Gambling Act 2005 (Gaming Machines in Bingo Premises) Order 2009

My Lords, I have little to say about the first order, on bingo. I am not a great expert on bingo. However, I noticed that the Minister referred to the economic downturn. I do not think that that has any real consequence for the bingo industry. The downturn in the bingo industry has been a consequence of the enactment and slow implementation of the Gambling Act, which has frankly nearly destroyed it. That is why we have this order today, and my only comment is, ““Too little, too late””. I want to talk about society lotteries. In doing so, I remind your Lordships that I have a personal interest in them. I have been a licensed operator of society lotteries since they started having professional operators in 1993-94. In fact, I moved the amendment to the then National Lottery Bill which allowed external lottery managers to start operating. I also then moved the first ever increase of monetary limits to lotteries, bearing in mind that lotteries have existed in this country since the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976. So lotteries had their first increase in 1993-94, the second in 1998-99 and this is the third. That is three increases in 32 years; not a good record for Governments of either hue. This increase was first lobbied for in 2000. It has taken eight years. It was lobbied for a great deal harder during the passage of the then Gambling Bill through this House. Your Lordships will remember that the Bill passed through Parliament in the wash-up period in April 2005, when after one day in Committee it went through its remaining stages within 25 minutes in your Lordships’ House, following a statement made by the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. He gave an undertaking to your Lordships that the monetary limits for society lotteries would be reviewed as soon as possible. That was in April 2005. This is how quickly the Government carry out their undertakings. In fact, the consultation process for this increase was completed by Christmas 2005, but I understand that, owing to the pressure of work at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, there was no time to send it back. My goodness, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, puts his finger on it sometimes, does he not? Why will we have to go through this every three years? We talked, debated and lobbied about the idea that there should be triennial reviews of stakes’ and prizes’ monetary limits in the Bill. The Government said that it was not necessary. The lottery people said, ““You don’t care about us; we will always be at the bottom of the heap””. ““Oh no you won’t,”” said the Government, ““We will look after you””. Here we are, all these years later. We were right and the Government were wrong. This is a story of poor quality and shabby government. The Government said in their document supporting this that they have virtually unanimous support. They have seven out of 10. Two of the three that did not support them are the National Lottery and its own private regulator, the National Lottery Commission; you would hardly expect it to support them. I do not know who the third was, but the reality is that this increase this evening has not got unanimous support. Everybody was told that either they took the £400,000 or they would not get anything. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, and my noble friend on the Front Bench are absolutely right. Sir Alan Budd’s review of the gambling industry before we had the Gambling Act asked what was the purpose of limits—any limits at all—for society lotteries, and said that they should be removed. The joint scrutiny committee on the draft Gambling Bill, on which I had the honour to serve in your Lordships’ House along with Members of another place and other noble Lords, also recommended to the Government that all these limits should be removed. The Government finally agreed to remove the limit on stakes in the Bill, but have kept the monetary limits on pools and prizes. Like my noble friend on the Front Bench, I still do not know why it is. When he winds up, it would be awfully helpful if the Minister could tell us what the policy objective of this order is. The policy objective of the Gambling Act is to prevent crime, ensure that all gambling is fair and to protect the young and vulnerable. The order has absolutely nothing to do with that at all. In fact, we can see, despite the fact that Ministers and officials have denied it for years, that this is about protecting the National Lottery. But protecting the National Lottery is not a policy objective of the Gambling Act. It has nothing to do with it all. The Minister said in another place, when the order was passed through the Second Delegated Legislation Committee on 19 January, that the protection of the National Lottery must not threaten income for good causes. My noble friend on the Front Bench had it absolutely right. The reality is that, pound for pound, society lotteries give a great deal more to charity than the National Lottery. The biggest beneficiary of the National Lottery is not good causes but the Treasury. Let us be absolutely straight about this. No exchequer anywhere else in the world takes more money out of its state or national lottery than ours. It can do that if it likes, but not, I suggest, at the expense of charities. The charities that run society lotteries do so for the most vulnerable in our society. Those I have been involved in have raised many millions of pounds for many charities. Last year we had ““Brainwave”” for brain-injured children. That is more important than the Treasury’s coffers in my view, and I think that of your Lordships’ as well. The Minister said that prizes had not been breached, as though that were a reason for not increasing them. Does that mean that if we all drove at 81 mph the Government would increase the speed limit? Not breaching them is not a reason for increasing them. That is a ludicrous idea. I would therefore like the Minister to tell us why the limit is £400,000. Why not £600,000? Why not £550,000? What is the logic in that? It is completely illogical. Why, too, should it be 10 per cent of the pool? Why not 5 per cent? Why not 15 per cent? In fact, what has it to do with the Government at all? Why do the Government care what percentage it is? The answer is, they do not really know. My final question on the subject of limits which I should like the Minister to answer is the following. Why does this order not abolish annual limits? The Minister in the other place and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, when speaking earlier, made a good thing of the fact that the order does not abolish annual limits on the number of tickets to be sold. But what does the annual limit achieve? It makes no difference to the National Lottery how many tickets are sold. It makes no difference to anybody. It has nothing to do with gambling or protecting the vulnerable. It is merely the amount that the charities can raise. Why would any self-respecting Government in the world want to restrict the amount that a charity can raise? But that is what this does. It is an unnecessary regulation. Before the noble Lord, Lord Davies, approaches his officials for an answer, I should tell noble Lords that since 1993 I have asked this question of every Minister and every official in the department. I have asked it of all the chairmen of the Gaming Board and of the Gambling Commission. None of them has the answer. The most constructive answer I received was from the present deputy chief executive of the Gambling Commission, who used to be the secretary of the Gaming Board, who said, ““We’re not really sure what it does. It got put in the 1976 Act by mistake, and there it sits””. They know that. The annual limit should therefore be removed and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, should tell us what steps the Government will take to remove it. It simply is not good enough to have this shambles again and again. Of course, this order will go through. I would not dream of praying against it because I have an interest, nor would I vote against it if any other noble Lord were to pray against it. However, it is a pretty shambolic order. It is not the fault of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, because it is not his department, and I do not blame him for a single second. Nor is this the fault of the officials because they have only been in the department for five minutes. The officials who wrote this document are long gone. But it is a shambles. It is an example of really poor government. The Government should apologise to the House for bringing such a shoddy piece of work before us at this late dinner hour.