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Public Bodies Bill [HL]

In moving the amendment, I shall speak to Amendment 91, which is grouped with Amendment 37. Both amendments refer to the future of the Football Licensing Authority. Those of your Lordships with long memories may recall that the FLA was originally set up under the Football Spectators Act 1989 to oversee the introduction of the compulsory membership scheme so beloved of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who believed that such a scheme was the right response to the football-related hooliganism of the 1980s. One of the worst examples of such hooliganism had resulted in the Heysel stadium disaster of 1985. However, before the Act could be implemented, almost 100 people lost their lives at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield at an FA Cup semi-final match and the subsequent inquiry conducted by Lord Justice Taylor reported that the scale of the disaster would have been even worse if a compulsory membership scheme had been in force. Therefore, that provision in the Act was shelved and has not seen the light of day since. Lord Justice Taylor’s principal recommendation in his final report that the grounds of Britain’s professional football clubs should eliminate standing and become all seated was accepted by the Conservative Government of the day and supported by subsequent Labour Administrations. The one variation was to exempt clubs in the lower two divisions of the Football League from the requirement to go all seated. At this point, I should declare that not only was I at that cup semi-final at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 but, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, I was deputy chairman of the Football Trust. Our distinguished chairman was the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, whose son sits on the Cross Benches today. The Football Trust was the body charged by the Government to provide the funding from football pool competitions for the transformation of Britain's football grounds. The Football Licensing Authority was given the responsibility for licensing grounds and ensuring spectator safety—principally by implementing the all-seater policy. Over the past 20 years, not a breath of scandal has been attached to the work of the FLA. The Football Licensing Authority has acquired a worldwide reputation as an authority on stadium safety and is the Government's principal adviser in this area. Mercifully, there has been no repetition of the Hillsborough disaster or the dreadful fire at Bradford City's ground in May 1985. So why is the FLA listed in Schedule 1 as facing abolition? The DCMS statement does not help us very much, as it suggests that the proposals involve, "““continuing the Football Licensing Authority as a separate body until after 2012 when its expertise and functions will be transferred to another body””." Bizarrely, included in that announcement was the statement that, "““The Government will support the Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill 2010-11, a private members’ bill, presented on 30 June 2010 by Jonathan Lord MP. This would rename the Football Licensing Authority the Sports Grounds Safety Authority and allow it to provide advice, on request, about safety at sports grounds to any national or international organisation, person or body (including local authorities and Ministers of the Crown) and to charge for these services in certain circumstances””." The FLA has been seeking such powers for years, and I was looking forward to giving that Bill my full support once it reached your Lordships' House. That Bill has every prospect of coming here because it has already secured its Second Reading in the other place without opposition and has been committed to a Public Bill Committee. I must ask the Minister what on earth is going on. How can the Government support a Private Member’s Bill that will extend the scope of an organisation that they list for abolition? To refer vaguely to transferring the FLA's responsibilities after 2012 to ““another body”” is just not good enough. Cleverer people than me have been racking their brains to think what other body the FLA could be moved into. Bearing in mind that the FLA has licensing and regulatory functions, it is hard to see how those functions could go to a body such as the Local Government Association. Nor would the Health and Safety Executive be appropriate. The FLA deals with spectators and with professional football, whereas the HSE is responsible for the safety of workers and the places where they are employed. The ethos of the HSE is to investigate accidents; that of the FLA is to prevent accidents in the strictly specialist environment of sports stadiums. The truth is that the Football Licensing Authority enjoys the support and respect of all the authorities and individuals with which it deals. It would be a public relations disaster for the Government to give the impression that football spectator safety somehow did not matter any more. What sort of message would that send, for example, to the Hillsborough victims, whose grievances are now being addressed by the Government's own Hillsborough inquiry panel, chaired by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool? I hope that the Minister can give us some answers and, better still, accept my amendments. I beg to move.