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Gambling: Casino Advisory Panel Report

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The Statement is as follows: ““With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the recommendations of the independent Casino Advisory Panel. The panel has today published its report, and I should like to thank Professor Crow and his colleagues for their work. ““Before I turn to the recommendations, I should like to remind the House of the context in which we are allowing new types of casino. Gambling is on the increase. People want to gamble, and technology allows many new forms of gambling. Existing regulation is inadequate and leaves people exposed. So, through the Gambling Act 2005, we have placed the protection of children and other vulnerable people at the heart of gambling regulation for the first time. ““Yet if I believed everything I read in the papers about the Gambling Act, I would never have introduced it. So let me make it very clear: Las Vegas is not coming to Great Britain. British casinos will be subject to new controls, the strictest in the world. ““For example, Las Vegas-style tricks of the trade will not be allowed. There will be no free alcohol to induce more gambling, and there will be no pumped oxygen to keep players awake. It will be a criminal offence to permit a child to enter the casino or the gambling area of the regional casino. All casinos will require staff trained to spot the signs of problem gambling and intervene where necessary. If they do not, they risk losing their licence. ““It was safe in the knowledge of these protections that we took the decision, in response to demand from local authorities, to allow a limited number of new casinos. Sixty-eight local authorities, representing all the main political parties, subsequently made applications to the panel. The Act allows 17 in total: one regional, eight large and eight small. Because the new casinos will be different from those we have seen before, and because we have listened carefully to the concerns of Members and their constituents, we thought it was right to be cautious. ““Now I can say this in 50 different languages, but the message would be the same: we cannot allow and will not even consider allowing any further casinos until a proper evaluation over time has been made of the effect of these 17 casinos on problem gambling, and such a decision would require a debate and vote in both Houses of Parliament in any case. ““We have commissioned a group of academics led by Lancaster University to advise on the methodology for that assessment. The baseline study will be undertaken later this year, once Parliament has approved the new areas. The assessment process will be in place in good time for the opening of the first new casino. The assessment will not be completed until at least three years after the award of the first licence. The work is in addition to the prevalence studies of patterns of gambling, which we are undertaking every three years from 2007. The benchmark prevalence study is currently under way, and the findings will be published this autumn, when the Gambling Act takes effect. The findings of the next prevalence study will not be published until autumn 2010. I therefore wish to make it crystal clear to the House that these safeguards preclude any consideration of further casinos for the lifetime of this Parliament. ““I am required by the Act to make an order identifying the local authorities where the 17 new casinos should go. So, in October 2005, I established the Casino Advisory Panel, under Professor Stephen Crow. The primary consideration for the panel throughout has been to ensure that the areas facilitate the best possible test of social impact. Subject to that consideration, I also asked the panel to include areas in need of regeneration that would benefit in employment terms from a new casino and to ensure that those areas selected are willing to license a new casino. The panel has been operating entirely independently of the Government, and I should like to place on record my appreciation for the rigour and professionalism that Professor Crow and his colleagues have brought to the process. ““This has been an open and transparent process throughout, and the views of local people have been taken into account at every stage. The panel asked local authorities to include evidence of local consultation. Local people were invited to participate in the examinations in public that were held in the seven short-listed areas. A number of areas, including Brent, Canterbury, Dartford, Thurrock and Woking, withdrew their applications to the panel in response to local opinion. A number of local authorities, such as Hackney,St Albans and Slough, have also taken advantage of new powers in the Gambling Act to resolve not to license any casinos in their area. ““After 16 months’ consultation, and having considered all the evidence available, the panel has today recommended that the following authorities should be entitled to issue a small casino premises licence: Bath and North East Somerset, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lindsey, Luton, Scarborough, Swansea, Torbay, and Wolverhampton. ““The following local authorities should be entitled to issue a large casino premises licence: Great Yarmouth, Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Newham, Solihull and Southampton. And that Manchester should be entitled to issue the one regional casino premises licence permitted by the Act. ““I congratulate Manchester and the other recommended towns and cities on their success and I acknowledge the disappointment of those towns and cities that have not been recommended. ““I received a copy of the panel’s report just this morning. Because I am also conscious of the need to maintain the integrity of the independent process that we have established, it is only fair to all the applicants that I should take the time to consider its contents carefully. I am also required by the Gambling Act to consult Scottish and Welsh Ministers. ““I am therefore announcing today that, following this consultation with the devolved administrations, I am minded to return to this House at the earliest opportunity with an order which will enable Parliament to consider the panel’s recommendations and vote on the order. The order will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and the debate will be held on the Floor of the House. This means that Parliament will rightly determine the outcome of this process. ““Gambling will always be a sensitive issue, and I understand the reservations that some Members and others have about casinos. However, I have always sought to ensure that the Government proceed cautiously, with the strongest possible safeguards and on the basis of the best evidence of public protection in the face of rising public demand. That is what we have done. ““Once again, I thank Professor Crow and his panel for the thoroughness of their work and I commend this Statement to the House””. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.