Joint Committee on the Draft Gambling Bill Minutes of Evidence


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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