Clause 105 - Renewal of licence
Gambling Bill
10:00 am
Mr Don Foster (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Culture, Media & Sport; Bath, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 242, in clause 105, page 49, line 9, at end add—
'(9) The Commission shall make a statement regarding the circumstances under which failure to act within the time specified for renewal through inadvertence, impossibility, clerical error, or other relevant circumstance may be remedied by the extension of time.'.
There is no provision in the Bill covering failure to renew owing to clerical error. The commission may determine that an operating licence will be for a specified period, and such determination may give effect to the necessity for renewal of the licence. There are specific time limits for renewal, and the commission should surely have the ability to address the situation when an application for renewal is not received or processed because of administrative fault. Subsection (3) specifies the time within which an application for renewal may be made and subsection (8) states that
''The Secretary of State may by order amend subsection (3)''
with a different time. The amendment would allow, in exceptional circumstances, an extension of the time during which the application for renewal must be made.