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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 843-iv HOUSE OF LORDS House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE DRAFT GAMBLING BILL (REGIONAL CASINOS)
DRAFT GAMBLING BILL (REGIONAL CASINOS)
Thursday 8 July 2004 RT HON KEITH HILL, MP, MR MIKE ASH and MS VICTORIA THOMPSON PROFESSOR PETER COLLINS and PROFESSOR SIR PETER HALL Evidence heard in Public Questions 312 - 404
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Joint Committee on the Draft Gambling Bill (Regional Casinos) on Thursday 8 July 2004 Members present: Mr John Greenway, in the Chair
Mr Greig Chalmers, Gambling Bill Manager, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, further examined.
Witnesses: Rt Hon Keith Hill, a Member of the House, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Mr Mike Ash, Deputy Director of Planning Directorate, and Ms Victoria Thompson, Senior Planning Officer, Planning Policies Division, examined. Q312 Chairman: Good morning everyone. May I begin by welcoming our colleague Keith Hill, the Minister of State for Housing and Planning from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Keith, you are very welcome today and we are grateful to you for coming at such short notice. You have with you Mike Ash, the Deputy Director of the Planning Directorate in your Department, and Victoria Thompson, the Senior Planning Officer for the Planning Policies Division. Did you not appear before us before? Ms Thompson: I did, yes. Q313 Chairman: I thought so. We have had a lot of witnesses before this Committee in both the previous incarnation and this one. We had no less than 19 witnesses on Tuesday, Minister. Can I ask you to note that today's evidence hearings are being filmed and that Greig Chalmers from the Bill Team is present at the meeting on a 'speak if spoken to' basis and there may be a question we want to ask you, Mr Chalmers. Can I also ask you to note that a transcript of the meeting will be produced and placed on the internet early next week. Members have made declarations of interests and a note of that is available for information if people want it. Can I remind witnesses and the Committee to speak up, although the acoustics in here are a little better than in the Committee rooms in the Palace, and can I also remind everyone, please, to turn off their mobile telephones. We had some great hilarity at the GamCare conference yesterday when one of our former advisers, the Chief Executive of GamCare, who is looking suitably embarrassed, told everyone to switch off their mobile phones and half‑way through my speech Bill's phone went off. Minister, when Lord McIntosh gave evidence to us last week he said that the aim of the Government's new policy on regional casinos and on casinos generally is "to limit the accessibility on jackpot machines ..." - the so‑called Category A machines - "the reason for that is fundamentally about protection." How does the planning policy with respect to regional casinos help to achieve this aim, particularly as the Government appears not to be willing to state a preferred number of regional casinos? Keith Hill: Chairman, first of all may I thank you for your warm introduction and also thank you for your introduction of the officials I have with me. I do not mind telling you and the Committee that I am no great expert on these matters and I shall not hesitate to draw extensively upon the expertise of my officials. Unfortunately in some respects I suppose the first part of my answer is not going to be tremendously encouraging for the Committee because I have to say that strictly speaking the issue of licensing is a matter for DCMS to address through the licensing provisions set out in the Gambling Bill, it is not a planning objective. Planning takes care of land use and vocational matters, that is ensuring regional casinos in the best places, but I am sure you will want to cover that particular issue in detail later on. Q314 Chairman: I feared you may not be able to answer the question at all. I think what concerns us is a real lack of joined‑up thinking between your Department and DCMS in respect of the combination of licensing and planning and most of the questions we want to put to you today are indeed about planning. As we progress I think you will find, Minister, that the planning issues in many respects come first. Blackpool Council have told us that "it is essential that the planning system has the ability to react quickly and consistently, cast its net over all regional casino proposals, and deliver robust decisions that will create certainty and confidence in the market". Can you reassure us that the planning system will be able to do this given that much of it is really contained in the new legislation and relates to regional spatial strategies? Keith Hill: Let me just say a word about the new legislation just very briefly as an introduction. Q315 Chairman: I do beg your pardon because you did ask to make an introductory statement. Mr Ash: Let us be creative. I will add my bits as and when it seems to be appropriate. It might be helpful for the Committee to know that the planning system is currently being reformed with a view to speeding it up and making it more efficient. We are at a turning point right now. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act which got Royal Assent about two months ago is about to take effect and with it a new planning system and updates of various national policies are in the pipeline. Until full implementation and for a limited period afterwards we will be in a period of transition. Whilst most of the things that I will be talking about with you today will be about the new system as that is the one most likely to relate to the issues we are here to consider, I may also have to allude from time to time to the current mechanisms in my answers. I am sure the Committee will forgive any apparent duplication. Let me emphasise that the planning system is used to accommodating change. Policy statements and legislation are never perfectly aligned. We do not believe that this will prove an obstacle to those wishing to drive forward the planning proposals. Let me turn specifically to the Blackpool Council observation which is about certainty and confidence in the market. It is certainly the case that increased certainty is an aim of the reformed planning system, but you will understand that it is impossible to be prescriptive, which is actually the only way of securing absolute certainty. Each planning application is, rightly, considered on its own merit but in the light of local development planning policy and material considerations. The planning system can be delivered as required largely as a result of the current reforms. I think all of these factors ought to combine to give as much certainty and confidence to the market as can be reasonably expected and certainly as much as all forms of development experience. Remember, casinos are not alone in being subject to the planning process. Chairman: Let us talk about regional planning bodies first. Lord Wade? Q316 Lord Wade of Chorlton: How engaged do you think that the regional planning boards are with the issue of regional casinos? Do they have the necessary skills and experience to carry out this role? Keith Hill: If I might say so, my Lord, that is a good question because the RPBs will have to boost their resource and their performance in the light of the planning reform and notably the enhanced importance of regional planning in the shape of the regional spatial strategies, so it is a question that I have asked myself. Let me say that in many ways this is a new area and we have all been adapting to the issues, but as I have indicated already, that is a normal aspect of what happens in policy. As regards skills and experience, the regional planning bodies are used to dealing with the planning system and change. We are well aware, however, that they will have a lot of work ahead and they will need to be more engaged. Let me say to you and the Committee that if it was felt to be helpful a working group could be set up to promote a consistent approach to the assessment of the need for casinos and that is a matter which will be developed in any event in the forthcoming good practice guidance on assessing needs which will accompany the forthcoming PPS6 and that route could include the ODPM, the industry and the RPBs. The RPBs may also commission consultants to assist in new or technical areas, as is common practice. In the meantime we do continue to work with the RPBs to develop and clarify policy. I can let the Committee know that officials are meeting RPBs next week to discuss this very issue. Q317 Lord Wade of Chorlton: I would have thought the idea that you have suggested would be a good one because there needs to be some sort of co‑ordinated approach and an understanding between the various regional bodies as to how they are going to interface with the next regional body. I would have thought that needs to be looked at simultaneously, does it not? Keith Hill: I am glad to hear your positive response to that. We will take that seriously. It is something that the Committee might want to bring forward in its recommendations. Q318 Mr Page: The Committee went to France to look at casinos there, which was one of the more arduous tasks that we have had to undertake, as you will appreciate, Minister, and there it was quite clear that the government effectively allocated a city a licence and then the city did the negotiations with the various casinos operators to get the best deal they could for the town, whether they got a theatre, a sports hall or whatever as a benefit. The Government has made it perfectly clear that we are going to go down the regional planning bodies route to decide where these various casinos are going to be located and I welcome the idea of a working group, but how are you going to ensure that the disputes between the two sides, particularly the regional planning bodies, are going to be sorted out? In particular, how are the local authorities going to be satisfied they are not just going to be swamped, their objections overruled and just told, "Sorry, that's not going there, it's going there and these are the terms and conditions"? Keith Hill: I noted your reference in your introduction to the issue of planning gain. I am sure that is an issue that we will come on to in due course. Q319 Mr Page: Do not answer that bit now. Keith Hill: It seems to me that there are two aspects to this issue of potential conflict and conflict resolution. The first is at the stage of policy preparation and the second is at the stage of planning applications themselves. Let me just say a bit of a detailed word about those with regard to policy preparation itself. Any differences of opinion over the location of regional casino developments should be resolved in the first instance through the preparation of regional and local policy. The RPBs and local planning authorities will work closely together in the preparation of the development plan. Where a difference of opinion arises in relation to a specific planning application - and it is possible that this will happen in advance of the regional spatial strategies being reviewed to address the issue of regional casinos specifically - planning applications for casinos of whatever size will be handled by the local planning authority, but where an application does not accord with current development plan policy (and this may be the case until policy at the regional and the local level is reviewed) or where there is a policy but it has not been reflected in the application and the local planning authority resolves to grant planning permission for it, that application will be classed as a departure application. In those circumstances it is likely that the regional planning body will wish to intervene and it is also likely to be of sufficient scale to be notified to the Secretary of State. Our anticipation is that early decisions with regard to regional scale casinos are likely to be called in by the Secretary of State. Q320 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: A planning witness from the northwest yesterday said that they had received guidance or encouragement from your Department that their regional spatial strategies should be ready, at least in outline, within a year. Even somebody as apolitical as myself can imagine why the three northern regions should have received that encouragement. The implication was that other regional spatial strategies would not be under the same pressure. Given the significance of competition between the regions in the context of casinos, do you see any fallacy in the argument which has been developed? Keith Hill: My Lord, I have no recollection of your apolitical character in your previous incarnation. Q321 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: The House of Lords can do a lot for anybody! Keith Hill: I assure you that there is no conspiracy here. You ought to bear in mind that regional planning guidance is prepared at various stages and in different time schedules. There are particular reasons, not related to the issue of regional casinos, as to why we are asking the northwest regional planning body to start to review its regional planning guidance at the end of this year. So it is not about, if I might interpret your apolitical observation, a Government project to ensure that the northern regions are first in the line with regard to applications for regional casinos. It is actually connected, certainly as far as the northwest is concerned, with quite different considerations. Q322 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: The witness did extend it to the other two northern regions as well. Keith Hill: I have no knowledge of the timescale for the review of the RPGs in Yorkshire and Humberside and the northeast. Mike, can you help us on that? Mr Ash: Not precisely. We can let the Committee have details if they want. All regional spatial strategies in the future are on a rolling programme of review and some minor changes are being made at the moment and there are some more wholesale reviews also taking place. The northern regions are looking very much more as a collective group of regions at interregional issues and considering the need to revise their spatial strategies in the light of that consideration. There are policy developments going on not least in respect of policy set out in the Sustainable Communities Plan that would mean that regional spatial strategies need to be updated in any case, concerns in the north about the Pathfinder areas and the abandonment of housing. We have got a lot of difficult housing issues and a lot of difficult economic issues which need to be addressed in the updated strategy. Q323 Lord Mancroft: Minister, you have already said that it is your expectation that possibly the first two or three applications will be called in by the Secretary of State. It seems to me an odd thing to embark on a policy which is not meant to be national where one expects that the first two or three applications inevitably are going to end up on the Secretary of State's desk. That seems to me an admission of failure before one starts. Is not the danger ‑ and this seems to be the route we are going down ‑ that the Secretary of State's power to call in applications becomes by default the sole method of settling disputes either between regional planning bodies or between local authorities and their regional planning body? Keith Hill: I do not think it is an admission of failure, I think it is normal procedure. The fact is that certain departure applications are notified directly to the First Secretary of State to enable them to check general compliance with development plan policies and to consider whether an application should be called in for its own determination. As I have indicated, in the short term, in the absence of casino specific RSS policy, it is more likely that regional casino proposals will be called in. It will not be automatic, but the First Secretary of State's call-in powers are not a method of conflict resolution in themselves. Indeed we would hope that agreement would have been reached in the preparation of policy or in the handling of an application. Q324 Lord Mancroft: Is that not a national policy by another name? Keith Hill: No. I think it is about the normal criteria that are applied to planning applications, as has always been embodied in planning legislation and which are carried forward in the new planning legislation. Mr Ash: Each application is considered on its merits and therefore it depends on the particular circumstances. If one classifies casinos as part of leisure developments, it is not unusual for regional planning guidance at the moment to have our policy on leisure developments in those documents and indeed there may be such policies at the local level as well. It is conceivable at one end of the spectrum that you could have an up‑to‑date set of policies which do provide a framework and within which the Secretary of State might decide it is inappropriate for him to intervene in the process and leave it to the local authority to decide the application. On the other hand, as the Minister has said, if there is a clear departure from a plan, there are no up‑to‑date policies, there are wider issues of regional policy to be taken into account and it may be appropriate then to call the application in for his decision, but his policy is to be very sparing about this and we do not call in very many in‑year. Q325 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Given how significant this change of policy to encourage the growth of regional casinos is and the impact that it will have in all the regions and the towns where these casinos are located, would it not have made more sense, to follow the point that Richard Page was suggesting in his question, to have a national policy, so the Government says, "We think the likely location for regional casinos should be in the following places," and, added to that, "We would expect the following benefits particularly in terms of regeneration to flow from those decisions"? Keith Hill: The Government has set out clear guidelines with regard to the regeneration effects of casinos. It appears in the joint statement that I and Lord McIntosh issued earlier about the regeneration effects of casinos and we would expect that to be applied. Secondly, we have a tradition of fairly decentralized planning in this country which we sustained in the new planning legislation. There is not much point in many respects enhancing the status of planning at the local level if the Government is going to step in. I have to say that planning is about land use policy, it is not about determining the market. Q326 Lord Wade of Chorlton: That seems to contradict what you said earlier. If you are saying that you would automatically expect the first three or four casinos to be called in and you have just said that it is your policy to allow the regional spatial strategy to be the key element and you want that decision to be made locally, those two statements do not seem to fit together. On the one hand you want to develop a local policy and on the other hand you are saying that once they make a decision you are going to call it in and maybe overrule it or look at it in a different light. It does not make sense to me. Keith Hill: It is entirely consistent, if I might say so with respect, my Lord. Planning decisions and planning applications are set firmly in the context of guidance which relates to issues of local sustainability, to a whole set of criteria about the compatibility of the planning application with guidance and therefore it seems quite natural that where you have a departure from the plan - and at the early stages such applications and such decisions are likely to be departures from the plan - we would want to look at them in the context of the guidelines on planning policy, but I have said that it will not be an automatic process of call in. Q327 Chairman: May I just come back to your comment that you think the first two or three are likely to be called in. If I understood you correctly, you think the first two or three regional casino applications are likely to be called in by the Secretary of State. Let us come back to Blackpool. Blackpool has been working on the prospect of becoming a regional casino to accommodate the fact that not all of these very large casinos will necessarily be in resorts. For four years they have worked with their regional assembly, which will become the regional planning body. We have had quite clear evidence both from our visit to Blackpool in our previous inquiry and again on Tuesday that the northwest regional planning body supports the concept of Blackpool being redeveloped, so there is no tension there. The tension will come in respect of other locations within the northwest which we will come on to in a moment. There is no tension between Blackpool Council and the regional organisations, the regional bodies, the regional assembly and I suspect your regional office in the northwest. If they were to say once this Bill becomes law, "Okay, let's go ahead", they have got the developers all competing with each other to invest their money, there were six overseas investors before the Committee two days ago all saying they find it all extremely attractive. Are you suggesting that in spite of all of that the Secretary of State might then call it in anyway? What would be the point of that? Keith Hill: Let me stress again that there is no automaticity about the call in. There may be an issue in relation to policy on town centres and out‑of‑town centre developments. In those circumstances if there were an issue in connection with any development that Blackpool wished to pursue then it would be natural and proper that the First Secretary should want to have a look in more detail at the proposition. I am not saying that that will be the case, but I am giving that as an example of the sort of aspect of planning policy which might be affected by a planning application for a so‑called regional casino. My point about the possible intervention of the First Secretary at the early stage of this process really is an issue about timing. We began by saying that we do not expect the regional spatial strategies to be in place instantaneously. There is likely to be a hiatus period in which there is no regional spatial strategy policy with regard to the location of regional casinos and in those circumstances it may be appropriate for the First Secretary to call in. Q328 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: Minister, I declare an interest in the question I am asking because my brother was the counsel to the Sizewell B nuclear power station which lasted, partly as a result of his questions, for two and a half years. The industry tolerated that length of delay on the grounds that it was going to settle a whole series of points on a long‑term basis which might move over into other applications. I do understand why the Deputy Prime Minister might have the intentions that you have described in your answer. How long do you think such an initial inquiry would take? Keith Hill: Well, that is difficult. I think this might be one to pass over to Mike Ash. If one of the issues at the back of your mind is about the speed and efficiency of the system ‑‑‑ Q329 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: That is behind my question. Keith Hill: That has been very much in the Government's mind as we have approached our planning reform agenda and indeed the whole purpose of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act is to speed up the system while creating a degree of flexibility, which is important, but also ‑ and this is not 'cod' phraseology ‑ making it fairer. We are determined to ensure a high level of community involvement in planning decision making, but the thrust of the reform legislation is to speed up the process and we could go into the detail of how that is to be achieved but I do not think that is a matter to detain the Committee on right now. In operational terms the Government has been very keen to speed up decision making both at the local level but also at Government level as well. I have got the figures before me which it might be helpful to convey very rapidly to the Committee because we are quite pleased with this. With regard to decisions made by the First Secretary on planning applications either called in or recovered we have met our target. In the quarter to March 2004 over 80 per cent of decisions were issued within 16 weeks of the close of the inquiry. With regard to local planning authorities where we have been seeking to incentivise performance by our very large planning delivery grant amounting to £350 million of allocations over a three‑year period, we are seeing an improvement there. In the first quarter of this year the total of major applications decided within 13 weeks stands at 53 per cent, and there has been an eight percentage point improvement in determining both major and minor applications and a seven percentage point improvement in other decisions from that in the same quarter a year ago. So we are really at all levels beginning to see an improvement, but we are going to be absolutely unremitting on that. Q330 Chairman: May I just clarify this? A call in does not automatically lead to a public inquiry in every case. Mr Ash: May I start with the reasons for a call in first of all because I think that is quite important to the issue of how long it takes. We have a range of national policies already in place. We have PPG6 on town centres which covers retail and leisure‑type developments and we have PPG13 on transport and other planning policy statements of that sort that are already there. The criteria that the Secretary of State uses in terms of whether to call a case in includes things like whether there is a conflict with national policies on important matters, whether they give rise to significant effects beyond their immediate locality, whether they give rise to substantial regional and national controversy, whether they raise significant architecture and urban design issues or may involve the interests of national security of a foreign government. That was a statement made to the House some years ago, which is the broad statement of criteria which are used in deciding whether to call an individual application in. I have had my fingers burned more than once in terms of trying to predict how long an individual case might take. It just depends on what the extent of the concern is around the various issues and in particular often what the level of objection is from third parties to a particular application that is called in. There are statutory stages that have to be gone through before the inquiry happens, as you would expect, for the exchange of documents and proofs of evidence and that sort of thing. The inquiry itself may last a longer or a shorter time. The sort of inquiry that Lord Brooke referred to is very much the exception and we know about Terminal 5 at Heathrow and other ones like that that lasted a very long time. In general inquiries into call-in applications last less than a week, they are fairly short. They may take a bit longer, they may take two or three weeks, it just depends on what the issues are and how much cross‑examination there is of the various cases that are put forward. Beyond that our target that the Minister referred to kicks in. Two years ago it was taking us 32 weeks to get from the inspector closing the inquiry to the issuing of the decision and over a two‑year period we have halved that time to the 16 weeks that has been mentioned. That is broadly the process and the stages that it goes through. Q331 Mr Page: It seems to me that you are saying, Minister, that if the RPBs have produced a policy and the local authorities agree and it does not clash with any national objectives everything is going to be sweetness and light and things can proceed quite quickly. I cannot see any need to pull that and call that in and delay the matter. Is not the difficulty going to come when you are actually working out the policy representation right at the start, when you have maybe two major cities disagreeing with what is happening and then automatically it is going to have to be called in and you are automatically into a national policy, so why does not Government do it in the first place? Keith Hill: This is again on this issue of conflict resolution. We believe that the new legislation has put mechanisms in place which will facilitate that kind of dialogue both between regions and between local authorities and regional planning bodies. We will expect regions to be commenting on the evolving regional spatial strategies of adjacent regions and to that extent our expectation is that there will be a process and a dialogue which will enable conflicts to be resolved. Let me make it clear that we are not in the business of determining the market on these matters that is for the market and ultimately if regions have so‑called regional casinos in reasonably adjacent localities and that is sustainable in terms of the market that is the situation that will prevail. Q332 Mr Meale: Mr Ash, where one public body objects, the common practice has always been that if it is a public body, a local authority, then that is a reason in itself for a call in. Will that be retained or not? Mr Ash: I do not think that is an automatic position. It will certainly be a material consideration in terms of deciding whether to call in. Q333 Mr Meale: Mutual consideration of call in practice, will it retain the status which it has at the present time? Mr Ash: Due weight will be given to that, that is right. There is a danger of some confusion here. Regional planning bodies have been established. Each of the regional planning bodies or the regional chambers as they exist at the moment, they may be elected regional assemblies in the future, are made up predominantly of the local authorities in the region. There are a proportion of other members involved as well but predominantly they are members of local authorities. The local authorities collectively in a region are part of the regional planning body, so they collectively are coming to a view on what their strategy should be. Coming to their view on what their strategy should be as regards regional casinos seems to me to be little different to what is their regional strategy on where major shopping centres should be or on where local airports might go or major new inward investment employment sites. It is not an unusual situation for the regional planning body to have to grapple with the question of where in the region these things are. Either they will come to a consensus, which is an agreement, or they will come to a majority view, in which case some particular party may have lost out, but even if that is the case, the document then goes through a public examination process in which all the parties with an interest have an opportunity to put their case and that is considered in front of an inspector, he reports to the Secretary of State, often it is a panel of inspectors, and the Secretary of State ultimately puts the regional spatial strategy in place. There is a process there, both through the preparation of the document and through its testing at the examination stage, so that all parties can have their say and a view can be taken. Chairman: Let us talk about location. Jeff Ennis? Q334 Jeff Ennis: Minister, do you envisage most regional casino developments being located in town centres? How does this fit with the DCMS's strategy to avoid repetitive casual use of machines which are more likely to occur if casinos are located in high street locations to which relatively large numbers of people have access? Keith Hill: The short answer to your question, Mr Ennis, is yes, but let me offer you, as ever, a somewhat longer answer. It will be up to local authorities to determine appropriate locations for casino developments having regard to national regional policy. When they are developing their detailed local policy or considering specific applications they will have to have regard to the principles set out in planning guidance in relation to town centre and retail developments and in relation to transport that is PPG6 and PPG13 at present. You will be aware that these principles direct all development to the most central and accessible locations and so it is the case that town centres are indeed the preferred locations. Moreover, it is likely that regeneration benefits will be appropriate to such locations. If it were proposed to locate outside town centres then proposals of that nature would have to satisfy additional policy tests, but of course within the town centre the authority will need to think sensibly about the policy it adopts and the locational criteria it uses. A casino, for example, does not have to be located on a main shopping street. Our impression is that in general terms and pragmatically it seems that casino developers are likely to seek less central locations and that really bring us back to the issues that we were talking about earlier. Q335 Jeff Ennis: Obviously we have received quite a lot of evidence from various sectors within the industry, Minister. I will quote one to you which I think is relevant to the question I have asked, it is from the Casino Operators' Association (UK): "COA(UK) are at a loss to understand the hostility by Government to existing small casinos in the towns but makes planning permission arrangements there for regional ones; both offer the facility for 'casual gaming' which is the quoted reason for restricting existing small casinos, but the scale differential is enormous". What the existing British industry is telling us, Minister, is we have not got a level playing field at the present time. Your current small town centre casinos which have been operating for decades quite successfully are being squeezed out of the game for the sake of these big regional international casinos coming in and taking their business away from them. What is the planning process going to do to protect the existing industry? Keith Hill: The issue of the casinos themselves and where you have regional casinos and whether they are permitted is very much a matter for the licensing authorities under the proposed gambling legislation. There is, as you will be aware, a needs scrutiny with regard to proposed developments and applications, but on the whole the planning policy is pretty laissez-faire when it comes to the economic success or failure of specific private undertakings and it is really very much a matter for the market to decide in these situations. Mr Ash: One could equally argue that small local shops have been squeezed out by major retail developments, it is the same situation. What you are saying is that there is a level playing field in planning terms but there is not a level playing field in the market because there will be competition and the planning system does not seek to constrain competition. Jeff Ennis: By and large the small local shops have been squeezed out by large out‑of‑town developments which have sidelined the local town centres. In many respects we are not talking about a like for like analogy here. Q336 Chairman: The key issue is, Minister, there is a very real tension because of your Department's preference for major leisure developments to be in town centres. Whether they are small, large or regional casinos, your preference is for them to be in town centres. All the evidence about the problem of social responsibility, what leads to problem gambling is very much a locational issue, easy access to machine gambling. We will have to reflect on that tension in what we say in our report, but I really would urge you to be aware of that in your own policy formation in respect of locations for some of these developments. Keith Hill: I absolutely take the point, Chairman. Let me say that planning policy is not amoral and let me remind the Committee that indeed built into new planning legislation is the principle of sustainability. The new and revised basic statement on planning policy, PPS1, does advise that communities should be promoted which are inclusive, healthy, safe and crime free. So there are social considerations built in to planning guidance which we would expect the planning authorities at regional and local level to take on board. Chairman: We will come on to guidance in a minute. Q337 Mr Meale: Accepting the preferred option of town centres and city centres for the siting of these new endeavours, does that not fly in the face of guidance on spatial planning which the Government have done? For instance Lord Rogers' report on urban renaissance and other work which is being done for town and city centres by the Government which is seeking to re‑community all these city centres, does it not fly in the face of all that planning guidance which has gone before? Keith Hill: I do not think it does fly in the face of that guidance to which we are passionately committed by the way. Such developments in urban centres are actually likely to generate jobs. It is perfectly possible that where you have significant developments there are then ancillary developments which occur in a locality. We see these so‑called regional casinos as contributing very strongly to regeneration. You know as well as I do that it is precisely in the centres of our great cities that the primary regeneration requirements are located and I suppose this will be a response to them. Q338 Mr Meale: Do you not accept that if a development like a casino actually is built within the town centre area, a largely unpopulated area, which the Government is already trying to encourage people to move into and owners to let or to sell, you will price those people out of these communities by virtue of the fact that they will not be able to buy the space? Keith Hill: I really do not think that our experience would vindicate that observation. Our experience is that you can have large developments on sites which are already brownfield sites, which have stood empty for long periods of time and which are in a state of dereliction. Once you have a development of a vibrant economic character then it actually does serve to enliven and revitalise the entire locality. To that extent there really is not very much difference between the development of one of these regional casinos and a major supermarket or a sports facility. All of them serve to generate local jobs and all of them add certain vibrancy to the city centre area. One of the great successes, quite frankly, of the recent period has been the revitalisation at least of our big cities. We think that there is a further problem. The next stage is actually dealing with towns and cities on a somewhat smaller scale than your Leeds and your Manchesters, your Newcastles, your Liverpools to some extent and certainly Birmingham and that is where we are beginning to try and focus and encourage development. That is not a comment on any policy statement with regard to these regional casinos by the way. Big scale development in this fashion we believe will certainly have very powerful regenerative effects. Let me give you a very practical and short example with which I have been directly associated because amongst my many responsibilities the one that I have been most coy about until very recently is that I am the Minister for the Dome. You will know that we have now disposed of the Dome. Q339 Chairman: There was a time when no Minister would admit it. Keith Hill: I have now disposed of the Dome and the taxpayer will find a benefit of £4 of private investment at least for every £1 of taxpayers' investment in the site and there is absolutely no doubt that the extraordinary entertainments future that we now foresee for the Dome will have an enormous regenerative effect on that part of Greenwich. Q340 Chairman: I am compelled to ask you if you think it is a suitable location for a regional casino in London. Keith Hill: And I am compelled to reply "no comment". Q341 Chairman: Bearing in mind the exchange we have just had about the problems of location and easy access, will you bear in mind the location of housing developments associated with casino development so that they are not literally sitting one on top of the other? Keith Hill: It is a central aspect of our sustainable community's commitment which is to aid the encouragement and development of mixed use communities. We do not see any point in simply putting up new bricks and mortar in a locality. We want to see essential services and we want to see jobs in localities. So housing, economic development, essential public service infrastructure all go together. Q342 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I am not seeking a response from the Minister, but I am going to read out two sentences from the evidence which was submitted to us by Professor Sir Peter Hall who we are seeing later this morning. "However, in all cases national strategy should specify that regional casinos are a quite special and separate class, operating on a continuous 24/7 basis, and with consequent traffic and noise impacts, which makes them quite unsuitable for introduction into mixed‑use developments in dense urban areas in or near the centre of large cities. The experience of the Sydney Casino, forming a centrepiece of the Pyrmont district adjacent to Darling Harbour on the fringe of the city's central business district, is instructive because it has engendered ongoing conflicts with the local community." I seek no response. Keith Hill: But allow me merely to say that those sorts of environmental impacts are absolutely legitimate considerations for local authorities when they come to consider such applications. The only thing I will add is that obviously in general terms, as you know having represented a London constituency, we are moving increasingly to a 24-hour economy in these matters, but it has to be properly policed. Q343 Viscount Falkland: Minister, if regional spatial strategies which may incorporate favoured locations for casinos are not available for some time after the Gambling Bill gets Royal Assent, could the Government's proposed system for locating regional casinos not be invalidated by planning permissions granted in the meantime, bearing in mind that already there are in excess of 20 publicly announced proposals for regional sized casinos? Keith Hill: No. Q344 Chairman: Why? Keith Hill: There are mechanisms for ensuring that the planning system can continue to function as policy evolves and regeneration issues, Chairman, will be material in any planning decisions on regional casinos coming forward ahead of the regional spatial strategies. Q345 Lord Donoughue of Ashton: I think you may have already touched on this point. How will your proposals ensure that there are not large developments in neighbouring regions which might affect each other's business viability? Keith Hill: You are right, my Lord, we have touched on this, but let me just say again that we believe and expect and it is part of the process that neighbouring regional planning bodies will be commenting on each other's draft regional spatial strategy proposals, if necessary at the examination in the public stage. So there is a clear mechanism for that kind of input. Quite frankly, we would expect rival casino operators to be pointing this out to the local planning authority or inspector, as appropriate, in determining the application, but let me quote PPG6, the town centre planning guidance, "It is within the role of the planning system to restrict competition, preserve existing commercial interests or to prevent innovation." Q346 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: In the joint response to our earlier report you posed the question as to how RPBs will revise their regional strategies to take account of regional casinos and the answer in paragraph 20 is that they "may wish" to revise those. Should you not make them do that? Keith Hill: It is for individual regions to review their planning policy as they see fit, either to address new issues of importance, of which regional casinos may be one, or to affect the outcome of their continuing monitoring activities. Under the new planning system they can review regional spatial strategies as soon as they like and it will be a faster process than previously. Having said that, the First Secretary has some reserve powers to direct the revision of regional spatial strategies and we would expect to use these sparingly. Q347 Chairman: The Gambling Commission will be required under the Bill to give guidance to local authorities about the granting of premises licences and there will be premises licences for regional casinos, so there will be national guidance from the Gambling Commission to all local authorities about the licensing of regional casinos. Why not give national guidance to regional planning bodies about where to locate regional casinos because the two things could then work in parallel? This may be something you might like to think about, Minister. Keith Hill: I would be happy to write to you about that because there are a number of genuinely complicated issues here and I think it would probably be more helpful if I were to spell these out in the most precise fashion possible. Q348 Chairman: But it is one of the ways that you could be absolutely sure that your short, sharp answer to my earlier intervention could actually be delivered. Keith Hill: Having made the commitment to offer you a specific and detailed response, I do not want to go into it. I have already referred to the way in which guidance with regard to town centres and transport will affect locational issues. Q349 Mr Wright: Minister, Planning Policy Statement 11 requires the regional spatial strategies "to establish the locational criteria appropriate to regionally or sub-regionally significant leisure uses". What factors would you expect the regional planning bodies to consider when deciding on the locational criteria? Could you just explain what is included in the definition of "regionally significant"? Keith Hill: That term, Mr Wright, is drawn from already existing and wider regional planning policy, and it is applied to a wide range of development types, for example, housing and retail. The second joint statement which has been referred to does offer some guidance as to how regional planning bodies might wish to interpret it in respect of casinos, and in this respect there is more guidance offered on definition for casinos than for other types of development it has to be said. The guidance ought to be regarded as a benchmark; in other words, this is planning providing a framework to guide decision‑making rather than detailed definitions, as certainly can be seen in the licensing aspects of the Gambling Bill. It is for the regional spatial strategists to make the judgment in the context of their own regions, but they already do this, as Mike Ash has indicated, in relation to such developments, for example, as airports, air‑fields. Mr Meale: Minister, can you clarify how new large casinos will be dealt with under the planning process? Will they be included in regional spatial strategies? Q350 Chairman: There is some ambiguity on this in the memorandum, your joint memorandum, where in paragraph 28, "Conclusion", there are four subparagraphs, on page 51, it says, "New large casinos will be located in the most appropriate place in terms of their tourism and regenerative potential and will contribute to the mitigation of the impact associated with their development." A number of witnesses are confused as to whether the word "large" refers to large casinos or whether really what you meant were the new regional casinos? Keith Hill: Inspiration has winged its way to me, and I can assure the Committee that by "large" we mean regional, but perhaps I ought to offer a more detailed explanation, given the fact that there is evidently this confusion and the more detailed explanation, if the Committee will forgive me, is obviously an important issue to you. You want me to write to you on that as well. Q351 Chairman: That would be helpful. Keith Hill: I am no more under time constraints. Can you just assume I have will write to you in response to all of this? Q352 Mr Meale: When you do write, would you clarify whether there are going to be any differences between the regional, regional casinos and larger casinos? Keith Hill: Yes, I will do. Absolutely. Q353 Chairman: Mr Chalmers wants to make a point, and I think it would be helpful if he does? Mr Chalmers: Just to say that I think the appearance of the word "large" is an error. It ought to have said "regional", and that is our fault, for which I apologise. Q354 Chairman: That is fine. That, therefore, means presumably, that a large casino would be entirely within the local authority's gift in terms of granting applying of consent, because it is not a regional casino. The structure that you have put forward to us is that regional casinos have to have regional planning body support; they have to conform with regional spatial strategies whereas all the other casino developments are up to the local authorities to decide. You may still call the application in for other reasons, the substantive reason which you have given us, but it is outside the regional planning bodies remit. Keith Hill: Mr Chairman, as you can see, there has been a flurry of consultation while you have been speaking, and the answer to your observation is, yes, you are right. Chairman: Thank you. Lord Faulkner, you were going to ask about UFA. Q355 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I am sorry, I was overwhelmed by the speed of that answer. We have heard evidence that there is a risk that existing premises classified under D2 use class could be converted to regional casinos without the need for planning permission. How would your department intend to deal with that? Keith Hill: It is true, my Lord, that moves within the D2 use class do not themselves need planning permission, but let me assure the Committee that our minds are certainly not closed on the issue of changing the use class position in respect of casinos, and we are happy to look at that issue in the light of any evidence presented to the Committee. Lord Faulkner of Worcester: A number of our witnesses have suggested that casinos should be categorised as sui generis? Q356 Chairman: Including the Mayor of London. Keith Hill: Well, there you go, my mate, Ken. As the Minister for London, as the reincarnated and recycled Minister for London, it is a lot easier dealing with him now than it was before the last general election. Let me say on that issue that we are certainly willing to consider categorising casinos as sui generis, but if a change is to be pursued the route to consider would be along those lines, but I have to say that if there were such a proposal for change, it would, of course, be first subject to consultation and regulatory impact assessment. Chairman: That is very clear. Let us just talk about regeneration benefits. Lord Mancroft. Q357 Lord Mancroft: Minister, are planning games through the fixed tariff and requirements to contribute to regeneration the same thing or are they separate and distinct financial obligations which will be imposed on the developers of the regional casinos? Keith Hill: Thank you for raising this issue. I fear on this one I do need to offer a fairly detailed response, because I fear there may be a slight misunderstanding. Q358 Chairman: I think there is, I agree. Keith Hill: In relation to this issue of a fixed tariff. So let me briefly offer some background and some clarification of terms, first of all about current and emerging policy. It is important to distinguish between current policy and emerging policy. The Government has, it is true, recently announced that we are reviewing policy on planning obligations, including consideration of what we call an optional planning charge but what I think here is referred to by yourselves as a fixed tariff. But our current policy, which is set out in Circular 197, remains very much in force and that is what I am talking about today and what will certainly be in operation, we think, for the foreseeable future. Secondly, on the issue of regeneration, the regeneration benefits described in the joint statements were not intended to denote sums extracted from casinos for additional services or facilities. Additional contributions may not be sought through the planning system from casino developers except in relation to section 106 agreements or planning obligations. Let me say that of course there are voluntary mechanisms for contributions to be made outside the scope of the planning system, but most, we think, are unlikely to relate to casino development. If it would be helpful, I can provide the Committee with some written evidence on this point, but let me say that the more general interpretation of "regeneration benefits" was intended in the joint statement, meaning the broad brush benefits we have talked about already in my response to Mr Meal created by the direction and development to areas in need of it. Q359 Chairman: Yes, but Manchester City Council, I think, described on Tuesday in this, or agreed with this proposition, that if a new casino is built on the east Manchester site next to the City of Manchester stadium where the Commonwealth Games were held, and this has been a project, as I am sure you are aware, as Prime Minister, has been on the stocks for a long time. It would involve massive provision of sports facilities, shops, restaurants, bars as well a casino. That in itself contributes to regeneration, but the developers will also clearly have to contribute other planning gain. What they volunteer on top of what is required is, of course, a matter for them, but you are confirming that there is a difference? Keith Hill: Yes, absolutely, I think your summary is absolutely right. Q360 Chairman: I think that covers pretty well all that we wanted ask you. Towards the end of your session you have given us some encouragement to make one or two recommendation, which I think the Committee might well be minded to make. You have offered to give us some more written answers. We are on a very, very tight timetable with this inquiry and we effectively, a week today, have to agree the report in order to report to the House two weeks today, but, whatever information you do provide us, to one extent we will be able to take account of it in some of our deliberations ‑ I am not entirely sure ‑ but, of course, it will be published in the Memorandum of Evidence, and I think that would be beneficial for the various organisations who would be seeking to take advantage, if that is not too strong a word, of the opportunities that the new Bill will provide? Keith Hill: I take the point on that, Chairman, but let me say that my officials will make every effort to get the information I have promised the Committee into your hands at the earliest opportunity so that you may be able to take it into account in your deliberations. Q361 Chairman: That would be helpful. Can I thank you, Mr Ash and Miss Thompson for being very generous with your time and for answering our questions and for your attendance today? Keith Hill: Chairman, it has been a pleasure. Memoranda submitted by Professor Sir Peter Hall and Professor Peter Collins Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Professor Peter Collins, Director, Centre for the Study of Gambling, University of Salford and Chief Executive Officer, Gamcare, and Professor Sir Peter Hall, Professor of Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College, London, examined Q362 Chairman: Order. It gives me very great pleasure to welcome our two final witnesses in this inquiry, someone new to the Committee, Sir Peter Hall, Professor of Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College, London, and one of our special advisers from our previous inquiry, Professor Sir Peter Collins from the Centre for the Study of Gambling, University of Salford, and, of course, Chief Executive Officer currently of Gamcare. I think it would not be unfair to say, Peter, that one of the reasons why we have asked you and Professor Collins to come is so that some of the helpful comments that you have made to the Committee previously in confidence can actually be on the public record. Can I begin by asking you, Mr Collins, this question? The Government's aim is to protect the public by limiting the accessibility of category A gaming machines. Do you think that the policy set out in the Government's response will succeed in meeting this aim? Professor Collins: I think it will go a long way towards meeting this aim. I think it will do so particularly if regional authorities also ensure that category A machines are located in regional casinos at a substantial distance from where people live and work; and the reason for that is because what I call variable prize machines, as opposed to fixed prize machines, rather than unlimited prize machines, which I think is quite a misleading term, but variable prize machines need to compete against more conveniently located category B or fixed prize machines, and that they will do under these proposals if they are interpreted in this way by regional authorities. Q363 Chairman: Is limiting the availability of category A machines an appropriate way of limiting problem gambling? What is the greater evil: the prize, the stake, or the‑‑ Professor Collins: As far as I can tell from reviewing the evidence which is in my submission, convenience is the single greatest spur to increase problem gambling. The reason for that is that problem gambling is a disorder of impulse control, consequently people are likely to engage in problem gambling behaviour more if temptation is regularly put in their way when they are not expecting it. This means that a casino machine of any sort located, for example, in a supermarket is highly dangerous. At the other end of the scale, a machine, even a high prized machine, located in a casino out of town or on the edge of town a long way from where people live and work, means that people have to make a number of decisions before they go there, not just about their gambling; they have to make decisions about what do with children, how they are going to travel, what they are going to do about food; and while they are making those decisions, they will also make the crucial decision about how much money they can afford to risk losing. Q364 Lord Mancroft: What was your reaction to Mr Hill's suggestion that the regional casinos should be situation on high streets? Professor Collins: That does relate to a later question which I am down to ask, but my general view on that is two‑fold. First of all, from a problem gambling point of view, there is no doubt that it is better not to locate casinos in town centres. There is no question of that. There may be other reasons, like limiting the number of car journeys that are involved and therefore reducing physical pollution for doing that, but the other point I would make, which is not about problem gambling but it is about social impact: if you put a large entertainment complex, including a casino, in the centre of a town, you will suck huge amounts of money out of the leisure economy in that town; and this goes against the principle of trying to ensure that casinos, in as far as they displace economic activity, do so from a wide area of relative affluence and concentrate the new spend in areas of relative disadvantage. That is the best way of dealing with the economic redistribution policy. I think that is something which not only is undesirable in itself, but will clearly lead to all sorts of objections from all sorts of businesses to downtown casinos. Q365 Chairman: Do you have any evidence, or are you aware of any evidence that category A high value gaming machines are worse or pose a greater risk of problem gambling than category B machines? Professor Collins: I do not think there is good evidence on that. I think there is good evidence that very low prize machines, £25 machines, category C machines, are a good deal less dangerous than variable prize or big prize machines. I do not think frankly we know enough yet about whether in themselves category B machines would be lease addictive or safer than category A machines. Certainly though we do know that, if you have got a choice between locating category A machines inconveniently and locating category B machines conveniently, it is better from a problem gambling point of view to locate the category A machines inconveniently. Q366 Chairman: I want to bring Mr Chalmer in a moment to clarify something that we think is quite important about the numbers and the likely mix of machines. Do you have a feel for the kind of mix of different categories that these big regional casinos are likely to develop within this 1,250 machine cap? We suspect that some developers think that all of these should be category A machines, although others say they do not necessarily think they all would be category A machines. Do you have a feel for this? Professor Collins: Yes, that is why I call them variable prize machines, because that is the key thing about making the total mix attractive to the customer; that the customer goes into the casino and can play either low stake machines for medium sized prizes or low stake machines for very high prizes, but you do not get the prize very often, or more or less any combination. What is certainly true, and I think this has been misunderstood, is that the very high prize machines, the mega bucks machines which will pay out a million dollars, are not much played. They are played by people in the same way they play the lottery. They might put ten dollars in when they go into a casino and they might put ten dollars in when they go out of the casino, but their main reason for going to the casino is because they enjoy the activity of playing. What they want is length of playing time, not any particular size of prize, provided the size of prize attractive, is large enough to be attractive? Q367 Chairman: Mr Chalmers, are you able to help the Committee by giving some indication as to what the regulations are likely to say about machine entitlement, and particularly category A machine entitlements within regional casinos? Mr Chalmers: You have obviously heard commercial views from different people about the mix of machine that they will have in regional casinos. The proposal set out in our response to recommendations 77 to 85 involves category B machines being of good value and the regulations as having no limits upon stake and no limits upon prize, but, as Professor Collins and others have said, and as I think Lord McIntosh observed when he was in front of the Committee, the practice of casinos across worlds is to have a range of stakes and prizes for the very reason that Professor Collins is describing, although I think I recall correctly the other day that one of the international witnesses said that all of the machines in their casinos would be category A in the terms presently set out, but I am not sure. Q368 Chairman: But are they expressing that view ‑ this is very important ‑ because they think that the definition of a category B machine would limit the stake to £1 and the potential pay out to £500, given the fact that the Minister himself told the Committee the other day that there would be an opportunity to have variable stakes and prizes within category B machines relative to the actual location; so you might therefore have a bigger stake and prize in a category B machine in a casino than you might have in a Bingo club. Is there not a need for the Government now to clarify this and try and reach some memorandum of understanding about these limits, because we are concerned that the overseas operators and, in fact, even our own operators who wish to invest in new casinos think that they have a 1,250 machine entitlement to category A machines. I have a suspicion the Minister does not see it in that way. In the meantime the existing industry feels that there is not a level playing field because they cannot have these machines, and if they are limited to £1 and £500 stake and prize machines only, the imbalance between the product they are offering and the one that the new regional casinos will be offering will be very severe, so severe that even the Transport and General Workers Union have expressed real concern to this Committee in their memorandum about the effects on jobs in the existing industry? Mr Chalmers: I can certainly understand the point that you are making that the common understanding of a category B machine might have led to some concern to think that that simply was not appropriate or what they thought should be in a regional casino, but I think the Minister mentioned, there is flexibility in the Bill for category E to mean different things in different places, as it were, flexibility for all categories to mean different things in different places and we will certainly take on board any recommendations perhaps you make. Professor Collins: Can I make a comment on that. It seems to me that if you were to make category B machines effectively the same in terms of attractiveness as category A machines, two things would happen. One is that most gambling would then take place in relatively convenient locations, namely relatively conveniently located Bingo clubs, betting shops or smaller regional casinos. Q369 Chairman: But only if the higher stake and prize was available to them. It may not be. Professor Collins: If it were the same in regional casinos and large casinos then you would see most gambling taking place wherever the most convenient large casinos were located. I think the other point is, if you do not differentiate between the two, you will not get the regeneration benefits, if that is important. It may not be, but if it is you will not get those. Q370 Chairman: Thank you. Could I ask Sir Peter Hall whether he thinks the proposed planning policy for regional casinos supports the aim of limiting accessibility of category A gaming machines? Professor Sir Peter Hall: No, not in its present form, and I will use a word that is very difficult to pronounce that I know was used by the Blackpool representatives on Tuesday, and that is specificity. I do not think that government policy, either in relation to national policy through planning policy statements or regionally through what they are proposing for regional planning guidance, is sufficiently specific on this point, because it essentially does not say, it does not give any indication where regional casinos are to be located. The reason for that is the disappearance of the term "resort casino" or "destination casino". That latter word particularly expresses precisely the distinction that I think Professor Collins has been trying to make about convenience, or the lack of it, in reaching the casino in the first place. Q371 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Following on from that, Sir Peter, the Casino Operators Association said to us that the planning proposals for regional casinos are still clouded by lack of detail. I wondered what you felt is within this planning process with respect to regional casinos and whether it is sufficiently clear. You indicated one view. Would you like to enlarge on it a little? Professor Sir Peter Hall: I should welcome that. Thank you. I think it is insufficiently clear, because, as the minister has just indicated, the Government's view is clearly that it all has to be left up to the regional planning bodies to define their own policies in each region, modified, rather startlingly, by the proposal for calling of the first two or three proposals, which seems to indicate that there is somewhere in a drawer a set of criteria for judging these applications which has not been vouched safe to anyone, especially this Committee. Q372 Chairman: We were forming that view earlier. Professor Sir Peter Hall: But the key to this, I think, has to be is a regional casino a destination casino. Let us put it very bluntly by way of example, and I do have to again declare my interest as Shadow Chair long-term of an urban regeneration company that does not exist, the Blackpool Urban Regeneration Company. If you look at the Blackpool proposals, which are well‑known to the Committee, if you look at, for instance, the proposal for Sports City in East Manchester, are those both regional casinos? Clearly, by any criteria, the Blackpool proposal will have been. You would have to travel from most of populous Lancashire and Yorkshire a considerable distance, and therefore you would have to make those critical decisions that Professor Collins alluded to before you set out to travel. It would not be something you could casually do. In relation to Manchester it is a little more complicated, because that development is not interesting, a city centre development by definition, by any definition that ODPM have used. It is a slightly off‑centre location that might be allowed to be, I do not know, a sort of near to city centre location, but obviously the decision as to reaching that location on a Saturday night would be rather more casual than it would be about getting on a motorway and travelling the M61 and the M55 to Blackpool; and that is the critical distinction, I think, that needs to be embodied somewhere. Q373 Lord Wade of Chorlton: May I just follow up with that, because when we took evidence yesterday from the American casino operators, they clearly have their vision of what their large casinos or their regional casinos are going to be, they are going to be very large leisure complexes costing in the region of $150 to $200 million were the sort of phrases they used, and are going to attract not necessarily high players but, if you like, people who are looking for leisure week‑ends and going with their families and a family‑based operation. It seems to me, if that is their concept, it is not something that is actually defined in what the Government's proposals are. Would you like to comment on how you could add to those definitions, if you like, that made it very clear that these were very large entertainment complexes of which casinos were a part rather than the centre? Professor Sir Peter Hall: Thank you. I would. In fact, as an academic, as a professor, I am bound to refer to the literature, and I have in my evidence referred to this rather recent book, Suburban Xanadu, which is an academic study of the American casino industry and its evolution; and that makes it clear, and I have the exert which I will put into the secretariat at the end of this examination‑‑ Q374 Chairman: Thank you; that would be helpful. Professor Sir Peter Hall: It is ready. The recent evolution in Las Vegas, in particular, is exactly as the American operators say. They are now looking to synergy ‑ it is a rather over‑worked word, I know ‑ between several casino complexes with a view to people who do go there for a weekend or a long week end, and they are looking not exclusively to gamble at all but for a leisure week‑end. They are looking surely to do some gambling, and it would need to be an extended experience, hence the critically important point of a range of prizes which gives the possibility of extending the gambling over a period; but they are also looking to other experiences, especially live entertainment, shows, eating out, bars, and so on, which those complexes do so well. But the new trend is that, instead of each complex being a self‑contained complex competing with the next one, which to some extent it still does, they are seeing synergies from being clustered together along the Strip; and that is, I think, the crucial criterion more than one casino in a cluster ‑ that is another fashionable word in the academic literature about city development and regeneration ‑ a cluster of casinos, which would be more than the sum of the parts, and I think that concept needs to be embodied somewhere but has not yet been embodied in guidance. Chairman: We have been asking questions about aggregation and getting precious few answers. I am sure Lord Faulkner would want me to say that your point about a leisure mix, and I think you did refer to theatres, was something that effectively influenced our previous recommendation about there being a requirement for these large casinos to make such investment. That is very helpful. Q375 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I wonder if Sir Peter could stick with the problem, if one can call it this, of the competing claims of Blackpool and Manchester, because very early on in our earlier inquiry we received some very powerful evidence from people who were interested in Blackpool who made it very clear that the viability of a Blackpool development was conditional on there not being a regional competitor which would in their eyes take away the investment. You have sat through the session this morning and listened to the minister. There is clearly no intention on the part of the Government to have any form of direction or even statement of preference, as far as I can see, between, say, a run down seaside resort or an urban centre like Manchester. So how would you envisage that it would be possible to resolve this problem of competing claims within a region and, indeed, between one region and its neighbour? Professor Sir Peter Hall: Thank you. In relation to one region and its neighbour, if I may take your point in reverse, I think there is a certain difficulty, because, as we all know, the geography of the British regions is very, very different. As I have said in my evidence, seaside resorts, especially those suffering economic difficulties, are highly concentrated in certain regions; I deduce the whole series of resorts along the East Sussex and around the Kent coast which have experienced very serious difficulties in the last 30 years from at least Hastings all the way round to Broadstairs and perhaps Herne Bay; also, of course, very evidently in North West England, not merely Blackpool but Morcambe and possibly also Southport, whereas, by definition, the West and East Midlands have no seaside resorts at all. If you were considering, for instance, a casino in Birmingham, what is it competing with? Maybe it is competing with a casino in Blackpool because the M6 takes you almost straight there, and the Government are now proposing a toll road to make it faster, but probably there is not the same degree of competition as you get between Manchester and Blackpool within the north‑west. That said, with reference to the problem within a region like the north‑west, which might also be a problem down here in the south except for the artificiality that London is a separate region and so gambling on the Greenwich peninsular, for instance, would be considered separately, in fact, by the Mayor, from the situation in the south‑east region outside London. A bit unfortunate that. But to concentrate on the north‑west, which is a simpler matter, because you will have one regional planning body, what do you do? It seems to me that one does not want to deny the possibility that East Manchester should have some gambling as part of that complex. After all, it is Sport City; the whole concept has been developed around sport; and I presume one can say that gambling has traditionally been part of service sports at least in this country. On the other hand, there is a very great danger indeed that if the scale of development there grew to such a point that it was offering a similar mixture of gambling and perhaps some entertainment, not on the scale of Blackpool perhaps but sufficient to make a good evening out, that would make a fatal difference to the Blackpool proposal. It is difficult to say where this line is drawn, but it is somewhere between large and regional, and large has to mean not too big and certainly an entirely different scale of experience from regional. Q376 Chairman: The "large" definition we had before, or the one that the Committee recommended, of perhaps eight machines to one table, might have been a better mechanism for allowing that to proceed. Professor Sir Peter Hall: Yes, I think that would be so, but I would probably prefer defer to Professor Collins on that point. Professor Collins: In general, on any region, there is a substantial economic dimension to this. Assuming, for example ‑ this is where the market comes in ‑ but assuming that after the Bill was passed total expenditure on gambling grew by 20 percent, and assuming that the new casinos captured, new regional casinos, 1,250 slot machine casinos captured 20 per cent of that market, on the basis of what is spent in the north‑west at the moment you could probably sustain five 1250 slot machine casinos costing about £100 million each. That is the sort of rough economics of it. Of that £100 million the financial cost of building the casino would only be about 60 to 70, which leaves you £30 million over per project for regeneration or planning games or these other things which effectively make the whole project, one hopes, attract to the people in the area where it located. Obviously you have got to make a policy choice. You could say, "We will have four or a five casinos in Blackpool, and that is the only place in the north‑west we will have them", in which case those casinos‑‑ Q377 Chairman: You mean very large ones; you do not mean small ones? Professor Collins: You would have 6,000 machines in Blackpool, say, and none anywhere else; certainly no category A machines anywhere else. That, of course, is politically very difficult to do, particularly since Manchester has announced only this morning that they have awarded, after going through a tendering process, a project costing £260 million which includes low‑cost housing, which includes artificial surfing, which includes rock‑climbing, which includes all sorts of things which cost about £200 million together. It is really the economics which is going to make the conflicts of interest difficult to resolve. That is why I am hopeful that the regions will bring the different local authorities in their areas together in some form or another and say, "There is a limit to what we can have, what are the best places to locate the kind of regeneration which casinos are particularly good at doing and what do we do for those places which do not get the benefit?" In other words, there has to be a regional policy at least for redistributing the benefits so that it is not perceived to be a zero sum gain for the losers who therefore have an interest in just fighting the whole thing. Q378 Chairman: But it is your view, Professor Collins, I think, from what your saying, that this proposal in East Manchester to which Sir Howard Bernstein, when he was before the Committee on Tuesday, made abundantly clear the City of Manchester is absolutely committed to, the scale of what is going to be built there is not affordable on the 150 machine limit which the Government is now proposing for large casinos. Professor Collins: No, not on that. It will be interesting to see whether you can do it on 1250 if it is a £260 million project, but that rather depends on how many of the add‑ons wash their hands! Q379 Chairman: The Kerzner representative told us on Tuesday afternoon that the 1250 limit they could live with in terms of what they were proposing to do, so one assumes that he must have had the Manchester project in mind given that they were awarded it the following day? Professor Collins: I would say they can do it and they could do it if there were another similar sized casino of 1250 at Salford, another one in Liverpool and another one in Blackpool, and maybe another one somewhere else in the north‑west, but what you cannot do is have lots of places offering category A machine gambling also competing for the same East Manchester market. It is about a half‑hour travel time. Q380 Chairman: Can I pursue this with you. You are confirming that you think there is a market for five regional casinos within the north‑west region? Professor Collins: Under the Government's present proposals, yes. Q381 Chairman: Is that a market that is derived from the people in the north‑west? Professor Collins: Basically. Q382 Chairman: In other words, could there then be five in all the other regions? Professor Collins: Probably not all the other regions. It is very important here that, of course, how many there are does not depend so much on the size of the projects, it depends on how much real investment the companies are required to make in regeneration projects from which they do not derive additional income or break‑even income and which is actually cutting into, constitutes a real share of the anticipated annual earnings. If that number is high, then you will have fewer casinos; if that number is low, then you have more casinos. Q383 Lord Mancroft: When the large casino operators, the Americans, were giving evidence to us two days ago, right at the end I said to them, I asked them, and you will know why I asked them this question, if the small existing knows were allowed to have two or three category A machines per table in each casino, would that affect developments like Blackpool, like this one we were just talking about in Manchester and other regional casinos, and they said, "No", they did not think it would. Professor Collins: I think that is probably true, because if by the "existing casinos" you mean those which were operational before August 7th, rather than those which are projects now, which might have, you know, 150 ‑ how many machines is it in Newcastle ‑ 150 or something like that, but some of the current proposals ‑ then you could not do it, but if you just stayed with the 126 casinos which were operating as at August 7th 2003, then you could do it. Q384 Jeff Ennis: My question has been partially prompted from the conflict point of view in terms of the inter‑relationship between local authorities and the regional planning bodies which Peter has just espoused. Looking at it from regional planning body to regional planning body, are there any areas of potential conflict there, Peter? Professor Collins: There are obviously areas of conflict, but I do not think that we will get the situation which has been a problem in the United States where one jurisdiction, one state jurisdiction, has decided they will go ahead and locate a casino on the border with the next state because the next state has casinos banned, so they suck in all the gambling spend from the neighbouring state, and then the neighbouring state says, "Hey, we are losing all our gambling income, so we better legalise one", and they legalise one and put it exactly next to it on the border; and there are other jurisdictions where you find that problem. I think in this country such competition between regions, as opposed to within regions, would be quite healthy. Q385 Chairman: So a regional casino in Sheffield at the football club as well as one in East Manchester by the City of Manchester stadium, you think the market is there in central and northern England? Professor Collins: Yes, and I think that is actually one of the ways in which you limit the numbers but retain the value of competition; because if one of the casinos is really crummy, people will make the effort to travel the extra quarter of an hour to the other one. The trouble with monopoly casinos, such as you get in Montreal, for example, is they become very shoddy because there is no incentive to woo the customers. You do not need much competition to do that. Q386 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My first question is to Sir Peter Hall, and I think I know the answer from paragraph 9 of the submission you rendered to us in anticipation of this session. Is there a risk that existing premises classified under D2 Use Class could be converted to regional casinos without the need for planning permission? Professor Sir Peter Hall: I think there is a very real risk that that could happen, and I think the Minister has admitted as much this morning in promising to look at it again. There is obviously concern within the Department on this point. Q387 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My second question, which is directed to Professor Collins but follows on from that, is what implications could the use class issue have on the Government's aim to limit the availability of category A machines? Professor Collins: Not self‑evidently and obviously any, but in practice they certainly would, because in practice it would mean that everyone who wanted to propose a new casino project would have to, if it were a regional casino with 1250 machines, be able to demonstrate the regional significance, and presumably the regeneration benefits of that casino, to the satisfaction of regional local authorities. So I think it would in practice have that effect. My own view, frankly, is that if government wishes to limit proliferation the sensible thing to do is to say, "We do not want too many casinos. More than 30 would be too many. Let's not have more than 30." But the government is reluctant to do that which other jurisdictions have done, and I understand why, and this would certainly be a measure which would considerably help that. I believe, I am told by other experts, and I would defer, that it might be better to have not simply a sui generis category, but a separate D4 Use Class category, because that would make it administratively easier to deal with. Q388 Chairman: The use class category really needs to address the issue of planning consent for regional casinos, not the other ones. Already a number of planning consents have been granted for what would, within the definitions in the Government's response, be large casinos. Whether the machine entitlements are now a disappointments to the people who have gained the permission is a separate issue, but concentrating on the planning issue, it seems to me increasingly that if there is a case for a separate class use, it would be best addressed purely to the regional casino, because that is the one, that is the casino that everybody now wants to get their hands on; and you are quite right, Professor Collins, in saying that maybe 30 is the limit. What the Government is not going to do is produce a list or a map of all the locations nationally where they think the 30 will be, but I think it is fairly clear from this morning's evidence that by another means they can determine where they will be. Would that make sense? Professor Sir Peter Hall: Yes, I think it would because, if I may put it this way, regional casinos by stealth or by osmosis, that is the real problem here, and for the rest one need not be too concerned because there is an existing situation, and I think that given the Minister's repeated insistence that the Government will not be involved in what he called "location", by which I take it he means specific locations, of course they will because of the call in, but he has said that they will not, in effect, make advance statements that Blackpool would be right and East Manchester wrong, indeed vice versa, but I think it is necessary to create a sui generis category of regional casinos with very specific characteristics, whatever those characteristics may be. I mean, there may be room for argument on this point. Q389 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: A question for Sir Peter. With your great experience of planning, which I think is probably greater than anybody else in Britain, if I may say so, did you hear this morning from the Minister a new planning principle when he referred to the call‑in? Professor Sir Peter Hall: When he referred to? Q390 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Did you hear this morning a new planning principle in relation to casinos when he said that they were going to be determined initially at least by call‑in? Professor Sir Peter Hall: By call‑in. Yes, I thought it was a rather remarkable new principle, yes, which I had not been previously acquainted with. Chairman: I think most people in the room did. Let us talk a bit about location. That has been extremely helpful to us. Q391 Viscount Falkland: Professor Collins has already given his views about the regional casino presence in town and city centres and the effect that that might have in relation to problem gambling in particular. Could both professors give comment on the Government's evident feeling that regional casinos have a place in town and city centres because of their policy of creating vitality and viability in existing town centres, which seems to be very much in conflict with the policy expressed in the Government's aim to limit casual gambling? We seem to have a problem here where the Government has two different policies in two related but separate areas, which creates a problem for us in the particular problems we are looking at? Professor Collins: Can I make one initial comment on this, which I do not think has come out. It is always assumed that both the gambling activities and the regeneration activities of a large casino entertainment complex have to be in the same place. This is not so. For example, the Cape Town Casino is very remarkable and remarkably successful because the Cape Town Casino is located in a peri‑urban location, which is a former entertainment area, and that is where the gambling takes place, but the regeneration for which the casino paid is located downtown; they built a conference centre; they built a canal linking the water‑front to the central business district; and that had a significant re-generational effect on downtown, but the casino itself and the gambling takes place 10 miles away. Professor Sir Peter Hall: I would underline that point, that there need be no necessary relation at all, no nexus, which is the American word, between the location of the gambling, the location of the regeneration benefits. With regard to location, I think there are perhaps two points. The first is the definition of town centres, and here we enter into almost medieval theological questions as to what is a town centre. The Department, the ODPM, have spent a great deal of time and money on this question, including commissioning research from my colleague at University College, Professor Michael Batty, and his unit. Broadly, the definition is in terms of fairly traditional town centre uses, that is shopping especially and some public services, and, since I was involved in some of the early sessions of that research, I remember a long debate in Wolverhampton, which was the first case study, as to whether the Molyneux Football Ground, Wolverhampton Wanderers, was part of the town centre or not, which becomes more than purely theological here because it is precisely that kind of edge of town centre stadium that can be very relevant here. However, most stadia are not as close to city centres as is that one. The real question here is would these casinos be literally within that tight envelope, very difficult because they are a large shaped buildings, although in many northern cities there are old warehouse areas, for instance, Manchester is an example, where you could fit such developments in. More likely, I think, they would go into a zone, the technical expressions for this include "chatter zone" and "zone of transition", which is a zone immediately outside the city centre, sometimes outside the inner distributor road which tends to form a collar around most British cities and town centres, which is a decayed area, where you could put that kind of stuff. Indeed, that zone quite often extends quite widely outwards. Manchester is a very good example where there is a zone of almost devastation between the regenerated city centre and the Sport City. I think it more likely that that would be the location, but it still would be highly accessible, because of its location near the inner distributor road, for people making casual trips by car; and because public transport is focusing through that area on the town centre and there are often, as in Manchester, plans for new light rail systems, I think such areas would be highly accessible and so could actually cater all too easily for this sort of impulse gambling that Professor Collins has alluded to. The other very difficult question, which I did refer to in my evidence, and Lord Brooke has already mentioned this, is the immediate impact on mixed use developments in or very close to city centres. Here I fear that the Minister in his answer does reveal a rather basic confusion now in government thinking on the whole role of the 24‑hour city in regenerating urban areas generally; because we already know in relation to pubs the opposition that is developing, particularly around the new Licensing Act, as to the effect on town centres and city centres on Friday and Saturday nights and problem drinking. If problem gambling were at all associated with problem drinking, this could multiply the problem, especially for nearby residents. So, despite the laudable aim of government to have everything mixed up and the housing next‑door to pubs, clubs and gambling, I think in practice there can be very, very negative effects from these uses in the juxtaposition which would have to be looked at. Q392 Chairman: What is coming across is that the conflict appears to be different the policy objectives from the Department of Culture Media and Sport to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has a policy of planning on urban regeneration which it thinks the casino industry should be slotted into and there be no departure from that policy for casinos; and yet the Department of Culture, Media and Sport is saying, "We want there to be an expansion of casinos and there to be some deregulation of the current restrictions, but not too much. There has got to be some limitation, otherwise there will be a big increase in problem gambling", and they are now absolutely committed, as you heard yesterday, Professor Collins, at the Gamco conference, that there is to be no increase in problem gambling. That is a real fixed position. So would one of the ways of trying to resolve this conflict not be for DCMS or the Gambling Commission to make clear that they are only going to license a specific number of regional casinos? DCMS could do it by providing a policy statement that no more than 20 or 25 regional licenses would be issued or the Gambling Commission could do it by covering the point in the guidance, the statutory guidance, that they will be required to give to local authorities. Does this thought process have merit to you? Professor Collins: This seems to me to be going back to saying, yes, we do not want too many and the too many we do not want is X, and we will have so many here and so many there and so many in the other region and so forth. I think one would need to think that through to make sure there was not too much first mover advantage either for the municipalities‑‑ Q393 Chairman: There would not be a first mover advantage if there was a separate class use in planning for a regional casino, because a casino that has already got planning permission, including the ones being given planning permission now, are not planning consents for regional casinos? Professor Collins: No, it will be perfectly reasonable to say we will have 25/30 regional casinos and the regions will be calling through some process for tenders for these, and the regions will also be presumably identifying the areas where these casinos will be located and probably the regeneration benefits they want from them. Chairman: Let us come on finally to regeneration. Alan Meale. Q394 Mr Meale: Professor Hall, could we have your observations in respect of whether planning gains through the fixed tariff and the requirements to contribute to regeneration are one and the same thing or separate and distinct financial obligations which will be imposed on developments at regional casinos? I say that, because under the present arrangements under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 the local authority can use that gain to offset other things, due regard, which will be affected by the development. Under the new regime, I think it is section 46 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, it will be paid as a tariff directly for specific things, notably affordable housing. What are your observations on that? Professor Sir Peter Hall: The tariff, a term the Government dislikes, as you heard from the Minister but it is a tariff in all but name, is really an alternative mechanism to the traditional 106 that they introduced, a little surprisingly, during the long passage of the Bill. I think that has to be right, because there may well be circumstances where a tariff is easier to administer and can be used for specific purposes, and there may be other cases where a section 106 agreement would suit the local planning authority to better. So I would not wish to reach a view on that. I think it would depend very much on local circumstances, and local circumstances are going to differ very much, I think, between different kinds of locations, between seaside resorts, for instance, and large cities. Q395 Mr Meale: Can we go back to it because under the new arrangement if that is to be the mechanism put in position by Government, then the local authority... I understand where there are run down areas they need affordable housing and all rest of it, but it may not always be the case. It may be that the local authority would prefer a more open arrangement which they could interpret under 106 so that they could develop on and gain their own planning gain via that rather than just saying you have to do that with it. It may not even be linked to the site which is being developed? Professor Sir Peter Hall: Yes, I think I possibly misunderstood the purport of your question, which is very much in terms of affordable housing. There, I think, one would have to be very careful, because it is not clear at all. Many of these authorities have affordable housing as their first priority. I would say that in Blackpool, a town I know reasonably well, much of the housing is all too affordable because the whole town, as I think people will know having visited it, has basically gone down almost to rock‑bottom; and the need in Blackpool would be for something far more like the re‑laying of the tram tracks along the promenade, which is where the service is in danger of being stopped due to the danger to passengers. That is a leading attraction at Blackpool for over 100 years and, indeed, would be, in my view, a major element in linking the different casino complexes. Q396 Mr Meale: I appreciate that, and that is a very useful reply. What I was also trying to get at is that if it is put into affordable housing and new housing is built, it is likely that people will be encouraged to go to live in those new affordable houses from outside of the area which you are trying to regenerate and find jobs for the people within it? Professor Sir Peter Hall: There is a point there. There has, in fact, as you will know, been a steady drift of retired people often living on fixed pensions into seaside resorts, for instance, over many years, and, in fact, it has been accompanied in more recent years, as again I am sure the Committee will know, with the growth of this extraordinary phenomena of benefit tourism which you see so clearly in resorts like Blackpool where people are living on very low income in very low quality accommodation. I suppose there is a question here about whether the local authority would want to provide better quality housing for those people which might paradoxically encourage further growth of very low income people into the town. I would not like to pronounce very definitely on that. Obviously it has been the Government's, this Government's aim through the New Deal and other programmes, to encourage people on long-term benefits to get back into work; and I suppose you could argue, with specific reference to the resort, that if the development of a regional casino provided a variety of new jobs, some of the people coming into the town now living on benefits might be brought back into employment and therefore might be taken perhaps out of the need for the very low‑grade affordable housing they are presently in. Q397 Mr Meale: Or it could be people who are elderly or becoming elderly moving from one part of the country because its cheaper and moving into affordable housing? Professor Sir Peter Hall: Yes. Q398 Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: Am I dreaming, or is it the case that section 46 will not apply before 2006? Professor Sir Peter Hall: I believe that is correct, yes. Professor Collins: I just wanted to say something about jobs, very quickly, because it relates to this whole question of the location of casinos. Casinos where the dominant activity is machine gambling do not create jobs; they tend to suck money out of more labour intensive leisure activities and locate that spending in less labour intensive activities. Casinos will create jobs, through the add‑ons, through the additional entertainment, or, indeed, other facilities, which is enable labour intensive, whether that is restaurants, or golf courses, or anything that requires a high degree of servicing of customers, sports. Q399 Mr Wright: Following on from that, would you suggest, Professor Collins, that in terms of the jobs and what you said earlier on about the growing away from other leisure activities, that it can have a negative affect on tourist areas such as seaside resorts if these regional casinos, otherwise known as resort casinos, were actually developed in close proximity to the sea? Professor Collins: It certainly would unless those resorts were successful, as they hope to be, in attracting large numbers of people from around the region. Blackpool already has a huge visitor population, and the hope is that that population would either grow or would spend more in Blackpool because it would have a very attractive resort casino; and that additional spend from outside would create more jobs. Q400 Mr Wright: Also, in your opinion, would it support the existing leisure industries in those seaside resorts? Professor Collins: It depends a bit on how it is done. The experience of Atlantic City is that it was very good for all those ancillary businesses which were located within the casino complexes, but very bad for all the restaurants, and so forth, that were located outside. So it has to be done with great care and sensitivity, but that is a general point. It is not just a matter of the regulations. There are examples of different kinds of regulations which produce very successful casino projects from the point of view of public appreciation and regeneration and there are examples of disasters of all sorts. You need in addition the intelligent management of the whole thing. Q401 Mr Wright: To follow on from that, the regeneration effect, bearing in mind a lot of seaside resorts have deprivation and particular problems ‑ we looked at this as regenerating some of the economy by using some of these regional casinos ‑ would you said it would be positive aspect for seaside resorts as a whole for these regional casinos or would you see it as a negative? Professor Collins: I do not think it is possible to be a priori on this. One cannot say in advance. It depends on how it is done and how successful it is in attractive visitors, but in general if it attracts additional tourism spend from the outside, it will be very positive. So I think there is no question of that. Professor Sir Peter Hall: I may I make a point in support. The study I have mentioned by Professor Schwartz makes exactly this point about Atlantic City, that the benefits in terms of job creation have been there but they have been very much restricted to the resort complex itself. I think that was due to unfortunate features about the way that was done. As Professor Collins says, the devil is always in the detail. If you can so plan to combine existing facilities pinned to the resort, I will call it resort casino complex, then you can be successful; and seaside resorts in general have an extraordinary historic infrastructure of leisure facilities. Some, it is true, typically about 100 years old, the golden age of British resort tourism, but easily capable of being brought up to current standards and now, in many cases, grievously under‑used because of the decline in visitors, and that will be the key, I am certain, to successful resort casino tourism in a place like Blackpool. I give that as an example only because it is the one with which I am familiar. There are other such resorts down here in the south which could do the same. Chairman: Many of us do a two‑year pilgrimage to Blackpool and are very well aware of what you are saying. Q402 Mr Page: I have to say that am becoming more and more unclear on the process whereby planning gain is going to be obtained. On Tuesday we had some very experienced witnesses who are dealing with planning on a regional basis day‑to‑day, and in response to a question by one of the more perceptive members of this panel said that gains had to be focused to areas where the casino are located. They made a minor caveat that they could be possibly extended a little further out to improve road access and things like that, but they made that particular point. Yet Professor Collins has already indicated the squabbling that is going to take place where various local authorities will argue over the bone that might be available unless the benefits are spread throughout the region on a wider basis. At the moment can give an idea what sort of gain could be obtained under the section 106, negotiating better casino developer, and what impact 46 is going to have on the whole process? Professor Sir Peter Hall: First of all, I think that there may have been a misunderstanding that is important to clear up. I understood Professor Collins to be referring to, if I can put it this way, transfer of benefits within a local authority area not across an entire region. For instance, if Manchester were to develop its casino Sport City the benefits might be applied to some other area, for instance regenerating run down housing in Wivenshaw in the south of the city. I think that considerable difficulties would arise if you were seeking to transfer benefits between authorities, and, of course, that is an issue in Greater Manchester, where the local authority boundaries are rather curiously drawn as between Manchester, Salford and Trafford, for instance. Professor Collins: I think what I would like to believe could happen is that regions already have economic development plans of various sorts. They say, "This is a particular regeneration priority. That area needs this", and so on. They could in theory simply say, "How are we going to incorporate plans for regional casinos into those existing economic development plans, those existing regeneration plans", and they might say, "Well, okay, we definitely need to do a regional casino at Blackpool", but that means that... Well, some of the regeneration benefits may benefit everybody because they may have to do with airports, transport, which benefits the whole region, but more generally, I would say, in a rational economic development plan you would say, "Okay Blackpool is getting a casino, East Manchester is getting a casino, Liverpool harbour is getting a casino. They therefore do not need the resources which are coming to us from other sources", notably from central government for regeneration; so you redeploy the resources you are getting from central for regeneration within the total economic development plan. That would seem to me a possible process for regions to pursue. It would require people to realise that if everybody just fights for their narrow municipal corner you will dissipate the possibility of anybody getting anything, because it is only by restricting the supply that you get the surplus which is available to be distributed. I think there is another important point about process, which has to do with the fact that I think corruption is mentioned at some point. The way to avoid corruption is to have a process which is absolutely clear, absolutely fair, absolutely transparent, which is clearly focused on maximising the public interest broadly conceived and which is available to everyone. Of course, one of my worries at the moment is simply that so many projects are already going ahead in advance of the legislation without anything remotely like a proper process, and this is very worrying. Chairman: Exactly that. Q403 Mr Page: I was going to say that everything you have just said is all sweetness and light, provided government does not reduce its funding to an area which it was previously committed to as it has done to parts of my constituency when taking the various monies that they have from the sale of council houses; and that is causing problem there. Professor Collins: I am assuming the government is telling the truth when it says it is committed to regionalisation, and if they will the end, they will the means and that means will the resourcing, but one could be wrong? Q404 Mr Meale: I would like to take the sweetness and light thing. One thing that we all know is that the north‑west area is not the isle of democrat, is not that at all. There are real differences of opinion within that Liverpool/Manchester. I think the last public riot at a football match took place between Burnley and Blackburn. It is throughout that region, the common thread that Blackpool should have casinos. I do not think it would be easily found to have good growth in those areas. I think the danger in this, the switch from 106 to 46, is that by and large it will worsen that situation, because those theaters of democracy, the local authorities, will say "The ability for us to gain ourselves from planning applications will be taken away from us and put into a wider sphere under 46, and money that we should rightly have will be spent elsewhere"; and talking about democracy, as my colleague here has pointed out, it is also not found to be true that governments always continue to be very laissez faire with the monies that they have got on a regularised basis; they are always raising those areas about what the government is doing on economic development. I think just to give the analysis, you both have links with the north‑west, one Blackpool and one Salford, I do not think this will do anything for that programme; I think it could inhibit it. Professor Collins: I just hope not. Of course in places like London one hopes it would be easier to deal with this. Chairman: I think, what Mr Meale is saying is that the danger is that because this suddenly, almost like a rabbit out of a hat, has been proposed as a way of gaining regeneration, there is no plan B for Blackpool, kind of approach, everybody suddenly thinks "a casino is the answer to all our problems", and what you have, I think, very helpfully pointed out this morning, Professor Collins, is that there is a limit in the market as to how much development of casinos is possible, and if you add to that the Government's commitment that there should not be any increase in problem gambling, my impression is that there are going to be a number of very disappointed local authorities. Mr Meale: Very angry local authorities. Chairman: Some may be angry if they have been given the impression that they may get what they want, but there will be, I think, a number that are disappointed. You have been very generous with your time and very clear with your answers, but you have been extremely helpful and we are grateful to you both for your attendance today. Can I remind the Committee that we meet at 2.30 here in Room 5 privately. There is a small document available for you all to take away and read over the lunchtime if you would see the clerks, but, as we are moving to Room 5 I need to remind my colleagues to take away their papers.
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