The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Tessa Jowell): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the recommendations of the independent casino advisory panel. The panel has today published its report, and I would like to thank Professor Crow and his colleagues for their work. Before I turn to the recommendations, I would like to remind the House of the context in which we are allowing these new types of casinos.
Gambling is on the increase. People want to gamble, and technology allows many new forms of gambling. Existing regulation is inadequate and leaves people exposed to risk, so, through the Gambling Act 2005, we have placed the protection of children and other vulnerable people at the heart of gambling regulation for the first time.
Yet if I believed everything that I read in the newspapers about that Act, I would never have introduced it. So let me be very clear: Las Vegas is not coming to Great Britain. British casinos will be subject to new controls, which will be the strictest in the world. For example, Las Vegas-style tricks of the trade will not be allowed. There will be no free alcohol to induce more gambling, and no pumped oxygen to keep players awake.
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It will be a criminal offence to permit a child to enter a casino or the gambling area of a regional casino. All casinos will be required to have staff who are trained to spot the signs of problem gambling and intervene where necessary—if they do not, they risk losing their licence. It was safe in the knowledge of those protections that we took the decision, in response to demand from local authorities, to allow a limited number of new casinos. Some 68 local authorities, representing all the main political parties, subsequently made applications to the panel.
The Act allows 17 casinos in total, one regional, eight large and eight small. Because the new casinos will be different from those we have seen before, we have listened carefully to the concerns of Members of Parliament and their constituents. We thought that it was right to be cautious. I could probably say this in 50 different languages, but the message would be the same: we cannot and will not even consider allowing further casinos until a proper evaluation over time has been made of the social and economic effects of the 17 casinos.
Such a decision would require a debate and vote in both Houses of Parliament in any case. We have commissioned a group of academics led by Lancaster University to advise on the methodology for that assessment.
The baseline study will be undertaken later this year, once Parliament has approved the new areas, so that proper assessment of changes in the pattern of gambling can be made. The assessment process will be in place in good time for the opening of the first new casino.
The assessment will not be complete until at least three years after the award of the first licence, and it will be in addition to the prevalence studies of patterns of gambling, which we are undertaking every three years from 2007.
The benchmark prevalence study is currently under way to establish how many people gamble and what proportion of them have problems with their gambling. The findings will be published this autumn, when the Gambling Act 2005 takes effect. The findings of the next prevalence study will not be published until autumn 2010. I therefore wish to make it crystal clear to the House that those safeguards preclude any consideration of further casinos for the lifetime of this Parliament.
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I am required by the Act to make an order identifying the local authorities where the 17 new casinos should go. So, in October last year I established the casino advisory panel, under Professor Stephen Crow. The primary consideration for the panel throughout has been to ensure that the areas facilitate the best possible test of social impact. Subject to that consideration, I also asked the panel to include areas in need of regeneration, which would benefit—in terms of new jobs—from a new casino, and to ensure that those areas selected are willing to license a new casino.
The panel has been operating entirely independently of the Government, and I would like to place on the record my appreciation for the rigour and professionalism that Professor Crow and his colleagues have brought to the process. It has been an open and transparent process throughout, and the views of local people have been taken into account at every stage, as the panel has visited different local authorities around the country.
The panel asked local authorities to include their evidence of local consultation. Local people were invited to participate in the examinations in public that were held in the seven short-listed areas for the regional casino. During the process, a number of areas, including Brent, Canterbury, Dartford, Thurrock and Woking, withdrew their applications to the panel in response to local opinion, which is evidence of the Act working as it should. A number of local authorities, such as Hackney, St. Albans and Slough, have also taken advantage of new powers we put in the Act and resolved not to licences any casinos in their area.
After 16 months of consultation, and having considered all the evidence available, the panel has recommended today that the following authorities should be entitled to issue a small casino premises licence: Bath and North East Somerset, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lindsey, Luton, Scarborough, Swansea, Torbay and Wolverhampton.
The panel also recommends that the following local authorities should be entitled to issue a large casino premises licence: Great Yarmouth, Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Newham, Solihull and Southampton. In addition, it recommends that Manchester should be entitled to issue the one regional casino premises licence permitted by the 2005 Act.
I congratulate Manchester and the other recommended towns and cities on their success, and I acknowledge the disappointment of those towns and cities that have not been recommended.
I received a copy of the panel’s report just this morning. Because I am conscious of the need to maintain the integrity of the independent process that we have established, it is only fair to all the applicants that I should take the time to consider the report’s contents carefully. Moreover, I am also required by the Gambling Act 2005 to consult both Scottish and Welsh Ministers. I am therefore announcing today that, following the consultation with the devolved Administrations, I am minded to return to this House at the earliest opportunity with an order that will enable Parliament to consider the panel’s recommendations and to vote on them.
The order will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and the debate will be held on the Floor of the House, as agreed with my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip. That means that Parliament, rightly, will determine the outcome of the process.
In conclusion, I recognise that gambling will always be a sensitive issue, and I understand the reservations that some hon. Members and others have about it, and about casinos. However, I have always sought to ensure that the Government proceed cautiously on this matter, with the strongest possible safeguards in place and on the basis of the best evidence of public protection in the face of what is, undeniably, rising public demand. That is what is we have done.
Once again, I thank Professor Crow and his panel for the thoroughness of their work, and I commend this statement to the House.
