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3.41 pm
Mr. Richard Page (South-West Hertfordshire): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) on securing the debate. It takes some ability and skill—and a little luck—to get an Adjournment debate. The particular case that he has engineered reminds me of Napoleon when he was promoting various officers. He turned to those recommending various promotions and said that he did not want to know how good an officer was, only whether he was lucky. On that basis, my hon. Friend, in securing a debate in which we have up to two and half hours instead of the usual half an hour, would be a general in Napoleon's army.
I do not wish to gallop too heavily—if I can be forgiven the pun—over ground that my hon. Friend has already correctly and eloquently gone. I speak as joint chairman of the all-party racing and bloodstock group and we know that many people are deeply concerned about what could happen as a result of the OFT investigation into racing.
My hon. Friend referred to various factions within racing. The Minister, who is coming fairly fresh to the matter, will have gathered that those factions do not go warmly hand in hand on every issue on every occasion. Sometimes the hands are warmly round the throats of the others, but they all realise now that if they do not work together, the game is over.
There is no need for me to tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that a race course without any horses does not really have a point; and it is no good having a horse without a race course for it to compete on. Without trainers it will all get a bit difficult; jockeys might be needed as well. The idea that race courses can somehow run their own fixture lists and do their own data rights is a joke because there has to be some centralised arrangement whereby the information gets out to the public. Why? Because racing depends for a large percentage of its income on betting. Whatever we do, we must ensure that we do not upset the current arrangements. I am afraid that the OFT is approaching the issue as a bunch of innocents who have gone charging in. What upsets me is how the OFT seems to have started from a preconceived position; it now faces the embarrassment of trying to get out of it.
I shall quote briefly from a letter from the OFT, dated 8 May, to the chief executive of the Racecourse Association. It states:
- "The OFT will be examining the scope for further competition within racing as part of its remit to ensure that markets are working well . . . considering . . . how often they race . . . the type of racing . . . the prizes they can offer."
- "At this stage, the OFT anticipates that increased competition would potentially benefit racegoers, punters and race horse owners. And courses should benefit from greater freedom."
It would be heresy to suggest that anything was greater than British racing, but in this day and age of world gambling—when information can travel round the world at the flick of a finger—the potential income is enormous. It pains me to say it but I congratulate the Government on the suggestion of a gambling Bill. If we could get a review of gambling right, the revenue for this country—which, after all, has lost its shipbuilding and other industries—from worldwide gambling could be enormous.
Why would people gamble on racing in Britain? After all, people can gamble by watching a television screen showing live races anywhere in the world. What makes British racing attractive? As my hon. Friend suggested, it is the integrity and honesty of British racing. Unless one is remarkably lucky or incredibly foolish, one does not expect to win money at racing. One expects to have some fun and occasionally come out ahead, and that is good. Before you took up your position of responsibility, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I suggest that even you had the odd shilling on a horse at Newmarket, although I do not expect you to confess to that from the Chair. We put our money on a race in Britain knowing that there is a better chance of it being a straight race—an honest contest—than anywhere else in the world. That is why huge amounts of money have already come to this country from the far east, where people are inveterate gamblers, and I want that to happen more and more.
If we start to break up the central data rights, how will the information be transmitted round the world? Will the individual race courses have to obtain the data rights to transmit races? I do not think so. Instead, the UK would start to suffer, because it was not providing world coverage from a unified and central source. Racing is like a many-legged chair: if one kicks away one of the legs, the chair falls over. It is crucial that we get it right.
My hon. Friend touched on the fact that racing is growing. More people are going racing than ever before, and more horses are being raced than ever before. Much of that is because the people who lead the racing industry at the moment have decided to move it forward into the modern market and the modern age. They are to be congratulated on that. They have not sat there, ossified and unchanging. They have been working at the problem.
The OFT has never run a business. I am puzzled about why it should consider that it knows more about running the racing industry than those who are actively involved. The assumption appears to have been that increased competition would have a variety of effects. I spoke to the OFT, offering the all-party committee's help and evidence, because I recognised that there was a difficulty.
The racing industry does not have independent participants. People are involved in race courses, horses, the British Horseracing Board or the Jockey Club, and therefore have their own factions. Answers from the industry therefore reflect a particular slant or colour. The all-party committee meets people from all sides of the industry, and we like to think that we view their presentations with a degree of independence.
In response to the offer made by me and my co-chairman, the OFT sent a letter to the effect that it would accept a written submission. We supplied that
submission, which concluded with our strong opinion that the OFT's proposals could cause race courses to close. We also predicted a move towards what I call the barn principle evident in the US. There, trainers ensure that horses race on only one course during their racing lives. Watching American racing is, with a few exceptions, the equivalent of watching paint dry. Most races are run on dirt, and are held in only one direction around the track. There is little of the colour, excitement or variation that is attractive to the world gambling scene.We told the OFT that we foresaw the closure of a number of courses, and that the inevitable centralisation of racing activity around a few centres would reduce consumers' ability to attend meetings. I suggest that many hon. Members share that view, as does almost all the racing fraternity.
The racing industry should not be put at risk. I therefore endorse the call for the Government to examine their existing powers to see whether changes could be made, and action taken, to rein in what is being considered and proposed. When I expressed extreme surprise that the OFT report should have appeared in the middle of the review being undertaken by the racing industry, I was told that the BHB had asked for it.
When I contacted the BHB, I was told that it had wanted a reply a year ago. The board could not wait a year or more before starting its review, which is now under way, and it has already given presentations to the racing fraternity. I have a copy of its first presentation; it takes a comprehensive look at how racing can be made more exciting for all the participants, especially the public.
Unless we want to close racecourses, reduce the number of horses in training and put our opportunities on the backburner, the Minister must take on board what is being said to him today.
3.55 pm
Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell): I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, as well as for the good fortune of my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) in securing it.
The House will be aware that I represent what is, in my humble submission, the finest race course in the world, on Epsom downs; it is the home of the Derby—Britain's greatest day out. Epsom is much more than a race course, however; it is a centre for training for people with various levels of success in the industry. It is thus an essential part of the whole racing world in this country.
I want to touch on a few of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) raised about the threat posed by the OFT report to the development end of the training industry—not the big yards and the division one players, but people who play an important part in developing new horses for racing. I was worried when I read the OFT report on the future of horseracing. I thought back to a subject that the OFT touched on only a few months ago: community pharmacies. As in racing, the OFT saw a market where none exists and tried to create a sense of
diverse market forces in a conventional industry. It tried to impose on the pharmacy world—as it is trying to impose on the racing world—the structures of the supermarket sector. Racing is not like that; it is a sport.
Mr. Laurence Robertson: My hon. Friend referred to supermarkets, something that I did not mention as I thought there would not be enough time. Is there an analogy with the situation faced by farmers? These days, because farmers sell their milk, as individuals, to extremely powerful organisations they are impoverished. They claim that savings are not passed on to the consumers but are held up in the chain. Is there an analogy with what could happen in racing?
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