Bookmakers and Planning (Haringey)

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Tessa Munt]

I clearly have no connection with Haringey. My constituency is in rural Somerset and has coastal towns at Highbridge and Burnham-on-Sea. Burnham-on-Sea, in common with probably most town centres and high streets, suffers from a proliferation of betting shops. On the coast, there are also a number of gaming machine shops specifically dedicated to that kind of activity. Surely there must be a way—either in the localism Bill or perhaps by local authorities arriving at a definition of what they want—of allowing local authorities to insist that these kinds of shops are situated at first-floor level or above. That would get rid of the problem of people, especially young people, passing along a high street and seeing the enormous shop fronts which the hon. Gentleman has complained about. If we put those businesses on the first or second floor or above, they would need to find ways for people to access them under the terms of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, but we would be left with only a shop doorway—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I regret that this is becoming a speech rather than an intervention.

[Mr Lammy]

I have huge sympathy with the hon. Lady’s point, and I hope that we can form an alliance across the House. She is absolutely right to draw attention to young people, because the last survey was deeply worrying as it showed the large number of young people who found their way into those premises. Indeed, if she visits my constituency in the middle of the day and looks through the window of these places, she will see young people playing on the machines there, which is deeply worrying.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say. He is familiar with my constituency, and I hope he will recognise the strength of feeling from all parties in the House that the present legislative framework is not right and that people need better local determination on the proliferation, clustering and dominance of these premises on our high streets and in our town centres.