Gambling (Geographical Distribution of Casino Premises Licences) Order 2007

My Lords, I have four different interests to declare. None of them prevents me from speaking, but the House will be pleased to know that at least two of them restrict what I can say. First, I am a part-time member of the Gambling Commission. The commission is not responsible for the location of casinos or any other gambling premises, but it is responsible for the regulation of those premises—or that part of the regulation that relates to operators and individual employees. Premises licensing, of course, is a matter for local authorities. The Gambling Commission has never taken a view on where gambling premises should be, but it takes the view that it will provide a proper regulatory framework, wherever Parliament or local authorities decide gambling should take place. I shall therefore not express any views on the location of either the regional casino or any of the others. My second interest is as president of GamCare, which, I am glad to say, has been referred to twice in the debate. It is the leading charity responsible for treatment and assistance of people with gambling problems and the largest recipient of funding from the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, a charity set up voluntarily by gambling industries. I am happy to tell the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that the Responsibility in Gambling Trust has assured GamCare of funding for the next three years, in response to GamCare’s business plan. GamCare’s activities are currently not restricted by lack of funding. I am not saying that we would not look for more funding if we could get it, but the noble Lords’ assertion that it is under financial pressure is none the less incorrect. Again, GamCare is not concerned with the location of gambling premises. It undertakes to help people with gambling problems, wherever they may be. Therefore, I shall not be commenting on the location of gambling premises in that capacity. My third interest is that I was, for the two years in which the Gambling Bill went through Parliament, the Minister responsible for that legislation, under the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The last six months of that period, October 2004 until just before the 2005 election, in which there was a huge reaction to the Bill and casinos in particular, are burnt deeply in my psyche. I hate to bring the Daily Mail into debates in this House, but it was outstanding in its opposition to all aspects of the then Gambling Bill. It was followed by a large body of opinion across all parts of the House and the public. The Government’s position then, which I believe this House would now take, was that there are three public-policy options on gambling. The first is to suppress it: prohibition. Nobody has advocated that; it is obvious, as has been shown in many jurisdictions worldwide, that prohibition simply drives gambling underground rather than enabling it to be regulated. The second is to let it rip, with no regulation at all. Again, I do not think that position has had any support in Parliament or among the public. The third option—the Government’s option after seven years of debate, including the independent report by a committee under Sir Alan Budd—was that gambling should be strictly regulated; that you should not say that it is not a legitimate leisure pastime for many people, the vast majority of whom do not suffer in any way from their gambling activities; and that the key to public policy on gambling is the effectiveness of regulation. I come to my fourth declaration of interest, as a social researcher in business for nearly 40 years. The important point is that casinos are a very small part of the possible dangers of gambling and problem gambling. Three per cent of people in this country go to casinos. If the prevalence study being carried out shows that that goes up to 4, 5 or 6 per cent, the number of problem gamblers whose problems arise from casinos will be well under 1 per cent, almost certainly well under 0.5 per cent. The real dangers in gambling do not come from casinos; they come from accessible gambling—machines in betting offices, pubs and clubs, and online and telephone gambling. The Gambling Act has put severe restrictions on machines in pubs, clubs and betting offices to avoid what would otherwise have been the position: gambling problems like those in New South Wales, Queensland or Victoria in Australia. Online gambling is much more difficult because participants do not have to go to sites based and regulated in the United Kingdom. We still have a long way to go on that. The issue—I know this point has not been raised yet, but I got to my feet early—ought not to be problem gambling from casinos because they are not the significant element. As the Minister who was responsible for the Gambling Bill, I want to speak about the process by which we arrived at today’s position. Because of the adverse reaction to the Bill when it was published in October 2004, the Government compromised. Instead of saying that the number of casinos of any kind should be restricted by size limits—in other words, saying that casinos should be so big that no business decision would be taken to have more than 20, 25 or perhaps 30 large casinos—we were obliged to say to the House of Commons that there would be an arbitrary number: eight, eight and eight. That is what we did. It is not rational in policy terms, because eight cannot be defended any more than seven or nine or any other number; it was the number acceptable to the House of Commons at the time. The condition on which that compromise was reached was that the decision would be taken not politically by the Government but by an independent panel. None of the debate that took place in either House went against that idea or suggested that Ministers or Parliament should take the decision rather than an independent panel. Of course, in the end, an order has to be made and has to go through Parliament, but objection to the order is surely justified only if Ministers go against the independent advice that they were offered rather than accepting it as they have done. It does not seem to me that a case has been made out from any point of view for rejecting these orders. The Government have fulfilled the commitment they made to Parliament in the run-up to the last general election. Whatever doubts there may be about the detail of the independent panel’s work, it fulfilled its remit. On that basis, this House should not overturn the order before it today.