HL Deb 25 July 1979 vol 401 cc1987-98

5.42 p.m.

Lord BIRKETT

My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. In doing so, I hope to detain your Lordships for a very short time indeed. The Bill is, visibly, very short and I hope to persuade your Lordships that it is also both just and sensible. It hopes to amend one small section of the Gaming Act 1968. It hopes to amend in that Act what I was going to call " a tiny injustice ", but I think that that is far too dramatic a phrase; " a small anomaly " would be better.

One of the effects of the Gaming Act 1968, by its very arrangement, was to separate out bingo from the rest of the gaming world, to set limits upon it and to make rules for it. By and large, I think it is fair to say that since then they have worked extremely well. The Act also aimed to correct one or two things which had hitherto been regarded as excesses or abuses. One of them concerned linked games of bingo—that is to say, bingo played simultaneously by several clubs in different places, the prize money there-from being combined. Before the Gaming Act 1968 it had been possible so to arrange this that one could link practically every club in the country and make an absolutely enormous jackpot—almost an unlicensed national lottery. It was decided that this was too much and that it should not be allowed to continue.

At the same time, it was clear that linked games of bingo should not be prohibited because, by its very nature, a very small club cannot make very large prize money, whereas a larger club can. If linked bingo had been abolished altogether, naturally, in an ordinary commercially competitive world, small clubs would have been eaten by larger ones.

Equally important, and especially important in view of the Bill today, is the fact that bingo—whatever noble Lords may think of it—unlike the rest of the gaming world, is a social, indeed, a sociable game. If the drift from small clubs to large were to continue, the drift from smaller places to larger would continue and the very nature of community life would obviously be eroded. It was therefore sensibly decided not to abolish linked bingo but to set limits upon it.

The limit set for the combined prizes available to linked bingo games in the 1968 Act was £1,000. Various other financial limits were set in the particular clause of this Act which the Bill before us today seeks to amend; namely, Clause 20. All the other financial limits—and they concern the stakes which might be played for and all the financial rules of the game—were made subject to the ability and power of the Secretary of State to amend those amounts. This was to make sure that they all kept pace both with inflation and with their relative value in relation to each other.

The only financial amount in that clause which was not subject to the power of the Secretary of State to amend was this limit of £1,000 upon linked bingo games. I have not been able to discover why this omission should have taken place. I hesitate to think that it was an oversight. I imagine that it must have been thought in those days that £1,000 was such a large and handsome sum that it did not need to be amended, but the last 10 years have taught us bitterly that what today seems like a large and handsome sum may by tomorrow seem to be quite an ordinary sum and by the day after tomorrow quite an inadequate one. Therefore, it is strange that while the other financial limits within Clause 20 have been varied several times—three or four in many cases—by the Secretary of State under his powers, the limit of £1,000 remains fixed.

The Bill before your Lordships today seeks to give to the Secretary of State exactly the same powers as those which he has in relation to all the other limits, and it does so by means of a clause taken from elsewhere in the Bill. It is, therefore, identical in wording to those already used in the Gaming Act 1968.

I hope to persuade your Lordships that this is only just and sensible. It may very well be that, if given these powers, the Secretary of State will not immediately use them. Indeed, the Royal Commission did not, a year ago, immediately suggest that the £1,000 limit needed to be altered. Equally, it made no objection whatever to the Secretary of State having the power to do so. Should the Secretary of State be given these powers, he will have available to him the advice of the Gaming Board. It is not one of those sections under which the Secretary of State is obliged to consult the Gaming Board but their advice is available to him.

In the circumstances, it seems to me to be only just and sensible to allow the Secretary of State to have these powers. I hope that your Lordships will consider that this Bill is, as I have said before, just, sensible and also non-controversial, in the sense that it does not really raise the issue of gambling in general or of bingo as a whole in particular—nor, indeed, the powers of the Secretary of State because he has them already elsewhere in the clause. It is therefore my pleasure to suggest to your Lordships that the Bill should be read a second time, without, I hope, a great deal of your Lordships' time being taken up with it. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Birkett.)

5.49 p.m.

Lord WIGG

My Lords, I find no difficulty in supporting the Bill. I think that it is just and reasonable and I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, on the way in which he has moved it. He has put a very clear argument before your Lordships and it would be patronage on my part to endorse it. However, I certainly do so, if the noble Lord will take it in the spirit in which it is offered.

Having given my support to the Bill, I want to say a word or two about the principles raised by the Bill. Rightly, in my judgment, according to the mood of the times, it removes from Parliament the principle enshrined in the Act that Parliament is to keep control over bingo. The amount that is spent on it is to be vested in the Secretary of State to do it by order. To those of us who are interested in keeping the legislation in this field up to date, clearly that is a step forward. Therefore, of course, in a form in which it does not run into conflict with social behaviour, which is a danger running through all these matters for those who, as it were, think with their hearts at the expense of their heads, it gives the Secretary of State powers to make an order. As the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has said, it is probable that the Secretary of State, if he is a wise man—and I think the present Secretary of State is a wise man: he has given indications already of sagacity in his handling of some of these problems—will consult the Gaming Board. I think that is right, and that leads me on to say a word or two about gambling legislation as a whole.

I have never disguised from your Lordships my support of, nor when I was in another place did I cease to strive for, the legislation introduced by the Conservative Government after the 1959 election. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Saffron Walden, showed great courage in doing what he did. He decided that the social problems of our times must be tackled, and he did it in a far-reaching way which on the whole has been successful. Of course there are plenty of critics in all the fields today who can say that this is wrong and that is wrong, but that is after nearly 20 years, in what was, after all, a field which was virtually untried. He tried to remove the policeman's shadow from those who chose to spend some of their spare time either at bingo or in a betting shop, or even in the lush establishments of the West End casinos and the like. He sought to remove the shadow of the policeman and to bring in its place, eventually under the Labour Government, the discipline of Customs and Excise. That is far better.

The principle underlying the thinking of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was this: " Here is a practice of our fellow countrymen and, whether we like it or not, they are going to have a bet. The fact that they will have a bet outside the law is a social danger. Therefore, let us redraft the law so that they may do it under the umbrella of the Government." In other words, there was to be control and not suppression. I think those words were the hallmark of the Butler legislation, and it worked. It enabled the Labour Government later on, if I may say so, with courage, to tax it; and again perhaps I may remind your Lordships that the revenue in 1963 right across the board was of the order of £33 million. It is now £400 million—a not inconsiderable sum. It is my belief that the whole of this expenditure is in fact deflationary, so that those who are concerned about financial probity will be delighted to think that it makes a contribution to the national well-being.

In doing this, over the passing of the years a number of factors have emerged which tend to divert. Take the Gaming Board Which, as the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, has said, the Home Secretary would doubtless consult in considering this matter. This is a hybrid instrument: its staff is appointed by the Home Office and it is borne on the Home Office vote. It exists with an umbilical cord tying it to the Home Office. I think the time may well have come when that cord should be broken and the Gaming Board should be given greater powers than it now has. From some more recent events, upon which I do not want to comment today, it looks as if that is necessary.

One thing is clear. If the Gaming Board is required to—I will not use the word "police" but to supervise, to make sure that the gaming or bingo is honestly run, it must be given the powers. I am a great admirer of, and have high admiration for, the present chairman of the Gaming Board—in my judgment a most successful and wise permanent Secretary of the Home Office. While he is there I am absolutely sure that the affairs of the Gaming Board will be conducted with wisdom and understanding, and with due regard to the much broader social forces which are at work in our society. It is quite wrong for Parliament to ask a man, even of the stature of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, to carry through the operations on the basis of bluff. If Parliament wants the Gaming Board to do a job, Parliament should give the Gaming Board the powers with which to do it.

When we come to the operations of the Totalisator, it operates on quite a different plane. Goodness knows what the principle is, but the Home Secretary appoints the chairman, he appoints the members and then he is finished. Then the other place comes along and says that it is a nationalised industry and sets up a Select Committee to inquire into its operations—and not very successfully in my view. On the other hand, we have the Horserace Betting Levy Board. In the debates which took place it was made perfectly clear that the last word about expenditure and its operations was going to rest, quite properly in my judgment, in the hands of the Secretary of State.

I do not say that we should have a uniform procedure, but I do think that when the Home Secretary comes to consider the recommendations of the Royal Commission he must make up his mind. As I understand it the noble Lord, Lord Butler, having set up these boards, wanted to put the matter as far away as he could from the Home Office. When Mr. Callaghan was Home Secretary he brought it in without thinking what the consequences would be, and to my mind that, to a large extent, is the reason for the muddle, which expressed itself in the workings of the Lotteries Act, which cries to heaven to be put right.

I am sorry to have detained your Lordships but this particular subject we do not want to tackle piecemeal, having had the report of the Royal Commission for over a year—and it is no fault of the present Home Secretary that he has not yet been able to present a White Paper. We have had the Pool Competitions Act, and now we have this Bill. I am quite sure that it will have an unopposed Second Reading today and will go through to another place without a hitch. But it is no good tackling the problem little by little. That is not the way to do it. In my judgment the Home Secretary must look at this right across the board. I believe that he will, and, when he is satisfied, he should come to another place with a White Paper and seek the approval of Parliament to the way in which a great social problem should he tackled

As I have been privileged to occupy places where I could gain knowledge, it seems to me that I should not be performing my duty to your Lordships if I did not come along and say that while I support this Bill whole-heartedly, I still think that it raises important questions of principle which I am certainly not going to press the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to answer today, but which, if he accepts, or even partially accepts, he will bring to the notice of his right honourable friend.

5.59 p.m.

The LORD BISHOP of LONDON

My Lords, I must apologise for not having put my name down on the list of those who wished to speak on this Bill, but finding myself in the House and having been very much concerned in recent years with the gaming legislation I hope that your Lordships will bear with me if I say one or two things. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, that this is a Bill of minor importance and therefore I would not want to oppose it. My only comment is that it seems to be of such minor importance that I wonder whether it is worth while bringing it in at all. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that there are much greater issues involved in the whole question of the legislation on lotteries; and I think he speaks well when he suggests that there ought to be an overall examination of these issues rather than dealing with them piecemeal by small Bills such as this.

I hope that, in dealing with this Bill, the House will remember the important principle that was involved in the previous gaming legislation, which was that bingo was of a different character from what one might call hard gambling and therefore was to be contained in that way. We were to encourage family gambling on an innocent scale by allowing bingo under certain conditions; therefore, we had to watch the attempts which were being made to enlarge the scope of bingo.

The noble Lord has mentioned the question of linked bingo which would have made it a very big form of gambling. He may also remember that there was an attempt at one time to get permission for gaming rooms of a rather harder type of gambling attached to where bingo was allowed, with the presumed objective that those who came in innocently to play bingo might be enticed into the rather more serious form of bingo that was going on elsewhere. It is important that we should bear this principle in mind and continue to protect bingo as being an innocent and not extensive form of gambling, because there is some evidence, I think, that even in its present form gambling is becoming a quite oppressive habit with some people and that there are many people, even playing bingo, who do spend more money than they ought to on this form of gaming.

Therefore, my only doubt about this Bill is that it may induce those who are concerned with bingo to try to persuade the Minister of State to allow larger stakes to make it more and more attractive and, for that reason, therefore, to depart from the principle which was accepted in the gaming legislation that bingo stood by itself and that we should protect it so that it continues to be an innocent and unimportant form of gambling. I hope that in dealing with this Bill the House will remember what is, I think, an important principle.

6.2 p.m.

Lord HARMAR-NICHOLLS

My Lords, I do not know whether or not I have to declare an interest; I am chairman of a public company that might have—I do not think it has, but it might have—bingo attached to it, and a private hotel company with which I am connected might have, too; I do not think so, but in order to put it absolutely right I put that on the record for what it is worth.

I think the right reverend Prelate has raised this to dimensions which are not in keeping with the very modest proposal the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, is asking the House to accept. The reason I want to make a contribution is that I think we ought to try to keep our legislation as neat as we can. In this Gaming Act all of the other equivalent powers of this kind are capable of being dealt with by order, which means that the Gaming Board, who are the experts on this and have day-to-day contact with it, can take into account changed circumstances and bring about sensible changes, which they cannot do when it is enshrined as a rigid part of a whole block of legislation such as this.

The important proposal that the noble Lord is making is that this part of it, which lends itself to being looked at at regular intervals, will be capable of being changed by giving freedom to bring about such changes by order. For example, I do not know whether or not the £1,000 a week included in the main Act is right. If it was right 10 years ago when the Act was brought in, the question of inflation means that it cannot be right today. I think we have to remember the main principles which were behind it and not in any way infringe these principles—on that I am at one with the right reverend Prelate—and not make minor changes which would undermine the principles. But, nevertheless, we have to face the fact of inflation and without interfering with the main object of the legislation we can, by introducing this power to do things by order, bring it up-to-date, which seems rather a sensible thing to do. It could well be, when we get to Committee stage, that perhaps I would not agree entirely with the outcome of the figures the noble Lord has included; it may be that we would want to put some restriction on it, so that, whether or not it is £1,000 a week, there is something which would keep it within the boundaries described by the right reverend Prelate. But purely on the grounds of having sensible machinery and trying to make our legislation work in a way which takes into account changing times, over which none of us has any control, I think we would be using the parliamentary machine at its best and rather sensibly. It is on those grounds that I hope we do give this Bill a Second Reading without any adverse comment.

The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, the Government accept the principle of the noble Lord's Bill—I am extremely sorry.

6.6 p.m.

Lord BOSTON of FAVERSHAM

My Lords, I was looking forward to hearing the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, and my wish to hear him was coming even more rapidly than I had dared to hope. I should like to join with my noble friend Lord Wigg and the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, for introducing this Bill and in congratulating him for doing so. I should like to thank him not only for introducing the Bill but for explaining the effect of the Bill and the need for the Bill with great clarity. He has, in my submission, shown a need for this modest measure, and it is good to hear the explanation that he has given. I feel sure that my noble friend Lord Wigg and the right reverend Prelate will forgive me for not venturing further into the interesting and important matters on a rather wider level that they have raised this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Wigg does, of course, speak with great experience of these matters, not only as the former chairman of the Horserace Betting Levy Board but in connection with other bodies as well. My purpose in intervening is to detain your Lordships for only so long as it takes to join in commending this Bill to your Lordships.

6.7 p.m.

Lord BELSTEAD

My Lords, I am most relieved that, even after the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boston, I am still able to say that the Government accept the principle of Lord Birkett's Bill. I also was grateful for the noble Lord's clear explanation of both the background to and the intentions of the Bill. In the light of the very interesting remarks which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, made, I ought to say that it would have been the intention of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to implement, in due course, Recommendation 219 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Gambling, by including in general legislation in the future, when opportunity permits, a provision to vary by order the maximum prize permitted in respect of games of linked bingo. That is the intention of this Bill, and consequently it is not the Government's intention in any way to oppose the Bill.

I should like to make it clear, however, that the Government accepts Recommendation 219 in its entirety. That means that we share, with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, the view, which was implicit in the Royal Commission's report, that the concept of bingo as a neighbourly form of gambling for reasonably modest prizes should be retained. If very large prizes were permitted for games played on a number of different premises it would change the nature of the game. My noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls said that he was not certain, speaking today in your Lordships' House, whether the maximum prize figure of £1,000 was right. The Royal Commission's judgment last year was that at the time of reporting the weekly maximum prize figure of £1,000 was about right. Accordingly, in considering any future adjustment of this figure—and it will be in consultation with the Gaming Board—close account will be taken of the Royal Commission's recommendation that the maximum should be increased only to protect its value against further inflation. No attempt should be made to restore the position in terms of 1968 values. On the understanding that that is the intention of the Government, the Government would not wish to impede the progress of the noble Lord's Bill.

6.10 p.m.

Lord BIRKETT

My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. Indeed, as it progressed I began to feel a little ashamed that I had not provided a rather larger Bill for your Lordships, but that might have given further excuse for raising matters that, in truth, would have been rather out of my depth, so perhaps I am not so regretful after all.

I am totally in awe of the authority and wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, in this matter, and I shall look forward enormously to any of those larger issues which he launched forth upon coming up when the question of the powers of the Secretary of State, or indeed the powers of the Gaming Board, are enlarged upon.

I cannot speak for the Gaming Board, but it is fair to say that the Gaming Board will be in no way unhappy to advise the Secretary of State upon these matters, should the Bill go through.

I recognise, very clearly, the dangers to which the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London referred, and I can only say that I am glad to note that he, like I, did not find in this Bill any excuse for those dangers increasing. I can see that surrounding a Bill of this nature might be a danger—even a tiny one. However, as regards this Bill I do not believe that there is such a danger. It is merely an expansion of something that exists already in this section.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, for referring to the neatness of legislation which he hoped the Bill would bring about, because I think the same, but I did not like to say so. It will indeed make the operation neater. I am also most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boston of Faversham, and the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, for giving from opposing Benches such a marvellously harmonious consensus of opinion. In consequence, and not wishing to weary your Lordships any further with the matter, I can only hope that your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.