Horseracing Industry

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for bringing this debate forward and I thank all noble Lords for their interesting contributions, particularly my noble friend Lord Lipsey, who clearly has an enormous amount of knowledge about the industry—far more than I have. As has been said, this is a timely debate for a number of reasons, one of which is that the British racing industry has recently announced that it will undertake a new industry strategy aimed at building a sustainable model for racing and identifying areas for growth. We have discussed many areas today where this could be implemented. It has also agreed a new governance structure that better clarifies the role of the British Horseracing Authority as the governing body.

I should declare a former interest in this matter, as I was a member of the whip consultation steering group that recently brought forward recommendations on improving the use of the whip. From this, I have a particular interest in welfare, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Trees, who rightly said that the industry needs to be underpinned by equine health and welfare. Being on that steering group drew my attention to the work that the Horse Welfare Board is carrying out to enhance equine welfare right across racing and to the importance of taking a global leadership role in this area. Its strategy, A Life Well Lived, which has been mentioned, was where the recommendation to review the use of the whip came from.

However, it also mentioned a number of other areas in which to improve animal welfare, for example, the use of equine fracture support kits for the treatment of injury and the roll-out of white-painted obstacles, moving them away from the traditional orange colour because there has been lots of interesting research about equine vision and how horses see things. It is a very interesting report. It also encouraged the formation of a working party to present recommendations on the jump-racing predictive risk model. There is lots of interesting work going on around welfare, which I strongly support.

However, we also need to make further progress on welfare issues. The noble Lord, Lord Trees, talked about this. When I was on the steering committee, for example, I was one of a minority who believed that the whip should not be used for encouragement but kept only for safety.

I come back to some of the issues discussed in the debate. There was quite a lot about the review of the Gambling Act, and Ministers obviously recognise that it needs updating. As discussed, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, we have a lot of online gambling. I know that the British Horseracing Authority also believes that this review needs to take place, and that the Act needs updating. If we do not update it, there are concerns that we threaten the integrity of sport. Importantly, we need to protect people from gambling-related harm. My understanding is that the review does not specifically target horseracing but, as we have heard, given the amount of money that it receives through the horserace betting levy, clearly it will be impacted. When we include media rights and sponsorship, we are talking about huge sums of money, so it is bound to have an impact on the wider equestrian world.

The new chairman of the British Horseracing Authority has said that the review needs to reflect the unique relationship between racing and betting. He was concerned that pre-emptive measures were already starting to impact on the sport, citing the delay of the White Paper, which has also been discussed in this debate. I would be very interested to hear whether the Minister can shed any light on when we are likely to see it. The Secretary of State, Michelle Donelan, has said that the White Paper is a priority but we do not yet have a publication date, so it would be helpful if the Minister could give a steer on this.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, made an important contribution about the importance of reforming gambling, but also said that when any review takes place, we must always be aware of the harm that it can do. We heard quite a lot about the horserace betting levy. We on the Opposition Benches previously supported reforming the levy, when we secured an amendment to gambling legislation. My noble friend Lord Lipsey and others made some suggestions on this.

The British Horseracing Authority specifically asked whether the Government would consider—I would be interested in the Minister’s response—a few things, one of which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, mentioned: extending the levy to apply to all horseracing globally that is bet on by British customers. That is based on historic, international precedence, so we should be able to do it. Another is adjusting the levy rate so that it would be based on a percentage of turnover rather than profit, resulting in less volatile yields and reflecting overall activity levels.

If we are to move forward in the areas debated today, the Government really need to work with the industry to find solutions to support a high-health, high-wealth future for the industry, particularly on the movement of racehorses. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, talked about the post-Brexit complications of this. Now that we have left the EU, there is quite an adjustment for the thoroughbred industry, which faces significant challenges in how this is managed. A rare benefit of Brexit is that it means we can go further and faster in raising animal health and welfare standards, through risk-based controls for equine movement. Again, I would be really interested to hear from the Minister about how he sees tackling the challenges while welcoming the positives that come from this. I see that I am about to run out of time, so I end there and look forward to the Minister’s response.