POOL COMPETITIONS BILL (Hansard, 25 June 1971)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The purpose of the Bill is to safeguard the position of certain charities and sporting organisations which had derived substantial sums of money from what had become known as charity pools, which had been held by the House of Lords in the case of Singette v. Martin to be competitions which were not lawful pool betting but were unlawful lotteries.
The Bill merely provides that for a period of five years those competitions from which those charities and sporting organisations were receiving that substantial income should be allowed to continue, by making the necessary changes to enable those competitions to be treated for that period as lawful pool betting.
The Bill is limited to a period of five years because my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has set in train an inquiry into the whole of the law relating to lotteries and betting, but he felt that it was necessary as an interim measure to pass the Bill to safeguard those charities.
I understand that the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) has tabled the Motion, "That the Question be not put forthwith ", not because he is in any way opposed to the principle of the Bill—indeed, he was one of those who pressed that this type of legislation should be introduced—but merely so that he may ask certain questions. Therefore, I propose to say no more at this stage, but will, with permission, answer any questions later.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)
The Under-Secretary of State knows of my deep personal interest in the Bill. It is a close relative, not to say a direct descendant, of my Charitable Causes (Medical Research and Disabled Persons) Bill, which I introduced earlier this Session. The Bill now before the House is in fact the Home Secretary's response to the propositions made in my Private Member's Bill.
1820 The House will recall the serious concern expressed by many organisations, including national organisations working for the chronically sick and disabled, about the consequences of the Singette v. Martin decision. The Lord Chief Justice, in giving his judgment in the Appeal Court against the kind of fund-raising scheme we are now seeking to protect, said that he did so with reluctance because he considered it a laudable scheme serving an admirable purpose and something which probably this day is very much needed. My Bill, like this one, was supported by the British Heart Foundation, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the Muscular Dystrophy Group, the Children's Research Fund, the National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, the Semball Trust, the Good Neighbour Trust, the Wan Neste Foundation, and many other organisations.
I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman appreciates that the position facing those organisations on the morrow of the Singette v. Martin decision was one of financial catastrophe. It was put strongly by James Loring, the Director of the Spastics Society, as well as by Mr. Duncan Guthrie, the Director of the National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, that unless the law was changed, and changed very quickly, the House of Lords verdict could have disastrous effects on all the voluntary bodies who rely on charity football pools for a very large part of their income. The Spastics Society stood to lose about £1½ million a year. The National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund together were in danger of losing more than £400,000 a year. Although the exact figure is not known, it is believed that the total loss to charities would have been more than £4 million. In practical terms, this would have meant that a vast programme of voluntary care and education and training for many of Britain's handicapped people would have been placed in jeopardy within a matter of weeks, while medical research into crippling diseases and illness, already at an insufficient level, would have had to be cut back drastically.
Many existing establishments run by charities would have had to be closed down for lack of funds, and that would 1821 have thrown an additional burden onto the taxpayer and the ratepayer. There would have been a long gap in time before the valuable services now provided by these charities could have been reinstated by central and local Government and, in the meantime, as was emphasised to me by the Spastics Society, many handicapped people and their families would have suffered appalling hardship.
I am deeply grateful to the Under-Secretary for the courtesy and construetiveness that he showed throughout our discussions at the Home Office when I met him with other hon. and right hon. Members on behalf of the charities to which I have referred. The Bill is of major importance, and not only to organisations working for the chronically sick and disabled. Mr. Edgar Hiley, of the Warwickshire County Cricket Supporters' Association, as well as Sir Matt Busby, the distinguished manager for many years of Manchester United, were both in touch with me about their concern over the House of Lords decision.
I know the Minister would agree that the Warwickshire County Cricket Supporters' Association gives invaluable help to cricket on a nationwide basis. The bodies which depend heavily on the grants which they receive from the Association include the Cricket Council, the Test and County Cricket Board, the M.C.C., many county cricket clubs apart from Warwickshire itself, as well as hundreds of village and league clubs. The work of that association would have been placed in total jeopardy but for the initiative taken by the Under-Secretary.
I think that it will help the House to appreciate the importance of the Bill if I say something about the projects upon which the money raised by charities is spent. The Spastics Society has been able to spend more than £6 million by way of capital expenditure on schools, centres, industrial work and training centres, family help units, hostels, and hotels, a total of 49 units altogether. The total cost of running national schools and centres is £7,920,000. Medical research, largely the paediatric research unit attached to Guy's Hospital, has cost the Spastics Society £2,214,000, while the professorial Department of Child Development at the Institute of Education, University of London, has received 1822 £315,000 from the Society. This important work would have to go on in the absence of the fund-raising activities of the Spastics Society and it is a relief to us all that the immediate financial difficulties facing this and other organisations have been removed.
As the Minister made clear in Committee, the Bill is, however, only a holding operation. It is intended only as a holding Measure. The Minister said on 12th May that the Bill introduced temporary provisions, in the nature of indemnifying legislation, to enable those charitable and sporting interests concerned, which had come to depend on this form of income, to continue to enjoy it while the whole of the law in this sphere is reviewed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1971; Vol. 817, c. 570.] Following the Minister's speech on that occasion, I again approached him on behalf of the Director of the Spastics Society. I received a letter dated 24th June from the hon. and learned Gentleman in which he commented on the further representations made to me by the Society, and said: The point I must emphasise is that, whatever the outcome of the review, the position at the end of it is likely to be significantly different from that which the Bill freezes for five years. In any event charities and sporting associations which benefit at present would be ill-advised not to take advantage of the breathing space the Bill provides by looking for a broader base for their income. The possibility of finding such alternatives and the efforts that have been made to look for them are certainly factors which will be taken into account in the course of the review and of the Government's consideration of the recommendations which emerge. I know the Minister will accept that many of the organisations which have these fund-raising schemes are already trying to diversify their sources of income by means of charity walks and other activities, but have been told in recent weeks that charity walks are not the best way to raise money. A strong view has been expressed on this subject by, among others, Cardinal Heenan. It will not be easy for these organisations to diversify their sources of income within five years.
I accept that the powers in the Bill are renewable annually, and I should like to think that the Minister will establish a close rapport with James Loring, the Director of the Spastics 1823 Society, with Duncan Guthrie, the Director of the National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases, as well as with Edgar Hiley and Sir Matt Busby who acted as representatives for all the sporting organisations involved in this important matter.
Finally, I pay tribute to the very large number of thoroughly decent and hardworking voluntary workers who help the charities and the sporting organisations to raise their funds. It is estimated that there are 8 million subscribers to these schemes. This means that the Bill is an extremely important one. I conclude by saying how much I appreciate all that has been done by the Under-Secretary in putting the Bill forward, and I hope that it will soon reach the Statute Book.

§ Mr. Carlisle
I thank the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) for what he said about myself and about the approach of the Government to this matter. I readily acknowledge his long concern in these matters. As he rightly reminded the House, he introduced a Private Member's Bill on this subject. I said than that it was the intention of the Government in introduce legislation to achieve the same end and he very graciously agreed to withdraw his Bill after the Government legislation had been brought forward.
I am sure from representations that have been made to the Home Office that the charities concerned are satisfied that their interests have been adequately safeguarded by the provisions of the Bill. I have the permission of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who is responsible for sport, to say that he is quite sure that those sporting bodies which had made representations to his Ministry and on whose behalf he had made representations to the Home Office, are equally, satisfied that the Bill meets their needs. The hon. Gentleman mentioned in particular Mr. Edgar Hiley, and the substantial scheme run by the Warwickshire County Cricket Club. Mr. Hiley has been kind enough to write to me personally and say that the club is satisfied that the proposals in the legislation suit the scheme.
1824 Mr. Hiley raised, as the hon. Gentleman has, the comment I made about the temporary nature of this position. It was an appreciation by the Government of the urgent financial position facing the Spastics Society and other charitable societies which made it apparently necessary that we should act immediately. What I said on Second Reading and what I now repeat with regard to the temporary nature of this legislation was that, faced with various decisions of the courts about lotteries and betting law generally, faced with the desire expressed by certain corporations, such as Manchester Corporation, to set up a lottery, faced by repeated suggestions for some form of national lottery, the Home Secretary thought it right to hold a review on the whole of the law concerning lotteries. I cannot commit the Government in advance of the outcome of that review.
The intention of the Bill is to ensure that while that review takes place and until permanent legislation can be introduced into this extremely complicated area, the position of these charities will be safeguarded. What I tried to say in my remarks on Second Reading and in the letter which I wrote to the hon. Gentleman this week was that, whatever the result of the review, one thing which had to be made clear was that the position of these charities and sporting organisations will not be exactly the same as it is now.
At the moment, we are dealing with a piece of expediency legislation which enables them to continue drawing income from this form of football pool competition, but which prevents any other body which was not in the field prior to the date of the Singette and Martin decision to start a similar scheme. It is a piece of expediency legislation and if the result of the review is that competitions of this kind are made lawful, then the charities and sporting associations must realise that we cannot continue that position merely for them. Other organisations would be equally entitled to take advantage of similar types of lawful competition.
I thought it right to point out, dealing with future controls on competitions operated by other bodies seeking money for charitable purposes, that the position held by the charities covered by the Bill 1825 is unlikely to remain as a result of the review. I felt it right to warn them in their own interests that they must appreciate that we cannot legislate permanently to allow certain societies to carry on a particular type of competition, but not to allow others to do the same. They have this opportunity for looking for other sources of finance, even if it be to meet the possibility of far more of these types of competitions. I am satisfied that, as a result of the efforts made by all hon. Members, the legislation meets the needs of the charities, and I am glad that it has been welcomed generally by both sides of the House.