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The Chairman: Certainly, everything is in order. The Opposition have made their point. The Government have the right to table amendments at any stage, even when the legislation reaches the other place. Let us make progress now. Clause 223
Prize
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Prisk: I can give Committee members time to digest other information by raising a couple of further points with the Minister.
The clause deals with what is a prize. According to the clause, it includes
''any money, article, right or service won''.
Committee members will understand the points about the money or article, and I would not dare to drift in the direction of cuddly toys unless I wished to incur your wrath, Mr. Pike. However, I am concerned about the terms ''right'' and ''service''. At one extreme, I assume that service could include a prize such as a holiday. I doubt that that is the case in this instance, but for the industry's benefit, and so that we all know where we stand, I would be grateful if the Minister told us what he understands as falling within that definition.
Similar questions arise with regard to ''right''. I can imagine that there might be a prize that is the keys to the front door of your new home. That might be a legal right; it might be a property right. Again, I doubt whether it is correct in this context. However, it would be helpful if the Minister provided guidance as to exactly what he includes within that, because it is clear that the prize could be very significant.
On those two straightforward points, I hope that the Minister will be able to offer clarification.
Mr. Caborn: The clause defines ''prize'' in relation to a gaming machine. The definition includes money, articles, rights or services won. It is a deliberately broad definition to ensure that the prize limit set for the gaming machines covers any benefit or reward offered by the machine. However, under the current law, an opportunity to have another free go at the gaming machine does not count as a prize and the
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clause maintains that position. A ''right or service'' could mean a holiday and someone still has to be gambling to win any benefit, so the answer to the question that I was asked is yes. If one wants to put those prizes up, they can be put up, although I doubt whether that would include the front-door keys to Mr. Pike's house. We believe that that explains the word ''prize''.
3.45 pm
Mr. Prisk: The Minister knows that I was not hoping to offer your good home to punters, Mr. Pike. I was seeking an explanation of the broader point, and I am not sure that the Minister provided it, of whether the word ''right'' includes a legal right for someone to win a home—in this case, the documentation.
Mr. Caborn: Yes.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 223 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 224
Use of Machine
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Moss: Subsection (1) provides the option for the Secretary of State to
''make regulations controlling the circumstances in which a gaming machine is made available for use.''
In simple terms, there are different types of machine. Some are based on a random chance; in other words, the chance of winning on every game is the same, so the fact that a previous player happens to have had a big win on a particular machine will not alter the likelihood of a payout on the next game. That is one category of machine.
The other category is machines of a managed non-random nature, and amusement-with-prizes machines fall into that one. They allow the operator to determine the exact price value of payouts over a certain period, as opposed to merely setting the probability of payouts. If an AWP machine has paid out a large sum early on in a period, the money that it will pay out, and thus the probability of winning, is reduced.
There is a strong case for including some reference to the randomness of a particular machine in the clause. Perhaps the Minister will explain to the Committee why it was appropriate to omit it. It is not included in the regulations that the Secretary of State may bring to bear. I believe that the idea that gaming machines should be random was accepted in the Budd report, yet no reference to randomness appears in the clause.
The Secretary of State may make the regulations, but it is important that, before they are introduced, she should refer to empirical research on the impact of any strategy and the risk of unintended consequences, which may, of course, outweigh any intended benefits. The clause lacks any reference to the randomness of the machines about which the Secretary of State may
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make regulations or to the fact that before regulations are made there ought to be reference to empirical research.
Mr. Prisk: Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the nature and intent of paragraph (e)? It refers to ''the display of information''. Does he have any views about why the Government might wish to include such a reference?
Mr. Moss: I have to be entirely honest with my hon. Friend and say that it had not crossed my mind that that was a problem. Obviously, he has seen more than I did. No doubt, when he has the opportunity to get to his feet, he will explain to us what he thinks on the matter. I had no problem with that paragraph; my hon. Friend needs to make his own points at the appropriate time.
Mr. Hawkins: My point is slightly different from those made by my hon. Friend, although, of course, I agree with what he just said.
During the Committee proceedings, a number of us, including my hon. Friends the Members for North-East Cambridgeshire and for South-West Hertfordshire, have raised the large number of things in the Bill that are left to secondary legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire is particularly good at making the point that statutory instruments are nodded through, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, without our having any ability to amend them. Any Government with a large majority can force such things through the House.
Is there any chance of the Minister telling us that he and his advisers will do their best to let Committee members—and all hon. Members—see the regulations relating to clauses 224 and 225, at least in draft, before Report and Third Reading, and before the Bill goes to another place? That would be helpful. It is particularly important that the regulations controlling the circumstances in which gaming machines are to be used are drafted. I say that for the sake of the successful manufacturing industry in this country, members of which I have met regularly during the past 12 or 13 years at BACTA conferences and the successful Amusement Trade Exhibition International show.
The industry should know what the regulations will look like before Report and Third Reading, and before the Bill goes to another place. If it becomes law and the regulations are causing problems for the hard-pressed manufacturing industry and the operators, we will not have the opportunity to debate the regulations—it will be too late. I earnestly plead with the Minister and those who advise him to show all hon. Members at least a rough draft of regulations relating to this part of the Bill, because that would be helpful. I hope that if the Minister cannot undertake to do that, he will write and say that he is prepared to show us, the Committee members, a rough draft.
This Bill has been so long in gestation that I cannot believe that there are not some people somewhere in the Department who have not prepared an early draft
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of the regulations for the use and supply part of the Bill. When my party was in government, I worked in the predecessor to the DCMS, the Department of National Heritage, as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, so I have some understanding of how the Department used to work.
Mr. Page: Perhaps I can follow in my hon. Friend's footprints, because I have expressed concern about the regulations and the power that the Bill will put into the hands of the Secretary of State. As my hon. Friend said, clauses 224 and 225 are another example of such a power.
I shall not read a comprehensive list from the Bill. If I were filibustering, I could read all the clauses bit by bit, up to clause 224, where the Secretary of State has a ''may'' rather than a ''shall'' power.
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) (Lab): Go on then!
Mr. Page: The hon. Gentleman tempts me.
The Chairman: Order. The Chair does not.
Mr. Page: I know where the power lies in this Committee and I will not upset the Chairman, Mr. Pike.
Clause 4 is a ''may'' clause; clause 7 is a ''may or shall'' clause; then it goes a bit quiet until clauses 35, 36, 44, 52, 56, 74, 84, 88, 96 and 120.
Mr. Illsley: House!
Mr. Page: Not when I play bingo. ''May'' or ''shall'', or both, then appear in clauses 105, 116, 121, 125—I am nearly up to clause 224, Mr. Pike—147, 151, 157, 159, 163, 169, 186, 220, and so on.
Those of us who have been in the House for a number of years have seen all this before. I vividly remember that everybody voted for the legislation establishing the Child Support Agency because it is right that people own up to their responsibilities. When the regulations were introduced, it was a nightmare. Every one of us who was a Member of Parliament at the time had people flooding into our surgery because the regulations were trapping them in an unreal world.
I am desperately worried that we have reached clause 224—you will be delighted to hear that I shall not speak to clause 225, Mr. Pike—and we have found regulation after regulation after regulation. I do not know why we are even bothering to debate the Bill. Why does the Bill not simply say, ''The Secretary of State may, by regulation, determine what is going to happen''? Then we could all go home. The Minister might be pleased by that because he has taken a bit of a drubbing today.
The Minister should explain how the regulations are to be addressed by the House. Statutory instruments are an almost automatic process—they pass through as if they were going through a sausage machine—and there is no opportunity for amendment or debate. We have the same thing here. By agreeing to the clause, we are saying, ''Whoops! It is over to the Secretary of State to do it by regulation.'' There is no debate or
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discussion; it is all down to the Secretary of State. That is not satisfactory and it is not democracy. If we are going to run our lives through secondary legislation, why do we not all go home and leave it to the civil servants? We could pass through all these ''mays'' and ''shalls'' in one-and-a-half-hour sittings and I could spend more time with my family.
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