the spirit of what he is saying. It says that there should be a requirement to consult, which seems to be the process that he is advocating, so I do not think it would be out of place in the Bill.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Could the hon. Gentleman give us some sense of his assessment of how much money the new clause would take out of football?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship Sir Jeremy. I remind the Committee of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Unlike the hon. Member for Rushcliffe, I chose my tie with purpose this morning, to celebrate both the fact that this might be the last day of the Bill Committee and also events in Atlanta last night. What we have seen is the thin end of the wedge. I am alive to the arguments about the disparity that parachute payments create in the overall economy of football. However, this Bill is undoubtedly the thin end of the wedge. It will come as no surprise to Members that I am a Conservative, and therefore I think the best form of regulator is competition. We all just ought to watch, because if the regulator has parachute payments within its purview, what is next? It will be agents’ fees, TV rights carve-ups, finishing position bonuses and cut prize money. Seeking to run football as some sort of socialist command economy will come unstuck. I put on record my concern that that is exactly what the Bill seeks to do.

• 17 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister said that just because the Bill enables the regulator to consider parachute payments, that does not mean that it will. The Minister is in the unique position of being the person who is going to appoint the football regulator, because the Secretary of State has stood down from that decision. Will the Minister ask the person selected to be the regulator whether they would like to exercise the power—whether “can” will mean “will”?

• 17 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  One of the ways in which the Secretary of State has reduced the waiting list is by turbocharging the use of the private sector since January, meaning that half a million people have been treated in irreducible spare capacity. Has that experience elicited any learnings that the Secretary of State is able to take into the wider reform agenda for the NHS?

• 16 Jun 2025 · SEND Support: Children without an EHCP · Hansard source

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  In the last 11 months I have visited nearly all the schools in my constituency, and wherever I have gone I have asked whether people understand why the number of children with special educational needs has been going through the roof. I have received various explanations, such as lockdown, diet, social media, drugs in pregnancy, parenting, increased awareness and over-medicalisation. Is the Department doing any research on what is causing this phenomenon, so that we can treat the causes and not just the symptoms?

• 16 Jun 2025 · SEND Support: Children without an EHCP · Hansard source

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  8. What steps she is taking to support children with special educational needs and disabilities who do not have an education, health and care plan.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister is making a completely reasonable amendment. We have the emblem, colours and name. Does he agree that it would be helpful if the Minister explained why the name has been taken out for different treatment from the emblem and the colours?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I agree with the Minister—my understanding of what she just said is the same—but that leaves a tiny bit of clarity still to be given. Will all the normal running costs of the regulator be met by the levy, and none by the taxpayer?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Again, I am concerned about the clash of duties. The Minister has already told us that her team and the insolvency team have met and considered this issue. In a period of liquidation, not putting additional debt into a company, or indeed spending cash, is one of the directors’ responsibilities, but this will undoubtedly cost the club. Has the Minister sought and received reassurances that this approach is consistent with the Insolvency Act?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am intrigued to know whether, with all his experience, his chairmanship of the football all-party parliamentary group and his background with the Bill, the hon. Gentleman thinks he has yet received an adequate explanation from the Minister on why emblems and colours are treated differently from the names of clubs.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I want to clarify whether the Minister is entirely comfortable that the Government are in no way able to control the amount of money spent by the regulator. If, in fulfilling its duties, the regulator decided it was important to fly business class to meet UEFA and FIFA once a month—if I were the regulator, I could probably make the case that I was fulfilling my duties by doing that—it would create a huge cost and involve hiring additional staff. Are the Government really prepared to give the regulator a blank cheque?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I welcome the fact that the Minister is saying, “Let’s trust existing organisations to do it”, rather than bringing it within the purview of a higher regulator. On the basis that the FA has exercised such responsibilities when it comes to names, why cannot it be trusted to have the same consideration for emblems and colours?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Let me provide some context. I will not name the team, but there is a team in the National League whose cash at hand in 2020 was £25,000, and by 2022 that had reduced to £9,802. We are talking about clubs with an incredibly tight financial structure. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the shadow Minister that changes may be minor to the regulator, but they will not be minor to such teams.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I do not know whether the Minister has ever run a company that was approaching either administration or insolvency, but had she, she would know that a number of incredibly onerous and important duties are placed on the directors of such companies, which are literally minute by minute, in terms of them being shown to be acting responsibly. That can include, potentially, having multiple board meetings during a day, which are minuted, in order to revisit the “going concern” statement that the company does indeed have sufficient resources to meet its obligations as they fall due. The penalties for failing to act responsibly and in accordance with the Insolvency Act 1986 in such circumstances can include being barred as a director of any company by the Secretary of State for a number of years, whereas the jeopardy in this Bill is possibly losing the ability to own a football club or to be an officer thereof. On the basis that we can all become millionaires or start-up billionaires and buy a football club, it is very concerning that we are putting in law the ability to override the directors of said companies’ obligations under the Insolvency Act. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether the Government have taken any legal advice on the specific question about the potential conflict between obligations on directors under the Insolvency Act and obligations on owners and officers under the Bill.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do not know whether the Minister has ever conducted a judicial review, but we could not get one done for £9,000.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I rise to support amendment 110. I suspect the Minister might say that we do not need to cover everything and that there is a general catch-all measure in the clause, so we do not need to make this amendment. I will draw the Committee’s attention to a similar case in my own constituency, however, where a member of the public wrote to ask if I could please hurry up his EU settlement scheme application. When we checked with the visas and immigration service, it turned out that he had been subject to a deportation order in 2017, and had indeed been deported in 2017. He had somehow managed to get back into this country illegally and make an EUSS application. He is still subject to that deportation order, yet for some crazy reason, the Home Office still have to go through his application. That is the sort of thing that we should not have to legislate for and that we should not have to state, but sadly we do.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister knows—I have approached her about this—that a club in my constituency of Spelthorne has gone into administration. It has no home ground, but it does have a training ground, which is a community asset. I am intrigued to know whether, in the potential conflict between the purview of the regulator and the enactment of companies law in dealing with the administration of the company, the provisions in the clause give the regulator power to influence the administrator on the manner of the administration and whether clubs’ training grounds can be bought or sold. What is the hierarchy of legislative authority between companies law and the clause?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I wish to build on my hon. Friend’s themes. Football has the unfortunate concept of the friendly; frequently, they are not very friendly at all. When I read the Bill, it was clear to me that the drafters had in mind the prevention of another flyaway European super league, which we have debated. I would like the Minister to look at look at the example of a one-off friendly match. Many of our teams tour in the far east and in America, in their off-season, to generate additional revenues and expand their fan base and brand. Let us envisage a set of circumstances in which a North Korean has somehow managed to purchase an English football team, and they have the bright idea that they would like to play a “friendly” match in North Korea. It is a one-off match, but the Government in North Korea decide that they want to make a big deal of it, so it becomes the Pyongyang cup—a one-off match between the English team and the North Korean team. In the Minister’s view, would the regulator be justified in considering whether such a one-off match was a competition and therefore within the purview of the regulator?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  If a club has lost its licence, has it not therefore been taken beyond the purview of the regulator? How is the regulator still empowered to pursue the owner?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a pertinent point. As I said, the word “competition” seems to refer to the sort of flyaway league we have discussed; are one-off friendlies competitions under the terms of the Bill?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does my hon. Friend agree with the analogy that, although we are all very proud of having the Special Air Service as our elite forces, the SAS cannot be created without a very large Army underneath? While the Premier League is the jewel in the crown, it simply cannot exist on its own; it absolutely needs the game beneath it.

• 12 Jun 2025 · Football Governance Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting) · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the desire to legislate for bad owners, but is the hon. Gentleman not concerned about good owners who might find money very tight? They have assets beyond the home ground and team itself that they might have to consider selling, including a training ground, to remain financially viable and therefore be on the right side of the regulator in their business plan. Is he not concerned that, by extending even further the regulator’s purview into all properties, he might overly constrain good owners from doing what they want to save their clubs?

• 12 Jun 2025 · Support for Small Businesses · Hansard source

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  Lky7 Sports is a small cycle and nutrition business in Ashford in my constituency. It has been hammered by the loss of small business rate relief, and wrote to me yesterday saying: “The Government say that they are helping small business, but this is a joke when our business rates have gone from nothing to £1,800. We are seriously considering closing the shop down.” What advice does the Minister have for that boss?

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chancellor for her statement, but I fear that she may have misunderstood the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) asked about the River Thames scheme. He asked whether the scheme is included in the £4.2 billion TDEL—total departmental expenditure limit—over three years referenced in paragraph 5.121 of the review. The Chancellor replied that my hon. Friend wants to put up expenditure and will not say where it is coming from, but both he and I are asking this: is the Environment Agency’s half of the River Thames scheme—Surrey county council pays the other half—funded from the £4.2 billion TDEL that she has announced today?