Clause 33 - Territorial application
Gambling Bill
9:30 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I want to add briefly to the comments by my hon. Friends the Members for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) and for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page). My concern is that companies should be able to rely on whatever the Minister says on behalf of Her Majesty's Government about the views of Her Majesty's Treasury. I always suspect—as I did throughout the process that led up to the Bill and to this Committee—that the Treasury is working the Department for Culture, Media and Sport by remote control. We all know that the Treasury is the most powerful Department, whichever party is in power. The Government originally wanted a free-for-all for these casinos because the Treasury's eyes had lit up at the prospect of lots of extra tax, but they were forced into their humiliating retreat part way through this Committee's deliberations.
Although that is history, we still need to be sure that companies will be able to rely on the Minister's words today as an absolutely cast-iron guarantee that the Chancellor will not come along later to change the rules and change the territorial basis on which companies' tax treatment and operations are treated. I therefore make it absolutely clear that what the Minister is about to say must be written in stone, so that the Chancellor, in his pre-Budget statement in a few days' time, or in the next Budget, will not suddenly change the basis of what we are debating today.