Homepage  |   E-mail this article  |   Print

---

---

Advertisement

7:59 am, July 16, 2008
Caborn admits he ‘dropped a clanger’ over the Tote

Former sports minister Richard Caborn has urged the government to divide up the Tote to end uncertainty over its future.

During a parliamentary debate at Westminster Hall, he called for the betting shops to be split off from the rest of the Wigan-based business. The pool betting business could then be run by a Tote Trust involving the horseracing industry.

Unless action was taken there would be a "haemorrhaging" of staff worried about their jobs, he added.

Caborn tried and failed to sell the Tote to a horseracing consortium while he was in government. Efforts to dispose of it for around £400m are still continuing, with Gala Coral seen as a front runner.

During the debate Caborn admitted: "I dropped a clanger" when his record was challenged by the Conservative Party’s tourism spokesman Tobias Ellwood.

The Tote operates telephone and internet businesses as well a chain of 540 shops and on-course pool betting and employs 650 people at its headquarters in Poolstock, Wigan.

Comments?manchesternews@crain.com