In just one week, on Wednesday 28 March, there is a 3-hour debate scheduled in the House of Commons on the draft Gambling (Geographical Distribution of Casino Premises Licences) Order 2007. This will be followed by a vote by MPs on whether to accept the Casino Advisory Panel (CAP) recommendations for the location of17 new casino licences. On the same day in the House of Lords, Lord Davies of Oldham (Deputy Chief Whip) is to move that the draft Order be approved.

The House of Lords Statutory Instruments Committee, which has been examining the draft, yesterday announced its findings. The Committee concluded that ‘the Panel's interpretation of their sift criteria did not give high priority to the prevention of harmful effects to the community from gambling.’ The report went on to say that ‘the Panel gave great weight to traceability of social impact in making its selections and that this significantly affected its recommendations, ruling out some locations where it felt it might be more difficult to trace the impacts as compared to others.’

Attention was drawn to the fact that although the panel had in many cases selected specific areas the Councils awarded the licences could by law site their casino anywhere within their jurisdiction. CAP named East Manchester as the ideal place to locate the super casino but potential operators and Manchester City Council could agree on a site anywhere within the large metropolitan area, perhaps defeating the aim of testing social impact and bringing regeneration to a deprived area.

The government is pushing for the CAP recommendations to be approved. It has resisted attempts to get the choice of Manchester become the subject of a separate vote. Next week’s debate is likely to be heated as many MPs have called for a rethink in favour of Blackpool. It has been suggested that CAP was selecting candidates for a research project. According to the Lords’ Committee, ‘The House may wish to assess whether this emphasis on the needs of the research process may have over-dominated the Panel's recommendations to the exclusion of more common sense issues of where there would be least harm or where the regenerative power of a regional casino might matter most.’ (E-03.21.07)

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