| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Many local authorities wanted to explore the potential regeneration benefits of new casinos when
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1659
Why did we adopt this approach? We wanted to make sure that the decision was based on the facts and evidence and not on politics, which is why the Secretary of State has not simply overturned the panel’s recommendation and put forward Blackpool instead of Manchester. That would fly in the face of the accumulated evidence and it would be unfair to every local authority that took part in a published and agreed process in good faith. That principle is one reason why the order is presented in this form today.
There are other reasons. The intention is to evaluate the impact of this pilot before taking any decisions about the future number and location of any new casinos. That approach has two immediate consequences. The first is the composition of this order. The locations of the 17 new casinos have been chosen to give the evaluation the right mix of locations to measure impact accurately. Secondly, it means that there can be no new casino licences for at least the lifetime of this Parliament; that is, until there is a clear understanding based on rigorous evidence.
Let me turn to other issues that I know have exercised noble Lords. There have been calls for the order to be split, with a separate order for the regional casino. The Government have resisted those calls. As I have said, the 17 casinos form the pilot. If the Secretary of State had split the order from the outset, accusations could certainly have been made that the Government were cynically manipulating Parliament into voting Manchester down for their own electoral purposes. In that respect, the Government were bound to lose either way, but they are standing firm on the principle that an independent panel reached its conclusions, and we are working on that basis.
Much has been made of the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee report. It expressed reservations on two significant grounds: how the panel interpreted its remit and on destination casinos. We do not think that, on mature reflection, the House will feel that the committee’s concerns are well established. The primary consideration we set for the Casino Advisory Panel in making its assessment was to identify locations that would provide the best possible test of social impact. That was the acid test of each bid’s merits. We did not ask the panel to identify a location that would reduce problem gambling. Our wider policy, the most rigorous regulation in the world, is addressing that issue and
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1660
The Merits Committee also reflected a claim by some that it is perverse to locate the regional casino in deprived residential east Manchester. East Manchester is certainly deprived. I declare a minor interest in that I have a great affection for the eastern part of Manchester, but even more for the north-east borough of Oldham. East Manchester is more deprived than Blackpool. One of the panel’s considerations was to identify areas in need of regeneration, so it is not surprising that some of the candidate areas are very deprived. But the panel’s job was to recommend an authority, not a site. It is the authority that applies for the licence. It is possible to locate a regional casino in east Manchester without putting it in the very poorest area. That is what the local planning system is for. The same would apply to Blackpool; indeed, its own bid placed the casino in the town centre, next to the town’s most deprived ward.
The other aspect which exercised the Merits Committee was the so-called destination casinos. The argument is that the independent panel has failed because it did not recommend designating a seaside resort to host the regional casino and it therefore ignored the joint scrutiny committee’s recommendations. That is to misunderstand the concept of “destination”. Manchester is, in its own right, an important destination. The noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, who is in his place, will testify that Manchester was the third most important overseas tourist destination in the UK behind London and Edinburgh for every year between 2001 and 2005, with the sole exception of 2002, when it came fourth. It also fails to reflect the Joint Committee’s intentions. The committee expected regional casinos to be large-scale entertainment complexes, offering gambling alongside a wide range of non-gambling facilities. Anyone who has been to Manchester in the past 10 years can see that the city is at least as compatible with the concept of a leisure destination casino as any seaside town.
On the evidence, a panel concluded that Manchester offered a good test of the social impact of a regional casino; at the same time it expressed its reasons why the Blackpool proposal would not. That was the judgment of that independent panel, which included some of the most eminent planning experts in the country. It is on the basis of their judgment that the order recommends Manchester as the site for that casino.
I will observe the courtesies of the House by listening to the arguments in favour of the amendments tabled today, before briefly, I hope, explaining my attitude towards them. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is very significant, as it would repudiate and negative the order. That has happened only twice since 1975: once on a Rhodesia order—I do not think many of us would reflect on those times with too much enthusiasm—and then on electoral arrangements for the GLA in 2000. Substantial arguments would be needed to persuade unwhipped Members of this House to support the noble Lord’s amendment.
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1661
The amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Golding calls for the creation of a fresh Joint Committee to look at the Casino Advisory Panel to see what lessons can be learnt for the future. While recognising that the creation and the terms of reference for Joint Committees would be matters for the House authorities if this amendment were passed, the Government are prepared to accept this amendment but would like the committee, in addition to giving Members of both Houses an opportunity retrospectively to examine the panel process, to be forward-looking in its remit.
I have been clear with the House, and I repeat now, that there will be no more new casinos in the current Parliament because the result of the social impact studies of the 17 pilot casinos, and the result of the next prevalence study, will not be available until 2010. It is not possible to think of additional locations during this Parliament. Proposals for more new casinos will not be initiated by this Government in this Parliament. As I have said, the impetus would come from Parliament itself, if it came at all, in the work of the Joint Committee and any subsequent legislative proposals that emerge from it.
There is no consensus for allowing any more new casinos now and there may never be. We are all too well aware that noble Lords and honourable Members in the other place will express caution about the number of casinos, but it is only right that if a Joint Committee is established, it should be allowed to examine the criteria and conditions that could govern any possible future decision. If the Joint Committee were to decide that a future Parliament might allow another regional casino and recommend a specific location, I do not think that anyone in government would be surprised if that turned out to be Blackpool.
I hope that the Joint Committee can produce its first report within six months. The Secretary of State will seek to persuade the Chief Whips in both Houses that the Government should make time available in both Chambers for any such report to be debated. I recognise that that does not provide the immediate gain or reassurance that the supporters of Blackpool wish for, and I have no doubt that its case will continue to be made.
Lord Howard of Rising: My Lords, what the Minister is saying sounds most welcome. In saying that he will accept the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, can he be crystal clear? I understood him to say that the Secretary of State now accepts that there should be a new Joint Committee and that it can, as the noble Baroness’s amendment asks, look in detail at the panel’s report before any decision is arrived at or the super-casino recommendation is implemented. That is what the amendment says and what I understand the Minister to accept. If so, the noble Lord is to be congratulated on his customary sense. If it is a help to him and to the House, I take this opportunity to indicate that we too will support the noble Baroness’s amendment.
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1662
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government have moved a considerable way in proposing to accept my noble friend’s amendment. It will aid the development of policy. The Joint Committee can reach any conclusions its members consider justifiable, and those may or may not be endorsed by both Houses of Parliament. However, its recommendations will not be in time for any addition to the pilot which the order promotes. We are at a point of decision with this order. If the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is carried and the order rejected, the pilot study is finished with and cannot be continued.
It will be recognised that, given the process of getting licences established and of the licence winner constructing the casino and all the facilities necessary, there will be a considerable time lapse before any casino is likely to appear if the order is accepted today. The amendment, which delays the order, could set back that timetable extensively. Noble Lords might accept that the vast majority of their fellow countrymen support the extension of casinos, and their representatives appear to do so. In fact, the only representatives that I can see who are not so sure about a casino where it is being contended that they are very enthusiastic are Liberal Democrat representatives in Blackpool, who have placed advertisements in at least one newspaper today to say that they do not want a casino in Blackpool. So there can be dissent—
4.30 pm
Lord McNally: My Lords, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Blackpool, councillor Robert Wynne, and the Liberal group on Blackpool council have consistently supported the proposal. There are one or two councillors who do not, but I can tell the Minister that in all parties that is a problem. Perhaps the Minister can really cut through the verbiage. If he accepts the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, will it stop by a single minute the granting of the casino licence to Manchester? I will give him his answer—it is no. The rest is just verbiage.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, if the noble Lord is asking this House to consider a position in which the only issue is the substitution of Blackpool for Manchester, he must make his case. But I am making the case for the order and pilot study to those who, like himself, so strongly support Blackpool—and of course I respect his opinion on this. I did not doubt for one moment that he would make out the case for Blackpool as strongly as he could. However, he will recognise that when I contend this extraordinary response by local authorities positively to welcome the opportunity for casinos in their areas, I have the right to emphasise that there is considerable public support for this position. Therefore, the reason for any delay would be the cost to the nation.
I remind the House that many thousands of new jobs and millions of pounds of investment, which are engaged in this very important development, may be put at risk across the country by this exercise.
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1663
Lord Blaker: My Lords, may I just clarify the position of Blackpool council? It is very much in favour of a regional casino; it has been working on this idea for years—and, in addition, a petition has been signed by 11,500 people in Blackpool for this purpose.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord McNally, the noble Lord is knowledgeable about Blackpool and I accept his representation. I was not seeking to suggest that there was no case for Blackpool at all; I was merely indicating that the case for Blackpool is not necessarily that much stronger than the cases of the other authorities that have put in for a casino. In doing so, they are representing their localities in the same way.
Lord Lee of Trafford: My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will be as delighted as I am at the tremendous growth in tourism in Manchester in recent years. There is no dispute in that. But does he not recognise the very clear difference between tourism as an industry in Manchester alongside many others and tourism in Blackpool, which is the dominant industry in that town?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I recognise that important point. It is also why the Secretary of State has already announced that significant regeneration resources are being released for Blackpool. We are aware that Blackpool, like a number of our other seaside towns, has had a decline in its local economy in recent years, to which we need to pay attention. But the—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way—
Lord Glentoran: My Lords, I know that we are becoming rather like the House at the other end, continually interrupting the Minister, but will he make it absolutely clear whether he does or does not accept the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, as it is printed on the Order Paper? If he does, please will he say, “Yes, I accept the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Golding”?
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government will not vote against that amendment; they will accept it. That is what we intend to do. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting my noble friend but further to this very important point, which is absolutely critical to the way a number of us will vote at the end of the debate, can my noble friend clarify two things which arise out of the question from the Conservative Front Bench, and from the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Glentoran? First, if we pass the amendment of my noble friend Lady Golding, is my noble friend saying that the casino licence for Manchester will still go ahead regardless of what the deliberations of the
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1664
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the latter would be a strange action for the Government to take. An independent panel recommended a pilot of 17, of which the regional casino is a very important feature. Therefore, of course we could not easily go ahead with a pilot which contradicted what the independent committee recommended to the Government. On the other aspect, as I indicated, it is clear that the Joint Committee, which we accept would have extremely useful work to do and might be the forum in which imperfections in the existing process could be noted and improvements to it effected, may very much strengthen the case for Blackpool. But what is before the House today is the order which gives effect to the pilot study of 17. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 1 March be approved. 12th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee and 13th and 16th Reports from the Merits Committee.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)
The Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, before calling Amendment No. 1, I have to inform the House that if it is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 2 to 4 due to pre-emption.
Lord Clement-Jones rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion, to leave out all the words after “that” and insert “this House, taking account of the 13th Report from the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee, declines to approve the draft order; considers it desirable that Lords be appointed to join with a committee of the Commons as a Joint Committee to consider the process by which a decision was reached on which licensing authority should issue the regional casino premises licence and to report by 1 June 2007; and calls upon Her Majesty’s Government to take account of the recommendations of any such Joint Committee and to lay regulations including the licensing authorities as set out in the draft order whose responsibility it is to issue the eight large and eight small casino premises licences”.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for introducing the order. He laid out the Government’s case as well as he could, but today I believe that he has been put in an invidious position by the Secretary of State failing to separate out the order into two elements—one dealing with the 16 small and large casinos and the other dealing with the so-called super-casino. I do not believe that he is well served either by the vagueness of what he is offering to his own Back Benches.
Secondly, I pay tribute to the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee—its members and in particular its chairman, the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, whom I am pleased to see in his place—which did
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1665
Why have I tabled my amendment to vary the Government’s Motion approving the regulation with the active support of my colleagues? This is very straightforward. First, it has become apparent that there are great problems with the Casino Advisory Panel’s remit as laid down in August 2005 after Royal Assent had been given to the Gambling Bill. The Merits Committee’s report has done us all a great service in this regard. Secondly, also thanks to the Merits Committee, it has become abundantly clear that there are real problems with how the Casino Advisory Panel interpreted and carried out its remit in producing its report published on 30 January 2007.
A third reason to be particularly cautious is the fact that the policy context has changed since the Government first introduced the draft Gambling Bill back in 2003, since they issued their statement of national policy in December 2004 and above all since the wash-up on the Gambling Bill prior to the previous general election.
Perhaps I may take each reason in turn. Each alone gives a reason to remit the regional casino aspect of this regulation to a Joint Committee of both Houses. We would—and I must emphasise this—have preferred the 16 large and small casinos to be the subject of a separate order which we could have supported.
First, let us take the issue of the terms of reference. These were referred to in the 2004 statement of national policy as follows:
- “the Advisory Panel will be asked to identify areas for the new casinos which will provide: a good range of types of areas, and a good geographical spread of areas across Britain. The Panel will also want to ensure that those areas selected are willing to license a new casino. Subject to these criteria, the Panel will be asked to choose areas in need of economic development and regeneration (as measured by employment and other social deprivation factors) and likely to benefit in regeneration terms from a casino”.
Later, the terms of reference changed. Neither the new terms of reference nor the previous terms were debated on the Floor of either House, although my honourable friends did attempt to put the regeneration objective in the Bill as it went the through the other place. By the time the terms were fixed, in August 2005, they were as follows:
“The primary consideration will be to ensure that locations provide the best possible test of social impact. Subject to this, the criteria will also be: to include areas in need of regeneration”—
So in each case the issue of regeneration was to play a subsidiary role. However, as the Merits Committee made clear, the key change made was to make the overriding aim of the panel to choose the site which constituted the,
It was not the site where harm was to be minimised, as the Government had seemed to promise in their statement of national policy. Nor, as the Merits
28 Mar 2007 : Column 1666
Secondly, the situation was compounded by the way in which the Casino Advisory Panel interpreted its remit. As the Merits Committee uncovered in its brief but very effective inquiry, the social impact test was actually used to exclude destination casinos. The test was highly imperfect, and the concept was clearly immeasurable at that point, but nevertheless it was used to exclude destination casinos. These, it will be recalled, were considered by the Joint Committee and many experts as giving rise to less casual problem gambling. Professor Crow, the chairman of the panel, admitted as much in his evidence to the Merits Committee. As the key was to be able to measure the social impact, the panel presumably had to choose the toughest, most deprived, disadvantaged and crime-ridden area to achieve this. It is no wonder the Merits Committee said that the CAP had treated its task like a “research exercise”.
| Next Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |