I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), who was an excellent Minister in the Labour Government and is an excellent man. I am not saying that just because he is one of my constituents. I genuinely mean it. I do not think he votes for me, but I have not given up hope on him just yet. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who does a superb job chairing the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport and trying to bring a consensus to it, which is sometimes a challenge, but he does it with great skill.
I do not intend to divide the House on the Bill. I support its premise, but we are in a rather strange situation. The basis on which I support the Bill is not the one on which the Government are promoting it. It is the one basis on which the Government are desperate to
pretend they are not introducing the Bill, even though it is clearly the case that the Bill is nothing to do with regulation; it is to do with taxation. I will deal with regulation in a moment.
We know what is behind the Bill and we do not need to guess: it is all about filling the Treasury’s coffers, although it probably will not fill them as much as the Treasury would like. The Chancellor made the objective clear in his Budget speech last year, when he said:
“One area where I am today making substantial changes is gambling duties. . . The current duty regime for remote gambling introduced by the last Government was levied on a ‘place of supply’ basis. This allowed overseas operators largely to avoid it, and much of the industry has, as a result, moved offshore. Ninety per cent. of online gambling consumed by our citizens is now supplied from outside the UK, and the remaining UK operations are under pressure to leave. This is clearly not fair—and not a sensible way to support jobs in Britain. So we intend to introduce a tax regime based on the place of consumption—where the customer is based, not the company—and, from this April, we will also introduce double taxation relief for remote gambling. These changes will create a more level playing field, and protect jobs here.” —[Official Report, 21 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 803.]
It is perfectly clear what the Government are doing—the Chancellor could not have made it any clearer, and I fully support what he said. I thought there was a great deal of sense in it and I think most people here would agree with him.
The problem is that the Chancellor made no reference in his Budget speech to the need to introduce measures to improve player protection or to better regulate the gambling industry. I do not think that was accidental. It was perfectly obvious why. The Bill has nothing to do with regulating the gambling industry or improving player protection.
The Select Committee enjoyed hearing from the chief executive of the Gambling Commission and from the permanent secretary, struggling to think of any reasons why the current regime needed improving from a player protection perspective. I was slightly embarrassed for them. They were in a difficult position. They had come to argue the indefensible—that the Bill was all about regulation. When they were pressed to identify the issues that had caused all the problems and require new legislation, we did not get anything from them. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) made the point about Full Tilt. If anybody can give an extensive list of all the problems that have been created by the current system of regulation, I would be very pleased to hear it, as would the other members of the Select Committee, I am sure. We did not hear much of it from the chief executive or from the permanent secretary.