Finance Bill

I should start by saying that I am not a supporter of gambling; I do not like it or approve of it and I find it a pretty boring and unattractive way of spending money or time. However, I should not be imposing my views on the rest of the population. Clearly, large numbers of people get great pleasure from forms of gambling that do minimum harm, and I would have thought that bingo was one of them. If I were trying to raise money to plug the enormous gap that the Government have created in the national finances, I would be considering the forms of gambling that manifestly do cause significant harm. In casinos, for example, people with more money than sense waste it in a way that is probably socially undesirable. Would it not be much better to increase the tax on casinos and decrease the tax on bingo? That seems an extremely logical argument—so logical that it is difficult to understand why the Government have not accepted it already. However, I have to say that the Government seem to be the most illogical I have ever had to deal with; they seem unable to see simple things in a simple manner. In my constituency, bingo is concentrated in Felixstowe, a celebrated holiday town. It has a large number of older people, and bingo is an important part of the service that it provides for its residents and for people who come into the town. I want it to go on doing that. It employs people and provides others with something that they obviously enjoy and choose to enjoy. Why on earth should they pay more for that enjoyment than people who go off to Aspinalls and other such gathering places and watering holes? There is an innate snobbishness in this Government. They do not want to have a go at the people who go to the smart places along Curzon street and the rest—they do not want to fall out with them, oh no!