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As the noble Lord, Lord Blaker, said, Blackpool has a unique place in our social history. A combination of the electric tramway, the illuminations, the tower and the pleasure beach made Blackpool take a quantum leap in providing leisure for working people at the end of the 19th and most of the 20th centuries. But since the 1950s, Blackpool has been in decline. One consequence of the drop in visitor numbers, which is mirrored in the coastal towns report, is that the price of hotels and boarding houses goes down, as does the investment in them and the price they charge. The normal visitors stop coming and these places are populated by people on social security benefits. That distorts the figures for central Blackpool. The DSS residents of rundown boarding houses are quite a different problem from that found in east Manchester.
The problem found by all seaside resorts is how to kick-start regeneration. Nine years ago, well before the Government got their hands on this, a man called Marc Etches, who was employed in Blackpool, came forward with the idea of a Las Vegas-style destination casino. Tessa Jowell said very proudly in the House that she does not want a Las Vegas in the UK. Well, I do, and for this reason. A couple of weeks ago Tim Henman was playing in the Las Vegas tennis tournament and it will not be long before Tiger Woods and his colleagues go there for a golf tournament. Las Vegas today is one of the biggest sports centres in the United States and the centre of its entertainment industry; it is the biggest centre for conferences and exhibitions and is becoming one of the growth centres for corporate headquarters. Gambling is a minority occupation in Las Vegas.
Those of us who backed regeneration through a super-casino saw it in terms of a much broader-based regeneration. It annoys me that everybody thinks we are talking about a single building. We are talking about redeveloping something like two square miles of central Blackpool, with conference centres, restaurants and hotels. To the question, “How can that happen?”, the answer is that it has happened in other places in the world. Casinos are a catalyst—that has been proved. I went to Niagara, which showed many of the same signs of declining from its high point in the 1950s when it was the favourite destination for honeymoons in the United States. A casino has given it a new life and new occupation. Money has also been spent on a 30-mile environmental park, broadening the context. The idea that we are talking about packing zombies into closed centres is just not true.
We were talking about the expertise of the casino panel. The Blackpool master plan was backed by Sir Peter Hall, one of our great town planners. The idea has always been not to have a gambling centre but to regenerate Blackpool and get its back to its heyday as a world-class holiday destination.
We are supposed to accept the findings of the Casino Advisory Panel as holy writ, but it is worth remembering that the Royal Commission on Gambling and the Joint Select Committee produced reports which Ministers picked at but did not accept
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As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, emphasised not once but three times when he introduced the order on 30 January:
“My Lords, as I have indicated, the final decision will rest with the other place and this House”.—[Official Report, 30/1/07; col. 174.]
It has never been in any doubt that that has been the case.
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, and what she has tried to do, and to Gordon Marsden and Joan Humble, Labour MPs in the other place. They have worked hard and long to try to get some sense out of the Government; but they know the difference between a fatal Motion and what the noble Baroness has put down and that is why they accept it. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, never uses one word when 10 will do but he knows and I know that when the noble Baroness’s resolution goes through the Government can implement the licence for Manchester. If I am wrong, let him say it, preferably in a few words, and that the Government are going to wait for it—but he and I know that that is not the case.
I know that Conservative and Cross-Bench Members will be nervous about whether we are breaking conventions. When we passed the recent measure on conventions, we retained the right to say no. One time when we have the right to say no is when a committee of our House, which is a whistle-blowing committee and is supposed to look at these issues for us, actually blows the whistle. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and his colleagues. It is not the most thrilling or exciting of committees, but boy did it do its job this time—and I pay tribute to it for that. We set up a committee like that and ask it go through the painstaking task of going through piece after piece of secondary legislation, then it suddenly brings forward a stunner such as the report that the committee has made. To say that the conventions of this House mean that we cannot do anything about it would make me think hard about the worth of the merits committee. It is there to do a job and, by gum, it has done it.
As the committee pointed out, what it winkled out of the professor was that he changed the rules as he went along. As was clear by the time he had given his evidence, what the Crow review should have said was that Blackpool should not have applied—because it was working to a different context.
I do not want to detain the House too long, but I shall take up the point about the activity of Councillor Bate, a Liberal councillor in Blackpool, who seems to have got very active in recent days. I ask noble Lords to look at the list of people supporting him and particularly at the name, “Noble Organisation”, which is a company based in Gateshead. If you want to see a gambling shed, go to Coral Island on the Blackpool Golden Mile, owned by the Noble Organisation. Almost every television company that wants to show how tacky Blackpool has become starts off with Coral Island. I went there
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the question of the Noble Organisation, can he confirm that it was actually very keen on the notion of a super-casino in the middle of Blackpool on its own site, but lost interest when it was pointed out to the company that that was not the ideal position for it?
Lord McNally: My Lords, that is true, but it is also true that the company has a planning application in under the 1968 Act.
I love the town of Blackpool, but what I can see for the future is organisations such as the Noble Organisation bringing in their tacky gambling sheds. That is what Blackpool will become—forevermore vulnerable—and it will not address any of the social problems.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, asked whether I hated Manchester. I refer to my record on Manchester. I was the first consultant for the Trafford Park Development Corporation; I backed Manchester for the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games and the BBC’s relocation. Manchester has within its grasp the capacity to be one of the great regional capitals of Europe to compare with Barcelona, Milan and Frankfurt. It does not need to be diverted into something which will give it a social problem rather than what it should be doing—showing real regional leadership.
I think that the House knows where I stand on most of these things—
Lord McNally: Therefore, I shall say a few words on how we shall vote. We are talking to a very wise old House. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, that if the amendment of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones is carried, of course the Government Whips will say, “Apocalypse now; it’s all over. There is nothing else we can do. You’ve destroyed it all”. That is what Government Whips do. I was a member of a Government who were regularly defeated in the 1970s. However, we dusted ourselves down, looked at the new situation and came forward with a new proposal.
We need to be clear about two issues. First, does this House approve of the decision in favour of Manchester? If noble Lords do not, they should vote for the amendment of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. Secondly, if not Manchester, where? That is not a matter to be decided tonight but could be put before a Select Committee. That is the opportunity that the House has, and it should take it.
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The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham: My Lords, my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester is unable to be in his place today, but I am very much aware of the strong views that he and Manchester’s faith community leaders have on this matter. Their position is very clear and has been publicly expressed. They are utterly opposed, on moral grounds and on the grounds of social harm, to the siting of a super-casino anywhere in the country.
Arguing about the suitability of one place rather than another for building a regional casino misses the point. That is why Manchester’s religious leaders do not wish to collude with those who would prefer the proposed casino to be in another town or city. That would simply export somewhere else what they regard as a wholly unwelcome problem anywhere.
If, however, the proposal to build a regional casino in Manchester were to go ahead, after the most careful consideration the faith community leaders there believe that they would have a moral duty to protect the poor and vulnerable who are the most likely to be adversely affected by such gambling provision. Accordingly, they would do their utmost to ensure that adequate measures for harm reduction were put in place.
In recent years the links between the city council and the faith community leaders have been strengthened as a result of consultations and co-operation on a number of issues, including regeneration policy. Manchester is still the third most deprived authority in the country and the faith community leaders have welcomed many of the efforts made by the city council to improve the situation and to involve the faith communities. Indeed, some time before the announcement of Manchester as the preferred site for a super-casino, official consultations took place between them on the issues raised by the increase in gambling through the arrival of casinos in the city.
In his capacity as chairman of the faith community leaders, my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, in a letter to Manchester City Council, spelt out some of the issues that would need to be addressed were plans for a super-casino to go ahead. These include: first, the design of the casino, particularly with regard to the placing of entrances, to counter problems of proximity and inappropriate accessibility; secondly, the provision of education programmes, both in school and generally, to raise public awareness of the nature of problem gambling; thirdly, prevention measures, to minimise continuous and repetitive play; fourthly, adequate and effective resources for the support and counselling of those who become addicted; and, finally, realistic regeneration plans that genuinely enhance the local area. Faith community leaders are acutely aware that regeneration through the building of a super-casino cannot be taken for granted. My friend the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury has referred to that.
6 pm
It is fair to say that Manchester City Council has consistently expressed its respect for, and recognition
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This is not an issue about whether the super-casino should be sited in Manchester. This issue, as my friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester was quoted in the Sunday Times, is that gambling has,
The loss that many of us desire is the plan for a super-casino anywhere.
Lord Howard of Rising: My Lords, the gaming Bill was passed in the wash-up at the end of a Parliament and was never subjected to the full scrutiny of your Lordships’ House. Many may now be saying, “Would that it had been”, among them, no doubt, the Secretary of State, Mrs Jowell. After the 24-hour drinking fiasco, the Olympics budget fiasco and the lottery smash-and-grab raid, there is now this desperate, incomprehensible struggle to promote more gambling, even in deprived areas and irrespective of the social effects—merely, it would seem from the Budget, so that the Chancellor can tax the gains that a wealthy casino owner will make from the losses of the often vulnerable consumer. To many of us on all sides of the House, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport seems a shambles, and I regret to say that the shambles runs from the top.
All the amendments agree on one thing: so far as the process of making a decision on the super-casino is concerned, this order simply will not do. It should be reconsidered by a Joint Committee, and Parliament should then make a decision in the light of that review. These are things that a sensible Government in this predicament would have done without having been dragged at the 11th hour so to do. But now, it seems, they have, and it is to the credit of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, that, despite all the briefing by the Secretary of State that
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The whole House will be grateful to the noble Lord for his commitment that the Government will reconvene the Joint Committee to look at the super-casino decision and will pay proper heed to the amendment, and so to the findings of that committee, before making any final decision. I would like the Minister to confirm in terms that no casino licence will be issued until the Joint Committee has reported and its conclusions properly considered by the Government. If he does, it will have been a remarkable success for this House, united across all Benches in persuading a Government to listen. It is a tribute, too, to the report of the Merits Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Filkin. We are all grateful to him and to the other noble Lords who served on that committee.
On this side of the House we are more interested in the integrity of the process than in the choice of location. Of course, in respect of the regional casino, in practical terms, nothing can or will be done until the Joint Committee we have today agreed to support has reported. It is essential that the Government and the local authorities concerned take that fully into account. It would be unwise for anyone to invest in building a super-casino if it were possible that the process, the social effects and the siting might be criticised—and criticised severely—by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament.
We accept every word of the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, and accept that we are bound by it. It states that the Joint Committee must be able,
- “to consider the Panel’s report in detail before any decision is arrived at with regard to the issuing of casino premises licences”.
That can be both forward-looking and retrospective and must, in practical terms, include the regional casino licence. Given that it will take time, I ask the Minister to assure the House unequivocally that the Government will give full weight to the recommendation of the Joint Committee before deciding how, whether and where to proceed, or to assist and encourage any local authority in beginning work on a super-casino. His answer on this will, I think, affect the way that many noble Lords will vote. It would have been a travesty of the purposes of the Merits Committee if the Government had ignored its report pointing out difficulties to them.
There now seems to be general agreement that this order in respect of a super-casino must be reconsidered. It was nonsense to claim that reconsidering the regional aspect pulled down the Government’s whole gambling policy. As the most reverend Primate reminded us, a key objective must be to protect the young and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling and that this is more important than regeneration. The panel did not give due weight to that, and the Merits Committee had many other pertinent criticisms that a Joint Committee can now consider.
Though there will be a free vote on this side of the House, I join the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, and urge my noble friends to support the
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The force of the Merits Committee’s arguments should be listened to, rather than allowing a diversion into a constitutional sideshow as the noble Lord’s amendment would do. Everything that is asked for in that amendment will be secured by the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, given the Minister’s firm assurances. I will not support the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, but I support the noble Baroness. The Cunningham committee said that all Governments should pay more heed to non-fatal Motions passed by your Lordships. If, as I hope, the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness is passed, it will be a test case to see whether the Government will have regard to the Cunningham committee, the Merits Committee and your Lordships’ House. In the weeks ahead, we must all hold the Government to account and ensure that they do so.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we have had a very full debate, with every issue that one could conceive of on the order having been more than adequately covered—
Lord Greaves: My Lords, I will explain why I have risen, if I may. There was no indication that we were proceeding to winding-up, and a number of noble Lords were still trying to speak. I am aware that my views—
Lord Grocott: My Lords, as ever on these occasions, a judgment has to be made on when is a sensible time for the winding-up speeches from the three Front Benches. We have gone on for over two hours, and winding-up speeches and Divisions could take another hour. I get the sense in the House that this is a sensible time to conclude the argument.
Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, as I was saying, this extensive debate has covered all the issues on the order more than adequately. I will address shortly the
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I was grateful to the noble Lord and his noble friend who has just spoken from the Front Bench for reminding us that this House has its proper responsibilities as a revising Chamber. We are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Filkin and his committee for identifying issues relating to the order and process, which, as I indicated, the Government have appreciated. That is why we are looking forward to an additional stage with regard to certain aspects of policy process in this area, but we must be careful not to override the conventions of this House. We must recognise that the other House is debating the order, and while it is right and proper that the Government are subject to scrutiny, it would be unfortunate if it were suggested that the order should be repudiated.
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