BETTING, GAMING AND LOTTERIES (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.] (Hansard, 15 April 1969)

§ LORD LINDGREN
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)
As my noble friend Lord Lindgren has explained, this Amendment is consequential on the Amendments made in the Bill to subparagraph (1) of paragraph 14 of Schedule 3 to the 1963 Act. It may help the Committee if I refer first to those Amendments and their effect. Paragraph 14 of Schedule 3 to the 1963 Act contains the main requirement that local authorities shall fix betting days for their area, and as my noble friend's Bill would amend it paragraph 14 of Schedule 3 would read thus: Subject to the provisions of this and the next following paragraph, each licensing authority shall, not later than the end of May in each year, fix for each licensed track within their area one hundred and four days in the period of twelve months beginning with 1st July in that year as betting days, that is to say, days on which betting facilities may be provided on each such licensed track … As the Committee will realise, the change effected by the Amendments is to require the local authority to fix 104 betting days, not for the area as a whole, but for each 11 track. The betting days would, in consequence, not be the same for the whole area. If this change were made, consequential Amendments would be needed to paragraph 15 of the Schedule, and this is my noble friend's intention with the present Amendment.
Paragraph 15 of Schedule 3 to the 1963 Act contemplates either agreement by all the tracks in an area to the days to be fixed, or disagreement. My noble friend, of course, referred only to agreement, but it certainly allows for disagreement as well. If there is agreement, the local authority is required to fix those days. But in the new situation created by the Schedule to this Bill, where days are to be fixed not for the area but for individual tracks, the agreement will have to relate not to one set of betting days but to betting days for each track. As my noble friend proposes to amend it, sub-paragraph 3 of paragraph 15 would then read as follows: If, within one month from the date of the publication of the said notice, the licensing authority receive a notice in writing signed by all the holders of track betting licences in force in respect of tracks in their area stating that the signatories unanimously desire that the betting days in the period in question should be the days specified in the notice given under this sub-paragraph for each track, then, if those days are days which might lawfully he fixed under paragraph 14 of this Schedule as the betting days for that period, the authority shall fix the days so specified as the betting days for that period. This Amendment moved by my noble friend is not satisfactory, not because it is inherently bad but because the changes made in the Bill to which this Amendment is consequential are themselves unsatisfactory. The objection to the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Schedule are not simply that consequential drafting Amendments such as this one have been omitted; it is that the changes they make go to the whole root of the provisions of paragraphs 14 and 15 of the Schedule to the 1963 Act. The difficulty is illustrated by this Amendment. if it were made, it would follow that a failure by all the tracks in the area to submit a notice stating that the signatories unanimously desire that the betting days … should be the days specified in the notice … for each track 12 would be because tracks disagreed with days the other tracks wanted. It is this change in the nature of the disagreement which would make the role of the local authority impossible.
The policy given effect by the existing law is that there shall be 104 betting days in an area, which shall be either those on which the tracks agree or else those determined by the local authority after hearing any representations from the tracks. These representations can relate to the inconvenience to themselves of all or any of the days to be fixed for the area. But if, as would be the case under the Bill, the local authority had to concern itself with the objections tracks might have to the days the other tracks wanted, it is difficult to see what guide lines it could follow in arriving at a decision. And although issues of local amenity, such as traffic and noise problems, might arise, they would fall to be determined by the local authority only if there was a disagreement among the tracks. But local amenity issues are rarely likely to lead to disagreement and so the only matter which could properly justify local authority intervention would normally not arise for their determination.
While the policy of allowing tracks to have different betting days in any particular area is one about which the Government remain neutral, the structure of the existing law is not such as to be readily susceptible of piecemeal amendment, and this part of the Bill, even with the Amendment of my noble friend which the Committee are at present discussing, could not be allowed to reach the Statute Book in its present form. But I would emphasise that the same objections do not apply to the other proposal which forms the subject of the next Amendments we are to discuss. If at a later stage my noble friend were to withdraw the proposal concerning betting days, then the remaining proposal, an important one for its financial implications, might well have a fair chance of success in another place. But I must advise the Committee that the present Amendment does nothing to cure the inherent defect in the drafting of the proposals in the Bill which concern betting days. On that advice, my noble friend may feel that his best course would be to withdraw the Amendment.

§ LORD SANDFORD
I must confess that I am not entirely convinced by the arguments just adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that it is impracticable to make this small Amendment so that local authorities and the greyhound racing tracks in their areas may decide among themselves on which of two days a week greyhound racing can take place at each respective track. But the answer he gave to the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, is a trifle complex. I personally should prefer to study it at leisure and wait and hear what the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, has to say. We have another stage, and we can perhaps return to it then.

§ LORD LINDGREN
May I first say that I am most grateful to my noble friend for setting out the objections so far as his Department is concerned. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said, the objections stated by my noble friend take quite an amount of assimilating, but at least a statement has been made and those who are interested will be able to read it to-morrow and see its effect. As I understood my noble friend, it is the case that while I am assuming that tracks in each licensing area will be in agreement, there is a possibility of disagreement as between one track and another, and that would cause some difficulty. I am quite prepared to accept that in this world everything that ought to be does not necessarily exist and that folk who ought to agree about all sorts of things sometimes disagree, even in politics, let alone at dog tracks. Having done my best in preparing this Amendment, in conjunction with those responsible for the Bill, I do not know whether it would be in order if I were to ask my noble friend to suggest a form of words which would be suitable and would meet the requirements of his Department.

§ LORD STONHAM
May I interrupt, in response to the invitation of my noble friend? I could not suggest a form of words which would amend the Bill in the manner suggested by my noble friend this afternoon, which in a way would be rather tinkering with what is required. May I put it this way: that it would be a perfectly valid proposition for the tracks to say, "We are satisfied with 104 days, but we want to have them precisely when we want them"? That would be a perfectly fair proposition to put forward. 14 But even if it were agreed, two points arise. It would mean fundamental amendment of the 1963 Act, which we could not do in the time at our disposal. It may also prove highly controversial. The advice that I have given to my noble friend is in the belief that if improvements are to be made by means of a Private Member's Bill in this Session of Parliament, it would be convenient to proceed on the one matter on which there is general agreement and which may therefore stand a quite fair chance of success in another place.

§ LORD LINDGREN
I am most grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. I had understood him to say in his earlier statement that on the question of separate days for tracks the Government were neutral, but it appears that they are neutral with a bias. As I have been brought up in an atmosphere in which it is always better to get something rather than to lose everything, and in view of what my noble friend has said in regard to the further Amendments, I ask to leave to withdraw the first Amendment which I have moved.

§ LORD STONHAM
As my noble friend explained, taken together these Amendments rectify the defect to paragraph 3 of the Schedule, which would give the Secretary of State power to change the amount of the "hold back" by order, by substituting for what is in fact the inadequate power to "prescribe" a power to make such a change by order made by Statutory Instrument, which is the proper power and the stronger power. As my noble friend has mentioned, the opportunity has been taken to include the standard provision for varying or revoking the order. Therefore, these Amendments rectify a defect and round off in the proper way the power which it is proposed to give the Home Secretary, and I would advise the Committee to accept them.

§ LORD LINDGREN
I beg formally to move Amendment No. 3. In doing so, I should like to express my appreciation of the attitude my noble friend has taken in regard to these Amendments.