Schedule 1 - National lottery licensing
National Lottery Bill
4:15 pm
Don Foster (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Culture, Media & Sport; Bath, Liberal Democrat)
Welcome back, Mr. Gale. You will be pleased to note that we are making rather more rapid progress than we did the last time you occupied the Chair.
Schedule 1 deals with national lottery licensing. It makes several changes to the National Lottery Act etc. 1993, including in respect of licensing persons to promote lotteries. I do not disagree with any particular aspect of the schedule, but I suggest to the Minister that the changes he wants to make to the 1993 Act do not go far enough.
I do not deny that I am slightly confused by some of the paperwork before us. The Minister has helpfully provided us with a copy of the now infamous Keeling document, which incorporates all the proposed changes to the 1993 Act, as amended by later legislation. I have struggled to make some sense of how schedule 1 has been incorporated in that document. On the assumption that I have got it wrong and the document is absolutely correct, no change is planned to section 6(5) of the 1993 Act, in particular paragraph (a). According to the Keeling document, after the Bill is passed, section 6(4) of that Act will state:
''The Commission shall not grant such a licence''—
to promote lotteries—
''unless it is satisfied that the applicant is a fit and proper person to promote lotteries under the licence.''
Subsection (4) is very clear, stating that the commission shall not grant a licence unless it is satisfied that the person is fit and proper. However, immediately afterwards, subsection (5) states:
''In determining whether to grant such a licence, the Commission may consider—
(a) whether any person who appears to it to be likely to manage the business or any part of the business of promoting lotteries under the licence is a fit and proper and person to do so''.
The first of two successive subsections in section 6 states that the commission must ensure that a person is fit and proper, but the second says that it may consider whether the person is fit and proper. I am totally confused about what it is meant to do and why both provisions are necessary. I would be grateful for an explanation from the Minister.