Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed the government is considering the introduction of cumulative impact assessments that give local licensing bodies “stronger powers over the location and numbers of gambling outlets,” in a first clear indication of the government’s approach to licensing reform. Is prohibition the new pathway to growth?
The Prime Minister has appeared to back stronger controls regarding the licensing of high street gambling premises, confirming the government is currently considering the introduction of cumulative impact assessments.
Keir Starmer made the statement during PMQs, promising councils “stronger powers over the location and numbers of gambling outlets” in response to growing pressure from local authorities and Brent East MP Dawn Butler.
“Economically deprived high streets and poorer high streets are flooded with gambling shops,” Butler said, clearly misleading the House on 3 September. Only a few weeks earlier she had been given the statistical evidence from official Gambling Commission records that the number of gambling venues on the UK’s high streets had actually fallen by one third since 2011. Irrespective, she pressed home her primary point: “The ‘aim to permit’ legislation prevents councils from saying no.”
In a perfect example of echo-chamber politics, Butler preached to her colleagues in Parliament: “My summer campaign on gambling reform has received loads of support, including from Gordon Brown, who says that if we tax the gambling industry, we will get £3bn for our economy. Will the Prime Minister join campaigners and help me to end ‘aim to permit,’ so that constituents such as his and mine can thrive?”
Starmer’s response was somewhat disappointing, offering supportive words to Butler while at the same time seemingly dismissing the recommendations of Sadiq Khan whose inquiry into high street growth only a few weeks earlier had included a recommendation to increase opportunities for AGCs.
The PM replied to Butler: “It is important that local authorities are given additional tools and powers to ensure vibrant high streets. We are looking, Mr Speaker, at introducing cumulative impact assessments.”
“These are like those already in place for alcohol licensing. We will give councils stronger powers over the location and numbers of gambling outlets to help create safe, thriving, high streets.”
For a lawyer, the Prime Minister was not as savvy on this specific legislation as he probably would like to have been; allowing himself to be drawn into an emotional rather than evidential argument, the latter of which he usually prides himself on.
And Butler played him like a fiddle: she was fully aware that the protections she was looking for and council powers are already in place. Aim to Permit is not a directive, it’s an aim to make a decision to permit within the law.
And that ‘Aim’ was afforded lawful status for the very purpose of protecting businesses from the likes of Dawn Butler – not the other way round.
This latest episode in the gambling debate comes on the back of a concerted campaign by prohibitionists including several authorities led by Brent Council to demand more powers to refuse gambling premises, with representatives co-signing a letter to DCMS secretary Lisa Nandy in April.
Responding to that letter, Gambling Business Group CEO Peter Hannibal noted “of the 48 council signatories (this includes the ten councils of the Greater Manchester area) 27 percent do not appear to have a current licensing policy.”
“We are unclear why additional powers are being requested when all existing tools available to LAs, including statements of policy and inspections, are not being fully utilised.”
The sentiment was also echoed by Gambling Commission’s executive director Tim Miller in a recent speech to the Peers for Gambling Reform group, in which he criticised local authorities’ apparent lack of activity and reliance on the regulator.
“It cannot be the role of the national regulator to fill any gaps left in local regulation when less than half of licensing authorities are conducting any premises inspections, that the licensing fee funds them to perform.”
And as for cumulative impact assessments? Don’t let Dawn Butler anywhere near them: she clearly thinks facts, stats and evidence have no place in government policy decisions.
The blind leading the blind
Dawn Butler said…… “Economically deprived high streets and poorer high streets are flooded with gambling shops. The ‘aim to permit’ legislation prevents councils from saying no……
