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Finance Bill

The Minister makes a fair point, and I shall come to it shortly, but before she starts criticising me, I wish to praise her further. The Government also deserve praise for assisting the bingo industry by agreeing to an increase in the number of gaming machines allowed on premises, which will be an important source of additional revenue for clubs. I welcome that. Given that those good moves have been made, many of us are extremely surprised that the Government are persisting in, as others have put it, giving with one hand and taking with the other, and pressing forward with a policy that leads to one of the softest forms of gambling being one of the most highly taxed. That strikes many of us as unfair and is likely to lead to problems, particularly if the Government's figures in the Red Book prove to be incorrect—if the High Court judgment goes against them. The Minister asks why we might support the Conservative amendment. In one sense, she is right: the amendment, which was well explained by the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), is a delaying tactic, tabled in the hope that the High Court will rule in favour of the bingo industry and not of the Government. Although I think that the hon. Gentleman is right to take a punt on that, our preferred option is to support the SNP amendment, which was eloquently explained by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie)—I like to give him credit occasionally. That amendment makes it clear that the bingo industry would be subject to a fair level of taxation. The Minister could, rightly, say that it is easy to propose a reduction in Government income, just to garner cheap popularity with bingo clubs. It is therefore incumbent on anyone making such a proposal to make direct suggestions on how the Government could recoup the loss, and I have two or three suggestions to make, which I hope the hon. Lady will consider seriously. I alluded to the basic principle of one of them when I intervened on the hon. Member for Barnsley, Central. I genuinely believe that we ought to shift to a system where the harder forms of gambling are more highly taxed than the softer forms. It is bizarre that the duty imposed on a gaming machine on which the maximum bet is £1 is exactly the same as the duty imposed on a gaming machine that has a £100 maximum bet. I genuinely believe that the Government should consider setting differential duties, especially in the light of the Gambling Commission's prevalence studies showing that those higher-stake machines have a higher level of prevalence—in other words, they are more addictive—than lower-stake machines.