Finance Bill

I will address the hon. Gentleman’s question in a moment. It is important at the outset to set out the concerns. Ian Burke said that the change had been imposed without consultation and that it was not signalled ahead of the Budget in any meeting with either the Treasury or the DCMS. Mr. Hawskwood concluded that the Chancellor"““had closed the door on remote gambling””." While independent analysts were more measured, it was clear that they shared much of the industry’s analysis. Deloitte said that the changes"““may make it less attractive for operators to bid for casino licences and we could well see a reduction in the number of companies bidding for small, large and regional casino licences””." Warwick Bartlett said that Britain would miss out on a substantial influx of high-tech jobs. BDO Stoy Hayward went further in relation to clause 8 and said that the 15 per cent. rate sounded the ““death knell”” for Britain’s aspiration to be a regulated online gambling world leader. I will now come on to the point raised by the hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford). I say at the outset that we do not automatically endorse the comments of the industry or analysts about the likely effect of the proposals. However, we genuinely want to hear from the Financial Secretary the full rationale for the proposals and what their effects will be. One of the reasons we felt we could not table amendments at this stage was that we did not know those effects in full, so I will be putting questions to the Financial Secretary towards the end of my speech.