BETTING DUTIES BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 29 November 1962)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.

§ LORD BRABAZON OF TARA
My Lords, may I say a word on this? Whenever the Government touch betting they always get into trouble, and it is a very satisfactory thing to see some of the old Statutes being wiped away and a Consolidation Bill introduced. Why we want two is a little difficult to understand, but there are no doubt sound reasons behind it. But the general purpose of a Consolidation Bill is to get things clear and precise, so that everybody can understand the situation. Consequently, I must draw your Lordships' attention to subsection (5) of Clause 1, on page 2, which I want to read, because it is all clean fun. For the purposes of the pool betting duty, any payment which entitles a person to make a bet by way of pool betting shall, if he makes the bet, be treated as stake money on the bet, and this subsection shall apply to any payment entitling a person to take part in a transaction which is, on his part, only not a bet made by way of pool betting by reason of his not in fact making any stake as if the transaction were such a bet, and the transaction shall accordingly be treated as a bet for the purposes of the pool betting duty. 1306 My Lords, that is a drafting triumph in mysticism which has scarcely ever been equalled. The square root of minus one is child's play compared with that. I will not ask the Lord Chancellor to explain that to-day: it is perfectly certain he could not do it. But whoever drafted that must have had something in his mind—God knows what! If the Lord Chancellor could see that at some time during the passage of the Bill it is put in intelligible language, I and others would be very grateful.
The only other point I wish to raise is the question of the 10 per cent. duty on dog track totalisators. This has always been held to be rather severe on dogs as opposed to horses, but all I want is an assurance from the noble and learned Lord that, because we pass this Consolidated Bill, it will not in any way prejudice people in making representations to the Chancellor of the Exchequer relative to the future; that the passing of this Bill will not be used to enable it to be said, "You should not have passed this Bill because you have given your case away". I hope that we shall be free to make representations to the Chancellor should we wish to.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I do not think that the passage of this Bill will in any way stop representations being made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is a pure (I use the word "pure" advisedly) Consolidation Bill, and it deals with betting duties as opposed to the general law of betting, gaming and lotteries. That is Why there have to be two Bills. The particular subsection to which the noble Lord has referred is, as the noble Lord will know, one of considerable antiquity. It was apparently approved in some similar form to this by your Lordships in the year 1952. I cannot undertake to expound it without notice, but I will certainly give consideration to whether or not the drafting of it can possibly be improved.