The Tote
Debate between John Penrose and Lisa Nandy
John Penrose
I have a very short amount of time left. I will take the hon. Lady’s intervention because I have already taken one from the hon. Gentleman.
Lisa Nandy
Will the Minister at least tell us what relative weight he has given to the continuing employment of existing Tote staff?
John Penrose
I apologise. I did not mean to gloss over that and the hon. Lady is quite right to pick me up on it. I am afraid that I cannot quantify the relative weights, but the Government will apply three crucial criteria: return to the taxpayer; return to racing; and pledges on the future of staff, including those in Wigan. Those three factors will be crucial in our evaluation of the different bids. As I said, the structures of the bids are widely different, and we must calculate carefully if we are to make like-for-like comparisons.
To return to my point, we have a strong, wide and powerful range of people who are through to round 2. They are currently involved in due diligence, crawling through the books with a fine-toothed comb and ensuring that they understand all the issues. In due course, we will whittle the bidders down still further to a final smaller group, which we will endeavour to take through to completion.
The good news is that because we have such a strong field of runners and riders, we stand a very good chance—although one can never be sure of these things—of bringing this to a successful conclusion. All in our collection of bids are of high value in respect of all three of the main criteria that I just described. That is our best guarantee of a successful outcome. If we have a good choice between those three different values, we stand an excellent chance of success.