Viscount Falkland
Main Page: Viscount Falkland (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill
Viscount Falkland Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Viscount Falkland
“Power to extend the horserace betting levy to overseas bookmakers
(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations amend any provision or provisions of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963 (at a time when the provisions listed in section 15(1)(a) to (c) of the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Act 2004 (horserace betting levy system) have not been entirely repealed by order under that section), the Gambling Act 2005 and/or the Gambling Act 2005 (Horserace Betting Levy) Order 2007/2159 for the purposes of ensuring that each person who holds an operating licence under the Gambling Act 2005 which authorises that person to provide facilities for betting shall be—
(a) liable to pay the bookmakers’ levy payable under section 27 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963; and(b) subject to the provisions of section 120 of the Gambling Act 2005 (as modified in accordance with the Gambling Act 2005 (Horserace Betting Levy) Order 2007/2159) if that person is in default of such bookmakers’ levy.(2) Regulations under this section must be made by statutory instrument.
(3) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”
Viscount Falkland (CB)
My Lords, in the absence of the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, I speak to this amendment, which is not brief but is logical. I hope I can persuade others it is logical that when we extend the area of tax we expect to online betting, the levy should benefit accordingly from the benefits that the bookmakers get from their increase in betting online. Noble Lords will realise that the levy fall has had a grave effect on the finances of racing. Among the causes of the fall has been the move to online betting by people who back horses and the fact that no levy comes from that source. There are all kinds of other reasons why the levy contribution has fallen. As regards the popularity of betting on horses, since the 1960s when the law effectively changed to introduce betting shops and so on, the fall has been gradual but the amount of betting has not in any way declined. It has just been spread over a wider area of gambling opportunities and is not likely to change favourably for racing in the foreseeable future.
I urge the Government to consider the logic of what I am saying. If the bookmakers find this unappetising and unacceptable, I suggest they realise that racing is threatened. The sport has existed in the form we know basically from the early 18th century. It has a worldwide reputation and its brand is unequalled. We really cannot afford that to change because bookmakers do not feel that they should contribute towards the sport from which they profit. I do not want to get any more e-mails from bookmakers, which I expect noble Lords also have been getting, saying how lovely betting shops are with their daffodils and how they are places where you can take children. Of course they are not like that.
As we all know, in those shops there are four gaming machines. They are called fixed-odds betting terminals, which is a euphemism and nobody understands what it means. They are casino machines. You can play poker, blackjack and so on. In most betting shops, they are a main contributor, if not the major contributor, to the bottom line of the bookmakers’ accounts.
I do not want to be rude about bookmakers. I did that once in the House. It was covered by what I can only call a pornographic newspaper, the Daily Sport. I had the privilege of removing the ladies in compromising positions on the front of the Daily Sport to find that my face was very large on the front of the paper under a heavy headline saying, “Falk Off!”. I have to tell you that that newspaper is displayed in a prominent place in my house. However, if noble Lords will allow me, I will say to the bookmakers through this Committee that if they do not play ball on this we will take away the machines—simple as that. The previous Government did not seem keen even on looking at the machines although, in opposition, most of the complaints about betting machines come from the Labour Party—I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, will take note of this—and I agree with them. It is no good the bookmakers saying that there is no danger to people who go into betting shops in terms of social damage from increasing their gambling habit. It is a fact that it does that, but the bookmakers deny it.
I think it will be quite some time before we get those machines removed. I see no evidence of movement on that; other noble Lords may be able to disabuse me of that. If the bookmakers do not play ball now, such is the threat to racing that we have to find ways of putting pressure on. Maybe they have suddenly had a change of heart. If they agree that they should pay a levy online, we will have to find other ways, but if they do not agree we should consider asking the Government to tell them that the machines will be removed—simple as that. Others may not agree, and bookmakers certainly will not, but that is it.
That is what this amendment is about. I hope that the Government can make an encouraging response, because the other day we all had the benefit of listening to the new head of the horseracing authority. I was impressed by his general approach. His is a fresh look at racing, because he comes from outside it. He made this important point about this wonderful sport that we have exported to the rest of the world: what other activity is there, half of which is extremely profitable, in this case the breeding industry and the bloodstock agency in particular, and the other half of which—the racecourses and the people who work in the racing industry—is having a very bad time? It is about time that the Government took steps—many of us are keen to work with them and talk to them, together with the horseracing authority—on how they can get a balanced view of that and get racing back into the position where it deserves to be and is properly funded.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, nobody is going to tell the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, to “Falk off” this afternoon because he is doing a noble thing. He sees the levy lying nearly unconscious on the sidewalk and rushes up to offer it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In that way, he offers the Committee a chance to discuss the levy and its future; I, among others, am grateful for that. However, I cannot support his amendment, and I am afraid that I am going to detain the Committee for a few minutes in explaining why.
I shall start at the technical end. It is not clear that the amendment would not constitute state aid in European terms, and state aid that would not be allowed. The recent French judgment on state aid has been much misunderstood. The Commission did not rule that the activities of the pari-mutuel in France were not state aid. It did rule, however, that it was legitimate state aid. What we have yet to determine is whether a similar ruling would apply were we to extend the levy in Britain, in the way that this suggests, to overseas betting. That judgment needs to be studied carefully and the views of the Commission need to be sought. It would be premature—indeed, I would say provocative—to seek to advance at this stage. On those minimal technical terms alone, I would not support the amendment.
A broader question is going to constitute the majority of my remarks. The Government have for some time been looking, and still are, at the future of the levy. There are all sorts of notions about the levy, from the kind of notion put forward by the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, that we should extend its scope to the whole question of a sporting levy in general for sporting betting rights, to, at the other extent—and I am about to expand on this—the abolition of the levy. All these options are rightly open at the moment and still being reviewed. The Government have lurched to and fro for rather a long time on this, and changes in Ministers have meant changes of attitude. This is certainly not something that we should rush into. The levy has been about for 50 years, and for most of that time it has served its purpose. We ought not to go into a decision about its long-term future without careful reflection and analysis of the alternatives.
Having said that, I make it clear that I am in favour of the abolition of the levy. I have been for 25 years. I first wrote a leader on this subject in the Times in 1991 or 1992, and I have consistently never changed my mind about it. The only thing is that in those days, and indeed when I came into this House, I was in a minority of one. There really was not anyone else, in this House or another place, who favoured the abolition of the levy. That is not so today. Some of the most knowledgeable people about racing in the House of Commons take the view that the levy should go. I think of Mr Robertson, the chairman of the horseracing, betting and levy group, and Philip Davies. These are all opponents of the levy. They may or may not be right—indeed, I may or may not be right—but they have a view that ought to be carefully weighed.
I am an opponent of the levy for two sets of reasons, and they consist of being an economist and a socialist. The two do go together—in some people’s minds, anyway. First of all, I shall expand on the economic case. Throughout the world, including in a lot of countries that were once communist, there is now a strong understanding of how very bad subsidies are for industries. When I look at racing, I do not see an industry that has been brought low because it has not had enough subsidy; I see an industry many of whose flaws stem from the subsidy that has meant that every time, instead of sorting out the fundamental problems of the industry, people have asked someone else to pay for them through the levy. For years we have had a situation where the bookmakers and racing were at loggerheads, because racing was seeking more money out of the bookmakers and the bookmakers were seeking not to give it to them, when they should have been working together to grow the size of the cake by looking to their mutual interests and advancing those.
The multiyear settlement this year was a tremendous step forward, and the great improvement in the climate of relations between bookmaking and racing is also an extraordinarily encouraging development. I hope, however, that it could go still further: I hope that within a year or two the levy will simply seem to be an unnecessary mechanism. I am certain that no one would cheer louder in that case than Her Majesty’s Government. An absurd situation has arisen in recent years where at midnight one night negotiations break down and a Minister of the Crown is asked to decide how much money one industry should give to another in subsidy. That beggars the imagination. If anything other than racing were involved, it would be recognised that it beggars the imagination.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I do not think I can confirm that. The Government are in thinking mode on that. For reasons I have described, a lot of work is going on more generally on the levy. I am really saying to your Lordships that the Government are cautious about adopting broad reserve powers. Many of your Lordships would be concerned about the Government reserving those powers, and we are cautious about doing so for those reasons—but we are thinking about it. I am sorry that I cannot be more exacting than that.
Viscount Falkland
My Lords, the Minister has responded in a very agreeable way, and I understand exactly what he is saying. Of course the amendment is probing. The Bill is primarily about taxation but gives us a good opportunity to discuss a number of matters that I imagine will have roughly the same kind of reaction from the Minister when he comes to them. So we are grateful for this assurance that the Government are thinking about what we have said, and we look forward to the future.
Lord Lipsey
I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount, especially as his point about the yacht-owning, horse-owning aristocrat made my point so much more eloquently than I did myself. Perhaps he has not entirely followed the full detail of my argument. I spoke as a socialist, not as a non-socialist—I am so sorry to disappoint him. I would have bought my share in Robber Baron had there been no prize money, just as willingly as I did when there was prize money. Anyway, we did not get anywhere near that prize money very often. I suggest not for one second that there should not be prize money, but that it should come about as a result of the commercial business of racing, supported by the bookmakers for commercial purposes, not by a compulsory tax on poor betting-shop customers.
Viscount Falkland
We shall discuss that outside the confines of this Room, I am sure.
The only other point I have to make is in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. I have thought of a definition of “parafiscal levy”: I think it is a soft tax. Having said that, I thank everybody for their participation in this debate, which has been an interesting one, and I hope that over the coming months we can have further discussion on it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Viscount Falkland
My Lords, I recognise the sincerity with which the noble Lord has introduced his amendment. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, who told us that he had led a sheltered life and had not seen a casino in his part of north-west Scotland and so on, I, unfortunately, did not have such a sheltered life and spent quite a lot of time in casinos, backing horses and so on. In fact, I had what I consider to be a gambling problem.
What I mean by a gambling problem is that it distracted me from my work. It made me have an overdraft which I should not have had. It caused family problems at home. It did not, so far as I know, do anything to destroy my health, but it nevertheless made me nervous and erratic from time to time. I am telling the Committee this because I think that the statistics are nonsense. The statistics are given to us by the Government, and they were given to us by the previous Government. I spoke to the Minister in charge and told him—which he agreed with; I was quite persuasive on that occasion—“What you are giving us is a figure which represents the number of people who are in treatment for a gambling problem”. That is just the tip of the iceberg because there are people like me who are on exactly the same drift towards a serious addiction.
I quite honestly do not think that self-exclusion, whether it is online or terrestrial, is generally the answer. Self-exclusion is rather like dieting. You can tell your wife not to buy any more ginger biscuits for six months and to stop you when you go to take double portions of a rather fattening dinner, but when she stops doing that you just go back. That is a characteristic of dieting. It is characteristic of heavy social drinking. You can stop it during Lent or make up your mind to stop drinking for a while but inevitably you go back. That is self-exclusion.
A self-exclusion agreement with an online company, a casino or anywhere else is the same. When the pre-legislative scrutiny committee went to France, it discussed this. France has tried self-exclusion in casinos and there is the same problem. A gambler, drinker or eater with a serious addiction can have a sincere wish one day to change their life but, unless they get proper treatment and get to grips with the problem, they will just go back to it. As I have said, a huge number of young men go to betting shops, for example. I have rather condemned the fixed-odds betting terminals to which these young men get addicted, as well as to all other kinds of betting. Often, they are young married men with small children. We got evidence of that on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee when we spoke to GamCare. Some young men have exactly the same characteristics in their addiction to gambling as people have with drugs or drink.
In a way, it happened to me, although it was not serious. I would say to my wife that I was going somewhere I was not going and I was going to a casino. That is what happens. You deceive yourself and other people. Self-exclusion may well play a useful part for some of the gambling population. However, the Government have to accept that the statistic they brandish and boast about as regards having one of the lowest levels of incidence of gambling in Europe—I think that that is the way in which it is phrased—is not true because they do not know about the vast bottom of the iceberg and the vulnerability of people. Fundamentally, before you get to the business of self-exclusion and other things, you have to recognise that some people have problems. They need to find a way of stopping their denial of their problems. It is not easy and I do not expect the Minister to give us much encouragement on this issue.
However, it is a recognised problem. Every day in every newspaper we read about people who have cheated their companies of vast sums of money. We read about accountants and all kinds of businesses, and about people who turn to shoplifting to feed their habit. I am very sympathetic to the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about gambling and he is quite right to be concerned about it, as should we all. However, we have to be able to detect it sooner. Families should be able to detect it from behaviour, as do the online companies. At Second Reading, I said that I am quite encouraged by online companies. They take great efforts to detect the behaviour of people, as now do, I think, casinos. They step in and say, “Look, you’ve got a problem and you should get it dealt with”.
Fundamentally, it is a deep problem. If you want to stop it or to reduce it, you cannot mess about with it. You must be prepared to spend money and resources on it, as we do with any other addiction, and take strong measures. There is nothing much that you can do about the real addicts except to get them into GamCare or Gamblers Anonymous. I know someone in treatment at the moment. I think I said at Second Reading that he told me that all the young men coming into his branch in Slough had become addicted to the machines, which used to be called slot machines. They are now very sophisticated and attractive pieces of technology.
The noble Lord, Lord Browne, is quite right that gambling online is more dangerous in a way because you are on your own. When you are on your own and there is no sociability attached to it, you are much more vulnerable. At least if you are playing roulette every week and people see you are losing a lot of money, they will come up and tell you to take it steady, but if you are online in your bedroom, no one is going to do that. Much more serious measures than self-exclusion have to be taken, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I am not certain whether the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, is in favour of it or against it. I was rather confused by what he was saying because he was almost indicating that we should do our best in these areas, yet doubting that that would have any effect for the better.
Viscount Falkland
I am not in favour of it generally, no. It may well be a tool for some people, but a very small minority.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
Okay, that gives a somewhat clearer impression that part of you thinks there might be some savings for life and family. Without doubt, the social problems we have heard about, including family breakdown, prison and suicide, are not only terrible personal tragedies for those involved but quite a considerable challenge for the state in terms of the cost of dealing with people with these sorts of addictions. If you can help them out of the scene earlier, I would have thought the sooner the better.
I am not going to repeat a lot of what has been said. But as we have been told, the academic Dr Sally Gainsbury has pointed out that Britain will be particularly well placed to introduce such a system through its Gambling Commission licence. Rather than having to register self-exclusion with each online gambling website, which is an impossible task, the problem gambler would simply have to register self-exclusion once to the Gambling Commission and all Gambling Commission licence holders would then be required to respect this as a condition of their licence.
If this is a possibility, let us get on with it. Let us try it. Can we be bothered to provide online problem gamblers with a credible form of self-exclusion? Are the Government and the Gambling Commission prepared to take action? Of course it will not be easy—no one is suggesting that it will—but surely now is the time to take some action and, where there are loopholes, to see if we can ensure that they are effectively closed.