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Mr. Caborn: For the record, I shall explain the clause and what is meant by a ''members' club'' in the Bill. The Bill updates, but preserves, the essential elements of the current definition. A members' club
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must be established and conducted wholly or mainly for purposes others than gaming, unless the gaming is of a prescribed kind and facilities are provided for no other kind of gaming. Under the present law, bridge and whist clubs benefit from that allowance. We will continue that under the Bill by specifically allowing it under this clause.
A members' club must also be established and conducted for the benefit of members and not as a commercial enterprise. It should have at least 25 members and not be temporary in nature. That ensures that clubs are not set up for a short time to avoid gambling regulations.
In answer to the specific questions that I was asked, entitlements are for club premises in part 12. There has to be a bricks and mortar premises. An investment club would need specific premises. Clauses 256(2) and 258(2) make it clear that permits can be granted only for one premises.
Mr. Prisk: If 25 members of the Hertford Royal British Legion got together in their homes to engage in gaming, would that constitute a members' club?
Mr. Caborn: No.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 251 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 252 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 253
Miners' welfare institute
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
2.45 pm
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): This question is more appropriate to the Minister's part of the country than mine. I am not aware of any mines in Essex.
The serious point that I want to make is that, with changing circumstances in the coal mining industry in various parts of the country, the number of live coal mines has been dramatically reduced. I am trying to look to the future: has any thought been given to how the miners' welfare institutes provision in clause 253 may be accommodated because the clubs will still exist, albeit not with present miners, and the past miners will eventually become very past? Is there an arrangement by which the benefits of the miners' welfare institutes can be continued thereafter for the new non-mining generation?
Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central) (Lab): To follow the hon. Gentleman's points, I am not sure what very past miners would be like, but in my neck of the woods we would call them retired miners.
The point is well worth making that miners' welfare institutes continue in existence, but with a reduced rate of funding because the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, to which subsection (4) refers and which is now a charitable trust, has had reduced funding for considerable time. I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to ask his colleagues in the Government for
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more attention to be given to the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, particularly in respect of social workers who may be needed to look after those retired miners who develop problem gambling habits when the bigger, super-casinos arrive.
Mr. Caborn: My hon. Friend seems to think that there will be one in the middle of Barnsley. He will be able to use all the expertise from ex-miners there.
The answer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) is yes. In response to my hon. Friend, and to digress a little, the miners' welfare clubs play a fantastic role not just in the area that we are discussing but in the whole sporting arena. We are considering how we could help some of those ex-miners and their welfare clubs to do in the wider community what they now do and not to be driven just by the mining industry.
Clause 253 defines miners' welfare institute and miners' representatives for the purposes of the Bill. Those definitions have been updated since the previous legislation in consultation with the appropriate groups connected with mining and ex-mining areas. Such institutes and associations were established for social recreation purposes. An association may take one of two legal forms: either it must be managed by a group made up of at least two thirds of miners' representatives or it must operate from charity premises and have received money from the range of mining charity organisations listed in the clause.
A miner's representative is defined as a person who is nominated or appointed by a person who employs or has employed individuals in the course of a coal mining business, by the trust known as the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation, by an organisation representing persons who are or were employed in connection with coal mining, or if the person concerned is or was employed in connection with coal mining.
That is the explanation for clause 253.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 253 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 254 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 255
Section 254: supplementary
Bob Russell: I beg to move amendment No. 348, in clause 255, page 113, line 31, at end insert—
'(e) not unfairly discriminate between different classes of club or institute when making such regulations.'.
The amendment has been carefully worded so that I can ingratiate myself with Labour members of the Committee, Conservative members of the Committee and, hopefully, my hon. Friends the Members for Bath (Mr. Foster) and for Southport (Dr. Pugh).
The clause as drafted commits members' clubs, commercial clubs and miners' welfare institutes to providing certain facilities for gaming without the need for any express authorisation. In order to qualify for the exemption, the gaming must meet a number of conditions, which are similar to those set out in section 40 of the 1968 Act, with the exception of the
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restriction on linking games and of how to prescribe maximum stakes and prizes.
There is no justification for discriminating between types of club or institute. It should be made clear in the Bill that the purpose of making regulations on different provisions for different classes is not to allow such discrimination—hence my opening references to political clubs. There should not be discrimination because they are political clubs or, indeed, among political clubs of different colours.
Subsection (3) allows the Secretary of State to make regulations
''prescribing the maximum charge for the purposes of section 254(4).''
In other words, participation fees are not to exceed a maximum to be prescribed. Clause 255(3)(a) allows the making of
''different provision for different classes of club or institute.''
Paragraph (c) makes provision
''for different classes or descriptions of game''
and paragraph (d) provides
''for different classes or description of fee.''
Everyone has to be awake to follow that flow.
There is no indication of the basis on which different provisions will be made for different classes of club or institute. The amendment seeks to clarify that any policy setting a different maximum participation fee will not unfairly discriminate between classes of club or institute. It is suggested that the Secretary of State issue a statement under clause 220 regarding the basis on which such power will be exercised.
This is in many ways a probing amendment to ensure that the Government have taken such matters into consideration. While there can be different regulations for varying classes of clubs, the difference should not be discriminatory towards a particular club. In other words, regulations governing a miners' welfare institute should not be excessively strict in comparison with, say, regulations governing a snooker club or any other commercial club. I should point out that my interest in the miners' welfare institute movement is purely to ensure that the one in Eckington survives, because it is one I visit.
The Gaming Act 1968 granted the Secretary of State the right to specify differing sums for different clubs, so the power granted to the Secretary of State is at the heart of this clause and a carry-over from the 1968 Act. The amendment will ensure that the differences are within reason. The definitions of the three types of club are miners' welfare institutes, commercial clubs and members' clubs. I hope that the Minister will be able to give assurances and clarifications such that I may not wish to push the amendment to a Division.
Dr. John Pugh (Southport) (LD): May I add a footnote? There is some possibility of unfair discrimination, because clubs are often judged by their titles and not always what they seem. Miners' clubs are not frequented only by miners. Wheel-tappers and shunters clubs are presumably not full of
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anybody at all anymore, as there are no wheel-tappers and shunters around.
Certain clubs such as social clubs in Blackpool, some of which the scrutiny Committee visited, were originally set up with the objective of providing cheap entertainment for people who could not attend first-class, commercial entertainment. Those clubs now provide first-class, commercial entertainment, and are effectively lucrative and thriving businesses.
We also have the phenomenon of political clubs. In my constituency, the Birkdale Conservative club is full not of Conservatives, surprisingly, but of snooker players. [Interruption.]
Mr. Richard Page (South-West Hertfordshire) (Con): May I assure the hon. Gentleman that one condition of joining a Conservative club is being a Conservative? If he has the names of anybody who enters those clubs who is not a Conservative, I would like to have them, because I would make sure that they were immediately barred.
Dr. Pugh: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the net effect of that would be very empty clubs. Some people may be under a serious misapprehension—
Mr. Illsley: This point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on the radio a few weeks ago. He said that if every member of the Conservative clubs in his constituency had voted Conservative, he would not have won the seat.
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