STREET BETTING BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 28 February 1905)

§ LORD DAVEY

My Lords, this is identically the same Bill as was passed through your Lordships' House last session, after having been extensively amended at the suggestion of the Government. It is unnecessary, therefore, for me to trouble you with a speech on this occasion. I will merely briefly remind your Lordships that the object of the Bill is to render betting in streets and public places a statutory offence, instead of its being left, as at present, to be dealt with by municipal by-laws. It also increases the penalties which may be imposed on persons found betting in the streets, and for a third offence enables the magistrates to imprison an offender. Since the Bill was before your Lordships I have had a great many communications from magistrates and other people in different parts of the country urging that the Bill should be proceeded with as a very necessary measure. I will not trouble your Lordships by reading all the communications I have received, because it would be a little monotonous,but I will quote some statistics which have been sent to me from Stockton-on-Tees. In that town on one day eighteen so-called commission agents were brought before the magistrates for bookmaking, and of that number one had been convicted thirty times, one twenty-three times, one twenty times, one seventeen times, one sixteen times, two fifteen times, 1443 two fourteen times, and so on. One would scarcely believe that such a record could be furnished in one Police Court, and the writer of the extract I have in my hand concludes by stating that— The convicted person pays the fine with a smile on his face, as much as to say to the presiding magistrate, 'It is all right, old man, so long as I know you cannot increase the penalty or send me to prison.' My Lords, that is exactly what is proposed to be done by this Bill. I cannot pretend that the Bill can be passed through the House of Commons without the assistance of the Government, and as it is substantially the Bill of the Government, all their Amendments having been embodied in it, I hope I may claim some assistance from the Government in passing it through the other House.