Schedule 1 - New Schedule 1A to the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963
Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Bill
4:00 pm
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
The short amendments in this group have the same import and relate to the same portion of the schedule as amendment No. 47 did. The amendment concerns the time scale in which the person who operates a pool betting business will send the supervising accountant a statement of the accounts of that business for any particular month. The Bill gives only a seven-day notice for both submission and resubmission of the accounts, if that proves necessary. I am certainly not a person who likes delays, but I think that seven days is a very short time and have tabled amendments to make it 28 days. The Minister may have an alternative viewpoint but in all reasonableness seven days is a very short time in which
to table those accounts. From reading the clause, it strikes me—I may have misunderstood—that if at any time the supervisory accountant requested accounts, they must be provided in seven days. My amendment suggests that seven days be replaced by 28 days, which is a more reasonable period.