Clause 33 - Territorial application
Gambling Bill
9:30 am
Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)
I say to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) that the standard line of the Treasury, whatever Government are in power, is that tax and other matters are always kept under review. The hon. Gentleman will get that standard answer from any Treasury of any Government.
Clause 33 establishes the territorial scope of clause 30, and draws a distinction between facilities for remote gambling and facilities for non-remote gambling, which is sometimes better known as ''bricks and mortar'' gambling. As far as the latter is concerned, the clause establishes that if every action a person took in providing a facility for gambling were taken outside Great Britain, no offence could be committed. However, if any such thing were done here, the system of regulation set out in the Bill would apply.
The position will be similar on remote gambling. We do not seek to regulate gambling operations that are run wholly offshore, but if any part of the remote gambling equipment were located here, the full system of regulation would apply. We do not want a company to establish some aspects of its operation here, and some abroad, and to succeed in falling between the two regulatory stools.
The clause provides a definition of remote gambling equipment for those purposes. That definition makes it clear that genuine internet cafes, for example, would not need a gambling commission operating licence just because their customers used their terminals to gamble on offshore websites. We would rather that customers who decided to gamble remotely used well regulated British websites, but if they decided to do otherwise, there should be no penalty.
The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire inquired whether we are keeping the issue under review; the answer is yes. We are aware of the issues that he raised and are considering whether further changes are needed. However, we need to make sure that the key gambling equipment is properly regulated.