Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill

Viscount Astor Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Astor (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this Bill. It will mandate all remote operators in the British market to provide governing bodies such as the British Horseracing Authority with information on suspicious betting patterns. However, it is a pity that the Bill does not go further with regard to racing, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort particularly on the levy.

At this stage, I should declare my interests: I do not think that I have problem gambling; I have owned a few problem horses, particularly the last one, which last year managed to canter down to the start rather faster than she came back—that is certainly not what they are supposed to do. However, I always remain an optimist and I have a leg in another horse, which will be running next season, and I can assure your Lordships that it is bound to do better—it cannot do worse anyway. I should also say that I once rode a winner over the jumps, but that was quite a long time ago.

Offshore betting operators do not contribute to the levy. The Government have in the past used concerns that the European Commission would use the concept of state aid as a reason not to act, but following the ruling from Brussels on the French levy those concerns have disappeared. The European Commission approved the French parafiscal levy on online horseracing betting, so we now know that that reason is not an obstacle to action. Reform of the levy would not constitute state aid, and neither would a point of consumption licensing regime. The omission is costing the racing industry about £20 million a year in lost revenue.

This has been a complicated issue, whose solution has defied Governments over the years. For as long as I can remember being in this House we have discussed replacing the levy—and I have been here quite a long time. This Bill would be the perfect vehicle not to reform the levy but to close the offshore gambling loophole.

The racecourses, and racing itself, could act. If the racecourses did not accept prize money or sponsorship from gaming companies that do not pay the levy, that would force the issue, as bookmakers need to be close to their customers. Two amendments were tabled in another place, but were rejected by the Government. There is an opportunity for us to rethink here; after all, we are a revising Chamber.

I am sure that the Minister will say that the levy is 50 years old and needs fundamental reform. We know that; as I said, we have been discussing it for quite some time. Now there is an opportunity to make some progress in the meantime. The Government have said that they will consult, and come to Parliament with a proposal. However, when the Minister in another place summed up, she said that she was not,

“prepared to risk jeopardising the financial stability that has been achieved by the four-year voluntary agreements by extending the levy to offshore bookmakers”.—[Official Report, Commons, Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill Committee, 19/11/13; col. 141.]

But there is no financial stability, because offshore bookmakers are not paying any levy. We have an opportunity to put an amendment before your Lordships in Committee that will allow the Government, if they wish, to extend the levy to offshore bookmakers. That would give them the opportunity to consult in Europe and to do, in effect, what the French have been doing. Racing is missing out. That is a point that has been made by almost everyone who has spoken this evening.

The second issue I want to raise concerns casinos. It is similar to the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. The Bill will mean that online gaming companies selling into the UK market are licensed and regulated at the point of consumption, rather than where they are based. This is a major improvement, which I welcome. However, there is an anomaly here. Punters can play on remote internet sites on their mobiles or computers while at home or on the move, in any public place, or even inside a casino. But casino operators, who often also hold a remote licence, are not allowed to show or advertise their products in their casinos, or to show that there is an opportunity to use a computer. This makes promoted online gambling in a casino illegal—yet not illegal if unpromoted, if it is on one’s own mobile or computer. That seems a strange state of affairs. As casinos are the most highly regulated and inspected of any gaming premises, it looks bizarre. Many of them already provide their customers with laptops, iPads and other computers.

I understand that the Minister in another place said that the anomaly could be corrected by secondary legislation. It would be helpful if the Minister, when he sums up, could say whether there has been any progress on this, because if secondary legislation is not going to work, this Bill provides an opportunity for us to change that anomaly. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to look carefully at these issues.