Viscount Astor
Main Page: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill
Viscount Astor Excerpts
Viscount Astor (Con)
When my noble friend the Minister replies, will he address two issues that concern me about the amendment? The first is the ability to control what the noble Baroness referred to as illegal websites. It seems to me that websites spring up and have an almost infinite ability to replicate themselves. I am not sure how the Government could control them, even if they wanted to. Secondly, there seems to be evidence in other countries that financial transaction blocking has not been terribly successful. Will the Minister comment on whether that is the case? If we were to have this amendment, it is important that it is workable and would achieve its purpose. Otherwise, we have to look at other alternatives to achieve the same outcome.
Viscount Astor
“Power to extend the horserace betting levy to overseas bookmakers
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any provision or provisions of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963 (at a time when the provisions listed in section 15(1)(a) to (c) of the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Act 2004 (horserace betting levy system) have not been entirely repealed by order under that section), the Gambling Act 2005 and/or the Gambling Act 2005 (Horserace Betting Levy) Order 2007/2159 for the purposes of ensuring that each person who holds an operating licence under the Gambling Act 2005 which authorises that person to provide facilities for betting shall be—
(a) liable to pay the bookmakers’ levy payable under section 27 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963; and(b) subject to the provisions of section 120 of the Gambling Act 2005 (as modified in accordance with the Gambling Act 2005 (Horserace Betting Levy) Order 2007/2159) if that person is in default of such bookmakers’ levy.(2) Regulations under this section must be made by statutory instrument.
(3) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Viscount Astor (Con)
My Lords, I should start by thanking my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for moving this amendment in Committee. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, for his support for the amendment. I should apologise for missing Committee but after joining the Prime Minister on his trip to China in December, I was called back to Beijing in January and so missed that stage.
My amendment produced an informed and generally supportive debate. The Minister concentrated his response by saying that now was not the right time to replace the levy and that a reform was needed to be considered across the whole system. I absolutely agree but my amendment does not seek to reform the levy. I agree that there should be a major reform that takes in all aspects of the issues that surround racing, whether it is on-course betting, off-course betting, offshore or onshore betting, betting exchanges, media rights or issues of state aid.
My amendment is simple. It allows the Secretary of State to bring in legislation to encompass offshore bookmakers who do not presently pay the levy. Racing is losing about £10 million a year that it is entitled to. That word “entitled” raises the question of why. There is a simple analogy. If the Government are going to regulate those based overseas on areas such as problem gambling and integrity on bets on UK sports, that shows that there is already that reach and the entitlement. My amendment does not force the Government to do anything but if they want to support racing they could use it. It does not cost any money and, in fact, it would provide an addition to the Treasury coffers. The reason it is important for racing is that we know that there is no time to legislate this Session. Therefore, the earliest time will probably be half way through the next Session of Parliament, by which time racing will have lost out on nearly £100 million of income.
I read carefully the Minister’s response in Grand Committee. He said that my amendment was too narrow in its scope. That may be so, so I look forward to the Government widening and improving it. The Minister said that the levy is regarded as state aid by the EU. I think we all agree with that. However, my amendment does not change anything. It just allows the levy to be collected as it used to be from all bookmakers. It is not necessarily a substantive change to the existing system as some have claimed. If permission is required from the European Parliament, the Government can ask for clarity before they proceed. After all, that is what the French did and it worked. If accepted, the amendment would allow the Government to continue their discussions with the European Commission.
My amendment supports the racing industry. Following the very useful discussions I have had with the Minister of Sport, Helen Grant, I understand that my noble friend might be able to reconsider his earlier response. I look forward to his reply. My amendment would put bookmakers based in the UK on an equal footing with those based abroad. It would allow the Government, if they wish, to remove the unfair competition that those based abroad currently enjoy and which benefits racing. I beg to move.
Lord Clement-Jones
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the principle of my noble friend’s amendment. It would be especially suitable for the Minister to take heed of it as it is the Chinese year of the horse. My noble friend spent some time in Beijing, so clearly he was inspired by the horse to put forward the amendment.
The question is whether we are going to miss the boat. The opportunity has been taken to hang off the architecture of the Bill a number of amendments that do not necessarily relate to remote gambling. It is incumbent on the Minister, if he is going to avoid further and perhaps unwanted amendments, to reassure those of us who see a boat going by without the opportunity to make desirable amendments, because we know that there will not be another gambling Bill for another five years or so. This is one of the issues that we face. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us an assurance on the ability of the Government—or any Government—to institute a new, improved form of levy that safeguards the future of the industry, without it being incorporated in the Bill. Otherwise, it will make reserved powers very attractive as a mechanism for introducing a future form of levy. That is a dilemma.
This evening, the Minister very adroitly proceeded by way of voluntary agreements and assurances in a number of areas, or by actions that do not require primary legislation. I hope that this will be another such instance. However, it is a subject of considerable anxiety in the racing industry and I very much hope that the Minister will be able to satisfy all those who want to see some action going forward in this case.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, my noble friend’s amendment seeks to give the Secretary of State reserved power to extend liability to pay the horserace betting levy to offshore remote gambling operators. We have had some useful discussions about the future of the levy at all stages of the Bill, including some particularly interesting ones in Committee. They have been extremely valuable and I want to reassure your Lordships that the Government have been listening. I am grateful to all noble Lords for the constructive discussions we have had.
We agree with the view that while we still have a statutory levy, it should be fairly applied. Furthermore, we are persuaded that including a clause about extending the levy to offshore remote operators is fully in keeping with the context and purpose of the Bill. We will therefore bring forward a government amendment at Third Reading which will remedy your Lordships’ concerns about ensuring a level playing field between onshore and offshore betting operators in terms of the levy. With the consent of the House, this amendment will give the Secretary of State power to use secondary legislation to secure extension of the levy to offshore remote operators. I shall ensure that all noble Lords who have expressed an interest in this matter during the Bill’s passage are invited to a briefing on the detail of the amendment before Third Reading. Bringing forward a government amendment will complement the work which, as I mentioned to your Lordships, is already under way to seek clarity on the state aid issues from the European Commission. The Government will consult on implementing an extension before any secondary legislation is brought before Parliament.
The Government want British racing to continue to thrive. I know from my own experience just how important racing is to so many in the countryside and of course in all communities—not only its economic impact but the pleasure it gives to so many millions of people. Extending the levy to offshore remote operators will help achieve the objective we all share. I want to say particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, that bringing forward a government amendment about extending the levy in the way that I have described does not of course close down options for wider levy reform or replacement. This is very much work in progress.
The Government have committed to bringing forward an amendment at Third Reading which will achieve the outcomes being sought tonight. Consequently, I ask my noble friend whether he will withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Astor
My Lords, I am particularly grateful to my noble friend for his response and I thank him for all the help that he has given me. I also thank the officials in his department for all the help that they have given on this issue. It has been extremely useful and we have come to a very satisfactory conclusion.
I think that all noble Lords agree that we want a commercial relationship between all the entities that comprise the racing industry. However, we need the Government to take a lead. If they do not, I am afraid that the industry will not come up with a solution itself, as there are too many vested commercial interests at play. I hope that the Government will consider setting up a consultation process with all involved in the racing industry to consider how best to put this new commercial relationship in place to replace the levy at a point in the future.
I should have declared an interest in that I own one and a third legs of a three year-old. I have to say that, on its current form running as a two year-old, I do not think it will be contributing to the levy or indeed benefiting from it. However, I am ever hopeful, and if your Lordships are interested in contributing to the levy, it is called Squaw King—it is trained by Eve Johnson Houghton and I very much hope it will run in May. In the mean time, I thank all those who spoke in this debate, particularly my noble friend and the noble Lord opposite. I thank the Minister and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Astor
My Lords, my name is attached to this amendment as I fully understand the arguments made by the casinos sector. It is in what one might call an unfair position at the moment. I understand that my noble friend the Minister is not unsympathetic to those arguments.
As I understand it, the difficulty is that the department, while having what one might call fruitful discussions on the issue, believes that the solution can be progressed safely and satisfactorily through secondary legislation. Of course, it would be helpful if the outline of that secondary legislation could be agreed before we get to Third Reading but I accept that this is a complicated area—the more so as one looks at it and realises what can be accessed online, whether with one’s own machine or one provided by a casino. I understand that the Government want to get this right.
I presume that my noble friend the Minister will want to come back again and say that secondary legislation is the right way to proceed with this issue. I will accept his assurance provided that he can give one bit of comfort to us: that, once this Bill has completed its passage through the House, the issue will not be kicked into the long grass and forgotten but will still be dealt with. It should be looked at carefully and as speedily as possible. I am sure that it will be, so that we can have a solution that is satisfactory to all those concerned.
Lord Mancroft
My Lords, I, too, put my name to the amendment in Grand Committee. Amazing though it may sound to your Lordships, the Prime Minister manages to travel the world without my company so, unlike my noble friend Lord Astor, I cannot claim that I was in China. I cannot actually remember where I was, but it was not in China.
There is no need to explain the background: my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has done that adequately. Reading the Hansard of Committee stage to prepare for this evening, I noticed that my noble friend Lord Flight—who, sadly, is not in his place this evening—described the anomaly that my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones talked about and which the amendment is intended to address as a silly anomaly. Nonsense, he called it. He said that the amendment in its previous incarnation was straightforward and common sense. That was quite right. He also described the Government’s position at the time as pretty silly, and he was quite right about that too.
In Committee, the Minister talked about basing remote gaming around existing machine rules—I think I have quoted him correctly on that. It was that which really drew my attention to this, because I have history on legislation in gambling regulation. That is the sort of thing that leads to ineffective and bad regulation. That is exactly what the previous Government tried to do when a new class of gaming machine came out. That is the problem that we now have with what are called fixed-odds betting terminals, which are not betting terminals at all: they are gaming machines. It is really important when new machines and new forms of gambling appear that we regulate them correctly and do not try to fit them into boxes that are not really there. That is what I would call the DCMS’s attempt at the King Canute style of regulation, holding back the waves of new technology. That is what we did before and we must be very careful not to do it again in this case. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones’s amendment is an attempt to address that.
In truth, I think that the Government have now accepted the principle of what my noble friend’s amendment is intended to do; I hope that they have. The debate before us this evening is really about whether it is better to put it in primary or secondary legislation. I know that, originally, the Government’s view was that this was not the right legislative vehicle. I have heard that before so many times. I am not quite sure what the right legislative vehicle is, but I am absolutely certain that the general public do not care; they just want it done. As my noble friend Lord Astor said, the right legislative vehicle—any legislative vehicle—does not come along very often, so when one comes along, you want to grab it.
If the amendment is to be withdrawn and the Government are to move forward in a different direction, the Minister should give your Lordships a commitment on a timetable, so that this does not just drag on and on, as issues have before. The problem with secondary legislation is that it is impossible to amend. If that is the route that the Government are determined to go down, my understanding is that the industry is not happy with it and would much prefer primary legislation but, obviously, like any industry, it will take what it can get. It seems to the industry, and it certainly seems to me, that primary legislation is the right vehicle for this. Unless the Minister can give us a very good reason why it is not, that is what we should do. There is quite enough flexibility in the provision. I think that your Lordships deserve the Government’s commitment to a timetable and to flexibility for the industry to make sure that we get this right. Unless we have those commitments, I see no reason not to take the view of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and pass the amendment. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.