(Except clauses 1, 4, 5, 9, 14, 22, 42, 56, 57, 124, 130 to 135, 138, 139, 148 and 184 and schedules 5, 6, 19 and 25, and any new clauses and schedules tabled by Friday 9th May 2003 relating to excise duty on spirits or R&D tax credits for oil exploration.) - Clause 7 - General betting duty: betting exchanges
Finance Bill
2:30 pm
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley North and Sefton East, Labour)
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. McWilliam. I know that you have many years' experience of chairing these Committees and that will stand us in good stead.
I shall be brief because we have had a good, detailed and wide-ranging discussion that covered a topic that would not otherwise have been debated.
I notice that the hon. Member for East Carmarthen and Dinefwr (Adam Price) has not made it back to the Committee, but he intervened on me to ask about the relationship between betting exchanges and racing. I understand that it was presumed that the levy for the current year would be around £92 million, but the latest estimate has declined to £75 million, so there is a discrepancy as a direct result of people transferring business to betting exchanges. Racing will suffer proportionately because most of that money, if not all, is used to support racing. I wanted to put the record straight.
Turning to the substantial matter, the key issue between my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary and I is the market. We have different views on who participates in betting exchanges and what is happening—where the money is coming from and where it is going.
I think that my hon. Friend used the term ''leisure participants''. He certainly referred to people becoming involved in betting exchanges in pursuit of a leisure activity. Another way of putting that is punter
to punter. The problem with that analysis is that it is difficult to know whether that is so, because in reality it is stranger to stranger. The person laying the bet is unknown to the person taking the bet, and there is some doubt about what is going on.
My hon. Friend justifiably pointed out that, because of the Chancellor's changes, many bookmakers who had located themselves offshore had come back onshore. He said that that was welcome, as indeed it is. The danger now is that foreign layers could use—I suspect that they are using—the betting exchanges because they have an unfair advantage over UK bookmakers. If that assumption is correct, in the longer term one of two things will happen—or both. Either regulated UK bookmaking business will decline or there will be more and more offshore activity, the very thing that the Chancellor tried to avoid.
Since our sitting this morning I have been informed, although I have not spoken to it directly, that the Tote is concerned about the provision and supports the arguments that I put this morning. Therefore, the argument is finding wider favour, certainly among the bookmaking community.
My hon. Friend asked me to consider seeking to withdraw the amendment. As he is aware, I have always been prepared to do that. However, because there is a disagreement between us about exactly who is involved, I ask him to meet our leading bookmakers before the Bill completes all its stages, to see whether their version of what is going on can be squared with his. If he undertakes to do that, I should be more than happy to seek to withdraw the amendment.
John Healey indicated assent.