Horse Racing Levy

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I must declare an interest at the outset as a jockey. I hold a category B amateur rider’s licence. As hon. Members will see as I strain to do up my jacket, I have a bit of problem. I blame Gordon Brown and the last election for many things, but in particular it put a stone on my weight, such that the winners I rode in 2009 I could not necessarily ride today. I have ridden out for and helped a variety of trainers, including Stan Mellor, Brendan Powell, Bob Turnell and Tim Reed. I probably would not have got through my school days had I not been able to run a small bookmakers at my school, aged 12, where the Friday ration of unlicensed booty was other children’s sweets, which seemed miraculously to find their way into my pocket. I represent the wonderful constituency of Hexham. It is over 1,000 square miles and an especially wild and wonderful place, with, I venture to suggest, a better racecourse than those of Cheltenham and Liverpool, and all the others that proclaim that they are great.

This is a pivotal time. Racing is one of the most important, successful and world-renowned sports, and that can be said of few sports today. One would be unable to list more than five sports in which we are at the top of the tree, which we definitely are in racing. The levy has assisted in that, but if we fail to support it at this crucial time we will, without a shadow of a doubt, become far less successful and will regret the day we made that decision. We are 38th in the league tables—league tables are very popular these days—but that is a very poor place to be. The 1% return on investment compares with 5% in Japan and 8% in the USA.

Everyone accepts that it is an outdated model, and businesses exploit it. One could talk at length about the great merits of Betfair and others. I was certainly interested to receive a letter recently from a gentleman called Mr Hawkswood, who represents the Remote Gambling Association, a particularly august organisation that represents more than 30 internationally recognised remote operators. To us, that means that they are offshore and do not pay any of the wages or individual contributions that we would like to see, and that is to the detriment of racing. I particularly like the following point that he made. He said that if we change the law that

“would be in breach of EU law and open to challenge in the courts.”

He was also quoted extensively in this morning’s Racing Post. If that is the case, bring it on, because we need to stand up for racing. A failure to do so would lead to a much lesser thing.

Every one of us could identify important race courses. I have ridden at Hexham, Cheltenham, Kempton and many others. There has been a 58% fall in individual receipts at Hexham, and a 60% fall at Towcester—I will never forget the scary down-hill fence there. The reality is that those courses are really struggling and need our support. I believe that the offshore situation is key. Either we address this, get organised and make the point, or we will really struggle. We must also look at betting exchanges. These issues are of prime importance. Simply doing nothing on an ongoing basis is a non-starter.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) and I started making that case in the Adjournment debate before Christmas, and he has done very well. He made the point that there is a real need for a racing right. Whether one calls it a sports betting right or a racing right, the bottom line is that the ability to run this on an ongoing basis is absolutely key. If we do not get supportive of this, with a cross-sport application of the individual things it involves, we will struggle. It is of prime importance that we do that. The present system might be broken and facing great difficulty in the way ahead, but we must address that on an ongoing basis. To fail to do so would be to fail the greatest thing, in terms of sport, that we have ever produced.