Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1046
- 1059)
THURSDAY 29 JANUARY 2004
CLLR RICHARD
GRANT, CLLR
CAROLINE SEYMOUR
AND CLLR
GRAHAM BROWN
Q1046 Chairman: Good morning. Can I begin
by welcoming Cllr Richard Grant, the Chairman of the Community
Safety Panel of the Local Government Association, which is a sub-group
of the Social Inclusion Executive, and he is a member of the Warwickshire
County Council, Cllr Caroline Seymour, who is the Deputy Chair
of the Public Protection Executive from Hambleton District Council,
and Cllr Graham Brown, the Deputy Chair of the Public Protection
Executive from Powys County Council. You are all very welcome,
and it is a particular pleasure to welcome Caroline from North
Yorkshire, and we congratulate you for getting here. We will not
embarrass the fourth witness who, from a much shorter distance,
unfortunately could not make it, and from the look of the attendees
in the gallery, it looks like some of our regular attendees have
not made it here either. Nevertheless, it does not matter because
the transcript of this meeting will be produced and placed on
the Internet within about a week. Can I also welcome Colin Perry
from the Bill Team, a new member of the team in its formal sense.
He is present to speak, on an if-spoken-to basis, should we have
any queries. I would ask you to note that a formal declaration
of interests was made at the beginning of the first meeting, that
the information is public and that a note of those interests is
available. Can I also mention the fact that we have three witnesses
in this first session, three witnesses in the second, and it is
not essential, you are not obliged, to answer every question each,
and in fact I suspect you may have already shared who is going
to answer which question, but if you have something to add that
another witness has not already said, then fine, but you do not
all have to answer each one. Can I begin by saying that a number
of witnesses in this inquiry, particularly from the industry,
have highlighted planning and licensing issues as a major area
still of uncertainty in their view of the Bill, but let me ask
you all whether you think the existing clauses of the draft Bill
and the policy statement give you, the LGA, a clear picture of
the proposed regime for the regulation of gambling in the United
Kingdom? If not, what are the key pieces of information you are
lacking?
Cllr Brown: The policy document
and the draft Bill are quite detailed and we can see the framework
intended by them, but without the detail, it is very hard for
us to give a conclusive answer, detail meaning fees, secondary
legislation, the guidance, the codes and so on. We, without that
information, find it difficult to say the exact manner in which
the local authorities will implement the new system. As always,
the devil is in the detail, though we hope there are no devils
hiding in the detail. We have learnt from the Licensing Act and
we are still waiting there for the guidance.
Q1047 Chairman: You are still waiting
for more detail and guidance?
Cllr Brown: Yes.
Q1048 Chairman: To what extent does this
lack of detail make it difficult for local authorities to have
a view, a positive view, of what they are being asked to do or
is there a sense that this lack of detail is producing a negative
feeling that you are being asked to do something which may be
extremely important and could be beyond your ability?
Cllr Brown: No, I think the gambling
area is a new area, but it is one in which local authorities are
keen to become involved with and to learn. I think that local
authorities will embrace the new legislation, but it is this uncertainty
of what exactly will be asked of them when the regulations come
out, particularly the fees aspect, which we will no doubt discuss
in more detail later on.
Q1049 Chairman: We will indeed.
Cllr Brown: That is the main concern,
that it is not something we can give a 100 per cent answer to
without knowing all 100 per cent of the detail.
Q1050 Chairman: So are your councils
generally quite enthusiastic about taking on this role?
Cllr Brown: With the, I suppose,
limited knowledge and information they have at the moment, I think
the general impression is positive.
Q1051 Chairman: Cllr Grant?
Cllr Grant: I think it would be
reasonable to say that local government is keen to get involved
in issues that affect their local communities as a general principle,
but at the current time on this particular issue they will be
reserved about their position given the detail that we have talked
about and also the financial implications for the authorities,
so, on the one hand, they will want to be keen to be involved
with the issues that affect their communities, but they will be
uncertain of the level of that involvement and what that will
require of them to be able to deliver for both ends of the business,
as it were, one end being their communities and the other being
the gaming and gambling industry.
Q1052 Baroness Golding: The industry
has expressed concerns to the Committee about the role of the
local authorities in the licensing process and they are very apprehensive.
How could you reassure them?
Cllr Seymour: First of all, could
you just actually say what are their major concerns to make sure
that we head down the right track?
Q1053 Baroness Golding: Well, they are
used to it being run by the local magistrates and they see them
as non-political for some reason, but they see local authorities
as very political and they worry that the political influence
will be too great.
Cllr Seymour: Well, I think, to
reassure them, I would say that this is something that every time
we are asked to do something, people on the outside throw that
at us, that we are always acting in a political way. I think that
anybody who has been on a council will know that some 90 per cent
of the work of a council is non-political and certainly we are
used to dealing with a lot of issues in a non-political way. Licensing,
different forms of licensing which local government does at present
is done in a totally non-political way. Obviously there will be
policies produced which the industry would have the opportunity
to vet and you have to work within policies, so I think it is
a charge which really does not stand up and I think that having
these duties with the magistrates or the Gambling Board, which
at present does a lot of them, it is very removed from local people
and very unaccountable to the local communities where the facilities
are going to be set up, so I think that by giving them to local
councils you are actually strengthening the industry's relationship
with the community. We also sometimes get the impression that
we are felt or we are seen to be anti-business and that is not
true either because local authorities are very much about being
concerned with the economic well-being of the area and we all
understand the need for jobs and the economic well-being for people
to live happy lives, so I do not think that really the charge
and their concerns are justified.
Cllr Grant: Like this place, local
government is, by nature, political, but then that is the electoral
process. I think we need to firmly understand that a local authority
will be in the business of having the local community make the
decisions about who it wants to represent them and the local authority
develop policies which are open and transparent and within the
legislation through the political process, but once those policies
are in place and agreed, then the development of local determinations
will be measured against those local policies. The safeguards
to those local policies are legal and also the standards committees
and procedures within local authorities make sure that everything
is carried out correctly and is not under political influence,
so there are safeguards. I think the point that Caroline made
about local authorities working in partnership with local businesses
to further the economic and social success of their areas is an
area that local government is becoming more and more practised
in and it is one of the tenets of ours which we now fully operate.
I feel that obviously we understand business's concerns, but I
think we are in a position to reassure them that local government
is keen to be engaged with business as a partner as part of that
open and transparent process. There is a final point to make on
this which is that the Government is encouraging democratic renewal
and engagement of local people in the political process. We are
all keen to increase participation, particularly in voting, so
that local democratic accountability is part of the process of
developing policies and putting those policies, designed within
communities, into practice.
Q1054 Baroness Golding: Do you think
that any guidance given to local authorities should be binding
on the local authorities or do you think that there should be
one binding set of guidelines for all local authorities?
Cllr Grant: I think guidance should
be guidance and legislation should be legislation.
Cllr Brown: Binding guidance is
a contradiction in terms to a certain extent.
Q1055 Chairman: But how do you get consistency?
Cllr Brown: Consistency is achieved
by following the legislation and the guidelines, but you cannot
have one-size-fits-all legislation. It would be impossible, I
think, to produce guidelines which would be equally appropriate
to an area such as mine, which is rural Powys, as they would to
an active seaside tourist resort or Central London.
Cllr Seymour: I think as well
that guidance is about putting minimum standards into people's
policies and with the policies of local government, we feel there
is a duty actually to consult with interested parties, which would
obviously be the gambling businesses and so on, so it would be
very much up to the industry itself to make sure that the guidance
produced by local authorities was appropriate and that there was
consistency across the country on that guidance, but it is really
about putting in minimum standards. The Local Government Association,
with local communities, actually works very hard to put minimum
standards across the country on all sorts of regulatory issues,
so we are well practised at doing that, but I think the point
that Graham made at the start, that actually we do need local
discretion because every area is not the same, the individual
guidance needs to reflect that.
Cllr Brown: Otherwise it becomes
undemocratic and the local authority purely becomes a rubber-stamping
exercise.
Q1056 Jeff Ennis: Following on from the
point that Cllr Grant just made in terms of democratic renewal,
that councils are accountable, I totally support and agree with
that, but I guess that the charge could be levelled at Cllr Grant
because obviously local communities, whenever they are faced with
a planning or a licensing issue, never come out in hordes when
they support a particular application, but if they are against
it, that is when you get a local community getting together views,
getting the local media behind them and things like that against
a potential contentious application, and I guess the point that
the industry is making is that because of that community empowerment,
shall we say, quite often the local councillors may be swayed
by the weight of that local community feeling, whereas the local
magistrates' court might not be taken in, shall we say, by that
level of community hostility. How would you answer that?
Cllr Grant: I think that is a
perfectly understandable position you have described and I think
that all of us in elected positions understand that, but I think
that the way in which we are able to deal with that situation
is that we are measuring applications and decisions against clear
defined policies for an area, for a council which have been discussed,
consulted on and agreed in the local community, so you are actually
measuring up that decision against those policies. I think we
all understand the position that local government is in a leadership
role where we are encouraged and we take more of a leadership
role in communities to balance up the conflicting needs and aspects
within the local authority in order to make a balanced judgment.
Now, that is always difficult given the pressure, but I think
there are at least two sets of things that help us to do that.
One is those transparently designed and agreed policies that we
are talking about, and the other is the set of principles upon
which the electorate make their decision about who will represent
them, so you have a consistency there. On the consistency point,
I think we are not in favour of a rigid framework and that is
not the consistency that we see. The consistency that we see is
the designation and the decisions taken in an open and democratic
way about those declared policies which have been previously agreed
by the community and all the players and partners, of which business
will be one, within the local area.
Cllr Seymour: Within this Bill
there is of course the ability for the industry to go to court
and challenge any decision and that is right and proper that people
have the right of appeal.
Q1057 Chairman: Could I just clarify
what you are saying. Are you saying that if, for example, your
Council decided that the policy would be not to allow casino development
in Warwickshire, that should then be the end of it?
Cllr Grant: If that had been the
policy development, given all the legislative requirements and
the published local plans and those have been discussed and agreed
by the councils and discussed and agreed by the Secretary of State,
then that would be the position. As Caroline has said, that would
be open to challenge and appeal within the legislation, but I
think the position, the route I have described, if that was the
final Act from that decision, then that would be the policy.
Cllr Brown: The Bill has a presumption
in favour of granting a licence.
Q1058 Chairman: Precisely.
Cllr Brown: To answer this point,
I think it is important that local authorities gauge any opposition
or representations that are made on an application, but, like
the magistrates, local authorities will have a legal adviser presumably—I
know our authority would—who would advise on whether there
are any grounds or not on which to refuse an application, so I
cannot see that there would be a major problem because councils,
I think, on the whole tend to act very responsibly in these situations.
Q1059 Viscount Falkland: Can I ask you
just a fundamental question. You have told us how you want to
get your local communities engaged in the political process and
so on. Could you just give an opinion here on this particular
proposed legislation, because you are closer than anyone to local
communities, as to what demand you see for this kind of change
in our country's gambling profile among local communities on a
scale of one to 10?
Cllr Seymour: I think that is
very difficult to assess because, like a lot of things which happen
in life, it is only when somebody puts forward a proposal for
a gambling establishment, for example, that you can really gauge
what the public's view is about it, but I am sure there will be
pressure from businesses to introduce small casinos.
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