Young People

Lord Chadlington Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chadlington (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for initiating this important debate. In the United Kingdom 90% of 16 to 24 year-olds own or have access to a smartphone and more than one-third spend more than 40 hours a week online. Teaching and learning moderation and constructive use of technology during formative years is essential for healthy young minds and bodies. Already, young people relate to each other differently. In just 15 years the number of teenagers who see their friends daily has halved. There is also evidence that young people in social situations are finding it harder to read the implications of facial expressions and body language. However, it is their behaviour online that indicates real trouble ahead, and I will talk about one of those behaviours—namely, youth gambling.

In the United Kingdom there are now 55,000 problem gamblers aged 11 to 16—a 400% increase in just two years—and a further 70,000 young people are at risk. As noble Lords will know, I have campaigned for years to at least reduce gambling advertising on and offline. I therefore welcome the industry’s decision to ban gambling advertising before the 9 pm watershed, during televised sporting events and for five minutes before and after the whistle. But let me be clear: this can only be the beginning of a long road to reform. Australia, which introduced the whistle-to-whistle rules originally, has now decided that these do not work effectively and is now banning gambling advertising between 5 am and 8.30 pm. Spain is considering bans from 6 am until 10 pm, and in January Italy is banning all gambling advertising on and offline. Avoiding a gambling epidemic among today’s young people also requires addressing gambling advertising online, where the industry spends five times what it spends on television.

The mental health issues to which this gives rise are considerable. Combined with the excitement of gambling is the release of dopamine in the brain, causing increased impulsivity and impaired decision-making. Addiction specialists indicate that those with these heightened levels of impulsivity are more vulnerable to risk-taking and to becoming addicted, meaning that young people are more at risk than adults. This is a key contributing factor to gambling-related suicide. What can be done? The DCMS and the Department of Health are already taking important initial steps, but more is needed and it is not all down to government. First, the normalisation of gambling through advertising on and offline must be addressed, and that should be the duty of the gambling industry, including organisations such as the Football Association.

Secondly, research that I independently commissioned suggests that parents, GPs and others do not know what to do to help young people manage their time on technological devices. They need education, guidelines and support. Thirdly, we need a 1% gambling industry levy to fund treatment, education and research into gambling-related harm, the latter being essential to widen the current evidence base upon which any legislation may be based. Finally, we need the age verification systems being introduced for porn under the Digital Economy Act 2017 to be extended to gambling websites.

Some argue that all these initiatives should be taken by the Government. I do not agree. Although I accept that some do require government assistance and support, the gambling industry must accept responsibility for moderating gambling-related harm among the young. They have a moral and social responsibility. I hope that the recent steps taken over television advertising are the beginning of a new and enlightened era in which the industry will voluntarily accept its moral responsibility in this area and help young people to grow up healthy in mind and body.