Writing an op-ed in The Guardian, Labour MP Dawn Butler laid out her attack plan against high street gaming, calling for the “deletion” of “aim to permit” – a move that would give the vocal, prohibitionist minority the power to prevent any new AGC venues from opening. It is an ironic twist: Butler is trying to overturn the long lasting law introduced specifically to stop people like her from blocking business development and protect the vibrancy of the UK high street.
MP Dawn Butler has suggested that the “aim to permit clause” should be “deleted” in an op-ed that also called for increased taxation on the industry.
“Walking down their local high streets, people in Britain are increasingly unlikely to come across a local butcher, baker or grocery shop, and more likely to find betting shops, casinos, adult gaming centres (AGC) and so-called bingo venues,” she wrote in The Guardian. “There is an answer to this. If we deleted the aim to permit clause, the views of local residents and MPs would carry more weight, and that would result in fewer gambling shops.”
Butler writes this knowing full well that independent retailers have not disappeared because of high street gaming, but because successive governments – including the one she is currently part of – have failed to support small businesses.
In reality, AGCs, bingo clubs and betting shops have been a crucial lifeline to Britain’s high streets. Gaming operators generally occupy retail units that would otherwise have remained empty – generating no tax, no jobs and no footfall.
And Butler would see them empty once again. Should “aim to permit” be “deleted”, council planners across the UK would be pressured by a vocal, prohibitionist minority into never opening another gaming venue again. It’s akin to allowing hardline vegans to veto every proposed steakhouse – new openings would become vanishingly rare.
And as for Butler’s Rub-a-dub-dub delusion of the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker – they’ve all gone out to sea, literally.
Their demise on the high street is nothing to do with amusements, gaming and gambling operations: Butler should be focusing on competition from the major supermarkets concerning the baker’s loss. And to add more discomfort to the Butler plan, the land based industry has actually salvaged the high street on the occasions where the butcher has left – reviving the premises and bringing footfall to the local economy hub.
Ultimately, though, prohibition is the end game for Butler and her middle class nimby mob who themselves have been lavishly dining out on the gambling industry for decades courtesy of hefty whacks of consultation fees and research funding serving up some of her outdated ideas.
Butler now stands on the radical fringe of the gambling debate: she’s not calling for a review of “aim to permit”, she wants it “deleted”. She’s not taking an evidence-based approach to reform high street gaming, she wants to wipe it out.
And she is aligning with fellow ‘hear no evidence, see no evidence’ campaigners.
“Brent council, in my constituency, has joined forces with 40 UK councils, mayors and other organisations, calling for urgent gambling reform,” Butler concluded. “In parliament, I have tabled an early day motion on high street gambling reform to highlight the issue with fellow MPs who do not yet know it. I have also applied for a back-bench business debate in the Commons. We have gambling reform, the end of aim to permit, and enhanced taxation in our sights.”
Which beggars the question: where have you been for the last six years? The gambling debate has been the most robust, intense and consulted issue even before the Gambling Act Review was first announced. The evidence has been piled high and poured over – and evidence from countless research companies and stakeholders goes against Butler’s mission statement.
Perhaps she should read it, rather than ignore it? There is always fair excuse for a parliamentarian’s ignorance on issues, but there is no excuse for a parliamentarian’s defiance to remain ignorant when their duty and responsibilities compel them to work with the evidence.
Butler is extremely late to the gambling review debate, but the stakeholders who have been involved in that debate for years shouldn’t be held back because one MP can’t be arsed to read the evidence, and worse refuses to do so.
Gung ho Dawn
Dawn Butler said……. “We have gambling reform, the end of aim to permit, and enhanced taxation in our sights……
Dawn of no evidence
Coinslot said… Butler is extremely late to the gambling review debate, but the stakeholders who have been involved in that debate for years shouldn’t be held back because one MP can’t be arsed to read the evidence, and worse refuses to do so…
