Betting, Gaming and Lotteries

I shall certainly give the matter some thought. Like the hon. Member for East Devon, I am well aware of the many reports that suggest that some of the regeneration benefits claimed may be somewhat bogus and may simply lead to a movement of staff from one institution to another in terms of the wider entertainment ecology of a location. Given that the panel put so much emphasis on social impact, it is certainly odd that the location of existing casinos did not seem significantly to inform its reasoning. As the Merits Committee heard, there have been many other criticisms: inconsistency, a relentless shifting of the goal posts by the panel, chaos in the appeals process and constant changes to the all-important examination in public sessions, which changed from one candidate to the next, with varying amounts of preparation time for the sessions and presentation time within them. Sadly, the Merits Committee was unable to explore the last issue fully as the transcripts of those sessions have not yet been published. If the Secretary of State agrees to reconvene the Select Committee, I hope that it can have access to them. Concerns have already been expressed about the regeneration aspects of the panel’s work. The panel said that the job creation proposals used to assess the regeneration potential of the bids were for the most part"““prepared at a time when there was a belief that there would be more than one regional casino””." If that is the case, how could their estimates have been much help in assessing the bids for what will be a single super-casino? In relation to the choice of Manchester, what assurances do we have that the council will stick to east Manchester? That point was raised by the hon. Member for East Devon. After all, the Secretary of State’s letter, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, makes it clear that the council has the choice"““to issue the licence to any site within the authority area””."