Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish the
Gambling White Paper.
(LD)
In asking my question on the Order Paper, I declare my interest
as the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport ( of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, Ministers and officials have worked tirelessly on the
Gambling Act review for 18 months. We remain committed to
delivering our manifesto commitment and will publish the White
Paper as soon as possible.
(LD)
My Lords, sadly, the Minister is back-tracking on his usual
reply, which is “within weeks”. He will know that there are
already one or more gambling-related suicides every single day,
and that 60,000 children are already classified as gambling
addicts. The consultation on measures to reduce those figures
began over two and a half years ago. The resulting White Paper
has been delayed five times; it has already been approved by the
Cabinet on two separate occasions. Does the Minister accept that
each delay is costing lives and sets more young people on the
road to becoming addicts? Will he press for the rapid delivery of
the White Paper, full and undiluted, as the former Gambling
Minister, , intended?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
I take the opportunity to pay tribute to my honourable friend
, who led a lot of the work on
the preparation for this White Paper. There will be a new Prime
Minister in place in a matter of weeks, and we want to ensure
that the hard work that has gone into the review sees its speedy
publication. We have not waited for the review to take action
where it is needed to address the sorts of harms that the noble
Lord points to. For instance, we have banned gambling on credit
cards; tightened restrictions on VIP schemes; strengthened the
rules for how online operators identify and interact with people
at risk of harm; and updated the advertising codes of practice to
make sure that content that has a strong appeal to children is
banned.
(Con)
I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his appearance at
“My Fair Lady” last night, indulging his passion for musical
theatre. It was a great pleasure to see him. I also congratulate
him on the real progress that he has made in publishing the
Government’s response to the call for evidence on loot boxes. I
congratulate the Government on adopting a light-touch regulatory
but vigilant approach on the use of loot boxes in video games—and
could he tell me when the video games body mentioned in that
response will be established?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
It is always a pleasure to see my noble friend at cultural
events. To quote the musical:
“Every duke and earl and peer”
was there last night. We are committed to ensure that video games
are enjoyed safely by everybody, and we undertook the call for
evidence to look at loot boxes. We believe that the games
industry can and should go further to protect children and adults
from the risks of harm associated with loot boxes. If that does
not happen, we will not hesitate to consider legislative change.
As my noble friend points out, we will pursue our objectives to
get better evidence and research and improved access to data
through the technical working group led by DCMS and through the
development of a video games research framework.
(Lab)
My Lords, many people are disappointed by the Government’s
decision to defer this matter again. The Lords committee that
looked at this made some strong recommendations, which I think
that most people agreed with, and which struck a balance between
allowing people who want to have a flutter to do so and
protecting vulnerable gamblers. Will the Minister look at whether
the Government can use their existing powers to implement some of
those changes now?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
I had the pleasure of serving on the committee which the noble
Lord mentions. As I say, we have not waited for the publication
of our review—the most extensive review of gambling laws since
2005—to take action where needed, including banning gambling on
credit cards and raising the age for playing the National
Lottery. We are taking action while making sure that we give the
issue the thorough consideration that it deserves.
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of Peers for
Gambling Reform. We should be shocked at the statistics that the
noble Lord, Lord Foster, gave—60,000 young people not just
gambling but addicted to gambling. How many children who should
not be gambling at all are caught up in this? This is damaging
lives and families every day of the year. Surely we need to take
some firm action, such as addressing this ubiquitous advertising
on sports occasions which is normalising gambling instead of
encouraging people simply to participate and enjoy sport for its
own sake. When will the Government take some action on this?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
The right reverend Prelate is right to point to the need for
better data. We welcome and encourage work to build the
high-quality evidence base which is needed to inform policy. As
he knows, that is an area we looked at through the review, as is
the question of advertising. We have considered the evidence on
that carefully, including the different risks of harms associated
with certain sports and on children. We will set out our
conclusions in the White Paper.
(CB)
My Lords, the government response on loot boxes says that all
players will have access to spending controls. Will this involve
a compulsory cap on spending for young people and, if not, why
not?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Government’s response makes clear that the purchase of loot
boxes should be unavailable to all children and young people
unless they are enabled by a parent or guardian, and all players
should have access to and be aware of spending controls and
transparent information to support their gaming. That is the
right approach to address this issue.
(Lab)
My Lords, as noble Lords have already pressed home, each delay to
the long-awaited gambling White Paper potentially puts people at
greater risk of falling into problem gambling, with all the human
and societal costs that it brings. Does the Minister recognise
that, in addition to the delayed review of gambling, the online
safety agenda has stalled again, broadband targets are constantly
watered down, and creatives are still waiting for support
initiatives to come on stream? Why does DCMS struggle so much
with delivery?
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is being a little unfair,
particularly on broadband. Our rollout of gigabit-enabled
broadband continues apace, bringing connectivity to many more
households across the country. The department is still hard at
work on all six Bills that we have this Session. I enjoyed
speaking to her this morning about the Online Safety Bill and
look forward to debating that and other measures in your
Lordships’ House.
(Con)
My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is quite correct in what he
says, and I support fully his remarks. I had responsibility in
the Home Office in the 1990s for gambling and the Government at
that time were extremely cautious about allowing the development
of gambling, particularly its effect on young people. I remain
deeply concerned about what is actually being talked about. My
noble friend also must take into account the views of the
responsible gambling organisations, which actually feel just as
strongly as the rest of us that gambling should be properly
regulated and that we should be careful to ensure that it does
not do untold damage to young people in particular.
of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right. Through the work that we have done on
the review of the Gambling Act we have, of course, engaged with
lots of people, including from the industry, many of whom have
been taking forward important actions to make sure that people
can gamble safely, fairly and without a problem. All the thoughts
we have had through that consultation will be reflected in the
White Paper.
(Lab)
The Minister has said that he needs better data. What better data
does he require than the fact that 60,000 children in this
country are addicted to gambling? Surely, for most of us, that
data is sufficient for the Government to be taking far stronger
action than he has outlined.
of Whitley Bay (Con)
We are also looking at the way that we can collate data from the
industry and from academia to make sure that we have proper
evidence-based data such as the noble Baroness suggests fed into
the review, which will be published in the coming weeks.
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, one problem gambler is of course one too many, but the
vast majority gamble safely. Will the Minister make sure that any
affordability checks do not force customers to provide intrusive
personal information such as pay slips and bank statements? Will
he also tell us what modelling DCMS has done on requiring
customers to consent to companies accessing private financial
data? That would cause—as it has in Europe—an exodus of gamblers
from the regulated industry to the growing, unsafe, unregulated,
online black market.
of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to point to the dangers of
taking action that would drive people further into the black
market, which is unregulated, pays no taxes and does not have
protections for people. He is also right to say that the vast
majority of people who gamble do so safely and legally. We have
conducted the review to take all these issues into account, which
will be reflected in our White Paper.
