Clause 71 - General conditions imposed by Commission
Gambling Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Don Foster (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Culture, Media & Sport; Bath, Liberal Democrat)
I give the Minister advance notice that if he gives the same assurance that he gave in response to the amendments to clause 65, I would be persuaded to withdraw my amendment.
The purpose of the amendments is to ensure that it should be expressly required that the commission acts in a way that does not discriminate unfairly between different classes of gambling activity. It must be clear that any policy decision in respect of conditions does
not unfairly distort the gambling market and should be subject to consultation and to a statement made by the Secretary of State.
The power to attach conditions is extremely broad and, as currently drafted, it is unclear under what circumstances individual conditions can be attached or on what grounds such conditions might be challenged. It is therefore essential that such a fundamental power is clearly described in a statement by the Secretary of State after consultation with key stakeholders.
I shall give the Minister one example of the imbalance that currently applies. Fixed-odds betting terminals are allowed in betting shops, but not in the 134 casinos in this country. The amendments seek to ensure that similar imbalances will not occur in the future.