Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Thornton and Lord Faulkner of Worcester

Monday 7th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, I, too, will be brief. In moving Amendment 66A, I do not oppose the Government’s decision to merge the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission. Indeed, I strongly support that for reasons I will explain. I believe that it would be helpful for the Committee to hear more about the Government’s plans for the regulation of gambling. The suggestion that the National Lottery should be regulated by the Gambling Commission first surfaced in the report of the Joint Scrutiny Committee on the draft Gambling Bill published in April 2004. I had the privilege of serving on that committee, along with seven other Members of your Lordships’ House, two of whom I am delighted to see in the Chamber—the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and my noble friend Lady Golding.

I recall that the committee spent a considerable amount of time considering whether there should be a single regulator. The Joint Committee heard evidence in favour of the proposition from a variety of witnesses, including the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which stated that,

“it is … vital that the Gambling Commission should regulate all types of gambling, including spread betting and the National Lottery”.

The then Government, in the form of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said to the draft scrutiny committee that,

“there are benefits in plural regulation rather than having a single regulator”.

My much-missed friend, the late Lord McIntosh of Haringey, added that,

“the principal reason why we did not have the National Lottery coming under the Gambling Commission was that the National Lottery Commission has an additional objective of maximising the return to good causes, whereas the Gambling Commission has the three objectives of excluding crime, [promoting] fairness, and protecting the vulnerable”.

I think that I speak for most members of the Joint Scrutiny Committee if I say that we found this last argument a little hard to follow. Ever since the National Lottery was introduced in the mid-1990s it has enjoyed a protected and somewhat contradictory regulatory environment where its regulator is supposed to reconcile the two conflicting aims of protecting players and at the same time encouraging them to spend as much as possible on lottery products so as to fulfil their remit of maximising the return to good causes. In the end, we came to the conclusion expressed in paragraph 126 of our report, which states:

“The Committee is attracted to the idea of a single regulator, and takes the view that there would be distinct advantages for the National Lottery if it were to be included within the remit of the Gambling Commission rather than excluded from it as proposed in Clause 222 of the draft Bill. We are not convinced that the proposed structure will ensure consistency of approach across the gambling sector, particularly on key issues such as problem gambling and player protection”.

How very interesting that this Government have come to the same view.

However, I am bound to ask the Minister whether the Government have thought through all the issues. Have they, for example, decided that there is no longer the need for a statutory body which has within its remit the encouragement of people to spend more on lottery products so as to maximise the return to good causes? If that is what they are saying, I would have no problem with that as I have always taken the view that it is the job of a lottery operator rather than the state to promote lottery gambling. But that is a significant change of policy to which we will need to return to debate it at greater length. Where they would get into real difficulty is if they gave the Gambling Commission the job of promoting the lottery as well as regulating it. I should like to be reassured that that is not what they are planning.

I should make clear again that I am not opposed to the merging of the National Lottery Commission and the Gambling Commission. I just want to be assured that Ministers have thought through the consequences, as I believe we did on the Joint Scrutiny Committee seven years ago, and that they have a clear idea of how these potentially conflicting interests can be reconciled. I beg to move.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, 72 per cent of the population gambled in the past year, so it is important that we get the regulation of gambling, whether it is through the National Lottery or at a casino, right. I took part as a Back-Bencher in the passage of the Gambling Act through your Lordships’ House with particular reference to the consequences for children and young people, which is why I am here today.

The Gambling Commission has been a great success as our regulatory body for most, if not all, gambling. As my noble friend said, it regulates betting, bingo, casinos, slot machines and lotteries, but not spread betting or the National Lottery. Its aims are to keep crime out of gambling, to ensure that gambling is conducted fairly and openly and to protect children and young people. Like my noble friend, I have some questions to ask.

The first question is to do with reconciling the contradictions in the proposal in relation to a body such as the National Lottery Commission, which promotes the success of the National Lottery in order to ensure that it makes a great deal of money for good causes but is also there to safeguard people from the dangers of gambling.

The Gambling Commission does three things extremely well and I should like to know what will happen to them in any new organisation. The commission is responsible for the Responsible Gambling Fund and the Gambling Research, Education and Treatment Foundation, both of which are relatively new bodies. The bulk of the money from the Responsible Gambling Fund goes to the work of GamCare, which does a very important job in helping people and families with gambling problems. I should like to know whether the work of GamCare will be jeopardised. The GREaT Foundation raises the required funding to support the work of the Responsible Gambling Fund. What will happen to these bodies under the new regime?

My third question concerns what will happen to the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, which has been an important spotlight that the Gambling Commission has shone on the gambling habits of the nation. It tells us who is gambling, how they are gambling and what the dangers are. I would be interested to know what is going to happen to that survey.

I started by being concerned, as I was while the Gambling Bill was going through this House, about the protection of the young. One of the great successes of the Gambling Act 2005 has been the introduction of age verification technology, which is part of the protection making online gambling that much safer for children and young people. I know that the National Lottery has the same sort of age verification safeguards, so I am reassured by that, but I would like to think that any new body would take heed of the need to protect children and young people from new technology as it advances in terms of gambling.