Clause 14 - Lottery
Gambling Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
This has been a very helpful, albeit short, debate. The Minister's response to my points and to the very helpful points made by the hon. Members for Colchester (Bob Russell) and for Bath has been useful.
I have noticed that this Minister's Department—like Departments in general—seems to have adopted the policy that it is enough to put something on its website. I am not criticising the idea of putting information on the website, but I return to the request made by the hon. Member for Bath: could all hon. Members have a hard copy of whatever the Minister's officials will produce, because that is much easier for us than saying to hospice organisers throughout the country, ''You have got to look at the Department's website?'' Not all small hospices will necessarily be run by someone with the same IT capability as the Minister and his officials. Sometimes it is too easily forgotten by Departments that not everyone uses the internet in the way that Government officials do.
What the Minister has said is enormously helpful; I look forward to receiving the document, and I hope that it is a hard copy sent in the post to all hon. Members. There are certainly quite a few Government Members who say that they want hard copies of documents rather than having everything on the internet. A lot of our constituents feel that way, too. I understand that the Minister is saying that all existing lotteries will be protected; that is enormously helpful and will provide a lot of reassurance.