RACECOURSE BETTING CONTROL BOARD. (Hansard, 22 May 1931)

§ Mr. MORRIS

I want to raise the question of the Racecourse Betting Control Board and to put certain questions with regard to its accounts. Our opportunities of discussing this are few. The Home Secretary is not altogether responsible with regard to the activities of the Board. Unfortunately, this House thought fit to set up a Board which was virtually independent, under which the Home Secretary has very little power of control, but he has some. He has two very important powers. One is the power to withdraw his nominee on the Board. The second it that of prescribing the form under which the Board shall make its accounts and under which they shall be submitted to Parliament. Last year the Board rendered its accounts for 1929 and I assume that, as they appear here, they are in the form 2493 prescribed by the Home Secretary. I should like to ask whether the accounts this year will appear in a similar form. Last year there appeared in the accounts a sum of £466,340 15s. 7d. I should like to know if in this year's accounts that sum will be greater or less. It has been stated that it will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £2,000,000, and it has been stated in an article in the "Daily Express" that already the Board owes the banks a sum of no less than £2,000,000. That is a very serious item and the public is entitled to know what is happening. Although no money as voted by the House for the purpose, yet it is the money of the public, collected through the totalisator, which will have to pay the deficiency. I ask that question with greater reason because the article referring to the sum of £2,000,000 was apparently brought to the notice of Sir Clement Hindley, the chairman of the Board, and at least he did not deny that the sum was roughly accurate. It will be interesting to know whether the Under-Secretary of State is in a position to tell the House whether the sum of £2,000,000 is correct. If the £2,000,000 is owing, is it correct to say that it is owing to the bank, and, if so, to which bank is due? It would be rather interesting to know what the shareholders of a bank would have to say to a bank which advanced £2,000,000 to set up gambling machines in this country. This may not fall within the jurisdiction of the Home Secretary, but it would be interesting to have these facts made public with regard to expenditure. That is not all. The public are already being mulcted. Last year the revenue deducted by the totalisator for purpose of expenses was 5 per cent. They have already doubled the percentage. It is now 10 per cent. What assets have the Betting Control Board in order to meet this liability? Last year they themselves felt that their accounts were not presented in a very correct form because in the report, in page 53, they say: The accounts consist of a balance sheet and a relative statement giving particulars of the expenditure on development and preliminary work. The period has been mainly one of development and such totalisator operation as was possible on the limited number of racecourses which could be equipped with necessary buildings took place intermittently. Consequently no attempt has been made to provide an operating or 2494 trading account such as will be prepared in future years when the organisation is completed. There was no attempt made last year to provide operating and trading accounts as will be seen when one turns to the accounts. No less than £408,453 15s. 8d. is accounted for in the form of equipment, salaries, development and other expenses. There is no account of the items involved in the expenditure. Will such items of expenditure be shown in this year's accounts? Will the amount of contracts entered into by the Race course Betting Control Board be shown, and with what company or companies? There was a company with whom a contract in the neighbourhood of £250,000 was entered for the supply of machines. That company at the time the contract was entered into had no machines. One of the directors of the company was a man engaged in a totally different business. He was a manufacturer of embroidery. Another director was a dealer in antiques, and another was a former Member of this House. There was not one director who knew anything about electrical engineering. Is there anyone on the Betting Control Board with any knowledge of electrical engineering? If there is, how comes it about that £35,000 was paid by this Board to a man for setting up a totalisator on Hurst Park which did not work the very first day it was put up?

The public have a right to know these things and it is not fair to have the accounts lumped into one item. Is it true that the chairman is paid a salary of £5,000 or £8,000, that the managing director gets £2,000, and that the secretary gets a salary of something like £1,200, and that there are a number of directors at salaries ranging from £500? It is all the more obligatory that returns should be made in detail because in the last report it was stated that the return in a full year would be made when they had completed the programme. Sir Clement Hindley said they had completed 80 or 90 per cent. of the programme and we can, therefore, look forward to seeing detailed statements this year. Parliament is a kind of public trustee in this matter. The Home Secretary may have no power to interfere, but if that is the real state of affairs, it is time that the Home Secretary withdrew his nominee and that other Government representa 2495 tives were withdrawn from the Board. There are five Government representatives on the Board, and it is high time that they were withdrawn.

When the Board was set up by the House it was on the assumption that totalisators could not be used on race courses in this country without special statutory authority. A recent decision of the Divisional Court has made it clear that totalisators can be used upon race courses other than horse racecourses without any statutory authority at all to set up a totalisator. If that be so, why do you have this august body, with five Government representatives out of 12, to administer anything which a private company could do at any time? For these reasons, I think that the accounts should be audited in detail, and if the details are not given, the Home Secretary should demand a full disclosure of the true state of affairs.