Lincoln Jopp

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) for securing this important debate. I declare an interest: just 12 miles or so from here, and just round the corner from where I live in Sunbury in my Spelthorne constituency, is Kempton Park racecourse, where I enjoyed Jump Sunday as a guest of the Jockey Club last Sunday. It was a glorious and memorable day, and all my family will be back on Boxing day to enjoy the King George VI and Kauto Star Novices chases. To the people of Spelthorne, the all-weather flat and turfed jumps courses are much more than that. The racecourse plays host to the weekly market and to the fortnightly international antiques market, now in its 40th year, where the buyers from the nearby Shepperton studios create the sets for the around 31 soundstages there. The annual total attendance for the racing is 20,000, multiplied many times by the global television audience, and for the antiques market it is 80,000. The course regularly hosts school visits and police training, and has a sell-out fireworks display in early November. At its heart, Kempton Park is about the racing and the 70 or so meetings held there every year, and it is every bit as important to our national fabric as Formula 1, our world-leading track cyclists and the premier league. But, as my hon. Friend described, British horseracing, having led the world from its inception, is in danger of falling behind the leading group internationally. Where horseracing fails, it fails fast, and the Government want no piece of that. Enough of the stick—what about a bit of carrot? The Minister has a huge opportunity to be the jockey who rides in a winner, generating growth and prosperity for our nation. With a swift and judicious settlement of the levy and protection from egregious taxation and regulation, the Minister will lead a late run on the stand rail. Glory awaits; I hope she achieves it.