Lords amendment: No. 3.

I beg to move, That this House
disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendment No. 4 with the Government motion to disagree thereto, Lords amendment No. 21, Lords amendments Nos. 28 to 31, Lords amendment No. 39, Lords amendment No. 47, Lords amendments Nos. 50 to 55, Lords amendment No. 188 and Lords amendment No. 190.

This group of Lords amendments deals with casinos, and I propose that the House accept all the amendments in the group except Lords amendments Nos. 3 and 4, with which we disagree.

I will briefly summarise the Government's position. I recommend that the House accept the amendments for the simple reason that securing the Bill is important for public protection. I very much regret that the Opposition have made a reduction in the number of proposed regional casinos in the first stage a condition of their support for this Bill. The conventions and circumstances of the time, however, require agreement. The Opposition had previously supported eight such casinos, then reduced the number to four, and now insist on one. On the basis of the Government's original proposition agreed in Committee, some seven local authorities will miss out on the potential benefits for regeneration in the first stage.

We believe that regional casinos should be tested, primarily for any impact that they might have, because of the different nature of the regime, on problem gambling, but also for their power to regenerate run-down towns and cities. As Mr. Whittingdale is aware, we reserve the right to ask Parliament again what number of regional casinos is necessary to test their impact.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for setting out the purpose of the Lords amendments. The Bill is very different from that which received its Second Reading on 1 November. I want to pay tribute particularly to the work of my hon. Friend Mr. Moss and Baroness Buscombe in another place. We support all the amendments, each of which improves the Bill, but because amendment No. 50 represents by far the biggest shift, I shall comment on that, as it has allowed us to reach agreement on the passage of the Bill.

We very much welcome the fact that we have been able to reach an agreement. We have always recognised that much in the Bill is important and necessary, and failure to update the law would leave the public with inadequate protection, especially in relation to remote gambling, which is already a huge business and likely to increase further. Responsible operators, such as those in the Interactive Gaming, Gambling and Betting Association, and providers of remote gambling such as BSkyB, have made a strong case that it is in their interests to be able to reassure their customers that they are subject to regulation, unlike their competitors from wilder shores.

The area of greatest controversy in the Bill remains the introduction of regional casinos. Originally, the Government argued that there could be up to 40 casinos, each of which would have 1,250 machines. That could have led to the introduction of something like 50,000 category A machines, which have been identified as carrying the highest risk of creating gambling addiction. Throughout the process, we have sought to increase safeguards against problem gambling and other concerns such as organised crime. For that reason, my colleague in another place, Baroness Buscombe, successfully persuaded their lordships to insert an amendment to increase the identification requirements, particularly to protect children who might otherwise be able to gain access to the gaming area. We accept that the Government have addressed that concern in a different way. For that reason, we will not press the two Lords amendments that Baroness Buscombe introduced, and we will accept the Government's alternative.

Even though the Government were forced in Committee to restrict the number of regional casinos to just eight, many organisations, such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Salvation Army, have continued to argue that there is a significant risk of vastly increasing problem gambling. In our view, it was unthinkable that a measure that remains so controversial should have been rubber-stamped in the wash-up after just five hours of debate in Committee in the other place. Indeed, their lordships managed to consider just 11 out of 353 clauses. In recognition of that, we considered that it would be far better to have just one regional casino as a pilot. Although the advisory panel will need to give proper consideration to possible locations, we are convinced that it should be located in a leisure resort, away from city centres. From the beginning, Members on both sides of the House have recognised that Blackpool has a strong case.

Therefore, on the basis that the Government have been willing to accede to our proposals, I am happy to give the Opposition's support to amendment No. 50 and to the Bill.

Mr. Whittingdale referred in passing to the concerns that many have expressed about the short period allowed in another place for debate on a very large number of amendments, which we have an opportunity to discuss today. I was delighted that last night, in another place, my noble Friend Lord Clement-Jones sought assurances from the Minister that if the various measures that we are debating are agreed to, and if the Bill receives Royal Assent, urgent consideration will be given to them by both the newly established gambling commission and the Government. I was delighted that the Minister in another place gave that assurance and I hope that the Secretary of State will repeat that today.

The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford also rightly referred to the most controversial part of the legislation in relation to casinos. What he did not say— although I suspect that he would agree with me—is that there is all-party support for large elements of the Bill, such as measures to introduce a much tougher regulator in the form of the gambling commission, regulation of internet gambling for the first time, and other measures that have been supported for a long time. Greatest concern, however, has centred on the issue of casinos.

It is worth recalling that when the Bill was first brought to the House, the Secretary of State said clearly that if the Bill, in the form in which she introduced it at that time, led to any increase in problem gambling, it would be a bad Bill and would have failed. Despite her assurances, considerable concern existed on both sides of the House, not least about the proposal to introduce new super-casinos, as they have been described. It is worth reflecting that those casinos will not only be much larger than we have seen previously in this country but will contain up to 1,250 category A machines that would have allowed unlimited stakes and prizes, about which a great deal of concern has been expressed.

We, too, sought to persuade the Government to reduce the number of super-casinos and to introduce a pilot period to test two things: first, whether it would add to regeneration in the area in which it is located, as the Government claim would happen; and secondly, to be assured that it did not lead to any increase in problem gambling. We were keen for the number to be reduced, and we were given an assurance. Now, following further deliberations, another reduction is being proposed. We are more than happy to support the trial of just one super-casino.

The Secretary of State said that the Government reserved the right to increase the number later. I hope that the Secretary of State will reassure us that that is not a hint that as soon as we return after the election there will be any such move.

It could be us!

The issue might have to be considered by me, indeed—but whoever is in a position to produce secondary legislation, I hope that we shall at least hear from the current Secretary of State that it will happen only after a suitable opportunity is provided for a trial of the one super-casino that we currently propose. I will make that pledge on my party's behalf, and I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford will do the same. I note that the proposal for a reduction to just one super-casino initially came from my noble Friend Lord Greaves, but be that as it may, it now appears to have all-party support.

I end with one more plea, which echoes the words of the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford. Whatever location the commission recommends to the Secretary of State for the new super-casino—and, as others have said, there is a strong case for Blackpool—I hope that we will take on board the recommendations of the Joint Committee that carried out the pre-legislative scrutiny, and make it a destination casino. People should have to make an effort to visit it, rather than simply finding it on the high street. I hope that the Secretary of State will assure us that that is what she has in mind.

I apologise for not being present for the Secretary of State's speech. The lottery of the London traffic and the timing of the debate are the only excuses that I can proffer.

Having chaired the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, I want to make three points that I consider important. First, the issue of mega-casinos has dogged the Bill from the start. It was the most contentious aspect of the Committee's work. We were introducing a new concept to the gambling environment, on which there are many different views. The Secretary of State and I might have preferred there to be more than one pilot, but it was argued in the Committee that we should recommend the trial of just one regional or destination casino. We did not do so, because at the time the concept was not in the Government's mind, but Committee members who have observed the reaching of this conclusion over the past 48 hours have expressed to me their satisfaction that we can both test the argument that a destination casino could regenerate a town such as Blackpool—which I sincerely hope will be the preferred destination, given all the time and effort that has been put in—and prove that access to machines with unlimited stakes and prizes would not lead to a rise in problem gambling. Although I believe that to be true, I know that many people are not convinced. We need this pilot, and also the pilots involving large and small casinos with significantly more machines than have hitherto been available in gambling destinations.

I think that it would have been a grave error to allow this issue to thwart the Bill's progress. I believe that the most important recommendation made by my Committee to both Houses was that without the Bill, there would have been an increase in gambling of doubtful legality. We have seen an explosion of gambling opportunities—not just via the internet but by means of mobile telephony, often involving young people—and that is likely to increase during the next three to five years.

It is inconceivable that Parliament could allow the Bill to fall, given the pressing need to regulate all that gambling. It is not regulated at present, and—as the Secretary of State knows, for I have said it forcefully on many occasions and in many forums over the past few months—I consider the vital point to be not how many casinos there are or how big they are, but the explosion of gambling on the internet, on websites and on mobile telephones.

I know that visible gambling—people going into a mega-casino and playing on rank upon rank of gaming machines—offends some, but they must not ignore what I consider to be the far greater problem of unseen gambling. People may lose their homes, all their money and their whole way of life through internet gambling that is not regulated. I believe our United Kingdom industry shares my view that this must be a regulated and respected part of the gambling industry, which is why I am so glad that we are to pass a Bill that has occupied the time of so many people for so long.

That was, in fact, my third point. I thank and pay tribute to all the many people who have been involved in the process, not just Ministers and their officials but my hon. Friends the Members for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) and for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), Mr. Foster and my noble Friend Baroness Buscombe. They have devoted much time and effort to arriving at this point.

This is a hugely challenging Bill, and I feel strongly that this is a good day for our country. We are recognising that gambling is part of the leisure industry—part of our way of life. Some people may not like it, but we must face reality, and I fervently believe that the Bill tries to do that. This is not the end of the argument, by any stretch of the imagination. The Bill sets out what is virtually a whole Parliament's work after the election: the establishing of the commission, codes of practice, regulations and the framework that will govern gambling for many years to come. I pay tribute to all who have been involved in the process.

I, too, welcome the amendment, but I am sad about one aspect. I supported the Bill at the outset, partly because it would liberalise the industry but also because—as Mr. Greenway said—it would regulate the parts that needed regulation. I was a member of the Standing Committee, and I found it frustrating that the Bill kept changing. If there is anything to be learned from the process and the point that we have reached today, it concerns the Government's thinking before they produce complex Bills such as this, and what they want to end up with.

I thought that the Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Ryedale did some very good work. I am a big fan of pre-legislative scrutiny. Much of that work, sadly, was ignored, although it should have constituted the foundation of the Bill.

The Bill was pulled in different directions. I have a lot of respect for the Minister who piloted it through Committee. He also felt on occasions that one week he was being pulled one way, and another week, the other way. He did a fantastic job in trying to pilot it through.

On the issues around super-casinos, or regional casinos, I would have liked more than one. I agree that it will be difficult to have a true test with just one area. We got carried away with the fact that the super-casinos were going to be a panacea, bringing redevelopment and regeneration in all types of areas. That is why we saw a feeding frenzy of various potential applications throughout the country. Newcastle city council, a Liberal Democrat council, is trying to support an application locally. A lot of time and effort have been wasted in local government and in the gambling industry, which have not only lobbied but put forward plans. That could have been avoided if at the first stage we had been a little clearer about where we wanted to end up.

I strongly support the proposal that the regional casino should be in a place such as Blackpool, which in its lobbying made a clear and coherent case as to why that area should be chosen. I hope that if that goes ahead, we do not wait too long before we have experiments elsewhere to judge the effects.

On the industry as a whole, I agree with the hon. Member for Ryedale when he says that, overall, we have had a clean industry in this country. It has provided some good quality jobs and is well run. The Bill will add to that in introducing better regulation of parts of the industry. I have only one concern as regards where we are at now, with one super-casino proposed: the potential damage that has been done to the existing industry's confidence. Whichever lead Ministry after the election deals with gambling, it needs to build up relationships again with the industry and ensure that that industry, which has been well run for many years, is given the confidence to expand. It would be a mistake to think that casino gambling or another area of gambling can be predicated on one super-casino. We should not take away from the fact that some of the smaller, existing casinos do a lot of good work, not only employing people locally but ensuring the high standards to which the hon. Member for Ryedale referred.

The Bill has had a long gestation period. It would have been a mistake if it had fallen today for the reasons that were outlined by the hon. Gentleman. Whole areas of gambling are not regulated at the moment, but they need to be regulated. That is what was sad about some of the discussion in the popular press. I understand why certain sections had the discussions concerning the super-casinos, but they did not recognise that today people can go out and gamble freely without any regulation. We need some publicity about the fact that the Bill will bring in regulation.

In welcoming the fact that this period is coming to a close, I support the proposals, but let us hope that, post the election, we not only get the super-casinos in place but ensure that regulation under the Bill can be bedded in. Whichever Government Department deals with it after the election, it must ensure that it has good relationships with the gaming and betting industry.

I rise to put one or two points on the record. I do not think any legislation in this Parliament has undergone the scrutiny that this legislation has. I pay tribute to Mr. Greenway and to his colleagues on the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee. A total of 160 recommendations were made by the Committee, 130 of which were adopted and incorporated in the Bill, so it is about as far from rubber-stamped legislation as it is possible to imagine.

Once we have passed the Bill, we will have arguably the most protective gambling legislation in the world. That will safeguard our record as a country with one of the lowest rates of problem gambling, obviously excepting those countries where gambling is banned.

The final point is in relation to the comments by my hon. Friend Mr. Jones. There has been a process of parliamentary debate—just that—about a tricky issue and the debate has focused essentially on the role of regional casinos and the number of regional casinos. It developed from the position on Second Reading, where the Government's view was that the number of regional casinos should be determined by the market, but within the context of a very clear regulatory framework, with a veto being available to local people as to whether they wanted casinos. Therefore, the debate to which he refers is a debate about numbers. It is not a debate about substance.

It is important that the industry remains supportive of this Bill and has confidence in it. The decision to reduce from eight to one the number of regional casinos in the first stage means probably the loss of £600 million of inward investment to some of those parts of the country where that inward investment is most needed, and the loss of probably in excess of 40,000 jobs. No Government can bind the next Parliament, but it will be for the next Parliament to decide whether, in the light of demand and consistent with the precautionary principle, that number should be increased.

Lords amendment disagreed to.

Lords amendment No. 4 disagreed to.