HL Deb 03 December 1974 vol 355 cc111-33

4.56 p.m.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The Baroness WOOTTON of ABINGER in the Chair.]

Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 [Applications for certificates]:

On Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to say that in the light of the reorganisation of local government that has already taken place in England and Wales, and which is due to take place in Scotland next year, we have been looking again at the various places in the Bill, of which Clause 3(3) is an example, in which separate mention is made of the local authority and the fire authority. In fact, the local authority and the fire authority are, or will be, one and the same. Some re-drafting may be necessary on this account. I hope to put down appropriate Amendments on Report for the consideration of your Lordships.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 agreed to.

After Clause 4.

Lord WIGG moved Amendment No. 1:

After Clause 4 insert the following new clause: The Secretary of State may out of moneys to be provided by Parliament make available such sums whether by way of grant, loan or otherwise and on such terms as he thinks appropriate after consultation with the Sports Council to those responsible for the conduct and management of any designated sports stadium to enable them to comply with the terms and conditions contained in any safety certificate issued in relation to such sports stadium.

The noble Lord said: The Amendment which stands in my name on the Marshalled List is the same Amendment, in identical wording, as that which was moved a year ago tomorrow on behalf of the Labour Party from those Benches. I do not want to weary your Lordships. I should have liked nothing better than just to read the speech I made a year ago, because the arguments I put forward then are the arguments I put forward today. I believe them to be true. I thought that members of the Labour Party, many of whom sit on these Benches today, who went through the Lobby believed them, too. That belief was emphasised because when the Bill went to another place, the identical Amendment—suitably amended, of course—was put down there. The Labour Party en masse went through the Lobby. Senior Members who sit on these Benches, like my noble friend Lord Balogh, voted for that Amendment a year ago. I sincerely trust they will vote for it today.

Having made that point, I wish to make a second. My interest in this matter is confined to what I say. I speak for nobody but myself, except for the organisations which I mentioned on Second Reading—the Football League, the Football Association, the Central Council for Physical Recreation, and many clubs or organisations which have sent messages to me, including one telegram I had as I came into the House, from the chairman of the Middlesbrough Football Club, who hopes very much that your Lordships will listen particularly not to what I have to say, but to what others have to say. That includes, I am glad to say, the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, who spoke on that occasion and voted; and he as chairman of Newcastle United and with his long membership of the Football League and the Football Association speaks with very great authority. Indeed, let me say that there is no difference between supporters and opponents on one particular point. I cannot do better than read what Lord Westwood said in regard to the licensing of sports stadia: … as it is of paramount importance that the safety of the public should be safeguarded at all times".—[OFFICIAL REPORT,20/11/73, c. 951.] That is basic. Everybody accepts the necessity of this Bill; the Conservative Party accepted it when they were in Government, the Labour Party when they were in Opposition, and now the positions are reversed; judging by the speeches of the spokesmen, we all accept that.

What is at issue is how it is to be paid for. When the Bill was debated a year ago I expressed my dissatisfaction or—let me put it more mildly—my lack of complete satisfaction with the form of words on the Marshalled List. I have the same doubts today. The late Lord Garns-worthy said that the Amendment was not perfect. That is not what we are after. On Second Reading I made the same point. All that we ask for is that the Government honestly and sincerely—with a mind to the great issues involved here—look at this problem. It is no good the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, coming along and saying, "I was not here then". If I may say to him with great respect, his opinions on any subject are of great importance but are not all that important. We are not asking the noble Lord, Lord Harris, we are asking the Government—and he is the spokesman of the Government—to explain to us what it was that converted the Labour Party from their view in Opposition to their view in Government that football clubs are commercial undertakings.

I excuse the noble Lord who spoke on Second Reading. I intended, if he had been here, to argue a little with him about his somewhat juvenile views, but as he is not here it would be unfair, not having given him notice, to argue with what he said. But let us take what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said. He said: It is a long-established principle that those who, in the course of a commercial enter- I prise, put the public at risk should themselves bear the cost of any statutory safety measures which thus become necessary. The Government see no reason to depart from this principle in the present case. But while no grants or loans from public funds will be made to the football clubs, we have been considering whether there are other ways in which help may be given."—(OFFICIAL REPORT, 19/11/74, Col. 986.)

Let us consider for a while the extent to which football clubs are commercial undertakings in the fullest sense of the word as advanced by the noble Lord and another noble Lord on the other side. First of all, all dividends are limited to 10 per cent. Directors cannot receive any remuneration either as directors or employees of the club. Of course, there is another fundamental difference, and it is this: football is a highly competitive business for a very few. The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, made this point. There are not eight or ten clubs in the country which are commercially viable. Nor can that number ever be exceeded, because only eight or ten clubs can reach the highest honours, but in order to reach the highest honours they must have other clubs to beat. So the game of football—as practised and followed by some 35 million people a year—is a game in which there can be very few winners, but in order that the game shall have life blood and shall be meaningful to the thousands who go through the turnstiles there have to be many losers. Therefore, it is quite impossible to maintain or sustain the argument—if it is asserted—that it is a commercial undertaking.

What I want to ask is: if the Government hold the view that this is a principle which has been long maintained, why did not they cite it both in this place and in the House of Commons a year ago; because if that principle is eternal, as enunciated by Lord Harris, it was equally as valid on 4th December 1973, as on 3rd December 1974. I have not asked for large handouts, although what I said was caricatured. I am asking for nothing of the kind. I am not even asking for any money. But I want once again to remind noble Lords of a few basic facts.

Your Lordships will perhaps have a little personal sympathy with me, because I fought the battle on my own at one stage in two particular fields. The revenue from betting and gaming when the Labour Government came to Office in 1964 was £33 million and no more. When the case was made that it ought to be looked at there was a stout denial. No, this was impossible. Winston had failed; when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he had tried to tax gambling, and he had failed. The late Mr. Iain Macleod, in the course of the debate on the Finance Bill in 1966, forecast failure. He was kind and generous enough at a later stage to admit he was wrong.

But what is it today? The Chancellor of the Exchequer in a supplementary Statement on the recent Budget debate forecast that this year there will be £240 million from gambling. For football I used a figure a year ago which was not far out; I projected the amount in respect of football would be of the order of £72 million. This year it is not less than £85 million. On the general betting duty, which concerns horseracing, dogs and the like, it is of the order of £130 million. These are great sums. But I am not making the mistake, and I do not assert, that this money is taken from football or taken from racing. It is no more taken from racing or football than it is taken when a man pays tax on a gallon of petrol or a packet of cigarettes. I reject the principle of hypothecation and I said that I renounced it in 1961. Again almost on my own, when the Bill was going through the Committee stage in the House of Commons, I voted against my own Party five times in order to establish the levy.

However, when the Minister comes along and says: "We cannot give any money. This offends against the basic principle which has just been dug out of the archives in the Home Office or possibly the lower dungeons of the Treasury", I do not believe him. When he says, "Yes, we are going to give a little help by way of football pools and possibly through lotteries", how very kind of him! In 1968, Sir Norman Chester presented a Report which had been called for by the Minister of Sport; he was then a junior Minister of State in the Department of Education. In paragraph 64 there is a recommendation that there should be a levy on football.

The Minister, when he was replying, said: "We cannot give much help. We cannot do it this way but we can do it in other ways, football pools and lotteries." He said, "The Government are under difficulties, but the matter is under consideration and we shall be reporting as soon as possible". If it takes from 1968 to 1974—and remember that the present Home Secretary was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Report was presented so he could have done it then if he had wanted—if six years is as soon as possible, would he be kind enough to tell me how long is "as long as passible"? It has taken six years and I the truth, although the Minister may not know it, is that there is as much chance of getting a levy on football as there is of a celluloid mouse going through Parliament. There is no chance at all!

For this reason I ask noble Lords to go back and read a very erudite speech by Enoch Powell on the Peppiatt Report. Remember, my Lords, that the Government of Mr. Butler was in difficulties about getting their legislation on betting and gaming through this House, and they set up a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Leslie Peppiatt. When the Report was presented, Enoch Powell got up and put forward the traditional view of the Treasury, "No hypothecation. No assignment of revenue in advance". It is for that reason that the recommendation of the Norman Chester Committee has never been accepted. If, as I say, it has hung about for six years, what chance has it now?

We now come to another argument. I had a really rough ride, because I had the temerity to oppose piecemeal legislation on the interdepartmental committee that had its basis in this document which was presented to Parliament in 1973. Its basis was dishonest, because the Conservative Government were in difficulties. They were in difficulties because they had put a limit on bingo—or the Gaming Board had done so—but there was no limit on football. So they got it out of their court by setting up a departmental committee under the chairmanship of a very able civil servant, and they produced a Report which was debated in this House.

Then a Private Member's Bill went through the House of Commons, and when the Government failed to defeat it it came to this House. I spelled it out as clearly as I could, not that I was against the principle of the Bill, but that there should be no piecemeal legislation. It was no good approaching this complicated and controversial subject piecemeal. It had to be done by a Government which took this Report, accepted what parts they wanted, and came not only to the House but to the country as a whole—because the consequences of this are extremely far-reaching.

I noticed with interest that with an act of sublime political courage, when I divided the House and I managed to persuade the House that the Bill should not be read a second time, all the Members of the Government Front Bench abstained from voting. I also noticed a Question that was answered in the House of Commons on 21st November last by Dr. Summerskill, who was the Minister, a departmental colleague of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, who on the Second Reading of this Bill had accepted this Report in principle, although it had never been accepted by either the Conservative or Labour Governments, and who said on the subject of lotteries: The Working Party's Report is fairly complicated. It deals with a wide range of subjects some of them very controversial. It is necessary to consider the whole of football pool legislation and not deal with it piecemeal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 21/11/74; col. 1509.] So we are not to have it dealt with piecemeal. It is to be looked at as a Government measure. Yet both in the field of football pools and in the field of lotteries, the only hope that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, could give, not only to football but to sport as a whole, was that, "We have discovered a principle. We are looking to see whether we can give help in one of two fields." Yet the Government know perfectly well that nothing will ever come out of the first, and the chance of getting more than 2p out of the second are extremely remote.

On 25th July, I wearied the House with the exercise that had been done by the GLC on the question of lotteries. They had worked it out that what they would get were a few thousand pounds, but they forgot to take into their calculations that lotteries would be subject to 40 per cent. pool duty, so that at the end of the day if they ran lotteries the chances were not that they would make anything, but that they would not get anything at all. The positive case that I am putting to the Government is this. The financing of sport and the wellbeing of sport are of major national importance, and it is no good the noble Lord, Lord Harris, coming like an echo from the 1930s, with the real old voice of laissez-faire, the authentic voice of Chamberlain and all he stood for, and saying, "We cannot do it now." I would not laugh. I would hang my head in shame if I had to advance arguments of that kind. What does it mean to the young whose chance may come?—"Nothing for you my son. We cannot afford it." My generation suffered from that. This country as a whole suffered from that. Education in this country was so neglected that when the war came we did not have the manpower to handle the technical equipment that was available. That is the price you pay if you turn around and say, "No, we cannot afford it."

Of course it is difficult. Of course in a time of great financial stringency you cannot give vast sums of money that will benefit people who go to Ascot, those who go to football matches, or those who play squash and the like. What you could do is to look at the problem as a whole, face it squarely and examine the basis of the finances of sport in this country. If the Government want an alibi, do not say, "We are leaving the question under review and we will get a reply as soon as possible. It may be football pools and it may be lotteries", when they know very well it will not. Set up a Select Committee to examine the financing of sport in the professional sense, from the point of view of the safety of spectators or the integrity of the sport, and also look to see what facilities should be provided for our young people in participant sports. Look at it as a whole. See how you can raise the finance. You have taken £240 million. You are bleeding the industry white, and it has no means of recouping this.

The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, will tell your Lordships that at the present time, because of the lack of social discipline which is largely occasioned, in my judgment, by successive Governments' refusal to face the problem, it costs more at many football matches to pay for the police than it does to pay for the team. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, would use that argument. It is an argument of validity. The behaviour of young people is very much occasioned by the way they behave at sporting functions. I think it is a crime if any racecourse in this country, any stand in this country, any facility in this country is not used to the maximum.

What is wanted here is not only money. What is wanted is intelligence, vigour and the abandoning of laissez-faire. I should have thought that this problem was too hot for any Minister. It is too hot for the Home Secretary because he, like the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is concerned only with the social aspects of the problem. I have no doubt whatever that the present Home Secretary has protested against the decision of the Treasury not to provide money for sport. I am sure, too, that the present Minister for Sport, while he has said one thing in Opposition, is forced to say another in Government. But the matter needs to be looked at right across the board.

My plea is this. You are not going to get anything unless you exercise pressures. Do not get taken out for lunches; do not get taken into conferences; do not listen to the soft words of the noble Lord. Lord Harris, reading from a departmental brief which is not completely intellectually digested. Do not take any notice of that. What we want to do is to make a case, and to understand our case ourselves, for all sport in this country to get around the table—certainly the Football League and the Football Association—if you like under the chairmanship of the Minister for Sport. They should go to the Prime Minister and say, "If you do not provide the facilities—if you do not look at the position of this country vis-à-vis the other countries who lay claim to greatness in terms of the sporting facilities which are available—it is a crime, not only against this generation but against generations to come". Therefore, in the name of logic I certainly ask all those who last year voted on the same issue when they were sitting opposite (including the Minister, because men are judged not only by what they say but by what they do) to go through the Lobby chis evening if we do not receive a satisfactory reply from the Minister. I appeal to other Members of your Lordships' House who were not present on that occasion—or who may even have been persuaded to vote against—to join in on a non-Party basis, and the Government for all their power, if they do not like it, to take it to another place and say to another place that here on this issue on a non-Party basis we are agreed that this problem should be looked at and we should not be given the sob stories that were given on Second Reading. I beg to move.

5.21 p.m.

Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND

I cannot claim that I have as much interest in football as my noble friend Lord Wigg who, although he declared he had no financial interest, betrayed a tremendous interest in the game and the sport itself. Perhaps I should declare that my interest is that the same manager of Middlesbrough Football Club who was in touch with my noble friend Lord Wigg was also in touch with me, probably because he is my nephew, Charles Aymer, a man who has risen from very humble beginnings, like myself, and who has made no money out of Middlesbrough Football Club. My guess is that it has cost him quite a lot of money so there is no financial interest there. My interest, I think, is the same as his. I have not been to a football match for years, although I rarely miss Match of the Day on television on a Saturday night, as do thousands more in this country. But I travel round the country and see various football pitches on which amateurs are playing and enjoying the sport and trying to emulate the skill of those they see when they go to professional football matches.

When I first looked at this Bill I wondered how much money we could ask the Government to put into an industry—I think it is now an industry—which was paying such tremendous transfer fees for the players and which reflected an impossible financial situation so far as the industry was concerned. This money merely circulates within the football industry; it neither comes in nor goes out. I have often questioned the ethics of buying and selling the footballers as if they were animals inside this industry and the footballers themselves receiving so little from the proceeds at the end of the day. But I was impressed when I listened to Jack Charlton on television talking about football to a group of very young people who were intensely interested and were concentrating on the large amount' of money people were making—players, managers and people of that character. I believe I said that my nephew is a manager: he is chairman of that club. I must correct that point for the record. Jack Charlton pointed out that very few people were receiving these high salaries for playing football and that thousands of professional people were receiving very low wages for playing the game simply because they loved it.

I am more interested in this from the point of view of safety because of my experience in the industrial world. For over half a century I have fought for safety inside the industrial groups of this country and have always had problems in getting through legislation. The trade union movement has spent millions of pounds in getting through legislation in respect of safety. But it is no good passing safety regulations, or any other regulations, unless there is power to enforce them. I remember that when the Industrial Relations Act went through we informed the Government that there was very little hope of their being able to implement the legislation that they were passing. In the event it proved to be so. When one is dealing with masses of people one finds that legislation becomes inoperative if they do not want to abide by it. So one must be wise and see that one's legislation is sensible from the beginning. America learned this many years ago when she introduced prohibition; it was impossible to apply. I want to stop the Government passing legislation on safety unless there is financial power behind it to ensure that it is effective.

The legislation calls for very expensive safeguards at the football grounds—and rightly so after the Ibrox disaster. These safety regulations must be passed but they must also be effective, and unless there is enough money behind the legislation to ensure that the safeguards required will be provided and paid for it will be a useless exercise. What will be the consequences if at the end of the day it means interference with the sport and, perhaps, the closing down of football clubs? The football club at the top of the First Division today may well be the club at the bottom of the Second Division tomorrow. There is no guarantee that any club will have enough finance in a couple of years to put this legislation into operation, so we have to ensure that we have the money for it.

Imagine the feeling that will run through the country if, for example, one of the top clubs (I will not mention one that was in my mind) ran into financial trouble and inside of a year was in the Second Division and, not having implemented this legislation, it had to close down. That is the ultimate unless the money is there to implement the legislation. Suppose some of the smaller clubs were in that position as they certainly may be; some may have to close down immediately. If that happens there will be mass rebellion from people who love football. That mass rebellion will express itself with sanity with 90 per cent. of the people, but the vandals who are roaming this country at the present time will love the opportunity to latch on to such a situation to create more vandalism in the train of this legislation. If they do that they will draw to themselves the decent people in sport who will support them, because their cause is good even though their remedy is wrong. The Government must not allow themselves to get into a situation of this character and the money must be provided.

I do not know whether there are resources other than the Exchequer for this purpose; there may be. My noble friend Lord Wigg touched on this point and I am not quite sure what the other sources are. But one point I make definitely; whatever the sources of this finance are they must be contained in the legislation. There must be no piecemeal legislation; with that I agree 100 per cent. My only plea to the Government is that if this legislation is going through—I not only hope it does, I know it must—it must be accompanied, not followed, by financial provisions to ensure that it is satisfactorily carried out and does not cause a lot more trouble than it is designed to remove.

5.30 p.m.

Earl COWLEY

I intend to speak on this for only a very few moments. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has said, this Amendment which has been moved by the noble Lord is the same as the Amendment to our Bill moved by the late Lord Garnsworthy almost a year ago. That Amendment was resoundingly defeated by 84 votes to 34. Now the same Amendment has been dusted off and brought before the Committee once again. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, is asking your Lordships to amend the Bill so that public funds can be made available to those people who are required to implement the terms laid down by local authorities in the safety certificates. Our attitude to this Amendment has not altered during the last year, although of course since last February our places in the Committee have been changed.

As was said by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross in Committee stage on the Bill last December, we believe it would be wrong as a matter of principle for public money to be provided so that commercial enterprises can fulfil safety requirements. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, agrees with this line of thought. When someone goes into business and consequently puts members of the public at risk, he should not be provided with funds from the State so that he can ensure that people do not get hurt. Even if one did not hold to this principle and this Amendment was accepted by the Committee, I think it would be wrong at this time, when the economic situation in this country is so serious, for the Government further to reduce funds available to existing areas of Government expenditure and divert money to football grounds and other stadia so that they can implement necessary safety requirements. Likewise, it would be just as damaging to increase Government expenditure at a time of high inflation to meet the Amendment's terms.

I find it impossible to support a proposal making Government finance available to football grounds for something they should be doing anyway, and which many football clubs are doing, when much more worthwhile requests for funds, for example for housing and social services, are not being fully met. To pass this Amendment in such circumstances would be politically and morally difficult to defend. I well recognise the economic difficulties faced by the majority of football clubs in this country, but they are not alone; there are many other enterprises facing equally serious difficulties at present. One has only to look at the newspapers to see that. Also, the Bill does not require that all the safety standards have to be implemented at the same time. This work can be done stage by stage according to the financial standing of the individual club, and as the safety standards are implemented so the numbers of spectators permitted into the club can be increased. I feel that, in light of what I have just said, if the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, presses his Amendment to a Division I must advise my noble friends to oppose it in the Division Lobbies.

5.33 p.m.

Lord WESTWOOD

I must first apologise for not being in your Lordships' House when the Second Reading of the Bill took place on 19th November. This was entirely due to my being in Rotterdam attending an international football conference about the problems which face football, not only in this country but in the whole of Europe. May I also again inform your Lordships that I have a keen personal interest in the sport by declaring my interest, as I did when the Bill was before the House in November, 1973. I have had promotion since then: I am President of the Football League, which controls the 92 professional clubs in this country, and Vice-President of the Football Association, the governing body of the game which controls over 36,000 clubs in England. I am also chairman of a club with great football tradition, Newcastle United. With all due modesty, I think that I can claim to have some knowledge of the game and also a great interest in this Bill.

I can assure your Lordships—it has been stressed time and time again—that football clubs are not against the Bill. But we want to know, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, says, who will pay for all the work. It is all right my noble friend saying that we cannot do this and we cannot do that, but the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, has to keep coming back and all he gets is sympathy, which is all that football gets. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has moved the Amendment, which I strongly support, and I trust the matter will be carefully considered by your Lordships. The position in football is serious—do not let us forget it. There are few professional clubs making a profit. My own club—this may be amazing news to your Lordships, because we were in the Cup Final last year—lost over £32,000 as our balance sheet for the year ended 31st July showed. We were successful in getting to the Cup Final, but not successful in winning the trophy.

A well known sports writer recently described the game of football as the "game of the people", which sums it up. If I may, I will give your Lordships some information which will, I am sure, reveal what the game is facing now. Criticism is frequently levelled at football because of hooliganism. The Press, radio and television media repeatedly refer to it. But the great majority of acts of hooliganism take place not inside the stadia but away from grounds and after the match. There was an incident in Bristol two or three months ago when about 390 people were arrested, but only 11 people were arrested in the football ground, most of them being young men. The clubs do everything they can to control the spectators. It may be of interest to your Lordships to know that in 1972 the cost of having police at the 92 League Clubs was £308,254. In 1973 the cost was £530,100. We estimate that the cost for this season will be three-quarters of a million pounds due to two increases in police salaries. I often wonder who pays for the police on duty at the large "pop" concerts in Windsor Great Park, or the police who have to turn out on Sundays to march beside demonstrations and processions. I hazard the guess that it is not the organiser of these functions who pays. But football has to pay for them and yet they get criticised. We do not think this is playing the game. We are asked to install extra seating at our grounds to stop hooliganism. The cost of installing extra seating is expensive, but we have done it this past season. And what happens? We are thanked by getting an increase in our rates because we put in extra seating! No matter what we do in football we do not seem to be able to win.

On several occasions it has been suggested that the Football Pools Promoters' Association should be asked to pay a levy towards the cost of running football. But they, too, are in trouble because of increase in taxation. I have figures which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, may not have. In the year to 31st July 1974, the total turnover of the five main pools—and there are many others—was £194.3 million. The tax paid to the Government in betting duty was £68,247,000, and the dividends paid to the punters totalled almost £70 million. Yet we in football are struggling for existence. It is really farcical. Surely the Government can do something to keep our national game going. Why not tax punters' winnings? I am sure that anyone who wins a half-million will be delighted to pay some of it to keep football going.

I remember making my maiden speech in your Lordships' House in December, 1956, when I appealed for assistance for the cinema industry which was being taxed very heavily. I well remember I said at that time that if the Government did not do something to help the industry it would be in trouble. I finished up by saying, "There's no business like show business, but if the Government do not help there will be no business—period". At that time there were nearly 5,000 cinemas in this country—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, will remember this—while today there are approximately 1,500 cinemas, and many towns and even cities are either without a cinema or perhaps have only one. That can happen to football if we do not get help from some source to enable us to comply with the terms of this Bill.

What your Lordships and the Government are asking us to do is to make bricks without straw, and we just cannot do it. We have had delegations to another place and we have met Members of all Parties. We get sympathy and hopes, but no help. Football is not the only sport that is in trouble. Cricket, too, has problems as your Lordships will have read this week, and I hear that sponsorship from Gillette and Rothmans may not be forthcoming for cricket and tennis next summer. We cannot blame the sponsors, because they, too, have their problems.

When this Bill is passed and licensing then becomes compulsory, I know there will be many clubs which do not have the money to comply with this law. If sections of their ground are closed to enable them to comply, which is allowed under the Bill, then the club's revenue will fall and they may well have to close down and deprive the town of its football club, as has happened in the case of over 3,000 cinemas. Football, cricket, rugby, athletics and all other sports need financial help, and they need it soon. I hope the Government will look into the possibility of a tax on the pool dividends or a change in the Act on small lotteries, or at whatever source we can get money from. I would ask the Minister to accept this Amendment, which is exactly the same as one moved by the late Lord Garnsworthy, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has told us. I can assure your Lordships that every sporting organisation in the country will be grateful if noble Lords stand by their previous policy.

Lord ST. HELENS

I am no expert on this subject, and for that reason I shall be extremely brief. But I would remind your Lordships that a little while ago we listened to an extremely serious announcement by the Government to the effect that they are to cut our national defence by a very large sum of money over the next few years. If on the same day the Government were to grant an increase for the development of sport within the country, I could think of nothing which would have a more disastrous effect upon our Allies in NATO. Therefore, I hope your Lordships will oppose this Amendment most strongly.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

May I, first of all, say—and I do not think this will be of particular surprise to the Committee—that, as I indicated in my Second Reading speech, an Amendment on these lines is not acceptable to the Government. That was the position when I made my Second Reading speech, and of course it remains the position today. May I also say that I am deeply appreciative of the kind and gracious words uttered about me by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg. He uttered them with that degree of restraint and quality of understatement for which he is appropriately famed.

The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, pointed out with perfect truth that the Amendment before us today—and this point was repeated by the noble Earl—is in exactly the same terms as the one on which the then Labour Opposition divided the House. That is of course so, and the answer to the question, "Why have you changed your minds?", is, I should have thought, fairly apparent. As I pointed out in the reply I made to the Second Reading debate on the Bill, we face a rather serious economic situation in this country. The noble Lord who has just sat down pointed this out. We have had two General Elections, and I should have thought that the one point upon which all three political Parties agreed in both of those General Elections was that we faced economic problems with- out parallel, certainly since the war and arguably for a great deal longer. In a situation of this sort it is quite impossible for the Government to accept an Amendment on the lines of the one that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has put before us today.

I repeat, and I do not want to weary the Committee by going through the arguments that I deployed on Second Reading, that when we are having to limit expenditure not only on defence, to which the noble Lord has just alluded, but on education and the social services generally, it would be quite impossible for the Government to find arguments to justify a decision of the kind which we are being asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, to take this afternoon. I accept, of course—and the noble Lord, Lord Westwood, the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and the noble Lord, Lord Douglass, have all discussed it—the serious financial problem facing football; and, indeed, as has been pointed out, problems of this sort are facing many other sporting organisations. It is one of the prices we pay for what is historically an extremely high rate of inflation.

All I can say is that of course we appreciate the difficulties facing football. That is a matter which obviously is at the centre of our argument this evening. That is why, under the legislation which is before us now, local authorities can first of all require a club to do only what is reasonable. They can allow the necessary work, which has to be carried out in order that the appropriate safety certificate can be issued, to be completed by stages—subject, of course, to safeguards. There would have to be safeguards, because we could not run the risk of a repeat of the Ibrox Park disaster. The sort of safeguards that there would have to be are such that until certain works were carried out there would have to be some limitation on numbers—perhaps extra stewards and things of this sort.

There is also a right of appeal to the Secretary of State, which is not unimportant, because some of the issues which could be involved in an appeal would be the financial ones that have been raised in the course of this debate; and, certainly, if what was being asked was inherently unreasonable that would be a factor to be taken into account in considering whether or not a local authority was behaving reasonably.

The second point I would make is that, as I indicated in our last debate, the Government are perfectly prepared to consider further help, though obviously it would go far less far than the football authorities would wish us to go. There is the possibility of a levy on football pools, which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, mentioned a few moments ago, but as I pointed out in my speech on Second Reading this is the least attractive of the two possibilities which I mentioned. The second possibility is the extension of the law on lotteries. I recognise the fact that there has been delay in this matter, but I hope we shall be in a position to move towards a decision before long, and certainly I recognise that there is a certain amount of wholly justified impatience to get a clearly defined position on this from the Government. But, also, recognising the problems that face the football clubs, we have undertaken to provide tax relief on expenditure on structural alterations—the sort of structural alterations made necessary by this Bill. I recognise, I repeat, that this does not go as far as the football authorities wish us to go, but in the light of the current economic situation it would be extremely irresponsible for the Government to take any view other than the one which Ministers are now taking.

Lord WIGG

On Second Reading I made the point that the issues in this Bill were similar in character to—indeed, they reflected—what is wrong for the nation. I would turn my attention first of all to the speech from the Conservative Benches. There is the traditional, authentic voice—"Housing, social services; in view of all these demands we have to look at the problem in blinkers". They are quite incapable of looking as a whole at the problems which face the nation if it is to be argued, as we heard from the third Bench back, that, in view of the Statement this afternoon, everything that we now do has to be judged in terms of what we do in relation to defence. If we cannot afford defence, then we cannot afford anything else—be it education or anything. There is the total argument: We are "broke" and we cannot do anything about it.

I am obliged to the Minister for his complimentary remarks about my normal forms of expression, for which he said I am famous. For one thing at least I am famous. It is that I do not say one thing and do another; I do not say one thing this year and then, when it is politically convenient, crawl across the Benches and say the opposite. If I may use my own gracious phrases, I say that it is physiologically impossible to lick up my own vomit and seem to enjoy it. I hope that that is clear. I hate humbug, whether it be from the Tory or the Labour Benches. It is humbug which the noble Lord and the Government will come to regret, because they have milked the cow of gambling in this country and they did not even know how to do it—and if they knew how to do it, they have done it regardless of the consequences. The Home Office does not even know the consequences of what one Minister says. In the same answer which the Minister gave on the issue of small lotteries, she also said that the total amount wagered in terms of gambling as a whole was £441 million. She got her sources wrong; and she got her sums wrong in terms of the overall figure. It is of the order of £2,700 million. But if you take the total amount gambled and deduct the amount taken by way of tax it is something like £441 million, and £183 million is taken out, plus £65 million taken out by the pool promoters.

The noble Lord, Lord Westwood, is absolutely right. I do not raise the issue of hypothecation. I understand perfectly well the traditional arguments against hypothecation, which is an assignment of duty for a specific purpose. That I accept; but both the Conservative Party when in Government and the Labour Party in Office now, know that no Chancellor can go on taxing without being aware of the fact that there is a law of diminishing returns. Sooner or later, if you go on milking the cow and do not feed it, you kill the cow and get no milk. That is the logic of this situation.

I should have been "warned off", as it were, in the case that I have tried to put, if the Minister had said that there is a grievous economic situation; that of the taxation we raise we must have every penny. But what we promised to do was to consult with the Football Association, to consult with the Central Council for Physical Recreation, to show some awareness of the problem and to meet them and discuss with them, against some agreed timetable, how we can help not only football but racing as well. Racing is in a desperate plight. Let us make no mistake about that. If the argument is that we cannot give money to help football, or cricket or swimming, we certainly will not be able to give money to racing; and then, in turn, our export market will go. This is the way to national disaster. What the young man who spoke from the Tory Benches does not realise is that when defeat comes, when national humiliation comes, it does not come like a thief in the night but as a result of one step after another in which, for reasons of convenience and comfort, nations and those who lead them refuse to face the facts.

The case that I am putting is the case for sport as a whole. It is a case for the use of leisure time by the nation as a whole, leisure in all its wide aspects. It may be that as a result of the Government's economic policy—and certainly if

the attitude of the Government as a whole is the attitude of my noble friend Lord Harris—the British people will have a lot more unwanted leisure time than ever before. Therefore I say to him: Do not let them kick balls round the streets; do not deny them the opportunities for facilities. Let us look at the problem. I realise that it is a very difficult one; I am as aware as he of the economic situation. What wise men do is to take a position which looks to be an embarrassment and try to turn it to advantage—if only for the political well-being of the Government. But I am speaking for wider issues. The Minister has given us nothing. If I may say so graciously, he has not even shown that he has read his brief. He does not understand what he is talking about. Therefore, if I can find someone who can join with me as a Teller then I will divide the House.

5.55 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 11; Not-Contents, 93.

CONTENTS
Brockway, L. Henderson, L. Stow Hill, L.
Caradon, L. Macleod of Fuinary, L. Westwood, L. [Teller]
Darling of Hillsborough, L. Morris of Grasmere, L. Wigg, L. [Teller]
Hall, V. Shinwell, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Aberdare, L. Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor) Long, V.
Alexander of Tunis, E. Emmet of Amberley, B. Lovell-Davis, L.
Allan of Kilmahew, L. Ferriers, E. Macleod of Borve, B.
Allen of Fallowfield, L. Fisher of Camden, L. Maelor, L.
Alport, L. Fortescue, E. Massereene and Ferrard, V.
Amulree. L. Garner, L. Melchett, L.
Arwyn, L. George-Brown, L. Meston, L.
Auckland, L. Gisborough, L. Monckton of Brenchley, V.
Balogh, L. Gordon-Walker, L. Newall, L.
Belstead, L. Goronwy-Roberts, L. Pannell, L.
Berkeley, B. Goschen, V. Rankeillour, L.
Birk, B. Gowrie, E. Reay, L.
Blyton, L. Granville of Eye, L. Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.
Bridgeman, V. Greenway, L. St. Helens, L.
Castle, L. Grenfell, L. Sandys, L.
Champion, L. Hamnett, L. Seear, B.
Chorley, L. Harris of Greenwich, L. Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)
Collison, L. Harvey of Prestbury, L. Simon, V.
Cork and Orrery, E. Harvington, L. Slater, L.
Cottesloe, L. Hornsby-Smith, B. Stedman, B.
Cowley, E. Houghton of Sowerby, L. Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]
Craigavon, V. Hughes, L. Strang, L.
Crawshaw, L. Jacques, L. [Teller.] Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.
Crowther-Hunt, L. Killearn, L.
Davies of Leek, L. Kimberley, E. Strathspey, L.
Denbigh, E. Kindersley, L. Swinton, E.
Ebbisham, L. Lee of Newton, L. Taylor of Mansfield, L.
Elliot of Harwood, B. Lloyd of Hampstead, L. Terrington, L.
Elton, L. Lloyd of Kilgerran, L. Thurlow, L.
Todd, L. Wells-Pestell, L. Wynne-Jones, L.
Vernon, L. Winterbottom, L. Young, B.
Walston, L.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I draw attention to the fact that, under the provisions of Clause 5(4), the local authority ought to have the right as well as the parties already named to be heard in the course of any appeal proceedings conducted on behalf of the Secretary of State. A similar point in relation to appeals to the Crown Court arises on Clause 10(4). The Greater London Council have also drawn our attention to these omissions and we hope to put down appropriate Amendments for consideration by your Lordships on Report.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.