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Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. [Hon. Members: ''He can.''] He might attempt to. He is trying to have it so many ways, he could be a Liberal. He is arguing for a free-for-all. He is arguing that the planning authorities should be given the power at a local level to have a casino if they want one. He began the Committee stage
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by arguing for a cap on regional casinos; now he seems to be arguing completely the opposite.
Mr. Whittingdale: We have consistently made it clear that we regard regional casinos as something entirely different, new and untested—as opposed to large and small casinos, which we have had in this country for a long time and which have been operating without giving rise to any significant gambling problem. That is why we felt that we should proceed very cautiously with regional casino development. There may be a danger of proliferation because of the imposition of a cap on the number of regional casinos and as a result it might be sensible to have some limit on large and small casinos. However, does the hon. Gentleman really believe that eight, eight, eight is a sensible limitation on each category of casino? The Government have come up with no explanation of how that decision has been reached.
We want very carefully to consider the issue, which has been bounced on to the Committee at the 11h hour. Although I do not necessarily relish the prospect of spending the entire Christmas recess reading the documentation that the Minister has kindly promised to drop down my chimney on Christmas day, we will need to consider the matter extremely carefully because it represents an enormous change to the Bill. To some extent, we have been wasting our time for the past four weeks, because the Government have now changed the Bill so much.
Mr. Byrne: I realise that the hon. Gentleman has not been able to join us in many of the sittings over the past four weeks, but has he read Hansard and, if so, does he not feel that we have had much of this debate already?
Mr. Whittingdale: We have debated other parts of the Bill that we think are important and wish to be on the statute book, but the Government are jeopardising their objective by this announcement. We have not been able to debate the aspects of what they have announced today because they have only just, at the 11th hour, changed the whole nature of the Bill. The Bill is now a complete and total shambles. It has not been properly consulted on or scrutinised, and we have been left with one day in Committee to consider the forthcoming amendments, which will not be published until the House rises. We will then return to the Floor of the House for a programme motion on Report.
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One of the first things I would ask the Minister to consider is whether the motion should now be lifted to ensure that the House of Commons has a proper opportunity to examine the question in detail. It is not satisfactory to push the Bill through the House of Commons, with essentially one day in Committee and one day on Report, when such enormous changes have been made. If the Government insist on that, I warn them that the other place may feel the Bill has not been properly considered and may want to do so in great detail. The Minister knows the consequences of that. We want to see the Bill on the statute book, but the Minister is not making it easy.
The Chairman: Order. Before I call the next Member, may I comment on a couple of points that
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Mr. Whittingdale has just made? This Committee of course has no power over the out date; that is a matter for the Floor of the House. If he wishes to pursue the matter, he will need to raise it in business questions, because it would need a new resolution of the House. We can change our sitting hours, but by order of the House, we must finish, at the latest, at 11.59 pm on 11 January. We could adjust the time by changing the programme motion to that time, if we so wish. We have done that in a previous Committee, but we cannot go beyond that time. At the moment, we will finish at 5.30 pm, but it is within the Committee's power to change that, if the Committee so wishes.
The Government have stated their intention to try to table before the recess the new clauses and appropriate points arising from the Minister's statement this morning. The final date for tabling any new clauses that may be debated on 11 January is 4.30 pm on the Friday before the Committee sitting. I hope that that clarifies the matter. I have checked that position, because with us going into the recess I was not quite sure about it.
Mr. Whittingdale: I am extremely grateful for that clarification, Mr. Pike. It is very helpful. However, this change is so substantial that, although we will want to consider the new clauses, instead of continuing until one minute to midnight in Committee, it would be much more preferable and important to lift the motion for the amount of time available on Report, so that the entire House of Commons has longer to examine the changes.
The Chairman: That only underlines my point. The House, not this Committee, must change that motion. I was stating what was within the scope of this Committee. The question arose in a previous one, although not exactly in that format. I know what our powers are, because we had to check particularly carefully during that previous Committee.
Mrs. Joan Humble (Blackpool, North and Fleetwood) (Lab): May I start by welcoming the Minister's announcement? He promised to come back to the Committee with a statement, and he has. He has therefore enabled us to debate the issue today and to consider it in further detail when the amendments are tabled, and there will be a further opportunity on Report. He has provided a detailed statement, which will merit much closer examination, so I look forward to seeing the detail of the amendments.
Certain questions need to be asked, based on the statement. One or two points leapt out at me from what the Minister said, and I give him notice that I am likely to come back with even more. He said that the identification of the operators and locations of the new casinos will be subject to broadly the same arrangements in each case—whether the casino is regional, large or small. Will those arrangements include the planning arrangements and the discussions that he outlined? As has been said, the smaller casinos will not bring the regeneration benefits that the larger casinos, and certainly the regional casinos, will, so I would like some clarification of what those arrangements in each case will mean.
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My right hon. Friend said that an independent advisory panel will be set up. Who will be on it? Clearly, that will be a key issue.
I am disappointed by my right hon. Friend's announcement that the Government do not think that a separate national planning policy is required. He talked about using the regional assemblies' proposals for their regional spatial strategies. As I mentioned on an earlier occasion, interest in the development of casinos differs from region to region. He well knows that in the north-west there has been the largest number of expressions of interest. Therefore, determining locations in the context of individual regional assemblies' regional spatial strategies may result in certain regions identifying a need in their region for more than the eight casinos and other regions identifying a need for none.
I would have thought that it was preferable to have some national policy statement that could be a framework within which decisions could be made. I am sure that many colleagues in the north-west would look forward to having more than one or two regional casinos in that area.
I also noted my right hon. Friend's references to competition. As somebody who is no expert on planning laws—I make that statement openly—I wonder how a competition process can be set in the context of planning laws. He says that the ODPM and the DCMS will issue guidance to local authorities on the issues surrounding the processes. That will be vital. If a local authority says that it has one site, asks who wants it and then has many bidders for that site, how it deals with the bidders will be vital. It must be protected from criticism that it has acted unfairly in respect of any of them.
In Blackpool, we already have competition for the one site that has been identified in Blackpool's master plan. Blackpool council, the councillors on the planning committee and the local authority as a whole need clear guidance on how to respond to the different bidders.
Mr. Hawkins: As the hon. Lady knows, I sympathise with the view that she is expressing on behalf of Blackpool, which I represented between 1992 and 1997 as the MP for the old Blackpool, South constituency. On her other point about needing national guidance, does she agree that there will be much greater difficulty in ensuring that casinos go where the regeneration is needed if the Government are not prepared to give a firm indication in the Bill of a national policy? The difficulty with a regional context is that some inland towns might be able to out-muscle seaside resorts such as Blackpool. Does she share my concern? Blackpool's plans would be severely damaged if large casinos were put in places such as Manchester, Liverpool and Preston, and not Blackpool.
Mrs. Humble: The hon. Gentleman is repeating the argument that I made on Second Reading. If the matter is simply left to the regions, their priorities may not be the same as the Government's central priorities on regeneration.
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As well, there must be a much clearer definition of regeneration. Local authorities operate within a framework where they recognise development gains from large developments, and some are very skilful in exploiting those gains. However, in the regeneration of a seaside town, for example, we are considering a much wider argument, involving environmental issues, transport infrastructure and the other businesses in the area, in a wider context than that of the development that is going to take place. We need clear guidelines on how the regional spatial strategy for the regional assemblies will take into account the definition of regeneration. We all think that we know what it means, but people have different ideas about it.
I made a point earlier about how decisions will be made and how they will link to local tourism strategies. Regional development agencies have responsibility for developing tourism in their areas. Some are doing that very well and recognise the economic importance of the tourism and hospitality industry. How will the independent advisory panel engage with the tourism debate? Will it consider the wider issues, rather than focusing on a narrow definition of economic development?
How will all those elements come together in the time scale the Government have set out? If I have experienced one serious disappointment, it is the time scale, which refers to the end of 2006. In Blackpool, a master plan is already being implemented. Anyone who has been to the town recently will have seen the developments on the south promenade to the southern gateway into the town. We now have development of the central gateway into the town. In both those imaginative proposals, the local authority is moving ahead with its master plan, but the resort casino proposals are a vital part of that, and link to the aspiration for a new conference centre and new entertainment centres, and the desire to bring in new visitors.
Those factors are all linked. If there are delays in the announcement of where the regional casinos are to be sited—and large and small casinos—it will be difficult for a local authority such as Blackpool properly to co-ordinate the planning process.
That authority has risen to the challenge that the Government have set in the ''Tomorrow's Tourism Today'' document, and it is reinventing the town. It is pulling all those ideas together and it will need to know, sooner rather than later, where the regional casinos will be, whether Blackpool will get one and where the large casinos will be. I applaud my right hon. Friend for recognising that large and small casinos will have an effect on the regeneration that can come from regional casinos. Will the large casinos be in the same eight areas as the regional ones? Does the Minister anticipate eight different locations for the small casinos, the large casinos and the regional casinos? That will impact on the regeneration potential of the regional casinos.
Finally, returning to the planning rules and regulations, the Secretary of State's announcement that recognised the need for a separate planning use
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class for casinos was welcomed. At the moment, planning proposals are coming from operators of other entertainment venues, including family entertainment centres and the like, which wish to change their use to casinos. Will there be a planning vacuum while the Government are changing the rules on the new planning use class? What will happen in those circumstances? Will the local authorities be required to act under the existing planning guidance until we get new planning guidance? How will that impact on the development of small casinos?
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