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Written question asked by Lord Swire (Conservative) on Tuesday, 4 July 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 6 July 2006. It was answered by Richard Caborn (Labour) on Monday, 17 July 2006 on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Casinos

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport when (a) Ministers and (b) officials have held meetings in the last 12 months with casino operators interested in securing licences under the Gambling Act 2005; where each meeting took place; and what was discussed.
Answer

Under the Gambling Act 2005, local authorities acting in their capacity as licensing authorities will be responsible for issuing the one regional, eight large and eight small new casino licences permitted by the Act. Licensing authorities will be required to run the competitions for these licences in a fair and open way. These competitions are not expected to begin until mid-2007, and the identities of the bidding companies will not be known until then.DCMS Ministers and officials have met frequently with casino and other companies that may be interested in bidding, and their representative bodies. These meetings have covered all aspects of the implementation of the Gambling Act and wider gambling policy, and are part of our regular and ongoing consultation with the gambling industry, local authorities and other stakeholders. Those meetings that have been identified that have taken place since 1 January 2006 are listed in the following table, and all these meetings took place in the UK.

Date DCMS Minister and/or official(s) present Who attended the meeting
18 January 2006 Richard Caborn Rank Group
6 February 2006 Official(s) British Casino Association
7 February 2006 Official(s) Representatives of the gambling industry, including British Casino Association and Casino Operators' Association
10 February 2006 Official(s) Rank Group
21 March 2006 Official(s) British Casino Association
11 April 2006 Official(s) Representatives of the gambling industry including the British Casino Association
20 April 2006 Official(s) Overseas casino operators including Ameristar, Kerzner International, MGM Mirage
10 May 2006 Official(s) British Casino Association
15 May 2006 Official(s) Representatives of the gambling industry, including British Casino Association and Casino Operators' Association
18 May 2006 Official(s) Rank Group
23 May 2006 Official(s) London Clubs International
24 May 2006 Richard Caborn and official(s) British Casino Association

Details of earlier meetings that may be relevant were included in my reply of 20 December 2005, Official Report, columns 2654-6W to the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss).One further meeting has been identified, which was inadvertently omitted from my earlier reply: DCMS officials and I met Detlef Kornett, Managing Director of the Anschutz Group in London on 7 July 2003. The minutes of this meeting were published on the DCMS website as part of a response dated 26 July 2005 to a request made under the Freedom of Information Act.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
83371; 449 c94-5W
Session
2005-06
Related items
Subjects
Casinos Licensing
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk