Clause 97 - Application to vary licence
Gambling Bill
10:00 am
Mr Don Foster (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Culture, Media & Sport; Bath, Liberal Democrat)
I am grateful, Mr. Gale, and I am sure that you will find this debate particularly scintillating and fascinating, because it refers to changes in licence agreements. The explanatory notes are, as ever, inordinately helpful. They tell us:
''Holders of operating licences may, for their own commercial reasons, wish to vary the gambling facilities that they provide, whether that is to cease carrying out an activity, or to start a new activity. Equally, they may wish to vary an individual condition that has been attached to their licence. In such circumstances, the holder of an operating licence will need to apply to the Commission to vary the terms of the licence.''
That is what the clause is all about. However, interestingly, the explanatory notes go on to state:
''An application for variation cannot be used to transfer an operating licence to another person. Operating licences are non-transferable.''
That is where the amendments come in.
It is clear that an operating licence cannot currently be transferred and that provision should be made to effect such a transfer, if deemed necessary. A company that holds an operating licence could undergo corporate restructuring, which would require it to hold its assets with an operational function in one corporate identity. Equally, a company may wish to reorganise its structure for the purposes of consolidation or disposal, so that the entity holding an operating licence would wish to transfer the licence to another related or associated company within the corporate group.
Such flexibility is certainly not unusual, and it is usually contemplated in corporate contracts and corporate finance. It would be unreasonable not to permit such a transfer if the commission was satisfied that the transferee was an appropriate holder of the licence. Clauses 95 and 96 provide for a change of control of the holder of an operating licence, and the amendment is consistent with the approach set out in the provisions on change of control.