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The Tote

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Gale, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) for securing such a timely debate. I do not accept any of the charges against the Government about trying to resolve the matter of the Tote. We have tried to work with the complexity of racing and betting organisations to resolve the three issues that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) raised. Before I go into detail, in the little time available, I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Turner), who have consistently supported the work force of the Tote. The likely impact on jobs and the economy in the north-west is an important consideration for me, and I hope that they have a fruitful meeting with m right hon. Friend the Prime Minister tomorrow. I shall certainly make him aware of the issues that they have raised over some time. Since becoming the Minister with responsibility for sport, I have not been short of advice about different sectors, but particularly racing. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central for admitting his responsibility for the matter over many years, which he tried to resolve in the best interests of racing. He has been a friend of racing and the Tote for many years. Indeed, he still is. It is right that he should try to come up with a solution, and I shall address the detail of his proposals. However, I am slightly concerned that he dismissed Europe rather lightly. Given that he was an architect of the European White Paper on sport, I am not sure that he has taken a consistent approach in that regard. My right hon. Friend will know better than anyone that the Government have tried to secure a sale of the Tote to racing interests. Their original intention to sell the Tote to a racing trust foundered in 2006 on the state aid ground. There were two subsequent attempts to sell it, first to a racing consortium, and then to a consortium of racing and Tote staff in 2007, but those attempts failed because we could not meet the independently assessed market value needed to allow a sale to proceed lawfully under state aid rules. As a former Minister with responsibility for competition, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield, I know that we face competition issues. It was with great reluctance that I announced on 5 March that we had exhausted all practical options for the sale of racing, and that we would prepare for an open market sale with the aim of maximising taxpayer value. I make no apology for wanting to maximise that value. The Government had previously recognised, during the passage through the House of Lords of the paving legislation for the sale of the Tote—the Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Act 2004—that a sale to racing in line with policy intentions might not prove possible. My noble Friend, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, said:"““If for some reason a sale to the trust cannot be completed, then it remains the Government's intention to sell all the securities to a third party, with half the proceeds being paid into the Consolidated Fund and half paid, under the authority of the Appropriation Act, to a body or bodies representing the interests of British horseracing. Any sale and payment will have to comply with European Union rules on state aid.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 October 2004; Vol. 665, c. WA37.]" I stand by that commitment, and we will bring forward proposals if the Government decide to proceed with a sale on the open market. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East chided me for the length of time that the matter has taken, but I want to get it right. I want to ensure that racing benefits and that we do the right thing. I was struck by the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) made about current economic conditions. As for our intentions, I have the Goldman Sachs report, which we will consider, and we hope to take a decision—