HC Deb 20 December 1960 vol 632 cc1209-17

Postponed Proceeding on Consideration of Bill, as amended, resumed.

Clause 4.—(ASSESSMENT OF OR EXEMPTION FROM BOOKMAKERS' LEVY.)

Mr. Fletcher

I beg to move, in page 5, line 29 after "aforesaid", to insert and the accounts upon which it is based". The Amendment was put down during the Committee stage, but by arrangement with the Government was at that stage left over for more careful consideration at this stage. You will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that the effect of Clause 4 is to give the Levy Board considerable power over decisions made by the Bookmakers' Committee. The scheme of the Bill is that in the first place each individual bookmaker is responsible—

It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, stood adjourned.

Proceedings on Government Business exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Redmayne.]

Bill, as amended, further considered.

Mr. Fletcher

I was saying that the scheme is that, in the first place, every individual bookmaker shall be responsible for making a declaration and that on the basis of those declarations the Levy Board will divide bookmakers into different categories. It is contemplated that there may be some circumstances in which the Bookmakers' Committee will not be satisfied with the accuracy or veracity of a bookmaker's declaration, and it is therefore necessary that there should be some machinery to enable it to challenge that declaration.

What it is to do is not apparent in the Bill. It appears that the Bookmakers' Committee can scrutinise and examine the declaration and take certain steps to put the bookmaker in a different category only if it does not like the declaration. The object of the Amendment, which is a probing Amendment, is to find out whether it is intended that the Bookmakers' Committee should have some genuine power to exercise, some quasi-judicial function, so that it can send for a bookmaker's accounts to see whether his declaration is accurate.

Unless it has some power of that kind, it will be very difficult for it from a mere study of the declaration to see whether it is true or false. If the matter is to make any sense, it will be necessary to give the Committee power to see the accounts on which the declaration is based.

Mr. Vosper

I noted that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said that this was a probing Amendment. The Government could not accept it for reasons which I shall give very briefly.

First, the Amendment assumes that the levy categories will be determined on the basis of profit, but the House earlier decided that the scheme should not be confined to a profits basis and that it would be open to the Levy Board and the Bookmakers' Committee to provide a scheme based on the number of employees, or on the rateable value of premises, or on the number of telephones. If such a scheme were devised, it would be quite inappropriate for the bookmaker to be asked to submit accounts.

The second reason is that the Peppiatt Committee itself considered this matter and its proposal was tied to profits. Even so, it did not propose that bookmakers should submit accounts. Indeed, its scheme was deliberately framed to avoid the disclosure of accounts and profits to a committee of rivals. That would be objectionable in principle, and so a scheme dividing bookmakers into categories was devised so as to avoid submission of accounts to a committee of rivals, and the scheme proposed by the Peppiatt Committee and that envisaged in the Bill avoids the submission of actual profits, figures and accounts by the bookmaker.

There is a third objection to the Amendment, which is that the burden on the administrative staff of considering and examining the accounts of thousands of bookmakers would be almost impossible.

However, I appreciate that the hon. Member is anxious about how the scheme will work. The Board will promulgate a scheme as a result of which bookmakers will have to declare their profits in a certain category. The Bookmakers' Committee will then scrutinise those declarations and, if it has reason to believe that a bookmaker has put himself in the wrong category, it can reassess him. If the bookmaker complains against his reassessment, the matter is adjudged by the Appeals Tribunal. At that stage, it will be quite proper for accounts to be submitted and if the bookmaker chooses not to submit accounts to the Appeals Tribunal, he will be penalised in the sense that the Tribunal cannot lower his category. If the bookmaker opts out at that stage, he will be penalised.

This is the fairest scheme, but it departs slightly from the Peppiatt proposal, which, I repeat, did not envisage that accounts should be submitted. Nor does the scheme proposed in the Bill, and I would suggest to the House that, as this is a scheme in which the bookmakers will have to find the money, it will be in their interests to operate the machinery proposed in the Bill, and that it would not be in the interests of the House to require them to submit accounts.

Mr. Fletcher

In view of the full explanation which the Minister has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Renton

I beg to move, in page 5, line 29, to leave out from "and" to the end of line 34, and to insert: if, in the case of any bookmaker whose declaration is scrutinised under this subsection by the committee, the committee are of opinion that he falls into some other category than that stated by him in his declaration, then, unless an assessment notice or certificate of exemption has already been issued to that bookmaker in respect of the levy period in question, he shall be assessed to or exempted from the levy for that period by reference to that other category". This is a drafting Amendment in order to clarify subsection (3), which the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) so fairly criticised during the Committee stage on the ground that, although the subsection was clearly intended to refer to the case in which the Bookmakers' Committee scrutinises and rejects a declaration, it appeared also to deal with those cases in which, after scrutiny, it was prepared to accept it. We hope and we genuinely believe that that defect has been cured by the wording of the Amendment. I think that that wording is self-explanatory, and I will not trouble the House any further.

Mr. Fletcher

I am much obliged to the Under-Secretary. He has met my point fully and I think that his drafting is admirable.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Gordon Walker

I beg to move, in page 6, to leave out lines 10 to 12, and to insert: shall not confirm the assessment unless the tribunal is affirmatively satisfied, on the evidence made available to it, that the assessment is in all the circumstances just and reasonable". It is getting late and we do not want to delay matters, and, therefore, I will not speak at length on this Amendment, though it is one to which we attach perhaps more importance than to any other Amendment in the whole of the proceedings on this Bill, both in Committee and on Report stage. Certainly, it is one of the most important.

The purpose of it is to shift the onus of proof on appeal by a bookmaker to the tribunal from the bookmaker to the Levy Board. As the Bill now stands, if a bookmaker thinks that he has been put in the wrong category or anything of that sort by the Levy Board, he can appeal within a certain time to the tribunal. As the Bill stands, he would then have the onus of proving that the Levy Board has made a mistake. This proposal was in the Peppiatt Report, and, as I think I said on Second Reading, it shocked me very much when I saw it there. It shocks me all the more when I find that Ministers have put it in the Bill.

It does not seem to me that they can shelter under the Peppiatt Report when they have rejected a great deal of that Report, and have been picking and choosing as they like. I hope that they will not shelter, on a matter which refers to what is a principle of liberty, behind the Report of a Committee which they have rejected when they did not like it. On general principles, it is wrong that the onus should be on a person who is appealing, and in particular in this case, it seems to me that it is especially wrong, because we are giving very special powers to the Levy Board. We are giving it powers to vary or to impose taxation, and to discriminate between one class of bookmaker and another, in effect, by changing a bookmaker's category. It will have enormous powers of taxation, with no answerability to Parliament. In fact, the Government are conferring upon the Board greater powers of taxation than they would ever dream of taking, without any Parliamentary control.

If, in addition, we realise that the onus of proof is also put against anyone appealing against the Board's decision, we can appreciate what an incredible position we have put the Board into. If the Government impose taxation and somebody appeals, the onus is upon the Government to prove that that person comes into the category of taxation laid down under the legislation which, they claim, imposes the taxation. That consideration does not apply in the case of the Board. It has been given immense powers, and will be out of our control once the Bill becomes law. After that we can never again ask a Parliamentary Question about it, or raise any matter concerning it in the normal proceedings of the House.

This provision seems to be so grave an infringement of our general principles of government that I cannot believe that the Government will follow the Peppiatt Report in this respect when, in many other cases, that Committee's recommendations have been rejected. It is no defence of what the Government have done for them to shelter behind the Peppiatt Report. If they are going to do this, let them admit that they are departing from some of the chief principles upon which our law, especially our tax law, is based.

Mr. Renton

As the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) has said, this is a very important matter, because it affects the burden of proof. Even at this late hour I shall endeavour to explain the matter, without going into too great detail, although it will not be possible to give a full explanation in two or three minutes.

Mr. Gordon Walker

Take three or four.

Mr. Renton

It may take a little longer.

When a bookmaker appeals to the tribunal that tribunal has power to confirm, increase or reduce the assessment, or to grant a certificate of exemption. The two rules governing this power are laid down in paragraphs (a) and (b), and it is important to see exactly what they do. Paragraph (a) provides that the tribunal must not reduce an assessment or grant a certificate of exemption if the appellant has not afforded all the facilities which may be required for an investigation of the case, and paragraph (b) provides that the tribunal must confirm an assessment unless adequate evidence has been forthcoming that it should be varied or rescinded.

The effect of the Amendment would be to substitute for the provision in paragraph (b) a provision to the effect that the tribunal must not confirm the assessment unless evidence has been forthcoming that it was just and reasonable. The Amendment is technically defective for the purpose which the right hon. Member has in mind. As amended, the Clause would provide that the tribunal could not reduce the assessment unless it had been afforded all the facilities required, nor would it be able to confirm an assessment unless there was sufficient supporting evidence. If the appellant has not afforded all the required facilities the tribunal is forbidden to reduce the assessment by virtue of paragraph (a), and is forbidden to confirm it by the proposed paragraph (b).

Mr. Gordon Walker

It is not forbidden to confirm it; it is merely forbidden except on certain conditions.

Mr. Renton

At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman will probably agree that the only course open to the tribunal then would be to increase the assessment, because of the negative form in which the Amendment is expressed. The result, I am afraid, is therefore the reverse of what the right hon. Gentleman has in mind.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Walker

If indeed that is the case, though I took the highest legal advice, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not rest on this technical argument, because words could be found to do what I am trying to do and they could be inserted in another place.

Mr. Renton

I was coming to that. I do not think it right for Governments merely to take technical defects in Amendments and to rely solely upon them. At the same time, it would be wrong for the Government to fail to give advice to the House, with the result that a Bill would be made technically wrong. Having given the advice, I hope that the House will not accept the Amendment.

May I deal now with the purpose which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind? It would be helpful were he to bear in mind that when the Bookmakers' Committee decides to reassess a bookmaker, he has two choices. He can either accept the assessment or he can appeal against it. If he appeals, the effect is that he subjects himself to an independent inquiry, and provided that he makes available all the necessary facilities—obviously only reasonable facilities would be required by the tribunal—it is for the tribunal to decide to reduce, confirm or increase the assessment, or to grant a certificate of exemption.

If profits are to be taken as the basis of categories, the tribunal will certainly require that the accounts be audited by an independent auditor in the event of a dispute, because these things will come to the tribunal as the result of a dispute, between what the bookmaker declares his category to be and what the Bookmakers' Committee believes from its knowledge of him that it should be. The situation dealt with in paragraph (a) can arise only when an appellant refuses to make all reasonable facilities available for the appeal to proceed and the purpose of the two paragraphs (a) and (b) together is to cover the two possible contingencies and, I think, the only contingencies which can arise.

There cannot be a punitive increase in the assessment as the result of a wrong shifting of the burden of proof, which is what the right hon. Gentleman fears, merely because an appellant has refused to make available the necessary evidence. Paragraph (b) as the Bill is drafted protects him, and we feel—

Mr. Gordon Walker

Protects him from what?

Mr. Renton

It protects him by ensuring that the assessment must be confirmed unless the tribunal is satisfied that the assessment should be varied or rescinded. Surely that is protection on the wording of the Bill as it stands, and we have to remember that it is the bookmaker himself who has chosen the category and put it into the declaration that he makes. So it is he who has taken up a particular stand and, therefore, it is not unreasonable when that stand is challenged that he should provide the material for enabling the tribunal to see whether he has taken a stand on the right category. In those circumstances, I do not think it could be said that an unfair burden of proof has been placed upon him.

It would certainly be the other way round if he had in the first place been put in the wrong category by a third party, in other words, by the Bookmakers' Committee. But that is not what the Bill does. It enables the bookmaker himself to choose his own category, and if there be a dispute it is up to him to defend it. That was recommended by the Peppiatt Committee after careful thought, and we also have given careful thought to the matter. I hope that now that the right hon. Gentleman has heard the explanation, he will feel not only that his own Amendment would not be suitable, but also that no other Amendment is likely to improve upon the wording of paragraph (b).

Amendment negatived.

Clause 7.—(RECONSTITUTION OF TOTALISATOR BOARD.)

Mr. Vosper

I beg to move, in page 8, line 14 to leave out "and (4)" and to insert "(4) and (5)".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche)

I think it would be convenient also to take the Amendment: in line 20, after "State", insert: and shall hold and vacate office in accordance with the terms of the respective instruments under which they are appointed".

Mr. Vosper

Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. These two Amendments apply to the Totalisator Board the same principle as was applied by an earlier Amendment to the Levy Board, that is to say, the terms of appointment shall be stated in the instrument appointing the members of the Board.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendment made: In line 20, after "State", insert: and shall hold and vacate office in accordance with the terms of the respective instruments under which they are appointed".—[Mr. Vosper.]

Mr. Vosper

I beg to move, in line 23, at the beginning to insert: Subject to subsection (8) of this section". I hope it will be convenient, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, also to consider the next three Amendments.

All these Amendments cover the same point, which is the second instalment, the first of which was an Amendment accepted by the House earlier this evening. Members of the Totalisator Board cannot at the moment be Members of the House of Commons, but, by virtue of this Amendment, they could be Members of the House of Commons if they received no remuneration or, in the words of the last of these Amendments: the Totalisator Board shall not by virtue of subsection (4) of this section have power to pay remuneration to any member of the Board who is for the time being a member of, or nominated as a candidate for election to, the House of Commons". The Government have considered this matter carefully and come to the conclusion that, provided no remuneration is made, there is no reason why Members of this House should not be members of the Totalisator Board as previously they could be members of the Betting Control Board.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 9, line 22, at beginning insert "In".

In line 24 leave out shall have effect as if for".

In line 26 leave out from "Board" to end of line 27 and insert: are hereby repealed; but the Totalisator Board shall not by virtue of subsection (4) of this section have power to pay remuneration to any member of the Board who is for the time being a member of, or nominated as a candidate for election to, the House of Commons".—[Mr. Vosper.]