Gambling Advertising

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Bethell, with whom I am in broad agreement. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on bringing this to the Floor of the House, and for the work that he does in this area.

I find myself in broad agreement with the points that have been made. Obviously, an awful lot is encompassed by the concept of gambling; it would include premium bonds as well as raffles and the National Lottery. Cases can certainly be made out for the good that they do, although admittedly with some hazards. Broadly, one can talk about a pleasure concept, which is all to the good, although with dangers to some people. Although I align myself with the Cavaliers rather than the Roundheads on the principle of pleasure, there is a broader public health danger that has been alluded to—and that is the point that we have to address.

I will home in one area that concerns me particularly, which is online gambling, particularly in the context of young people, as alluded to by the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm. It is done on an industrial scale. Many of these companies are not even paying UK tax, although of course they are causing UK misery and causing the UK massive costs in dealing with these issues—although it is the misery that is clearly of most concern to us. It is high time that these companies were brought to heel. There may be other things that need doing, too—I am sure there are—but, as a first-off, the most important issue is to do something on that front. It is particularly dangerous and pernicious and it is done on an industrial scale. When I google “online gambling controls”, up springs not things that are controlling it but adverts for all these companies, often with names such as “Big Win UK Ltd”, and things like that. So there are great dangers, and I hope that the Government are going to address this sooner rather than later. We so often seem to be playing catch-up where there is broad agreement, and certainly broad support from the public, to do something in this arena.

As has been said, misery is caused—there are illnesses and suicides, and damage to the home environment and to business. I just cannot understand why we are dragging our heels on this, when there is broad agreement and a massive need to do something, and I hope that the Government come forward with something in this area in particular before it becomes even more serious. It is something that it seems to me we all agree on, but it is the sort of thing that gets overlooked, and I cannot understand why—so I do hope that the Government will press on and do something in this regard.