Betting, Gaming and Lotteries

No, I will take my lead from the Secretary of State. If the hon. Gentleman will just allow me to complete a paragraph, I will give way to him in due course. Will the right hon. Lady say whether the Joint Scrutiny Committee can scrutinise the decision that we have been asked to support? If, given the remit that she outlined, the Committee concludes that it was a mistake, or that there was something wrong with the process of awarding the licence to Manchester and that perhaps it should go elsewhere, will its recommendations carry any weight at all? Can the Committee recommend the withdrawal of the licence from Manchester if we vote for the order this evening? Will she confirm that she will not issue the Manchester licence unless and until the Joint Scrutiny Committee agrees to it? If she cannot do that, the Committee, as she outlined it, is nothing more than an exercise to get her out of a hole, and it will not do any of the things that we would expect such a Committee to do. The Secretary of State is right to say that there has been much recent discussion about those casinos, and about gambling in general—and not just by Members of Parliament. In the past week alone, we have heard the strong reservations of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who warned of the impact on"““the youngest, the poorest and the most vulnerable””." Those are the very people whom the Government’s Gambling Act 2005 is supposed to protect. The Secretary of State was understandably brief at the outset of her statement, but it is important to remind the House of why we are here today. My party agreed, largely thanks to the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), to a pilot scheme of one regional casino, and eight large and eight small casinos. We reached that position after the right hon. Lady initially proposed an unlimited number of regional casinos. Our top priority throughout the passage of the Act, and ever since, has been to minimise problem gambling, and we have been entirely consistent in that aim. The Government always say that the Act is about protecting the vulnerable, yet they are pushing the order through without adequate scrutiny of the risks of problem gambling associated with siting the regional casino in a city centre. The casino advisory panel has made a recommendation to Parliament, which Parliament is free to accept or reject after debate. That is why we are here.