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Lords Amendment No. 44: In page 45, line 18, at end insert:
( ) Sections 10, 43(1), 48, 51 and 52 of this Act and this section and Schedule 1 to this Act shall come into operation on the passing of this Act.
§ Mr. Elystan MorganI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
§ Mr. SpeakerWith this Amendment we shall take Lords Amendment No. 45.
§ Mr. MorganAmendment 45 is consequential on Amendment 44. It brings the provisions establishing the Gaming Board. 761 with powers for the appointment of the staff and their inspectorate and their payment, into effect immediately on the passage of the Act instead of leaving them to be made operative by a commencement order. There would be a saving of several weeks possible delay if the Amendment were accepted.
§ Mr. BuckIt is sensible that we should bring the Gaming Board into existence as soon as the Bill becomes an Act, but I hoped that the Under-Secretary would take the opportunity to say a little more about it. We have commented sufficiently on the appointment of the chairman of the Board and have told the Government our misgivings. Some of my hon. Friends expressed them strongly.
One further matter with which we should deal is his pay. Is £7,000 a year enough? What will be the scale of pay of the remainder of the Board's staff? By the Amendment we shall bring the Gaming Board into effect as soon as the Royal Assent is given to the Bill. If the chairman is to receive £7,000, how much will be paid to the deputy chairman and to those who will operate the Board? Those who operate the Board will be subjected to most fantastic pressures and temptations, and I worry whether the amounts which the lower grades will be receiving will be sufficient to insulate them from such pressures. If the chairman is to receive £7,000, shall we get people of the proper calibre lower down the scale? We should have an announce-merit from the Government about their intentions.
§ Mr. MorganMay I reply by leave of the House. The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) spoke of fantastic pressure on the members of the Board but half-an-hour ago he was advocating the appointment of members of the Board from inside the gaming business. There is a fundamental inconsistency between those two statements.
§ Mr. BuckI made no such suggestion. I do not know whether any of my hon. Friends made that suggestion. Experience of or some knowledge of the gaming business may well be useful to members of the Board, but I have never suggested appointing someone who is operating in the gaming business.
§ Mr. MorganI accept that correction. I thought that there was solidarity of view between the hon. Member and his hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett).
I am sure that the House appreciates that the establishment of the Gaming Board is the first and indispensable step without which the remaining provisions of the Bill cannot be operated. It is the heart and kernel of the Bill. To leave the establishment to a commencement order might involve delay of as much as a month, which could not subsequently be made good and which would react on the whole of the transitional arrangements, which will take long enough to complete as it is.
The principal provisions brought into effect at once are those in Clause 10 and Schedule 1, which deal with the establishment of the Board and its headquarters staff, and in Clause 43(1), which deals with the appointment of gaming inspectors. It is also necessary to make effective, at the same time, the following matters: first, the financial provisions in Clause 48, which deals, inter alia, with payment of the Board's expenses out of moneys defrayed by Parliament; secondly, the regulation-making powers in Clause 51, which require the Secretary of State to consult the Board before any regulations are made; and, thirdly, the interpretation provisions in Clause 52, which contain the definition both of the Gaming Board and of its inspectors.
§ Dr. Bennett rose—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I do not wish to prevent the hon. Member from speaking, but it would be helpful if interventions in the debate were made before the Minister gave his reply.
Dr. BennettI wish to reply to an accusation levelled at me by the Minister in his last speech—an accusation which I could not have anticipated and which surprised me very much. I did not suggest, as the Minister hinted, that the Gaming Board should be recruited from inside the gaming business. My contention all along has been that people with knowledge of gaming should be available to perform this task, and they are not necessarily confined to those who operate gaming machines. Some hon. Members—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not attempt to debate this whole issue again. The matter has been fully ventilated this morning.
Dr. BennettI am defending myself against the Minister's imputations about words which I did not use. It has been established that a Board which we thought would be strong might turn out to be weak in knowledge. We have reason to fear, from an announcement in the Press, which is our first intimation in this matter, that the members of the Board may be weak in pay and—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The hon. Gentleman must come to order. We are discussing an Amendment which decides the date when certain parts of the Bill come into operation.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. It may be the hon. Gentleman's last chance, but he must address his remarks to the Amendment.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Subsequent Lords Amendments agreed to.