SEARCH NEWS:

 

Jowell Bows to Casino Outcry

UK -- As reported by the Guardian: "The culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, will today signal a significant climbdown in the battle over Britain's new gambling laws when she concedes that only a few big regional casinos should initially be built - to see if critics' fears prove right or wrong.

"As MPs in all parties step up their attacks on the bill, which mixes new levels of gambling regulation with an unprecedented development of resort casinos, Ms Jowell has told delegations of anxious Labour backbenchers that she will listen to their pleas.

"When the bill's detailed committee stage begins at Westminster today, her deputy, Richard Caborn, will highlight her new willingness to limit the first wave of casino licences to less than a dozen, compared with the "20 to 40" ministers anticipated last summer.

"'We are looking at ways by which we can prevent proliferation and we need to be clear about the impact of large casinos,' a source at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said last night.

"The Daily Mail has been leading a media campaign to "kill the bill", despite ministerial assurances that 90% of its clauses concern regulation, designed to police fast-growing unlimited internet and offshore gambling and to protect young people.

"But Labour MPs, some of whom had threatened to join forces with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in seeking to delete contentious clauses, claimed credit last night for persuading Ms Jowell to draw back..."

< Gaming News