Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1240
- 1244)
TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY 2004
MS MOIRA
BLACK CBE AND
MR MARK
HARRIS
Q1240 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville:
If the BBC were transferred to Ofcom would you expect the
BBC to be regulated by a sub-committee of Ofcom?
Ms Black: I have not thought about
that at all!
Q1241 Chairman: One technical question
before I ask you one final question. Have you had any other applications
to license games under section 6, other than those from Camelot?
Ms Black: We had one a long time
ago.
Mr Harris: One game was run by
Vernons, the Easy Play Game, which was run before the Commission
came into being. The technical answer is there is route whereby
the Commission can license third parties to operate Lottery games,
but that can only be done if those third parties have entered
into an agreement with the operator, which is Camelot at present,
and Camelot is fully prepared to enter into that agreement.
Q1242 Chairman: The point of asking
the question is that there has not been a lot of interest so far
from other interests in the industry from operating the other
kinds of games if you have a multi-licence?
Ms Black: We do not know the reasons
for that. It may be that they are required to reach an agreement
with Camelot first.
Mr Harris: There has been a degree
of interest. Other organisations have come to us and talked to
us in the past but the implication is that the current framework,
which requires them to provide Camelot with all the assurances
it requires and still deliver good levels of returns to good causes,
has dissuaded them from taking those applications forward.
Q1243 Chairman: I think the final
observation I would make, and respond to it as you wish, is what
comes across to us is a sense in which, yes, you do have overriding
objections but your main reason to exist is to ensure that money
for good causes is maximised through the National Lottery, and
the opportunity that Parliament and Government has given for that
through the statutory process, and that means the licensing of
games. It seems to us there is a clear conflict, and you have
accepted this, Chairman, this morning between viewing all this
from the point of view of ensuring that the vulnerable are protected,
and none of this gives rise to an increase in problem-gambling,
and maximising money for good causes through the licensing of
these games. If the Gambling Commission have responsibility purely
for the regulation in respect of problem-gambling but nothing
else and you exist to deal with the rest then the conflict is
taken away, both from their organisation and from yours?
Ms Black: Forgive me if I have
misled you, but I would not accept that we currently have a conflict.
We have our clear overriding two duties, which include player
protection and propriety. It is only when we get past those two
that we can start to think about maximising the returns. There
is no conflict there.
Q1244 Chairman: You have said that
the Gambling Commission would have that conflict if all of your
role was subsumed into the Gambling Commission?
Ms Black: Because the Gambling
Commission would have a conflict between maximising returns once
it got to that stage—having talked about licensing individual
games, on the one hand, the Lottery—and also dealing even-handedly
with commercial gambling operators for whom they would not have
the duty to maximise returns.
Chairman: I am not sure I see there is
a difference, but thank you very much for answering our questions.
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