Horse Racing

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I do, and I will come on to that point, because it is at the nub of how we ensure that we have a flourishing industry while taking into account the impact of gambling-related harm, which the hon. Gentleman knows is a matter close to my heart. However, it is possible to have policy that leads to a flourishing horse racing industry and the sport doing well that is symbiotic with that. That is what we need to achieve, and I have some suggestions for how we get there.

Newmarket, of course, is the centre of flat racing not just in this country but in the world, and is home to more than 3,500 horses in training. The number of horses in training there grew by 10% before the pandemic, despite falling numbers across the UK. One in three local jobs in Newmarket is related to racing, and 28% of all flat-race or dual-purpose horses in training under licence in the country are trained there. In fact, the success of the racing industry is providing jobs and improving livelihoods throughout West Suffolk, and I know from other Members who have significant parts of the racing industry in their constituencies—my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), who represents the Cheltenham racecourse, is present—that the livelihoods and the jobs, as well as the joy, that come from the sport are paramount.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Let me first draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that it is important to allow racecourses to recover from the pandemic, and that any talk of vaccine passports would hit the sport very hard indeed?

[Matt Hancock]

My hon. Friend has made his point very clearly. Thanks to the vaccine, we have been able to reopen racing after more than a year in which there were no crowds—and for 11 weeks in 2020, it was closed altogether. It is thanks to the vaccine that the crowds are back, and long may they remain so. I will avoid the particular issue of the passports question; I know that my hon. Friend feels very strongly about it, and perhaps it can be the subject of the next Adjournment debate.

Let me pick up the economic point that my hon. Friend has raised. Nationally, aside from its contribution of about £4 billion a year to the UK economy, racing as an industry has acted as a bridgehead for significant trade with and investment in the UK. I really want to land this point. Examples include massive investment in business, property and universities by investors who come to the UK because of our racing. As we work to build an outward-looking, international, free-trading global Britain, that investment is vital. In this mission, soft power is incredibly important, and when it comes to soft power, there is little more powerful than horse racing. Through the sport’s historic connection to what could be described as our oldest and most important soft power asset, the monarchy, countries and investors around the world are eager to see and invest in horse racing here in the UK. Our horses compete around the world, are watched on television around the world, and are loved around the world. For instance, Royal Ascot and the Grand National are broadcast to nearly 600 million people in 200 countries annually. We must safeguard and cherish this national treasure. We must not allow horse racing to fall behind in Britain.

Like many industries, racing has been hit significantly by the pandemic. We know that the lockdowns saved lives, and that without them we would have suffered much more, but we also know—and I know—that forcing businesses to close had a significant impact on our economy and on many industries. As I said earlier, in 2020 racing was closed for more than 10 weeks. Thanks to the vaccine, it has been able to reopen, but it is estimated that it lost between £400 and £450 million in revenues. I pay tribute to the Minister’s Department, to the policy officials, to Mark Hicks, the private secretary—he was my private secretary, and an excellent one at that—and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for implementing one of the most generous and successful support packages in the world. From speaking to my constituents, I know that without the furlough scheme and the £21 million of funding in the sport winter survival package, the racing industry, and all the jobs of those who work in racing, would have been wiped sideways.

In spite of that great work, however, we still have a significant problem as we come out of the pandemic. Prize money—which is the lifeblood of the industry, enabling owners to generate a return on their investment—has fallen by 20% from 2019 levels. Sales of horses have fallen by over 20%, and more than 60% of major breeding operations are reporting declines in turnover. If we do not take action now, we will be overtaken by countries around the world as the global hub of racing, and we must not let that happen.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

First, I urge the hon. Lady to look at the figures published this morning, which show that the majority of tests when done in person are now turned around within 24 hours across the country, and capacity has increased radically. What I would ask of her for the future, to help the north-east get out of tier 3, is to work with her local councils, with the directors of public health, to embrace the community testing that has been effective in Liverpool. If they are up for doing that—it has to be in consultation and conjunction with the local council, because they know the area—I very much hope that they will come forward to pick up the baton and make that happen.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con) [V]]

This is not an easy question, but how will the Health Secretary take into account the wider mental and physical health implications for people who are prevented from living their lives as they would wish to live them?

[Matt Hancock]

We look as much as we can at taking the impacts into account. For instance, the mental health of people under lockdown is of course more challenged than in normal circumstances. We balance that against the impact of covid both directly and in filling up the hospitals on the healthcare that we all get for all the other conditions that exist. It is a difficult balance to strike. On the particular impact on mental health, which my hon. Friend raised, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has done very interesting work to understand the nuanced balance between the impact of covid on people’s mental health and the impact of lockdown. Both are significant and I commend its work to him.

Coronavirus

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Tuesday 15th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to meet the campaign. Of course I have seen the reports. I feel very strongly about this. We have worked very hard to get through the backlog, and we are making progress against that backlog. Nevertheless, I am happy to look at anything we can do to speed that up, so I look forward to listening to the details of what we can do.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, sporting venues are suffering financially because of the restrictions, and it does not help when planned pilot events are cancelled at the last minute. Who takes the decisions on whether to allow pilot events to carry on—is it done centrally, locally or a combination of both? There is a feeling that there is some confusion.

[Matt Hancock]

My colleague the Culture Secretary is responsible for the programme of pilot events. For a pilot event to go ahead, it needs both the support of the local council and to have been advised as covid-secure by Public Health England. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport takes the lead. As the MP for Newmarket—one of the four towns in my constituency relies on sport, as do the livelihoods of thousands of my constituents—of course I understand the impact, in exactly the same way that my hon. Friend does, as the MP for Cheltenham racecourse. I speak a lot to the Culture Secretary and the Prime Minister about this subject. I hope that we can get as much going as fast as possible, but safely.

Coronavirus

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Lady asks an important question. We have been increasing funding to mental health services, which are an incredibly important part of the response. Our mental health services, certainly across England, the area for which I am responsible, have risen admirably to the extraordinary challenge presented by coronavirus and I pay tribute to their work.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I represent a number of aerospace manufacturing companies; the whole sector is currently very hard hit and is particularly worried about the impact of the 14-day quarantine. The Secretary of State will know far better than I, but is it not possible to do very simple temperature checks on people as they come into this country?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Matt Hancock)]

It is the goal of the Department to support everyone to live longer, healthier lives. I will be working right across the health and social care sector to deliver the goal of five years of extra healthy life for people in the UK. In doing that, I am delighted that we will now have on the ministerial team the enthusiasm and assistance of the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy).

[Mr Robertson]

In achieving those goals, the Secretary of State will be concerned that while many patients can obtain GP appointments for emergency cases on the same day, quite a lot of people have to wait three or four weeks for non-emergency appointments. Can the Government do anything to improve that situation?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. We are acting to make sure that there is better access. We have a review of access to primary care. But, more than that, the biggest increase of the £39.9 billion of extra taxpayers’ money that we are putting into the NHS is in GP access, primary care and community care to make sure that we get ahead of the curve and help people to stay healthy rather than just treat them in hospital.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the take-up of apprenticeships.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

There were 520,000 apprenticeship starts in the academic year 2011-12. That is almost double the number in 2010. Our priority is to make apprenticeships both widely available and the very best quality, rooting out poor provision and enforcing a minimum duration. As we speak, 750,000 people are on an apprenticeship, which is a record: it is more than at any time in our history.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response. As he knows, I have a lot of engineering companies in my constituency, the largest being GE Aviation, which has more than 100 apprentices. Nevertheless, those companies find it difficult to recruit young people. Is the Minister satisfied that schools have adequate incentives to promote the concept of apprenticeship schemes, and will he consider awarding them recognition status marks for each apprenticeship that is taken up?

[Matthew Hancock]

We introduced a new duty on schools to provide independent and impartial advice in September, and Ofsted is looking at, and will report on, how well that is being implemented. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who brings together companies in his constituency to promote skills and working together, so that even though companies compete locally and nationally with their products, they come together on the skills issue to make sure that they give new skills to young people, rather than poaching from each other.

Horse Racing (Funding)

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams, and to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe), who works so very hard to try to resolve what are extremely difficult issues. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock) on introducing this important and timely debate, and thank him for many of the things that he said.

I want to declare two non-declarable interests. I am joint-chairman of the all-party group on racing and bloodstock industries, along with the hon. Member for Mansfield (Sir Alan Meale), whom I am pleased to see present. With respect to other Members, I also have the honour of representing what I consider the greatest race course in the world—Cheltenham race course, where each year we have the world-famous Cheltenham gold cup. That is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, steeplechases in the world. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister is a holder of one of those gold cups. I know that it is not the tradition of Government to have people who know what they are doing in post, but he is a very welcome exception to that rule.

I can only really endorse a lot of what my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk and others have said. In this country, we have what is probably the greatest racing in the world. It is certainly up there with the best, if not the actual best. As the hon. Member for Bradford South said, we had the most fantastic spectacle at Haydock on Saturday, when Kauto Star won against all expectation, providing such excitement in the world of horse racing and in the world of sport. Last year, Tony McCoy—AP McCoy—won the BBC sports personality of the year because of his exploits, yet all that gets overshadowed by the constant wrangling about funding and the constant falling out over the levy—not just the level, but the details.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk, who said that that is one of the best reasons for getting rid of the levy. It is divisive. It pits bookmaker against people in racing, whatever racing means in that respect. The levy was finally decided at quarter to 12 on the night of Halloween, which made for an unedifying spectacle. This is a very outdated and impractical system. As has been said, it has also delivered falling revenue. As the hon. Member for Mansfield said, that is important in many respects, not just for prize money, although it is significant with regard to prize money. Prize money is not everything, but it does filter down and find its way to trainers, jockeys and stable staff. It is extremely important not just so the rich can get richer, to coin a phrase, but so that those who work at the bottom can continue to work in the sport. Therefore, it is important to find a better funding mechanism, if mechanism is the right word. I will come on to that.

The principal point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk was about how overseas operators are avoiding paying the levy. I do not object to anything he said, but I have quite a bit of sympathy with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). We have to analyse why people have gone abroad. It is not just because of the levy. To draw a brief analogy, I have the honour of chairing the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and one recent proposal was for the Northern Ireland Assembly to have the right to set a corporation tax that would be attractive to companies and businesses, compared with corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland. The tax is 12.5% in the Republic and 26% in the UK—a bit of a no-brainer when thinking about where to put a factory or business. We should explore why companies have gone abroad in the first place and consider having the kind of tax regime that attracts them. That is not just about bookmakers; I could expand that argument to all sorts of other businesses, especially in the competitive world in which we live. I therefore hope that that point will be considered.

I have no objection to the proposals that my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk made to the Minister, nor indeed to the considerations that the Minister is making, but we ought to think about why businesses went abroad in the first place. The constant pursuit of the exchanges is not healthy for the sport, or indeed for bookmakers, at this point. If we are talking about a levy replacement, let us get on with replacing it. Let us not get on with trying to tinker with the existing levy arrangement. If we do that, all we will end up with is levy mark 2—a similar arrangement to the one we have now, but called something else. I want us to move on from that.

How do we find the future funding for horse racing? That will not be particularly easy. If it were easy, the problem would have been solved a long time ago. We have heard a lot about a commercial solution. In terms of name and concept, I am all in favour of that commercial solution, but I am a little concerned that some of the proposals are not a commercial solution at all, but a rerunning of the levy. We need to avoid that.

There has been a call for any arrangement that is designed and agreed to be underpinned or guaranteed. We have to be very careful over how we go about that. Are we talking about underpinning through legislation? If we are, we have not really moved on much from where we are now. Indeed, we could find ourselves up in the European Court in relation to state aid rules. My view on state aid is that we are an independent country with a Parliament here, and we should do as we will. I would not bow to—[Interruption.] I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley would agree with me on that point. However, we are where we are at the moment, although we may change those rules in the future, and we do not want to fall foul of state aid rules. Any solution that we reach must be compliant. If the Minister will allow me to say so, we were rather too obsessed with state aid rules when it came to changing the status of the Tote—we gave them far too much credibility—but there is an issue here, no question about that.

[Matthew Hancock]

On the question whether a transfer should be underpinned by legislation, would it not be better in the long term to have it underpinned by contract—by agreement—based on, for instance, a racing right or sports betting right? That could be the basis of a commercial agreement. However, is it not important in the short term to solve the offshore problem, so that we have an appropriate basis from which to go forward to a truly sustainable position?

[Mr Robertson]

Just as many hon. Members anticipated my hon. Friend’s next statement, he has anticipated mine. The arrangement has to be consolidated and underpinned by the civil law, rather than by legislation. I entirely agree with him for a number of reasons, and the state aid issue is one. Another is that, if we are going commercial, we are going commercial—that is the way we should go. I understand his point. We have to bring offshore companies back onshore, but I would prefer to explore that through the way that I have described—perhaps by making it attractive for companies to do business in this country. We may need to go a little further than that, but it should certainly be explored.

On coming up with the commercial solution, I am not entirely convinced that the Government should decide the replacement for the levy. The Government have proposed three options, although I do not suppose that they are the only options that they would consider. However, there are other options that are perhaps not for the Government, but for racing and bookmakers, to put in place.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley talked about the increase in media rights. I understand that over the next year, from 2011-12 to 2012-13, they will increase by 26%. That could be considered different from the levy, but when an owner gets his cheque for £5,000 or £10,000, I do not think he is too concerned whether that has come from media rights, race courses, the levy or wherever; he is concerned about the size of that cheque. The whole cake is the important thing, not necessarily which particular segments have come from where.

Offshore Gambling and the Horseracing Levy

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend raises an important question. Betting exchanges should of course be brought onshore as part of the creation of a level playing field. We must also address the question of what constitutes a bet, for tax and levy purposes. I strongly believe that when two people interact to make a bet, that is a bet. We should go forward on that basis.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this issue. As he knows, I represent Cheltenham race course, which I would argue is the greatest race course on earth, especially in the national hunt field. He is absolutely right to say that the levy is broken and needs to be replaced. Does he agree that its replacement, whatever it might be, should be based on a commercial arrangement so that there can be no room for manoeuvring or slippage? Should it not be a purely commercial arrangement, perhaps between bookmakers and race courses? Does he have that in mind as the best way forward?

[Matthew Hancock]

The future of the levy should be based on a commercial arrangement so that the Government do not constantly have to get involved, but that commercial arrangement must be based on the sale of a right to bet on a race. Otherwise, racing will be putting on something for nothing, and the gambling industry will be making a profit—which I support—using the input from racing for which it is not paying. So long as such a commercial arrangement was based on a contract relating to the sale of a right, I would support it.

Resolving this issue is critical to ensuring that we can build the future of racing on a sustainable foundation, so that this vital sport can be fully and properly funded and the people who run it and work in it can know that it has a strong, long-term future. In the name of racing, and of all those whom I represent and who support me, I urge the Minister to act.

The Tote

Debate between Matt Hancock and Laurence Robertson

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. I will touch on that in a moment.

As I said, the taxpayer has never put any money into the Tote and therefore does not deserve any money out of the Tote. Having said that, I fully understand the difficulty that the Minister and his Department may face, because over the years we have seen the Treasury grow in strength, and it wants some money out of this process. However, a bid from a Tote foundation may qualify to be one of the best bids that it could take up, for some of the reasons that have been given. A Tote foundation would of course continue to employ staff, and therefore continue to have a pension liability. It would continue to be responsible for any debts that the Tote may have. All that has to be put into the melting pot. An undiscounted cash payment could be made. If the Tote is to continue as a foundation, or as the Tote organisation, and continue, year on year, to pay money to horse racing, there is no need for the 50% sum to be given back to horse racing because it would be getting something far more valuable—the ongoing amount each and every year. That is extremely important.

[Matthew Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this extremely important debate at this crucial time. As he well knows, in my constituency about 5,000 jobs in and around Newmarket are connected with the racing industry. Does he agree, especially given the history of this issue, that the crucial element is the contribution that is made to racing? I strongly agree with his view that an ongoing contribution to racing is vital in terms of the future of the Tote, and that whatever choice of bidders is made, an obligation for a contractual support of the future of racing is required.

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is the crucial element. If there is one message that I would like the Minister to receive tonight, it is that we have to be certain of the ongoing contribution. We cannot be certain of it if the highest bidder is simply accepted. Under certain circumstances, we would not even be sure that the Tote would continue to exist as an organisation, because bits of it could be sold off. It is only through this process that I have come to understand what is meant by embarrassment clauses. That is how the Government might ensure that once the Tote is sold or transferred to another organisation or company, it will not asset strip it, sell it the next day and make a massive profit, or cause it not to survive as an organisation.