---

The Tote

I obviously have not explained myself clearly. We should put the shops into the for sale category and put Mr. Mike Smith in charge, as he is extremely skilled in taking such things to the marketplace. If his judgment is that we should not sell, we should not sell. However, that should not preclude us from decoupling the rest of the Tote from the sale. We can put the shops into a package and ask Mr. Smith to sell them when he thinks it right. That might be in 12 months, 18 months or whenever, but the only reality is that 50 per cent. of the profit will go into a racing trust at some stage. We can take the decision to decouple now, leaving the shops where they are if that is the judgment of the experts in the marketplace, which I am not. If they say, ““Do not sell””, we should not sell. We should keep the present arrangements until those people decide that it is time to sell, but that should not preclude us from setting up the Tote, the credit line and the internet parts. That will stop the haemorrhaging, so we will be able to start building the Tote nationally, and we will be able to take advantage internationally, which is most important. The two are not mutually exclusive. We should set the shops apart, leaving them and not flogging them until they can achieve the best market return. It is for others to decide when that is; it will not be my judgment. However, it will bring stability back to the Tote. I predicate my argument on the basis that we should live up to commitments given in two manifestos. I do so because when I go to church club on a Sunday night I know that the people I represent believe that the Tote is an institution that should be kept within betting. It is the right product for the betting arena. It gives more competition, but it is a type of betting where people bet against themselves, because after a cut their return is the total pool.