Jenny Rathbone AM: I wondered if we could have a statement, a
whole-system approach from the Government, on gambling. Last week,
the Gambling Commission published its annual report on the issue of
young people and gambling, and, worryingly, it is now the biggest
harmful activity that young people up to 16 are engaging in. So,
it's now a bigger problem than...Request free trial
: I wondered if we could
have a statement, a whole-system approach from the
Government, on gambling. Last week, the Gambling
Commission published its annual report on the issue
of young people and gambling, and, worryingly, it
is now the biggest harmful activity that young
people up to 16 are engaging in. So, it's now a
bigger problem than alcohol consumption by under
16-year-olds. Some of the concerns that were
expressed at the cross-party group last Tuesday
were that 90 per cent of pubs do not take action to
prevent young people using their fruit machines. It
takes them up to half an hour before they actually
do anything, and meanwhile, of course, all the
money's gone down the tube. So, I appreciate that
the chief medical officer takes this matter very
seriously, but it seems to me it's also a
regulatory matter for local authorities to ensure
that pubs, if they have these dreadful fruit
machines, are actually supervising who's using
them. Plus, I think there's a general issue around
the way in which the gambling companies are
penetrating—across social media, through sporting
activities—young people's brains, that gambling is
something that it's cool to do. And we've seen from
research produced in Australia that this is a
pretty terrifying way in which children's brains
are being cooked. So, I wondered if we could have a
statement so that we can see that the Government is
taking this as seriously as we should have taken
smoking some 30 years ago.
: The Member highlights a matter
of some concern, across the Chamber, to everybody. Earlier
this year, I wrote jointly with the Cabinet Secretary for
Health and Social Services to the Advertising Standards
Authority about the proliferation of gambling advertising
on television, and through social media and online—for
those of us who are gamers, it's absolutely all over the
gaming industry—particularly in the way they seek to
influence vulnerable and especially children and young
people in those adverts. Their response was placed in the
Members' library, and I've subsequently met with the
Advertising Standards Authority to discuss the issue of
shared mobile devices, and how they know who's being
targeted by them. They're taking it very seriously indeed,
I'm pleased to say.
As a Government, we have been working across departments to
identify actions we can take to reduce and tackle the gaming
gambling-related issues. The Cabinet Secretary for
Health and Social Services is planning to make a statement in
due course, outlining the actions taken so far, and what else
we can do. We are taking this very seriously indeed. The
Member is absolutely right to highlight the difficulties, and
the work on fixed-odds betting terminals that's being
undertaken in the UK Parliament by Labour colleagues has gone
some way to addressing this as well.
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