Speeches by Jopp.

“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?”

“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 prob…”

“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 undoubtedl…”

“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.”

“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 chang…”

“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 a…”

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

“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 simila…”

“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?”

“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 benea…”

“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 Ministe…”

“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?”

“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 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 ena…”

“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, …”

“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?”

“On the point you just made about ambition and timelines, Lord Robertson, we had the Chief of the Defence Staff here yesterday—I have to choose my words incredibly carefully, because he implied nothing; I inferred this from what he was saying—but he made the point of saying, “You will notice that in the recommendations …”

“Obviously it is a fairly sensitive process, but you said that some of the assertions you made were less popular than others and you got pushback. Can you give us an idea of where those areas were?”

“General Barrons, I distinctly remember that at the launch of this process you said two things that struck me at the time and have remained with me since. You said that the reviewing team were not required to seek consensus and that you were not required to take heed of or pay attention to holes in the legacy programme,…”

“I guess we are all asking the same question in different ways. If, as a result of future decisions, defence expenditure stays at 2.5%, how much of the SDR should I tear up?”