GAMING BOARD FOR GREAT BRITAIN (Hansard, 18 October 1968)

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

§ Mr. Speaker
The Amendment to the Lords Amendment is not selected, but hon. and right hon. Members who have signed it may speak to the first Lords Amendment.

§ Mr. Morgan
The object of the Lords Amendment is to make it clear that, in addition to the particular responsibilities assigned to the Gaming Board by the Bill in respect of licensed and registered clubs and other functions, such as certification of gaming operatives and machine retailers, the Board would be expected to keep under review the extent and character of gaming of all kinds throughout the country. The Amendment is of particular value in its impact on Clause 50, which is the Clause dealing with the annual reports to be made by the Board to the Secretary of State for presentation to Parliament.
In these reports, the Board is required to account for the performance of their functions", and now for the function of reviewing gaming as a whole.
The Board will be expected to include in its reports a general conspectus of gaming both in relation to licensed and registered clubs and more widely so as to touch, for instance, on the use of gaming and amusement machines, gaming at charity fetes and non-commercial entertainments and on amusements provided at fairs and pleasure grounds under the 1963 Act. A comprehensive account of this kind would be of considerable value to 741 Parliament and all concerned with the social aspects of this subject. It will provide a setting against which the working of the individual controls can then be judged.

§ Mr. Antony Buck (Colchester)
The Lords Amendment emanates from an Amendment moved in another place by the noble Lord the Bishop of Chester, and I hope that I shall not be considered unduly presumptuous if, at this stage, I say that on both sides of the House we have very much welcomed the help which we have received from the Churches in the whole consideration of gaming. The Churches Council on Gambling has produced some of the most useful material which we on this side of the House have received and I think that the Government themselves have been in close touch with that Council. This is another useful example of the work which it has been doing.
The Amendment makes it entirely clear that the Board is to be charged with the duty of effecting an overall review of the whole national gaming picture and, under Clause 50, it will be charged with providing an annual and compendious review of the whole situation.
Because of the Amendment, this report will be somewhat akin to the annual report of Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary relating to police affairs and the overall state of crime. But there are differences. One of the differences is that the overall review made by the Inspector of Constabulary is made by a person who has spent years in combating crime and who is steeped in police affairs. Because of the appointment of Sir Stanley Raymond, it cannot be said that this will be the case in 18 months' time.
We have grave misgivings that someone whose distinguished service has been entirely in transport has been given the job of being charged with the overall review of gaming. It is difficult to acquire knowledge about this subject. Sir Stanley will have to deal with some of the most difficult people in the world, because people will try to cash in on gaining in this country and he will have a very difficult task, especially as a result of the Amendment, which charges him with the overall review of gaming. We have misgivings because he is totally 742 without experience of gaming, and a lifetime's distinguishd service in transport is not, in our view, an appropriate apprenticeship for the man who is to be the first chairman of the Gaming Board. However, it is entirely correct that the Board should be charged with the overall review of gaming.

§ Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies (Isle of Thanet)
I was particularly sorry that you, Mr. Speaker, were not able to select the Amendment standing in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chertsey (Sir L. Heald) and myself, to disagree—

§ Mr Speaker
Order. If the hon. Gentleman reflects for one second, he will understand why the Amendment was not selected.

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
I was not intending any criticism of the decision in the slightest. I think that you, Mr. Speaker, know me well enough to realise that.

§ Mr. Speaker
May I help the hon. Gentleman. He seeks in his Amendment to disagree. He is entitled to seek to disagree on the Motion before the House.

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
I appreciate that entirely. I disagree and, what is more, many of my hon. Friends disagree. I venture to think that practically all of my hon. Friends will disagree when they have heard what I wish to say.
I know perhaps better than most what was the purpose and intention of a Gaming Board, because the original suggestion came from me. I investigated very carefully all the matters which led to the setting up of the Board, its ideas and the concept behind it before putting forward the various schemes which later were elaborated and substantially adopted by the Government.
The purpose of the Board is to carry out the administration of gaming. The purpose of Parliament is to decide what we want in Britain with regard to the extent and character of gaming. This is a Parliamentary function. It is not a function to be delegated to the Gaming Board. The idea of the bishop who dealt with this matter in another place was completely misconceived purely through lack of political knowledge of the situation.
743 The matter was perfectly well set out before in Clause 10. The Board was enjoined to carry out its proper function, namely, to keep under review the extent, character and location of gaming facilities … The Amendment in another place imposes a duty on the chairman and the members of the Board to keep under review the extent and character of gaming". In other words, they are to report on matters of morality and practice and to consider the character and quantum of gaming. If they are to do that, no doubt they are to give their own personal opinions.
11.15 a.m.
It is not sufficient for my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) to say that we have apprehensions about this matter. Apprehensions are nothing. The gentleman whom the Home Secretary has seen fit to appoint to carry out this task has acknowledged that his concept of a "flutter" is the movement of a female skirt. He does not know what a "flutter" is. From beginning to end, when this matter was debated, we made it only too plain to the Home Secretary that the man appointed to execute the necessary gaming facilities should have breadth of vision and a considerable general knowledge of the world and, in particular, of gambling.
If ever there was a clear case in which a political appointee should not have been a party political appointee, this is it. Plenty of hon. Members opposite, even if this had been a political appointee, might have asked the former Member for Dudley, Lord Wigg, for his opinion about whom might be suitable for the appointment. I am sure that he could have assisted in ensuring that it was someone who had at least the mere elements of a knowledge of gaming.

§ Mr. Buck
Or the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget).

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
No doubt he could have assisted them in this matter, too.

§ Dr. Reginald Bennett (Gosports and Fareham)
That would have meant a by-election.

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
Yes—a by-election which I am sure would have been very 744 happy for hon. Members opposite in one sense, but perhaps not in another.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order.

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
I accept the implied rebuke. Mr. Speaker.
The country is full of eminent men in commerce, agriculture and other walks of life who have a considerable knowledge of the broad ambit of betting and gaming. Unfortunately, one cannot just be tutored in these matters. A knowledge of gaming is something which is built up from experience over the years. I am sure that those who have recently been associated in the efforts of the Churches recognise how difficult it is to understand the follies, mistakes and evils of this subject.
It is a tragic error that the job of chairman of a Board which is to be given for the first time in Parliamentary history completely autocratic powers should have been landed in the lap of an ex-railway chief who does not have the support of all parties in the House or of the country, and that he. having frankly admitted, as one would expect him properly to do, that he had absolutely no knowledge of this subject and must, I think, by implication have said, "Why have you chosen me? I am quite unsuited for this purpose", should be persuaded by the Home Secretary, no doubt against his will, to undertake this task. I say "no doubt against his will" because I assume in his favour that an honourable man would point out the very limited assistance which he could be in this matter.
I should like to divide the House on this Amendment, albeit on a Friday morning, although I hasten to add that many others would not wish to do so, and I do not propose to do so. I cannot see what value there will be next year in having a report from a Gaming Board headed by this chairman with a total absence of understanding or knowledge of gaming, but we will do our best to try to make him understand what it is about.
I greatly hope that we shall have a first-class deputy chairman appointed. This is essential, because this Board will obviously be run by the deputy chairman. Therefore, let us see a person with no political bias appointed. I do not ask for a Tory, Liberal or Labour appointee. I merely ask that it should be a man not 745 only of wisdom, but a man of the world with a thorough going knowledge of racing, betting and gambling facilities.
Let it not be said that there are not many such people about. There are plenty to be found in this country who have had knowledge of this matter throughout their lives. Indeed, there are such men who have served on one side or the other in this House.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member must come to the Amendment which seeks to add "gaming" to "gaming facilities".

§ Mr. Rees-Davies
Yes, Mr. Speaker.
The whole essence of the argument is: what is the purpose of having a Board to tell us about the character and the extent of gaming unless we can respect the opinions and views of the precise people on the Board when they express them next year? If we could be certain that we had a first-class Board, the best that could be expected, with specialist understanding, its recommendations would be worth receiving. In my judgment, the Government, having taken these powers at the express request of the Opposition, have clearly let us down by not appointing the sort of person in whom we could put our trust to carry this Board into effect and to carry out the first truly autocratic Measure in Parliamentary history.
I do not suggest that the present chairman or the Board will not do their best. But it is very difficult in this sphere to decide, for example, who shall or shall not receive a licence, who is the right type of operator, without having a considerable understanding of and sympathy for the industry. How can a man have sympathy for the industry when he has never in his life had a flutter?

§ Dr. Bennett
I support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), although I would moderate my support of the latter to this extent. I see no objection to the Amendment—in fact, I find it quite praiseworthy—in that it adds the extent and character of gaming in Great Britain to the total responsibilities of the Gaming Board, which is an utterly desirable development. This is in line with what I and my right hon. and hon. Friends in Committee were pressing for.
746 Throughout the long Committee stage upstairs we on this side took a very clear line devoted to make the responsibilities of the Gaming Board greater and the perhaps capricious interventions of local justices less in this serious matter. The addition of such an Amendment underlines the stresses and responsibilities, great as they should be, on the Gaming Board not only for the limited objective of supervising gaming facilities, but, in addition, to watch the extent and character of gaming in Great Britain as a whole. In principle, this is an absolutely unexceptional Amendment.
We have always sought—and the Government have been good enough to accede repeatedly to our requests—that an almost autocratic, as my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet said, an almost absolute, powerful Board, with certain knowledge of the whole affair of gaming, should take charge of the subject. Therefore, I find it absolutely bewildering to be faced with the first and most important appointment of a man who knows nothing about the subject. I go further. I believe that he knows less about this subject than most Ministers know about theirs—and this is very hard to beat. I do not know the man and I have nothing against him.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester said, he has given eminent public service in the transport industry, but this is so irrelevant that I dread now what we shall find next in appointments to this Board. It makes me regret not only this Amendment, but the fact that we successfully obtained the establishment of a most important Board with such extremely arbitrary powers when those powers are put in the hands of people, who, in my humble opinion, are totally unfit to wield them. This smacks grossly of "jobs for the boys", as we used to know them in this House during the period 1946–51. It makes me feel that the Emperor Caligula was statesmanlike in the light of what we have seen recently concerning appointments.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We are all aware of Caligula and his horse, but we are discussing whether the Board shall extend its powers to gaming as well as gaming facilities.

§ Dr. Bennett
I acknowledge my fault in bringing horses into this matter. It is 747 nothing to do with horses and I withdraw that point.
However, I resent completely this snub that the Administration has administered to Parliament after all the weeks of voluntary effort spent by Members of the House in Committee hammering out a good and workable scheme, now to be brought to nought by the appointment of people utterly incapable of running the great responsibilities put upon them. Therefore I feel sick at heart about what has come of the Bill.

§ Mr. Speaker
If the hon. Member wishes to reply he must obtain the leave of the House.

§ Mr. Elystan Morgan
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House.
The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck), the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and the hon. Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) have bowled rather fast in this matter, but none of their bowling was on the wicket. The issue before the House is whether the Gaming Board should have its remit extended concerning the scope of its study and report. I submit that not one word uttered by any one of the hon. Gentlemen I have mentioned has been relevant or material to that issue. I appreciate that they have indulged in what they probably regard as a pleasant Friday morning knock-about on this subject, but I regret their remarks concerning Sir Stanley Raymond.
I do not subscribe to the theory that to fill this post properly a person must have knowledge of gaming as an operator or as a participant. I am sure that the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet has spent a great deal of his life addressing High Court judges in technical cases. Take, for example, a medical case where there are fine and involved points of medical evidence. Knowing full well that the person to whom he was addressing his remarks was not medically qualified, the hon. Gentleman knows that he will come to a first class and firm decision in that connection.

§ Dr. Bennett
Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that, while a barrister has to learn his case, one would not 748 appoint a man, however good a counsel, as superintendent of a great hospital, or as a consultant surgeon? That is the difference.

§ Mr. Morgan
I do not accept that parallel. I was not talking, so much of counsel, as of the judge, the court to whom the arguments are addressed.
I am sure the House agrees that the qualities needed in a person holding the post of chairman of the Gaming Board are that he should be able to put himself in a judicial capacity, that he should be a person of high ability with wide and varied administrative experience, and that he should be able to come to intelligent and firm decisions.
I deny that this is a political appointment. I submit that the qualities which I have mentioned appear very clearly in the character and record of Sir Stanley Raymond. The remarks made by hon. Gentlemen opposite are unworthy of them, and I feel that they are seeking to introduce an element of partisan politics which, happily, has been absent from any of the stages of the Bill so far.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Now that we have explored that controversy, I think that the Minister must come to the Amendment.

§ Mr. Morgan
Perhaps I might add, because it might be of advantage for the House to know this, that there will be a secretariat to advise the Board on all detailed technical matters.
The Amendment does not extend the Board's powers in any way. It merely widens its remit and will enable the Report which is envisaged in Clause 50 to embrace all gaming activities in this country. I am sure that the House as a whole welcomes that principle, and that it will accept the Amendment.