Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1636
- 1639)
TUESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2004
MR ALAN
AUSTIN, MR
MICHAEL HEAD
AND MR
RICHARD BOARDLEY
Q1636 Chairman: If we could continue,
can I welcome Mr Alan Austin, who is the Chairman of the Lotteries
Council, Mr Michael Head, who is an Executive Committee Member
and Mr Richard Boardley of the Pools Promoters' Association. I
have had the good fortune of meeting all three of you as we have
been considering some of these issues over the last few years.
Can I ask you, first, do you think the proposals in the draft
Bill will have any significant displacement effects on your industries?
Have you done any research into this?
Mr Austin: Yes, Chairman, we do
think there will be some displacement effect. We have not done
any formal academic research; we are an impecunious organisation
staffed by volunteers[1]
so we very much depend on the feedback from our members but we
do have very close links with our members. The concerns about
displacement are in the areas of displacement by lotteries masquerading
as competitions, by restrictions placed on society lotteries preventing
them from finding their own natural level—vis-a"-vis
stakes and prize limits—and in displacement by an increasing
number of new technology games of chance and the various forms
they take.
Q1637 Chairman: Mr Boardley, do you
have concerns?
Mr Boardley: In terms of displacement
and the pools businesses the PPA feels that there should not be
any additional adverse impact as result of the Bill being enacted.
In fact, in two areas we are looking forward to maybe making some
gains. Firstly, on the retail side, the ability to transmit coupon
entries electronically to our central processing area will be
most welcome, as will the ability to pay out winnings in shops.
So ten years post-event, since the arrival of the National Lottery,
we have now caught up in terms of what we can do with retailers.
The second area is mentioned in the fact that it has been assumed
in the Regulatory Impact Assessment that pools will be allowed
unlimited rollovers. There was a lot of glee when we saw that,
but that somewhat subsided when we saw there was absolutely no
mention whatsoever of that in the main body of the Bill. Subsequent
research leads us to believe that we need to negotiate that one
with the Gambling Commission when it comes in. It would give us
a lot of comfort if we were to see that in the main body of the
Bill.
Q1638 Mr Banks: This is a question
for Mr Boardley. When the Lotteries Bill was going through the
Commons there was a great deal of talk about the likely impact
on the pools industry, particularly in Merseyside. What I would
like to ask you is what are the latest figures on the decline
in pools income and, indeed, on employment within the industry
since the introduction of the National Lottery?
Mr Boardley: In 2002 the turnover
of the pools companies was approximately £130 million, which
is 14 per cent of what it was in 1993, the year before the arrival
of the National Lottery. Turnover declined in the first two years
by 30 per cent, and by the year 2000 was trading at 20 per cent
of where it had been in 1993. The numbers employed appear to match
that almost precisely. Whereas the turnover is in the low teens
of where it was in 1993 those employed as a percentage are in
the low teens, from about 4,500 down to round about 500.
Q1639 Mr Banks: What can your experience,
which is a pretty dire one, I suppose, of the impact on your industry,
particularly for employment, tell us about the likely displacement
effects on other sectors of the industry as a result of the proposed
Gambling Bill?
Mr Boardley: I think that where
we have traditional or existing operators who encounter new entrants,
particularly new entrants who have been given some encouragement—be
it fiscal, be it regulatory or from the planning point of view,
for example—then those traditional businesses are going
to have to look to themselves. Some will want to change, some
will not know how to and the ones who do not want to and do not
know how to—well, life was ever thus; but those who cannot
who find themselves countering advantaged new entrants will suffer.
Traditional destinations may well lose out to new casinos, be
they resort or otherwise, particularly when planning incentives,
for example, have been granted. Traditional AWP manufacturers
may well lose out if they cannot get into a position where they
are also producing Fixed Odds Betting Terminals or casino gaming
machines, in that if machine numbers in pubs are to be limited
and if, as we know, Fixed Odds Betting Terminals are displacing
fruit machines in bookmakers the logical conclusion is that traditional
AWP manufacturers are likely to lose out. I just give those as
two examples.
1 Note by witness: The Council has one part-time executive
officer Back
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