Viscount Astor
Main Page: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Horserace Betting Levy Regulations 2017
Viscount Astor Excerpts
Viscount Astor (Con)
My Lords, briefly, I welcome this order and congratulate the Government on it. I claim some very small credit for it because the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and I, in a cross-party movement, managed to persuade the Government to accept an amendment to the earlier Bill, one that had been rejected in the Commons, which allowed these regulations to be brought forward.
I note that when the regulations went through another place they were endorsed and supported by the Opposition. They were even supported by the SNP, although I am not sure your Lordships would necessarily regard that as a terribly good endorsement of any prospect. However, it gives certainty to racing and to the bookmakers. They know that we will avoid the annual or tri-annual reviews that have beset racing and various Secretaries of State. I am sure my noble friend Lord Howard will refer to that.
I always noted that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, never liked the levy. Of course, we know his interest in greyhound racing, which has never benefited from the levy. However, I saw that the Minister in another place said that the noble Lord has volunteered to chair an active mediation. Although there are no plans to introduce a statutory levy for greyhound racing, we will try to encourage more money into the sector. I hope that gives him some assurance that greyhound racing will be supported.
Lord Lipsey
I thank the noble Viscount for drawing attention to that. Of course, the reason I took this job on is precisely in order that a statutory levy is not necessary for greyhound racing and that sensible parties working in a market environment sort it out between themselves, perhaps with a little help from me.
Viscount Astor
I am sure that the noble Lord’s involvement will be very helpful to greyhound racing. I was recently at the new greyhound track in Towcester for a very successful event.
I will not say anything about the legal things as my noble friend Lord Howard will mention them. I just note that, should there be any involvement of and appeal to Brussels, after what happened today one would have thought that by the time the appeal got resolved other events might have made the whole thing unnecessary.
Viscount Falkland (CB)
My Lords, the last time many of us who are in the Chamber tonight spoke was in 2014, during the licensing and advertising Bill. Many of the topics that we are touching on today we discussed then. But as the song goes, times are a-changing. The great change, of course, took place in 1963 when the levy was born and betting shops arrived on the scene. At that time, which I remember well, when I used to gamble quite a lot—I do not now—racing and greyhound racing were the two methods by which people who liked to have a gamble could do so.
In his concise introduction, the Minister mentioned the sport of racing as having high attendance and popularity among the public. That may well be so but that is against a very sharp decline in betting on horses, which is one of the reasons why bookmakers have been extremely worried and extremely tight in responding to the levy demands. The reasons for that are quite obvious. One is the different ways in which you can bet, many of which I would recommend. If some young man came to me and asked, “What is the best and most amusing way to have a bet”, I would say, “If you had come to me 30 or 40 years ago, I would have said: go racing, take a limited amount of money and enjoy it. But I would not say that today because there are far better ways of making money out of gambling”. I would suggest snooker or tennis—all these things people gamble on nowadays. Racing is a very difficult business in which to win. I ought to know; I suffered for many years.
In fact, I had a friend at school who I used to go racing with. I used to stay with his family in the holidays. They were great racing people. Unfortunately, he became a compulsive gambler, so much so that he found himself in court for fraud, trying to make up his gambling losses. The judge said, “This is a sad day for me to have to impose a custodial sentence on someone who comes from such a good family background and has had so many advantages and a good education. It is a sad duty for me and I expect my dismay will be shared by many in court. Perhaps I could ask the accused if he would like to say anything to the court to explain how he finds himself in this position”. My friend’s answer was simple. It got a great round of laughter but it was serious. He said, “Bad information, my lord”. The thing about betting on racing is that it is entirely on information. You need good information and the only good information you can get in racing is from either the trainer or the lad—male or female—who looks after the horse. They are well protected these days, I am glad to say, by the security people who work for the horseracing association.
Nowadays we are in a different world and I am worried about the seven-year period before we have a review. I probably will not be here. Some other Members of this House may not be here in seven years. It seems an enormously long time to wait to see whether there are any satisfactory results. But you will get satisfactory results only if people go back to racing and start betting. I am afraid that I have come to the conclusion that they will not do that. The betting pound, if you like, is limited and people will choose the way in which they want to spend their betting pound. They will move to cricket. Cricket is very popular. In fact, it is the area globally in which there is the most crime—not in this country but in other countries in the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere. Most other sports here on which people gamble are generally well controlled. People bet on every kind of thing and bookmakers will give them the odds.
One thing that puzzles me, which has not come up in the debate so far, is: what about the betting exchanges? Another important change in this country was the arrival of betting exchanges, where not only could you back a horse to win but you could back it to lose, which caused a great deal of concern among people in racing because it increased the chance of skulduggery and getting the information that I referred to.
I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, as I always do. I remember his definition, which I will not repeat in the House, of the drawbacks of FOBTs, which stands for—I hate acronyms—fixed-odds betting terminals. What on earth does that mean? It means nothing at all. What in fact it refers to are casino games in betting shops, which the Labour Party decided was a good thing to do when it was in power. Each betting shop has four of these things and that is why they are still open. People are not backing horses. What the people who can least afford it are doing with the little money left in their pockets is putting it in casino machines in betting shops. There is a lot of denial about this.
I declare my position as a deputy chairman of the Racing and Bloodstock APPG, and I also belong to the Betting and Gaming APPG, but I fear that the betting and gaming group does not agree with my views on the social damage from these machines. This is a complicated area. I do not criticise the Government for bringing this in. The great thing it does—temporarily, anyway—is to bring in a flat rate of 10% with a discount for more than £500,000, if I can put it that way. It will be administered by the levy board. The endless unseemly wrangles between bookmakers and the levy board will cease. That is a good thing, and I hope it will go on for longer than I suspect it will.
I do not think that in seven years’ time the betting scene will be the same as it is now. Horseracing will continue. British horseracing has a world reputation, and the people who work in racing—in the stables and in the breeding—have a reputation which they cherish. They will find a way of surviving. They do not need an enormous amount of money, as long as there are owners, and there are people who love owning well-bred horses. You do not need a racecourse and all the money you have to pump into it. You really only need a bit of land with suitable turf on which horses can compete. We may go backwards towards the 18th century when rich people had matches with one horse against another.
I am pessimistic. I do not think I am as pessimistic as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, but we have to pay attention to him because state aid is a complicated business. When the Minister sums up, will he explain to the House, because I do not understand it, the effect of this French parafiscal decision? I have consulted my friend on the Labour Benches, the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, about this. He lives in France, so he should know, and I know the French pretty well. They have found a way of getting round European law. If they have done that, they will not be too busy making life difficult for us.
What the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, described contains a lot of sense. I am not going to bet on a fight between the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, although I know which one I would back in the long run. I hope they will not come to blows on this, but my opinion edges towards the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. We have to be very aware of the dangers of state aid.