Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Viscount Falkland

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Grand Committee

[Viscount Falkland]

My Lords, I recognise the sincerity with which the noble Lord has introduced his amendment. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, who told us that he had led a sheltered life and had not seen a casino in his part of north-west Scotland and so on, I, unfortunately, did not have such a sheltered life and spent quite a lot of time in casinos, backing horses and so on. In fact, I had what I consider to be a gambling problem.

What I mean by a gambling problem is that it distracted me from my work. It made me have an overdraft which I should not have had. It caused family problems at home. It did not, so far as I know, do anything to destroy my health, but it nevertheless made me nervous and erratic from time to time. I am telling the Committee this because I think that the statistics are nonsense. The statistics are given to us by the Government, and they were given to us by the previous Government. I spoke to the Minister in charge and told him—which he agreed with; I was quite persuasive on that occasion—“What you are giving us is a figure which represents the number of people who are in treatment for a gambling problem”. That is just the tip of the iceberg because there are people like me who are on exactly the same drift towards a serious addiction.

I quite honestly do not think that self-exclusion, whether it is online or terrestrial, is generally the answer. Self-exclusion is rather like dieting. You can tell your wife not to buy any more ginger biscuits for six months and to stop you when you go to take double portions of a rather fattening dinner, but when she stops doing that you just go back. That is a characteristic of dieting. It is characteristic of heavy social drinking. You can stop it during Lent or make up your mind to stop drinking for a while but inevitably you go back. That is self-exclusion.

A self-exclusion agreement with an online company, a casino or anywhere else is the same. When the pre-legislative scrutiny committee went to France, it discussed this. France has tried self-exclusion in casinos and there is the same problem. A gambler, drinker or eater with a serious addiction can have a sincere wish one day to change their life but, unless they get proper treatment and get to grips with the problem, they will just go back to it. As I have said, a huge number of young men go to betting shops, for example. I have rather condemned the fixed-odds betting terminals to which these young men get addicted, as well as to all other kinds of betting. Often, they are young married men with small children. We got evidence of that on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee when we spoke to GamCare. Some young men have exactly the same characteristics in their addiction to gambling as people have with drugs or drink.

In a way, it happened to me, although it was not serious. I would say to my wife that I was going somewhere I was not going and I was going to a casino. That is what happens. You deceive yourself and other people. Self-exclusion may well play a useful part for some of the gambling population. However, the Government have to accept that the statistic they brandish and boast about as regards having one of the lowest levels of incidence of gambling in Europe—I think that that is the way in which it is phrased—is not true because they do not know about the vast bottom of the iceberg and the vulnerability of people. Fundamentally, before you get to the business of self-exclusion and other things, you have to recognise that some people have problems. They need to find a way of stopping their denial of their problems. It is not easy and I do not expect the Minister to give us much encouragement on this issue.

However, it is a recognised problem. Every day in every newspaper we read about people who have cheated their companies of vast sums of money. We read about accountants and all kinds of businesses, and about people who turn to shoplifting to feed their habit. I am very sympathetic to the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about gambling and he is quite right to be concerned about it, as should we all. However, we have to be able to detect it sooner. Families should be able to detect it from behaviour, as do the online companies. At Second Reading, I said that I am quite encouraged by online companies. They take great efforts to detect the behaviour of people, as now do, I think, casinos. They step in and say, “Look, you’ve got a problem and you should get it dealt with”.

Fundamentally, it is a deep problem. If you want to stop it or to reduce it, you cannot mess about with it. You must be prepared to spend money and resources on it, as we do with any other addiction, and take strong measures. There is nothing much that you can do about the real addicts except to get them into GamCare or Gamblers Anonymous. I know someone in treatment at the moment. I think I said at Second Reading that he told me that all the young men coming into his branch in Slough had become addicted to the machines, which used to be called slot machines. They are now very sophisticated and attractive pieces of technology.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, is quite right that gambling online is more dangerous in a way because you are on your own. When you are on your own and there is no sociability attached to it, you are much more vulnerable. At least if you are playing roulette every week and people see you are losing a lot of money, they will come up and tell you to take it steady, but if you are online in your bedroom, no one is going to do that. Much more serious measures than self-exclusion have to be taken, and I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I am not certain whether the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, is in favour of it or against it. I was rather confused by what he was saying because he was almost indicating that we should do our best in these areas, yet doubting that that would have any effect for the better.

[Viscount Falkland]

Since the noble Baroness mentioned me by name—

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Are you in favour of it?

[Viscount Falkland]

I am not in favour of it generally, no. It may well be a tool for some people, but a very small minority.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Okay, that gives a somewhat clearer impression that part of you thinks there might be some savings for life and family. Without doubt, the social problems we have heard about, including family breakdown, prison and suicide, are not only terrible personal tragedies for those involved but quite a considerable challenge for the state in terms of the cost of dealing with people with these sorts of addictions. If you can help them out of the scene earlier, I would have thought the sooner the better.

I am not going to repeat a lot of what has been said. But as we have been told, the academic Dr Sally Gainsbury has pointed out that Britain will be particularly well placed to introduce such a system through its Gambling Commission licence. Rather than having to register self-exclusion with each online gambling website, which is an impossible task, the problem gambler would simply have to register self-exclusion once to the Gambling Commission and all Gambling Commission licence holders would then be required to respect this as a condition of their licence.

If this is a possibility, let us get on with it. Let us try it. Can we be bothered to provide online problem gamblers with a credible form of self-exclusion? Are the Government and the Gambling Commission prepared to take action? Of course it will not be easy—no one is suggesting that it will—but surely now is the time to take some action and, where there are loopholes, to see if we can ensure that they are effectively closed.