Earl of Courtown
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Earl of Courtown Excerpts
Baroness Mallalieu (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Viscount on securing this important and very urgent debate, and on attracting so many runners, although it means that we will all have to sprint from start to finish. I declare my interests as a former member of the British Horseracing Board and a current trustee of both Racing Welfare, which is the charity for those who work in racing, and their union, the National Association of Stable Staff. I am also president of the Horse Trust which, like the current levy board, makes considerable grants for equine scientific research.
First, I am grateful that the Government have embraced the proposal for a new racing funding mechanism. As I understand it—and I hope this will be confirmed—they are committed to having it in place in 12 months’ time, in April next year. We need to know how this is to be done, and the timetable for it, because the last time an attempt was made to replace the levy it ended in tears in the European Court. We want to avoid that happening again at all costs.
Then, the levy had to be hastily revived, and has continued up to now to do an excellent job against a background of a continuing drop in revenue and expansion of offshore operations, some of which avoid making a fair or any contribution to the industry from which they derive substantial profit. A new, fair, robust system to finance the horseracing industry is long overdue and is needed as soon as possible, before the industry is damaged.
Despite this falling levy revenue, horseracing in this country, to my mind and, I think, most others, remains the best in the world. The breadth, quality and integrity of racing here attract owners from all over the world and enable ordinary racegoers such as me to see most of the best horses in the world run on our doorstep. With, I hope, more prize money generated from the new proposal, I hope we may see even more of those horses. If we cannot produce the money, we shall lose them. For stable staff too—there are 6,500 of them working in yards—an increase in prize money would be welcome, because it means a direct benefit in the form of the percentage they receive from stable winnings.
The Government have said that racing will decide how the new money is to be spent. Some of the objects of the present levy scheme are not for the benefit just of racing but of the wider horse population and included, for example, support for rare breeds. I hope there will be an undertaking from the Government tonight, and from racing in due course, that spending will continue not to be narrow and partisan and confined solely to racing. Racing is inextricably linked with the British horse population as a whole—not just in matters such as a shared need for disease control, but training those who will ride and care for horses later. A healthy equine industry, both people and animals, is an essential part of a strong, vibrant and successful racing industry.
Finally, I also hope that the new fund will be at least as generous in making grants for veterinary science and training as the levy has been—I know that the noble Lord, Lord Trees, will speak about that later—£32 million since 2000. I also hope that those who select the research projects will coordinate closely with the limited number of other equine research providers, so that the wider horse population—
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I beg the noble Baroness’s pardon for interrupting, but can we have the next speaker now? There are three minutes each, and the noble Baroness is on her fourth minute.