Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill
Debate between James Duddridge and David Nuttall
James Duddridge
Thank you, Mr Speaker. For a moment, I feared that I was getting my knickers in a twist.
My constituency of Rochford and Southend East is home to three, soon to be four, casinos, which are bricks- and-mortar or physical ones. Such establishments employ thousands of people nationally. Locally, 277 people are employed in the existing three casinos, which will go up to about 400 when the fourth casino is launched. About 80% of the staff have been issued with personal licences by the Gambling Commission, while 100% of them receive annual training in responsible gambling, so they are well qualified.
Reports, such as an excellent one from GamCare, have outlined the details of the significant work that the industry is already doing, with much greater protection of vulnerable individuals being provided in casinos than online. I do not necessarily want more gambling, but I want more of the existing gambling to take place in such licensed and heavily regulated environments.
I am glad to say that new clause 1 is supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), the Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, who did an awful lot of work with the Committee on pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill; by the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), an ex-Minister with responsibility for gambling, who is well respected, particularly in relation to gambling problems and the care of those with such problems; by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech), which shows that all parties support this cross-party issue; and by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is a guru of all things gambling.
Bricks-and-mortar casinos are highly regulated. They are at the top of the regulatory pyramid in gambling. They are one of the safest places to be in Southend because of the security; they are certainly one of the safest places in which to gamble. I therefore find it hard to understand why casinos are restricted from offering a full range of products to their customers.
A bricks-and-mortar casino can advertise online products inside its premises, but it is not allowed to provide a remote gaming machine for customers to play inside its walls. That anomaly certainly needs to be corrected. Bizarrely, if it had a small area outside, customers—rather like having a fag at the back of a pub—would be able to gamble there, but they cannot do so inside.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Given that the Government have told us that the Bill’s whole rationale is to protect gamblers, can my hon. Friend think of any reason why they would not want to support his new clause?
James Duddridge
In an ideal world, I would hope that the Government supported new clause 1, or tabled a suitable amendment in the House of Lords or, in the broadest sense, took note. The argument against the new clause is one made against several others in the group, which is that it will add complexity when, for good reason, we want to move quickly. New clause 1 is quite tightly worded, however, and for a little complexity, it would give a lot of benefit.
Some people have been critical of my speech on Second Reading and my contributions in Committee, fearful that I was promoting irresponsible gambling, but that is a lazy and incorrect interpretation of my view and new clause. I am not attempting to liberalise regulation within casinos—that could not be further from the truth—but to get a level playing field to allow online customers to play online games in casinos with proper protection.
Armed Forces (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill
Debate between James Duddridge and David Nuttall(11 years, 10 months ago)
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James Duddridge
I see where the hon. Gentleman is going and think it sends a message. This also relates to the other uniformed services. We could do something collectively—perhaps not by amending this Bill, but more widely—to create respect for people who serve us, whether they be in the ambulance service, the fire and police services or the armed forces. Indeed, in my constituency of Rochford and Southend East there seems to be a worrying number of people who feel that it is right to take a pot shot at national health service staff. There is now a police station in Southend hospital to deter that type of activity. That is of particular concern and perhaps presents the case for a slightly wider Bill than this narrow one.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend might be moving on to this point, but if this Bill becomes law, those employed by the national health service might want to suggest that they should be given similar protection.
James Duddridge
Absolutely. One wonders whether we should look to raise standards overall. It is unacceptable to shout abuse at anyone, whether it be racist, homophobic or religious. The Ashcroft report states that some of those who responded to its survey had suffered absolute discrimination, such as being refused service in pubs or hotels, and 6% suffered violence or attempted violence. We should not necessarily distinguish between violence against someone in an Army or Navy uniform and violence against someone in an NHS uniform or, indeed, someone in a suit or jeans and T-shirt who is going about their business. There are many ways to tackle the underlying issues.
Having listened carefully to the speech made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife and the interventions that have been made, I think there is a need to send a specific message to the armed forces. Perhaps that is something that the armed forces covenant can look at and perhaps it, rather than this or any other Bill, could send the message to the general public.
I again thank the hon. Gentleman for proposing the Bill. I also want to reiterate and lay on record my gratitude to the armed forces and ask them to continue to wear their uniform in public. We like it and respect it. It helps to initiate conversations about what the armed forces are doing and it allows for pride. It is right that we discuss issues relating to the protection of people in uniform, as the hon. Gentleman has done. I thank him for initiating this debate and look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Commercial Lobbyists (Registration and Code of Conduct) Bill
Debate between James Duddridge and David Nuttall(11 years, 10 months ago)
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James Duddridge
The fact that this matter has driven my hon. Friend to disagree with me is evidence enough that it is complex. It is a criticism of the Bill as a whole if there is no shared understanding of how we should proceed on these matters.
The lobbying industry responded to the report of the Public Administration Committee in March 2010. The three main lobbying organisations were involved in that. I shall not repeat their names because the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife has given some background on them. There was an agreement to maintain a register of those engaged in lobbying and of the organisations and clients on whose behalf they lobby.
It is right that there is clarity on who the lobbyists are working for, particularly given the issue of what might happen in the last 15 minutes of the meeting. Lobbyists will sometimes start the meeting on a nice warm and cosy issue, and then hit the Member of Parliament with the landmines issue or, dare I say it, the nuclear issue—a harder subject that the Member of Parliament might be less likely to accept a meeting on when pressed for time.
Mr Nuttall
The promoter of the Bill made that point and my hon. Friend is repeating it. Surely a Member of Parliament is free to say, “I am sorry, but that issue is not the purpose of this meeting and I will end it there because I have other things to get on with.” They can then get up and go.
James Duddridge
My hon. Friend is right. However, he has as much experience of constituency meetings as I have, and will know that quite often, lobbyists come to meetings with constituents. If it is a meeting with somebody who is purely commercial, the Member of Parliament can say, “Sling your hook! We agreed to have a meeting for an hour on this subject and you are going off the subject and abusing the office and the time that I gave you.” However, I have occasionally found myself, perhaps wrongly, allowing an issue to be raised because a constituent is there and is happy for it to be discussed.
James Duddridge
The hon. Gentleman indicates that it would be helpful, so I undertake to do so.
Let me return to the issue of commercial lobbying and the experience from outside the UK. There is a wealth of information about what happens elsewhere. I have looked at the history of how other countries have developed their commercial register and the problems they have encountered. In virtually every case I have come across three or four problems, not only for the implementation of this Bill, but for the broader issue of establishing a register, which is a commitment from the coalition.
Mr Nuttall
Does my hon. Friend agree that the conclusions he has drawn from the experience in other countries support my view that we would be better off not having a register at all?
James Duddridge
I certainly agree that we are better off not having a register than having one on a flawed basis. Just because it is complicated, it does not follow that we should not try; but if we try, yet fail to deal with the complexity, I will certainly support my hon Friend’s view that we should not proceed.
I hope that I do not further agitate my hon. Friends on the Benches behind me by mentioning the European Parliament and the European Commission, which have a transparency register—it is rather like a people’s democratic republic, which will normally do the opposite of what it says on the tin. The transparency register builds on earlier, separate registers from the European Parliament and the Commission, and was launched on 23 June 2011 to register and monitor organisations and self-employed individuals engaged in EU policy making and policy implementation. I am amazed at the number of people of my age who seem to flit backwards and forward from here to Brussels lobbying. These are not people who are interested in politics or specialist EU lawyers; they are people from mainstream organisations and industry specialists who are having to spend more and more time with the European Parliament and the Commission.
Mr Nuttall
It appears from the definition of lobbying in clause 4(1) that a company that was set up in this country for the purposes of lobbying Members of the European Parliament would not need to register. Does my hon. Friend think that is right?
James Duddridge
I am a little confused. I stand to be corrected, but I think that such a company would need to register while we remained part of the European Union. Interestingly, the register there is free, so the European Union is looking at getting the maximum amount of information and funding that from general taxation—our taxation.
Mr Nuttall
As ever, the hon. Gentleman is trying to be helpful to the Government.
James Duddridge
Has my hon. Friend noted that the Government need help in this regard? At no point today have our coalition partner Members of Parliament been here to offer support; none have wandered through the Chamber, taken interventions or made speeches. Exactly the same thing happened last Friday, when they were also completely absent.
Mr Nuttall
Those Members must answer for their absence, but it would have been interesting to hear the views of our coalition partners on this matter. They have been absent this morning, so we can only guess at their views.
I am not clear what the problem is. My postbag is not overflowing with complaints about lobbying, although it is overflowing with opinions about lots of other matters, some of which are being discussed next Tuesday. I have been involved in politics for more than 30 years, and I can honestly say that in all that time I do not recall a single occasion when anybody brought to my attention a complaint about lobbying or lobbyists. I fail to see why the issue is such a big problem in our society.
There is a problem with the whole principle of the Bill, and its benefits are not clear. It was said earlier that this debate—and this is a good thing, to some extent—had become a general one about lobbying rather than a traditional Second Reading debate. I submit that that is because, although the Bill appears at first sight to contain lots of detail, it is in fact extremely vague. Much of the Bill raises more questions than it answers. All the way along, we are told that the answers will come further down the line and that we will find out in the fullness of time all the details about which I have questions. Even if I agreed with the principle of the Bill, which I do not, I would think that any Bill that left open as much to future legislation and definition, by way of orders and regulations through statutory instruments, as this one does should not proceed into Committee.
Clause 1 defines what is meant by “lobbying” in terms of the public register, and the purpose of the Bill is to establish such a register. It states:
“There shall be a register of organisations and individuals who carry out lobbying of Parliament, the Government and local authorities for financial gain, which shall be made public.”
We have not heard about the influence of all the quangos. In many spheres of life, the Government have effectively palmed off responsibility for regulation and control to third-party organisations—quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations—that govern so many areas of life today. Many of the decisions that they make are just as important as the decisions made by Ministers or Departments.
Offshore Gambling Bill
Debate between James Duddridge and David Nuttall(11 years, 10 months ago)
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James Duddridge
I apologise to my hon. Friend, but I will have to defer to others on that point, because I have placed a bet only twice. The first time was around the ’92 election, when there was a runner called Party Politics, which I thought was a sign. The election result was not as pleasing as I had hoped, but I did win on that bet. The other time was to bet on my becoming the next Prime Minister. I will indulge the House a little more on that unlikely subject, because I think it illustrates some points in relation to supervision.
Mr Nuttall
Will my hon. Friend enlighten the House on the odds he was able to obtain on his becoming the next Prime Minister?
James Duddridge
I will illustrate the point I was trying to make by placing the bet. Initially, staff pretty much told me that they had never heard of me, but I pressed the issue, particularly when I saw some of the people who were listed. They gave me odds of 250:1. I was not trying to earn money, because I thought that the chances of my ever becoming Prime Minister, let alone the next one, were zero. Instead, I was looking at how the odds could be changed and at suspicious betting patterns, particularly given my comments about Liberal Democrat betting. Within the day they had suspended taking bets on me because I was so popular, based only on one or two bets that I had other people across the country make for only another few pence. That demonstrated how easy it is to manipulate the betting statistics and, in relation to the Bill, how important it is that betting is regulated, supervised and licensed locally, rather than simply offshore.
James Duddridge
I think that my hon. Friend is putting words into my mouth in relation to the Gambling Commission. I would say, though, that we have more control over the Gambling Commission in comparison with a foreign commission or an area that is completely offshore and completely unregulated. There is no great history of regulation in this area, but we do sometimes focus on some of the more problematic cases.
To return to the idea of working across jurisdictions, one can often go on to a website and not be sure which jurisdiction one is trading in. I mentioned my dabbling in the national lottery. A friend who used to live in Southend and moved away to southern Spain—Southend being as sunny as it is, it comes as a surprise that anyone would want to do that—bought a lottery ticket there. Although they had a modest win—£10, I think—they were outside the jurisdiction and blocked from receiving that money. We need clarity because there is confusion even with something as simple as a lottery ticket in the EU, and we should look at the issue in detail.
The Gambling Commission reported that it receives inquiries about social responsibility and unfairness in relation to offshore gambling—I am sure it also receives such inquiries in relation to onshore gambling—but that it is not able to do much about what is going on. It has been unable to investigate complaints or inquiries, so it is difficult for me, or indeed anyone, to understand the size of the problem. It would be advantageous to solicit information and hard numbers, and I urge other Members of Parliament to consider the issue.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes the valid and interesting point that some people may complain that they have accessed sites and did not realise which jurisdiction they were in. Equally, however, will not many customers be satisfied that they are getting better value by accessing sites in other jurisdictions? Perhaps they even go out of their way to seek those other sites.
James Duddridge
That is a reasonable point. There could be better protection in other jurisdictions, or simply better odds, and people may be very aware of the risks they are taking in response to those odds. During the problems with the Icelandic banks, people felt that they knew the risks they were taking for an extra couple of per cent. If I were to place a bet on bet365—I was tempted to place one on the next leader of the Labour party—I might be tempted to use a site I had never heard of if I got better odds. It is worrying, however, because people must know the details and be confident that when that eventuality—the change of leader—takes place around 2015, the site will pay up. Will the site pay up against a person standing in as temporary leader or must it be a long-term leader? Will it pay up for someone who is just keeping the position warm before another Member of Parliament takes on the role? I am not sure, but offshore gamblers need clarity about when the site will pay up, and it is clear from this discussion that such clarity does not currently exist.
Having set out my broad position, I will now look at the specifics of the Bill and in particular the point of consumption, which goes to the heart of the Bill. The Government are already introducing measures on remote gambling, which in many ways will provide greater protection for British-based users of remote gambling services. The case for change is clear, but there is limited consensus on standards of software testing and what it means to be a British consumer—where the hardware is, whether it is a software issue. Those matters are quite complex as information is pinged around the world within seconds.
There is concern about a lack of fairness towards British-licensed operators that operate overseas or have overseas consumers. We must look at that issue and at what happens when British citizens travel overseas. If I travel to America and use a site to place a bet on Stoke City, what would the regulations be compared with those covering a bet made in the country where the event takes place?
Both Bills seek to amend the Gambling Act 2005 so that remote gambling by consumers living in Britain is regulated on a point of consumption basis, rather than on the point of supply, and there is broad agreement that that is the right way forward. Such a measure is sensible and a fundamental change to the basis on which the system of remote gambling is regulated in the UK. By moving from the current place of supply basis to a place of consumption basis, the British consumer becomes the focal point around which the system is based, rather than the location of the gambling operator. In terms of consumer protection, that is the right way forward.
All operators selling into the British market will be required to hold a Gambling Commission licence, and will therefore be subject to all the provisions of the previous Government’s Gambling Act 2005 and its regulations, to the Gambling Commission’s social responsibility and technical standards requirements, and to the provisions I have referred to. That will bring the original intent of the Act up to date. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley was entirely right to say that I should tar not the whole Act with the brush of success— I am thinking of super-casinos—but only its broad understanding.
Bringing the original intent of the Act up to date will give consumers greater confidence that the operators they choose will be subject to the same standards. For example, an offshore operator that makes remote gambling facilities available to consumers around the world on the internet will need to obtain an operating licence from the Gambling Commission if people in parts of Great Britain are capable of using them, regardless of whether they are used in Great Britain. If operators want to avoid having such a licence, they would need to block internet access from consumers in Great Britain at their own cost, so that people are incapable of using remote gambling facilities illegally in the UK. The measure will also mean that there is a requirement for operators to contribute British problem gambling issues and regulatory costs. Effectively, they would have to make a contribution where they are part of the problem, which is an extremely welcome development, and will go some way to levelling the playing field for UK-based companies.
I have concerns about the whole arena of gambling. Recently, the Southend Standard, a weekly publication in my patch of Rochford and Southend East, set out the number of betting offices on the local high street. I was surprised to find that there were five, including two run by the same company. I cannot help but think that we need to look again at the broader issue of gambling, and particularly at how online gambling based offshore encourages people to bet money they may not be able to afford.
Switching to a point of consumption basis will mean that the location of the gambler and not the operator will be the deciding factor on what tax to pay. For example, money collected by an online casino that is attributed to a UK player will be subject to British taxation, which seems entirely fair. Although there is no mention of the rate, the current rate of 15% on gross profits clearly puts domestic operators at a disadvantage. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme rightly said that the level of taxation is the crux of the matter. I believe William Hill accepts the principle of changing to the point of consumption from the place of supply if the rate of taxation is right. I understand it has pitched for 5%, but it would suggest a low figure, wouldn’t it? I have never been a fan of high taxation—I prefer lower and flatter rates—so I encourage the Government to consider whether 15% is right and competitive, and whether it will encourage growth in the UK and people in other jurisdictions to bet in the UK.
The new licensing arrangements will also mean that, for the first time, overseas-based operators will be required to inform the British Gambling Association of suspicious activities, which will help the fight against illegal activity and corruption in sports betting, which discredits not only the betting community but the sporting community—people cannot enjoy sport if they believe the result is fixed. I welcome the inclusion of that measure, which, as I have said, removes the potential risk of match-fixing and suspicious betting practices in sporting events on overseas-licensed sites.
The second half of the Bill relates to the horse racing levy. My experience of horse racing is not much better than my experience of betting in a shop or online, but I have been to Aintree, and to Lingfield a couple of times—they were enjoyable events. As a Member of Parliament whose constituency is partly rural, I am particularly concerned about rural communities. Quite often we make decisions here that have an impact on them. A number of Members have mentioned the great benefits of the horse racing industry, with 60 race courses across the UK.