Clause 7 - Casino
Gambling Bill
3:00 pm
Miss Julie Kirkbride (Bromsgrove, Conservative)
We look forward to the Minister's lengthy response to the many relevant questions that have been raised.
I come to the legislation not liking American-style casinos or the idea of them coming to the United Kingdom. However, I am just enough of a libertarian—to please the hon. Member for West Ham—to recognise that just because I do not like something does not mean that I ban it. That could lead us on to the subject of smoking, foxhunting and all sorts of things that we could be called to order over. Although I think such gambling deeply unattractive, I accept that it is appropriate that we have one of those establishments somewhere in the UK. To that end, I would be more than happy to please the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood by saying she should have it.
We should have a pilot scheme in Blackpool that we can thoroughly assess. Blackpool would hugely benefit from that because, as has been mentioned by the hon. Member for West Ham, such casinos are a licence to print money because people enjoy gambling. Some people will lose their shirts, and others will just not go to the pub, but spend money in the casino instead. There will all sorts of displacement effects, and perhaps even an increase in the spend on entertainment in general, but nevertheless a proportion of the income of the new casinos will come from people who, having lost their shirts, want to chase their losses by gambling all that they own. That is an unattractive side to such casinos, but I accept that people should be allowed—in some respects—to do what they want.
The best way forward for the Government would have been to allow one pilot scheme to take place somewhere in the country. In fairness to Blackpool, it has been making the running. There is clearly a job to be done to reinvigorate the resort, give it extra revenue and make it an area that responds to the expectations of the 21st century in the services and facilities that it provides. American-style gambling is one way of doing that.