GAMING CLUBS (LICENSING) (Hansard, 7 May 1970)

§ Mr. Hall
I turn now to some of the remarks made in the interesting and comprehensive report of the Gaming Board. 704 In paragraphs 41–47 it sets out some of the considerations which led it to nominate those areas in the Act and to consider the representations made on behalf of certain other areas referred to in paragraph 47, which have eventually led to these regulations. Careful attention should be paid to paragraphs 45 and 46, referring to the preference to be given to tourist and holiday centres, to the need to ensure that there are areas within half-an-hour's or an hour's travelling distance catering for people wishing to use these clubs.
If the Minister studies this carefully he may see more clearly the case for allowing local authorities to have much more say in the selection of these areas. As it stands, the Gaming Act is giving rise to a feeling of injustice. In many areas it is causing reputable clubs, well-liked by the police and properly run, to be closed for no reason which the local inhabitants can understand. If this was left to the local authorities it would not happen.

§ Sir Ronald Russell (Wembley, South)
I want to support everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall). It is wrong that this House should have to decide this. It should be left to the local licensing authorities. May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether I am entitled to argue that something should be in the Regulations which is not?

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Gentleman may argue why the House should not accept the Regulations but he cannot amend them.

§ Sir R. Russell
I oppose the Regulations because it leaves a gap between London and Luton for example, covering an area which already includes clubs which are to be extinguished by the Regulations. It is unfair that we in this House should decide to put clubs in a place like Luton, and I have nothing against that place, but to leave out other areas whose local authorities are supporting the application for a licence, as is the case in Brent. The whole business is on the wrong basis and it ought to be left to the local licensing authorities. As I cannot argue the case in any greater detail I 705 will content myself with saying that and supporting my hon. Friends.

§ Wing Commander Sir Eric Bullus (Wembley, North)
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Sir R. Russell). I realise that it is difficult to suggest that Brent should be included—

§ Mr. Speaker
It is not only difficult, it is impossible.

§ Sir E. Bullus
I have nothing against Luton, Scarborough, Southport, Sandown and the other places but I would prepared to vote against this if it would persuade the Minister to take it back so that he can review the question again with a view to other places being included. The very name Wembley has close associations which deserve consideration from the Minister.
Was it necessary for the Councils of Luton, Scarborough and others to be interviewed for them to put their case? Without mentioning names, I know of one borough which asked for an interview and was curtly refused in three sentences. I do not believe that the Minister would send such a letter, but his Department has sent it. How can a Minister, who has heard the case of Luton and Scarborough, turn down a case when his Department has refused to receive the representatives of that borough, who are very disturbed to get such a curt refusal? Will not the Minister at least receive the representatives of the borough council?

§ Mr. Bruce Campbell (Oldham, West)
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) in asking that the regulations should be withdrawn. Like other hon. Members, I support him not so much because of what the Regulations say but because of what they do not say—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. With respect, it is what they do not say that we cannot discuss.

§ Mr. Campbell
I recognise that my hon. Friend is asking that the Regulations be withdrawn. I want to make it plain that I am asking for them to be withdrawn because I contend that they do not say the right things, and I am hoping that if they are withdrawn fresh Regulations 706 will be presented which say the right things.
The people of Oldham, whom I have the privilege to represent, have often told me how much they resent having their lives dictated by Whitehall instead of by their local authority. Here is a perfect example of it. The people of Oldham are being told that they may not gamble in Oldham. If they want to gamble, they must go to Manchester or London—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Nothing in the Regulations takes care, either one way or the other, of that fine city, Oldham.

§ Mr. Campbell
I agree with and support what has been said by other hon. Members. This should be left to the licensing justices who know the town and know whether a certain establishment can be relied upon to conduct its business and whether or not it is owned or governed by people of integrity.
If gambling is to be restricted in this way, the only result in places like Old ham is that it will be driven underground. The local authority can look at premises to see whether they are properly conducted. If the local authority is satisfied, surely the establishment should be allowed to conduct its business. There are establishments which have shown themselves by their record over the past few years to be able to conduct their businesses satisfactorily and to conduct gambling in a proper way. Surely those people, having demonstrated their ability and integrity, should be able to get from their local authority a licence to continue their establishments if they wish to do so. For them to be told by Whitehall that because an establishment happens to be in Oldham, or in a place which is not included among the 31, they may not have a licence is an interference with the jurisdiction of the local authority which we should not tolerate. When one considers how these establishments have been conducted—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman must now leave Oldham and come to the Regulations, which deal with the county boroughs of Luton, Scarborough and Southport, the non-county borough of Ryde and the urban district of Sandown-Shanklin.

§ Mr. Campbell
I come to them only to leave them by submitting to the House 707 that regulations couched in these terms, which merely add a few more places to the 31, are thoroughly unsatisfactory. We want regulations which leave it to the discretion of the local authority, through its own licensing justices, to say what should go on in its locality. I support the Motion that these Regulations be withdrawn.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan)
This debate has shown that it is rather more difficult to keep in order than to stray outside its bounds, and I hope that nothing I shall say, Mr. Speaker, will bring me within the terms of your chastisement.
Reference has been made to the Section of the Gaming Act under which these Regulations are made—Section 22. The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Hall-Davis) suggested that there might be some doubt as to the vires in this matter and, therefore, that the doubt should be resolved in favour of not making such Regulations. That was my understanding of what he said.

§ Mr. Hall-Davis
I did not doubt the powers at all. I doubted whether—and it was a fair comment—it was reasonable to expect from the Act that the powers should be exercised as they are being exercised.

§ Mr. Morgan
I take issue with the hon. Gentleman on that matter. If we read Sections 22 and 51 of the Act together, it is clear that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has these powers, and, Parliament having given him those powers, I cannot see that it is in any way unreasonable that he should exercise them.

§ Mr. Ben Ford (Bradford, North)
Is it not within my hon. Friend's recollection that, when we were discussing these Regulations, a number of hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee dealing with the Act said that the manner in which the Regulations were to be framed was outwith the spirit and intention of the Committee at the time?

§ Mr. Morgan
That is not within my recollection. I was not a Home Office Minister at the time the Act was going through Committee, but I replied to the 708 debate on 18th November last, when the House, by a vote of 206 to 145, decided that similar Regulations should not be annulled and thereby, I plead, endorsed the principle of making Regulations under these Sections of the Act.
It has been put to us by the Members opposite that this is a case of Whitehall dictating to a locality what it should do and should not do. I am sure they will not object if I draw their attention to the statement made by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) when speaking on behalf of the opposition during the Report stage of the Gaming Act in June, 1968. He said, in relation to the Gaming Board: This, above all, is a matter in which a priori thinking ought to be avoided and experience ought to be our guide as to what we do in the future, which is precisely why we on this side of the House are anxious to give the Board the maximum degree of power".—[OFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1968; Vol. 766, c. 98.] That is what Parliament has given in the Gaming Act. It has given the board a power to act in such a way as to draw up a comprehensive and strategic plan for the future of gaming in Britain.

§ Mr. Bruce Campbell
When my right hon. and learned Friend spoke those words, the idea of giving licences geographically had never occurred to anyone.

§ Mr. Morgan
It might or might not have been considered. At that time, various ideas were canvassed—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. We are getting into a wide debate on the Gaming Act. We have not even got to the Schedule. The hon. Gentleman must come to the Regulations.

§ Mr. Morgan
I will not mention the unmentionable any more.
The Regulations which we are debating were made by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to fulfil an undertaking which I gave to the House in the debate on 18th November last year to which I have already referred. I then indicated that the list of areas specified in Schedule 1 to those Regulations was not to be regarded as immutable. I said that the proper course would be for the Gaming Board to consider the situation in the light of the debate and the representations which had been or were thereafter to 709 be made. In considering whether there should or should not be an addition to the list, it would be necessary for the board to consider responsible local opinion and how much that opinion had grown naturally in the locality and how far it had been synthetically engendered. When the board had advised the Home Secretary on the situation, it would be proper for him to consider whether a short list of towns should be added to the Schedule, and, if he considered that the list should be amended, to make amending Regulations accordingly.
In short, that is exactly what has happened with regard to the five areas which it is proposed to add to that list by the Regulations. We have here a balance between the authority of the board to plan comprehensively for the whole of Britain and the principle that the Home Secretary, as a Minister of the Crown, should be responsible to Parliament.
We have given wide powers to the board deliberately, and, obviously, it is right and proper that the Home Secretary should give great standing and pay great heed to the recommendations of the board when they are made to him.

§ Mr. Arthur Davidson (Accrington)
Will my hon. Friend not agree that certainly it was the intention of the Committee which considered the Gaming Bill, on which I served, that the Home Secretary should accept the recommendations of the Gaming Board?

§ Mr. Morgan
Yes, it was.
The board carried out this review, and it recommended to the Home Secretary that Luton, Scarborough, Southport, Ryde and Sandown-Shanklin should be added to the list. The Home Secretary accepted that recommendation, and on 17th February of this year he made the Gaming Clubs (Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations, 1970, which were laid before both Houses of Parliament on 25th February.

§ Mr. John Hall
Luton is one of the places included in the Regulations. Can the hon. Gentleman say what considerations the Home Secretary had in mind in accepting the recommendation of the Gaming Board to include Luton? Presumably the right hon. Gentleman had 710 some recommendation put forward to him and must have known what it was.

§ Mr. Morgan
It was felt both by the board and by my right hon. Friend that the case of Luton came within the criterion which I mentioned in the debate on 18th November.
As hon. Members will appreciate, if this Motion is allowed the effect will be that these Regulations will be annulled and that these areas will be withdrawn from the list of exemptions to the general restriction. The effect will be to deprive those places of the benefits which such an exemption confers upon them when the substantive provisions of the Gaming Act, 1968, come into force on 1st July of this year.
I am sure that this is not really the object which hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to achieve, but this will be the effect if the Motion were approved. I can imagine the disappointment and frustration of many people in those areas who since the last debate, and indeed before that, have pressed the Gaming Board and the Government to be permitted to have licensed gaming clubs in their towns.

§ Mr. John Hall
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time. This is an important point. It is often said that to pray against such Regulations and to succeed will jeopardise the interests of the people or organisations mentioned in the Regulations. There is no need for that. I am sure that the Minister will agree that if he takes the Regulations back it will be possible to introduce other regulations, more comprehensive in character, which would meet everybody's satisfaction.

§ Mr. Morgan
I have no doubt that hon. Members had in mind that these Regulations should be withdrawn and that further Regulations should be introduced forthwith containing a longer list of additional areas containing each and every one of the areas represented by hon. Members opposite. But I must make it clear that the closing date for applying to the gaming licensing committee of the justices for a licence to be effective from 1st July, 1970, was 31st March this year. It is, therefore, now too late for anyone to apply for a licence to have effect when Parts I and II of the Gaming Act come into operation on 1st July. The next 711 opportunity for applying for a licence will be in January and February, 1971.
It may assist the House if I give a brief survey of the action taken by the Gaming Board for Great Britain after the debate on 18th November last year. The board considered all the representations which had been received, both before and after the debate, from whatever source—clubs, the general public, local authorities and Members of Parliament. I understand that such representations were received from about 70 different areas. The board wrote to the clerks of five local authorities in England and Wales, and one in Scotland, with copies to Members of Parliament, county councils and chief constables. I suspect that when the point was put to me about representation, the hon. Gentleman meant representation not to Ministers so much as to the Gaming Board, because it is only after it has passed through the filter of the board, as it were, that the matter comes to Home Office Ministers for decision.
The five local authorities were Bradford, Luton, the Isle of Wight, Southport and Scarborough. All these places, with the exception of the Isle of Wight, had been "near misses" when the board considered its original representations. The Isle of Wight was included because the board considered that it presented a special case because of transport problems to and from the mainland, to which the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Woodnutt) had drawn attention in the debate on 18th November last year.
The reply from the local authority in Bradford—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Bradford is not in the Regulations. We cannot discuss Bradford if it is not in the regulations.

§ Mr. Morgan
I am not discussing Bradford, Mr. Speaker, but merely explaining how carefully the board has tried to operate in this matter and has come to a decision relating to the five areas which are the subject of the Regulations.
The reply from the local authority in Bradford indicated that there was not sufficient demand for gaming there to justify its inclusion as a gaming area, but in the other cases the local authorities decided—in one or two cases by very 712 small majorities—that they wished to be included.
The board considered strong representations from certain other areas, but decided that these did not satisfy the general criteria to which I referred and that, therefore, it could not recommend their inclusion. The board indicated, however, that it proposed to give further consideration to central Lancashire and county Durham and might be able to recommend the addition of one or two places in these areas in time for the second round of applications for certificates of consent, which have to reach the Board by 31st October, with a view to licence applications being made in January and February, 1971.
Apart from this, the board does not propose to recommend the inclusion of any other places until experience has been gained of the operation of licensed gaming clubs under the Gaming Act, 1968. It is unthinkable, in the circumstances, that the Home Secretary would, on his own account, wish to extend the list.

§ Sir E. Bullus
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the board should be given instructions that, to show that it is acting responsibly, each authority should, when making representations, be interviewed.

§ Mr. Morgan
I am looking into the question of interviewing authorities, but the criteria mentioned and the policy of the board—now that it has recommended this extension, which has been accepted by the Home Secretary, along with the intention to look at central Lancashire and the County of Durham—mean that the board needs to see how this operates over the whole of Britain, and this is accepted by the Home Secretary.
There will clearly be need for a period of stability when the new controls come into operation so that their effect can be assessed. It would be unfortunate if further uncertainty were created for clubs in these five additional areas by the withdrawal of the Regulations.
The question before the House is whether the public interest requires that the Motion be supported, thus preventing Luton, Scarborough, Southport, Ryde and Sandown-Shanklin from having licensed gaming clubs. I suggest that such a case has not been made out, and I therefore urge the hon. Member for 713 Morecambe and Lonsdale not to press this matter to a Division.

§ Mr. Hall-Davis
I understand that I have a right to reply, which I shall exercise briefly.
While I appreciate the position of the towns referred to in the relative Regulation, I cannot accept the Minister's advocacy and explanation of the way in which they came to be included in it. The memorandum of advice circulated by the Gaming Board to local licensing authorities says: The Home Office have said of the Act"— the memorandum does not give the attribution as to when or by whom in the Home Office this was said, but no doubt the Minister will be able to discover this information; at any rate, I have no reason to doubt the Gaming Board— that it ' provides for the blending of national and local controls… the accumulated knowledge and experience of a central authority should be put at the disposal of the justices and the police in administering the controls.'

§ Mr. Elystan Morgan
Perhaps I should have explained this point earlier. It is of course intended that this local knowledge shall be applied. However it is intended that it shall be applied within the framework suggested by the Gaming Board and agreed to by the 714 Home Secretary and for Scotland by the Secretary of State for Scotland.

§ Mr. Hall-Davis
I accept that, in advocating these Regulations, the Minister intends that they should be applied in that way. My reason for moving that they be withdrawn is that some of my hon. Friends and I cannot believe that in all cases the framework which is laid down should be determined solely by the Home Secretary on the advice of the Gaming Board without giving those who know local conditions from the closest possible experience an opportunity, to, as it were, make additions to that framework.
A point of significance is that, as far as I am aware—if I am wrong I trust that I will be corrected—no application that has got through the net so far of the Department's Regulations and the Gaming Board has been rejected by a local licensing authority. Until such a situation arises I believe that the statement blending of national and local controls … the accumulated knowledge and experience of a central authority should be put at the disposal of the justices and the police in administering the controls. will remain a hollow mockery of a statement and will bear no relation to the real state of affairs.