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NICK HAWKINS
“Trying to ‘future-proof’
Government?”
What should the Gambling industry want – and what should it be
seeking – from a future Tory Government – if there is one? Nick
Hawkins explains…
T
he first point that should be made – as There are several reasons for this, exacerbated by
someone very senior said to me the other particular factors. Firstly, the gambling industry will
day – is that “all the Political parties don’t seem to many politicians as a relatively “cost-free”
want to have to think about, or do one to hit. The gambling industry is not one which
anything about, gambling, publicly, at all, if attracts great public sympathy. Closing coal mines or
they can possibly avoid doing so, in the Election big factories was controversial and attracted national
period, or just afterwards”! Gambling issues in attention. Jobs lost in our industry won’t. There
politics are always now seen as “potential trouble” by would even be some so-called “positives” which
everyone. You could say that this is, sadly for those of political strategists on the Tory side could identify,
us in the industry, one of the few matters those from from hitting this industry. They could please the Daily
the main parties would all agree on, if asked privately Mail (though nominally a ‘Tory’ paper, it is way to the
to give a genuine view. right of Cameron’s style of Conservatism). No-one in
the casino industry will forget the extent to which it
Despite the large size of the Leisure and Gambling was the Mail’s “crusade” against resort casinos which
sector, alas, it is also not seen as important: “small had the Blair Labour Government turning tail and
beer, in the greater scheme of things”. Almost no- running, and abandoning its plans for a free market
one’s vote will be changed by any decisions on policy in casinos.
in the field of gambling. So, any changes sought of
any kind will have to be planned for, and fought for Secondly, a new Cameron Government might
over a long period. want to curry favour with the so-called “faith
groups”, who might normally be largely hostile to the
The biggest issue in my view is going to be Tories, but might be won over or at least ameliorated
taxation; closely followed by regulation. by a tough new anti-gambling industry set of taxes. I
can certainly think of one marginal constituency
I’m going to start with the “downside risk” – where a Tory MP was able to win a seat by a handful
potentially gloomy prognostications, because I don’t of votes, after a very public alliance with “faith
want any readers of this article to underestimate the groups” opposed to gaming interests locally. Who
potential difficulties there could be. can say if that was decisive, or irrelevant? But if (and
it is a perfectly possible scenario) Cameron does well
A new Conservative Government, inheriting an enough to form a Government (just) but with a tiny
economy in, by any view, the worst shape since 1979 majority or a hung Parliament, and he needs to go to
– arguably since even further back, perhaps since the country again in a second Election in a matter of
World War II or even since the Depression of the months to try to get a working majority, as Harold
Thirties – will have to increase taxes and cut Wilson had to with the February and October 1974
spending. A lot of committed, long-term effort is Elections, that kind of thinking could be
going to have to be put in by all the big gambling dangerously attractive.
companies, and all the trade associations, to try to
persuade Tory Treasury Ministers from the Then, there is the attitude of the Revenue with a
Chancellor downwards not to see increasing capital “R”: HM Revenue and Customs. Smarting over
gambling taxes as a nice soft target. Conservative their ultimate defeat in the Courts at the hands of
Governments are normally, both openly in their Rank, I have detected a distinct anti-gambling
rhetoric, and in reality, more pro-business than industry “animus” in the mindset of HMRC officials.
Labour ones. However, when Governments – even I suspect that their civil service lords and masters
Tory ones – are desperate for revenue, as this one will have told their more junior policy developers, “we
be – and looking for a “cash cow” or several, the big may have lost that (Rank) battle but we sure won’t
danger for the gambling industry is that it could very lose the war” ultimately, and instructed them to go
easily be “target number one” to be hit. to find parts of the gambling industry to hit with
24 MARCH 2010
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