Horserace Betting Levy Board and Horse Welfare Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateNeil Hudson
Main Page: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Epping Forest)Department Debates - View all Neil Hudson's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
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I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Horserace Betting Levy Board and horse welfare.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss this matter. The British horseracing industry is important and successful, and the UK is a global leader in thoroughbred breeding. However, it is also a sector that faces some challenges: some financial and others relating to the growing pressure on the social licence that is necessary for horseracing to continue. Behind episodes such as the invasion of the course by animal rights activists at the grand national last year, there is a broader but far less vociferous public concern about equine welfare linked to horseracing and, in particular, the fate of horses that retire from horseracing. It is my view that activities that depend on the maintenance of that social licence for their continuation cannot take those matters for granted or dismiss such things as the views of animal rights activists. They have to work constantly to improve their approach to animal welfare.
Thankfully for the industry, there are many fabulous charities. In my own constituency, we have Racehorse Relief, which I visited earlier this year. The charity focuses on rehoming retired racehorses through a combination of retraining them so they can be used for riding and pairing them with the right rider who can take care of them properly and, crucially, is able to handle them. The charity maintains an interest in the horses in its care throughout their lives, even when they might be placed with new owners who will ride and take care of them. Yet like any charity—any Member who visits charities will face this—funding is an issue. As we have seen rising costs, particularly for things such as forage, hay and so on, funding has become a challenge for the charity and many others like it across the country.
Last summer, I went on something of a wild goose chase to try to identify the right place to get funding for great charities such as Racehorse Relief. First, I thought I had come up with a brilliant idea: what we really needed to do at a point of policy was to have a levy on the betting companies that make the money from horseracing and then use that money to support charities such as Racehorse Relief, which deal with some of the externalities linked to horseracing and in particular the welfare of retired horses. I was over the moon to discover that I was not the first person to come up with such an idea. Indeed, this House passed the Betting Levy Act 1961, establishing the Horserace Betting Levy Board, which collects a significant budget each year from bookmakers.
At that point, I had spoken to and investigated the Horserace Betting Levy Board and I was told that it tends not to give direct grants to individual charities and makes money available through other organisations that then deal directly with charities. I thought that was fair enough and I understood that. It was suggested to me that I ought to talk to the charity Retraining of Racehorses. That sounded like a perfectly obvious thing to do, because the name is on the tin. As an organisation that retrains and rehomes racehorses, it seemed to be the right place to go.
When I went to Retraining of Racehorses, it too had no money. I understand that a couple of years ago, the horseracing industry carried out a review of what it called aftercare—that is, the charities such as Racehorse Relief that care for horses when they have retired. It was concluded at that point that RoR should be the lead charity in that space. It is fair to say that the board of RoR and the chief executive at the time sensed a hospital pass coming their way with such a recommendation. They feared they would end up with the responsibility and that everybody would be signposted to them to support such charities, but they had no funding to deliver on that.
At this point, it was suggested to me that what I really needed to do was to talk to the Racing Foundation, which was established following the sale—the privatisation —of the Tote. I thought that this was something, that George Osbourne was a clever chap who had it all in hand and was thinking about these things, and that it is the Racing Foundation that makes grants available for equine welfare. I looked on their website and, rather ominously, under the equine welfare sector, it refers to other organisations that might be able to help; there are a multitude of additional signposts to other organisations. On the specific issue of welfare, the Racing Foundation website simply states that there are no more grants available for equine welfare, since it has decided to make all of its support available through another organisation called the Horse Welfare Board.
It is clear that what actually happened here is that, following the RoR’s decision not to become the lead in this space, the industry decided that what it really needed was another organisation—another board—to make sense of all of its boards and to try to join up all the inactivity of the rest of the organisations. I phoned the chairman of the Horse Welfare Board and said, “All signs point to you. Everyone says that they give the budget to you now and that you are in charge of delivering animal welfare and providing support for the aftercare sector”. He chuckled down the phone and said, “We have no money”. The reason for that is that the other organisations do not give any meaningful budget to the Horse Welfare Board; it operates on something of a shoestring. It does some very good work, and I pay tribute, in particular, to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who I know was instrumental in the setting up of that board—and also sits on it—but it has very limited resources.
In my experience in government, there is a phenomenon that I used to describe as circular signposting, where every organisation points an individual to a different organisation until they eventually end up back where they started. There are lots of organisations that could—and perhaps should—do something that find it too easy to do nothing and suggest that somebody else should do something. When a Minister comes across that phenomenon, there is a very important question they must ask: who has the money? In this case, it is very clear that the Horserace Betting Levy Board has the money. It collects almost £100 million a year from bookmakers.
The HBLB was established under the Horserace Betting Levy Act 1961, which was amended by several other Acts. The HBLB is currently principally governed by the provisions of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. That Act sets out three quite broad criteria for the HBLB to pursue, which are improving breeding, investment in veterinary science, and another incredibly broad provision, which is simply to improve horseracing. That can be interpreted in a very broad way.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. As a veterinary surgeon, I declare my professional interest; in the past, with other veterinary colleagues, I have been in receipt of HBLB research funding. I can therefore testify to the benefits of HBLB funding for advancing veterinary science in education and horseracing. It funds the equine infectious disease surveillance team at Cambridge Veterinary School, which is led by Dr Richard Newton. The HBLB also funds disease surveillance through Rossdales Laboratories at Newmarket and produces the codes of practice for equine infectious diseases. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this excellent work, funded by the HBLB, is vital for the health and welfare of horses, for the UK’s biosecurity, and for the future of a thriving British horseracing industry?
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I completely agree that HBLB does some very important work when it comes to veterinary research.
However, I want to focus particularly on the aftercare sector, because that is where the HBLB has been found wanting, in my view, and to continue my analysis of the 1963 Act, which, as well as having quite a broad remit, gives the Secretary of State a clear, direct power—a power that is exercised by the current Minister. Section 25 of the 1963 Act says that the HBLB can carry out any of its activities only “with the approval of” the Secretary of State and “subject to any conditions” that the Secretary of State might choose to put in place. It is a very broad power. It goes beyond the Secretary of State just approving a business plan every three years. There is no need for the Minister to wait for that. The Minister has a very clear power under section 25 to intervene and give a direction at any point that he might choose. It gives him the power to disregard any business plan, should he choose to, and to disregard the views of the horseracing industry or, indeed, the bookmakers when it comes to determining the correct level of the levy collected.
Let us look at the current business plan for the HBLB. What does it do with the £100 million that it has? The short answer is that the overwhelming majority of it, £79 million a year, is blown on prize money. Indeed, its report suggests that during the covid crisis, when the Government made available all sorts of grants to help industries in distress, a £21.5 million additional grant from the taxpayer was given to the HBLB. What did it do with that extra money? It spent it on prize money. Don’t get me wrong; I do not begrudge prizes for winners of competitions. But what is wrong with a cup? Between the wars, my great-grandfather used to do a lot of showing of pigs. He did not get huge amounts of prize money, but he used to win all sorts of wonderful trophies—sometimes outright, by winning them year after year after year. That probably should be enough, because after all, it is often quite wealthy individuals involved in horseracing.
I fear that this is going to become a bidding war for charities all over the country, but I get my hon. Friend’s point. My commitment to my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth and to hon. Members here, as a consequence of this debate, is that I will highlight the points that he has raised—the particular challenges that those welfare charities are facing—and give the body the opportunity to address those first, before I look at what other options may be available.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for giving way. He referred to how racing stopped during the pandemic for a period, but he will also be aware that it stopped for a few days in 2019 because of equine influenza. Does he agree that it is vital that some of the levy money goes back into veterinary science and equine infectious disease surveillance for the protection of the horses, so that the British horseracing industry can thrive?
One of the key reasons that I went to Newmarket was not just to enjoy a day at the races, but to see for myself the investment being made in the welfare of those horses, and I must say that it was incredibly impressive. My hon. Friend is right; we need to maintain those standards, and he has just given me another question to raise when I meet with the body in the next couple of weeks. I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to this debate.
Question put and agreed to.