Clause 164 - Virtual gaming
Gambling Bill
5:00 pm

Mr Malcolm Moss (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 336, in clause 164, page 74, line 20, at end add—

'(3) A bingo premises licence shall by virtue of this section authorise the holder to make facilities available for playing games of bingo played on more than one set of premises where the persons playing the games are participating by the use of remote communication.'.

The amendment relates to a bingo premises licence and would allow such a licence to cover more than one set of premises, where the persons playing are participating by the use of remote communication. The amendment allows me to return to our earlier discussion about linked and multiple bingo, which I think we had on the afternoon of 9 November, on clause 4. As a result of what the Minister said then, the Bingo Association has expressed great surprise.

There are two points to make. First, the association says that in all its contacts with the Minister and his officials about gambling reform there has never been any indication that a remote gambling licence would be required for either type of game. It came as quite a shock to find that that type of licence would be necessary, especially for linked games. Secondly, the proposed imposition of additional licensing could well curtail the playing of linked games by small clubs, because the cost of the additional licence may be too great to justify the small-scale links in which such clubs take part.

The amendment relates to linked and multiple bingo because it uses remote communication. That relates to the premises licence, but it has also enabled me at least to flag up the fact that the Bingo Association is not best pleased to be told at this late hour in Committee, despite all the conversations that it has been having with officials at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, that it will have to pay for extra licences on remote gambling. This may well be an opportunity for the Minister to take that point on board and to say something about it, if he can. If not, he needs to take up the matter with the Bingo Association, because it was given no indication that that would be a problem. 

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

I understand the case that the hon. Gentleman has made. This matter caused concern at a previous sitting, to which he referred. The Bingo Association has brought the matter to our attention, and my officials recently met Sir Peter Fry and his colleagues to explain how the provisions will operate. Very many bingo halls around the country, some of which are independent chains with only a few clubs, offer linked bingo. Most clubs participate in the national game, which is described as multiple bingo.

Under the Bill, operators who use remote equipment to provide bingo will require a remote bingo-operating licence. That includes telephone links and computer messaging systems. This means that providers of the national game will require a remote licence. There are currently two such providers, who will continue to need a specific licence, as they do now. Our policy is that individual bingo halls on whose premises the national game is conducted will not need a remote licence for the national game to proceed on their premises. We believe that the Bill delivers that through a combination of clauses 4 and 5.

It will also be open to the gambling commission and the licensing authority to add express licence conditions to ensure that bingo halls can continue to offer the national game. I hope that that provides some reassurance that there is no over-regulation of multiple bingo. So far as linked bingo is concerned, it is true that the Bill will require all bingo premises using remote equipment to produce the linked game to obtain a remote bingo-operating licence. That may appear to be an onerous burden for the simple activity of announcing bingo numbers down a phone line, but it is an important principle of the Bill that all remote activities require a specific licence. That is simply because remote gambling carries a particular risk that needs to be catered for specifically.

As honest and fair as our bingo operators are in Great Britain, and I agree that they are, remote bingo still carries the risks of phone links operating with delays, or of unscrupulous operators fixing things so that their halls have advantages over others. We want consumers to have the confidence that linked bingo, which after all takes place on premises other than the one in which they are sitting, operates fairly. To date, the Gaming Board has achieved that under the current general bingo permissions in the 1968 Act.

In our view, the appropriate means of regulation is now a remote bingo-operating licence. Indeed, to the extent to which they wish to operate, operators will be able to use such licences to grow their remote activities, as technology and the appetite for different bingo games grows.

None of that means that we wish to place disproportionate costs on small bingo chains, so under part 5, the gambling commission and the Government can take account of different circumstances when prescribing fees and application procedures. I am therefore happy to reassure the hon. Gentleman that we will ensure that fees for linked bingo are set at an appropriate level that seeks to recover only the modest   regulatory costs involved. We will also look to the commission to provide as simple an application procedure as possible for this activity.

Given that explanation and those assurances, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Mr Malcolm Moss (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

I am grateful for the fact that the Minister and his officials have met representatives of the Bingo Association. He did not, however, tell us whether they were satisfied that some of their worst fears had been alleviated. A simple yes or no would suffice.

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

We think so.

Mr Malcolm Moss (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; North East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)

Good. In that case, I will be happy to withdraw the amendment. If there is still unease about the issue, perhaps we will revisit it at a later date. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 164 ordered to stand part of the Bill.