§ Mr. Quentin DaviesTo ask the Secretary of State for National Heritage whether the licensing structure he proposes for the national lottery will require retailers or advertisers to have a licence under the Bill; and what effect those arrangements will have on the ability of Post Office Counters Limited to bid to sell tickets.
§ Mr. SproatThe references in the National Lottery etc. Bill to the "promotion" of lotteries relate to the running of lottery games.
The Bill provides that one body may be licensed to run the lottery business as a whole, and that the same, or additional, bodies may be licensed to run lottery games which are part of the national lottery. Any body licensed to run a game must have a contract with the single main licence holder. Licences are to be issued by the director general of the national lottery. Any other company or individual which provided a service to the lottery operator, for example by printing tickets, selling tickets or producing or displaying advertisments, would operate under a contract with the licence holder, and would not be directly subject to a licence condition.
However, such a company, just as anyone else in the United Kingdom, would be required to abide by regulations which the Secretary of State will be able to make under clause 12 of the Bill (for example, governing the age at which a person may sell or be sold lottery tickets).
If Post Office Counters Limited [POCL] wished to enter into an agreement with a licence holder to sell lottery tickets, a licence would not be required. POCL would require the formal consent of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to compete for such work. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Consumer Affairs and Small Firms confirmed on 26 November 1992 that such a consent would be forthcoming, on condition that the Bill received Royal Assent.