Gambling Act 2005

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish their response to the Review of the Gambling Act 2005.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw attention to my interest as the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Gambling Minister made clear in his speech at the GambleAware annual conference in December, our review is looking at a very wide range of issues and our call for evidence received 16,000 submissions, which we are considering carefully. We will publish a White Paper setting out our vision for the sector in the coming months.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but with more than one gambling-relating suicide every day, delaying reforming our outdated gambling regulations is putting lives at risk. We do not have to wait for the White Paper to make changes, as we have seen, for example, in banning the use of credit cards for gambling. Given that strict stake and prize limits apply to land-based gambling but bizarrely not to online gambling, will the Government fix this harmful omission now and commit to a regular review of limits in years to come? Frankly, chaos in Downing Street should not be an excuse for delay in protecting lives.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As the noble Lord rightly notes, we have made significant progress in recent years to make online gambling safer, including a ban on gambling with credit cards as well as new rules to reduce the intensity of online slot games. But we recognise that more can be done to protect people who gamble online. Our review is looking closely at the case for greater protections for online gamblers, including protections on products and for individuals. We called for evidence on protections including the pros and cons of stake limits as part of our review, and of course, we are considering all the evidence carefully.

Authors, Booksellers and Libraries: Economic Recovery

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, that it is a matter for publishers and their academic customers. I am pleased to report that ebook sales have increased during the pandemic, so people are continuing to buy them, but I will take that point back to the department.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that to ensure that authors get fair recompense we should do far more to ensure that readers are accessing legitimate books, not least by removing illegitimate material online? Will he tell us what progress has been made in developing the codes of practice to detect and remove illegal content, as committed to by the Government in the creative industries sector deal of 2018.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

This is a matter which has been touched upon in relation to the review of intellectual property rights. The consultation brought forward concerns in the sector about the unauthorised reproduction of books, so it is being looked at. I will write to the noble Lord on the follow-up work that has been done in the meantime.

Gambling: Children and Young People

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the research by Dr Raffaello Rossi and Professor Agnes Nairn What are the odds? The appeal of gambling adverts to children and young persons on Twitter, published in October.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I draw attention to my interest as chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, this research is a useful contribution to the evidence base and will be considered carefully in our ongoing review of the Gambling Act, which is taking a close look at the impacts of advertising wherever it appears. Gambling adverts must already not be targeted at children or appeal particularly to them. The committees for advertising practice will soon publish more on their plans to tighten the rules in this area.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but he will know that the research indicates how easily children can be influenced by gambling advertisements even when they are not targeted at children; indeed, under-age gambling is illegal, yet a third do it and over 60,000 are now classed as problem gamblers. Does the Minister agree that, in developing new gambling legislation, we should do what we already do for alcohol, drugs and smoking, and adopt a public health approach, prioritising prevention of harm in the first place?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right that a public health approach involves prevention as well as treatment. There is a wide range of provisions in the advertising codes designed to protect children, as well as vulnerable adults, from harm. The Committee of Advertising Practice has consulted on further strengthening the rules on appealing to children. We expect an announcement by the end of the year.

BBC: Government Support

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on his excellent maiden speech, and the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on securing this debate, his incredibly forensic speech and his long and distinguished broadcasting career. As he said, the BBC is probably the best and most trusted broadcaster in the world, attracting international admiration. In an era of fake news, as we have heard, it is more important than ever that there are trusted, impartial news sources such as the BBC on which we can rely. But it is not just for news alone, as we heard. The BBC has an unparalleled range of services, from its education offering to its pivotal support for the creative industries. It is, of course, one of the greatest sources of British soft power throughout the world.

Even the BBC’s rivals share this view. Senior figures at Netflix, for example, talk of the BBC’s impact

“in building the profile of the UK creatively”

and their support for

“the long-term sustainability of the BBC”.

Despite significant growth in competition, the BBC continues to hold its own. More people use the BBC than any other media brand. Even when funding restrictions limit what the BBC can screen, it is still the broadcaster of choice. Broadcasting just 2% of sport on TV, it delivers around 40% of TV sports viewing.

So, on these Benches, while acknowledging, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, said, that the BBC should regularly be challenged, we support a strong, well-funded and independent BBC and will oppose attempts to undermine this by seeking to reduce its funding or remit. Yet, sadly, decisions by the Conservative Government have meant the BBC having to take on more obligations with less income: a 31% cut over the past 10 years with a frozen licence fee, having to fund free licences for the over-75s—a social policy which should be funded by the Government—and additional obligations in relation to the World Service, BBC Monitoring, S4C and even broadband rollout.

Perhaps we should not be surprised. After all, it was the Prime Minister’s former advisor Dominic Cummings who called for the

“end of the BBC in its current form”,

advising right-wingers to work towards undermining the credibility of the BBC because it is the “mortal enemy” of the Conservative Party. There have been numerous examples more recently of that undermining. Following evidence that the decriminalisation of licence fee non-payment would cost the BBC dearly, rather than scrap their plans, the Government have said they will keep the matter under review, adding to what the NAO has called the “uncertainty” about the BBC’s financial future. A broadcasting Minister has argued that it will soon be possible to introduce subscription services as an element of funding for the BBC—a move that would undermine the crucial universality of the BBC, at a time when Ofcom has said that

“universality will still be necessary to deliver the benefits of public service broadcasting in future.”

I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, that he recalls that the BBC was deliberately set up to disrupt the market because the market cannot and will not deliver this universality. We have had Theresa May’s former communications chief trying to block an appointment to the post of BBC News editor and the current Prime Minister’s attempt to the install former Daily Telegraph editor, Charles Moore, as BBC chairman. More recently we saw the Prime Minister desperately seeking, even trying to bend the rules, to appoint ex-Daily Mail editor, Paul Dacre, as the next chair of Ofcom, the BBC’s regulator, despite his well-known animosity towards the BBC and having earlier been judged by the interview panel as “not appointable”. He could hardly have been a neutral referee on BBC regulation. To cap it all, we have a new Secretary of State who has been so unclear about the sustainability of the BBC that she is not even sure if it will exist in 10 years’ time. The time has come for the Government to cease its attempts to “thwack” the BBC and, as the Motion proposes, start giving it greater support.

Creative Sector

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Spencer, on a truly interesting—which is often not the case—maiden speech. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Featherstone on not just securing this important debate but, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, rightly said, on her excellent speech, which I hope will influence government thinking.

It seems to me that the Government have a Jekyll and Hyde approach to the creative sector. They rightly talk up its importance and, to be fair, have directed significant sums to help the sector during the Covid pandemic—yet in many ways they fail to understand the sector and its specific needs. This can be illustrated by many examples, such as the furlough scheme failing fully to take into account the sector’s particularly large number of freelancers and part-timers and the Government’s dismal betrayal, in the Brexit negotiations, of musicians and other creative performers whose livelihood comes from touring within Europe. Further evidence is provided, as we have heard, by the Government’s threats to cut the BBC down to size or to privatise Channel 4, failing to appreciate the importance of those institutions in the wider creative sector ecology.

In the limited time available, I will concentrate on just two other government policy areas to illustrate their failure to understand and respond to the creative sector’s needs: the talent pipeline and the importance of protecting intellectual property. Post-Brexit talk is all about developing homegrown talent yet, as far as the creative sector is concerned, government policies are hindering such development. For example, soon after the introduction of the apprenticeship levy it became clear that there is no one-size-fits-all scheme, and the creative industries argued for a bespoke one to meet their requirements and ways of working. Only now, after several wasted years, are trials of a more appropriate scheme taking place. I hope the Minister can update us on what is happening and that he will acknowledge that the failure to act sooner has meant that, as ScreenSkills has claimed, there are only one-quarter as many creative industry apprenticeships as there could have been.

While the Government are at last beginning to listen in relation to apprenticeships, the same cannot be said for what is happening in our schools—an issue raised so powerfully just now by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The failure to include arts and creative subjects within the EBacc has led to students being discouraged from studying them and encouraged instead to focus on subjects that form part of the EBacc. Government workforce statistics show this very clearly, with a sizeable decrease in the teaching of non-EBacc subjects. For example, in the past 10 years art GCSE entries have declined by 37% and design and technology entries by nearly 60%. Not surprisingly, A-level entries in arts and creative subjects have also declined dramatically. A-level music entries are down by 44% since 2011. This is hardly a recipe for developing homegrown talent in the creative sector.

That is why we on these Benches have long argued for the inclusion of creative subjects within the EBacc—and we are not alone. The Commons DCMS Select Committee recommended it way back in 2013, and in June of this year the Commons Education Select Committee made a similar recommendation. To date no Minister has given a convincing justification for rejecting such recommendations, so I will listen with interest to our Minister’s attempt. And, while he is doing it, recalling that his party’s 2019 manifesto promised

“an ‘arts premium’ to secondary schools to fund enriching activities for all pupils”,

will he tell us when it is coming?

Now creative subjects in our universities are under threat, with an inevitable impact on the talent pipeline. The universities regulator has confirmed that it will be cutting its funding for arts subjects by 50% and, worse, we now hear that the Treasury is pressing for a reduction in the number of students studying such courses on the grounds that they are less likely to pay back their student loans. I hope the Minister can assure us that such pressure from the Treasury will be resisted.

To date, the Government have not listened to concerns about the talent pipeline, but I hope they might do about intellectual property. The generation and exploitation of IP is a defining feature of the creative industries. Piracy is a major threat to that exploitation. One of the problems in tackling it is that digital service providers do not verify the identities of those using their services, so pirates can make millions from their illegal activities without being identified. The Government have now said that they will look at how Know Your Business customer regulations might be introduced to deal with this problem. Can the Minister therefore update us on how that work is being taken forward and when he expects it to be concluded?

Finally, I have previously asked the Minister about the future of the IP exhaustion regime and the possibility that the Government may introduce an international rather than a national one—a move the sector believes will be devastating. So far, we have been told that the options are being reviewed and a decision will be made in due course. Given the importance of the issue, can the Minister say why it is taking so long, when we are going to hear and why the Government are even considering an option that could be an existential threat to our creative industries? The Government talk up the creative industries but must do more to understand them.

Gambling Commission: Data

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foster of Bath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that gambling operators provide high quality and accurate data for use by the Gambling Commission.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, operators must already provide accurate data to the Gambling Commission as a condition of their licence. If an operator misrepresents or fails to provide information, this could lead to regulatory action. However, it is clear that data quality standards need to improve. The commission has announced that the industry can expect targeted enforcement action in this area from next year.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and draw attention to my entry in the register. The establishment of the data repository is very welcome. Can the Minister put very clearly on the record that it will be a requirement for gambling companies to provide data to that repository and that this will not be voluntary? Can he further tell us what plans there are to ensure that all legitimate researchers will have access to that data?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am glad we had the opportunity to discuss this last week in the debate initiated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. The PHE review that we debated highlighted the significant evidence gaps and the importance of research. We are looking at the best ways to facilitate high-quality research as part of our review of the Gambling Act, including how we can make better use of operator data. The commission is taking forward the work on the national data repository, with the aim of collecting operator data for use by researchers.

Gambling-related Harms

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate not only on securing this debate but on his very powerful speech.

The landmark evidence review by Public Health England clearly highlights the wide range of gambling-related harms, including homelessness, unemployment, imprisonment, depression and alcohol dependency—and most seriously, as we have heard, suicide. However, the review also highlights the magnitude and long-lasting impacts of these gambling harms. There are more than 400,000 problem gamblers—of whom, staggeringly, 60,000 are children—and millions of others are at risk or impacted by other people’s gambling. On average, there is more than one gambling-related suicide every day. It is a grim picture of the impact gambling has on our society.

Some argue that it is even grimmer, but, as the review acknowledges, there are clear research gaps in the evidence base, so I hope that the Minister—whom I welcome to his new role—will tell us what plans the Government have to fill them. I am sure he will acknowledge that such research requires researchers to have access to data, not least data currently held by gambling companies about their customers. I was delighted that the ICO agreed with the Gambling Commission very recently that gambling companies can share that data with each other without breaching GDPR. However, does the Minister acknowledge that gambling companies should be required also to share such data, in anonymised form, with authorised researchers? What steps will be undertaken to ensure that this happens?

Even without further research, we know that the situation is grim, not just for the individuals impacted but for society as a whole. Indeed, the PHE review estimates the annual economic burden of gambling harm to be over £1.2 billion, and possibly much higher. When Peers for Gambling Reform, supported by over 150 Members of your Lordships’ House and which I have the honour to chair, commissioned NERA to look at the economic implications of introducing the reforms we proposed, it also considered the cost to government of gambling harm. Interestingly, our NERA figures were dismissed as fantasy by the industry, yet the PHE figures are higher than those in our NERA report. So does the Minister accept the PHE figures—which are, after all, from a government body—and will he defend them against attempts to dismiss them by the industry? Is he aware that our NERA report shows that introducing our proposed measures to tackle gambling harm would lead, among other benefits, to increased employment and increased income for the Treasury?

The Peers for Gambling Reform measures range from the introduction of a compulsory levy to fund research, education and treatment and the establishment of a gambling ombudsman to tighter regulation of online gambling and of gambling advertising, but central to the proposal is that, in considering gambling reform, the Government should adopt a cross-departmental public health approach. As the right reverend Prelate pointed out, the gambling industry constantly tells us that many people enjoy a flutter in a safe and responsible manner, yet recent TV programmes such those we have heard about and the excellent video produced by Gambling with Lives show all too clearly how that flutter can lead to something which causes great harm and can sometimes be fatal.

There is no incentive for the profit-driven industry to take serious action. A huge proportion of its profits comes from problem and at-risk gamblers. As the Lords report, Gambling Harm—Time for Action, states, the greater the problem, the higher the profit. The public health approach we advocate would prioritise prevention of harm for the whole population. We have seen this approach taken with drugs and alcohol addiction, where the issues are high profile and highly resourced. The comparable harms caused by gambling addiction have not received the same attention and, frankly, are often forgotten. The Government’s recently announced Operation Courage, for example, which earmarked £2.7 million for expanding services for military veterans with complex mental health issues, physical trauma and alcohol or substance misuse issues, does not provide funding for gambling addiction, despite recent research by the Forces in Mind Trust and Swansea University reporting that 43% of veterans had experienced problem gambling in the last year and were 10 times more likely than non-veterans to experience gambling harms and to gamble as a way of coping with distress. Anyone can experience harm from gambling. The characteristics of some products such as continuous, fast-paced play are well known to be highly associated with harms. Because of this, prevention needs to address the ways in which gambling products generate harms, as well as the wider social, economic and cultural factors which shape how gambling is provided and promoted in society.

That is why, just as we already do with drugs and alcohol policy, gambling policy must be based on a public health approach. The Government say that that is what they are doing, so can the Minister explain why, based on what I have been told, there has been little or no communication between DDCMS and DHSC as work on the Government’s review of gambling has progressed to date? Will he do all he can to ensure that, as the gambling White Paper is developed, there is real engagement between departments and, as proposed in the excellent PHE review, the adoption of a public health approach?

UK Fashion Industry

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Regrettably, my Lords, we do not believe that a visa waiver is viable. During the negotiations last year, the European Commission argued that EU-wide visa arrangements would have to include binding non-discrimination clauses committing us to waiving visit visas for current and future member states of the EU, which is not compatible with the commitment in the manifesto, on which the Government were elected, to take back control of our borders. Of course, our new immigration system allows us to have and to continue our very generous offer to people working in the creative industries from all around the world—they are very welcome here in the UK.

On T-levels, I am pleased to say that the content for the craft and design T-level has been developed by employers. The appointed awarding organisation is now developing the technical qualifications and assessments, and it will be available for first teaching from September 2023.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the Minister on his appointment. He will be well aware that the Government are currently considering introducing an international rather than a national intellectual property exhaustion scheme. Many of our very successful exporting creative industries, including fashion, believe that this move could be devastating, some even describing it as an existential threat. Do the Government share their concerns?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Sadly, the negotiated outcome which the UK proposed with the EU was not something it was willing to agree in the negotiations before we left the European Union, but the Intellectual Property Office is considering concerns such as those which the noble Lord raises to see whether any changes can be made to the UK’s design systems to address the issue in the future.

Football Grounds: Safe Standing

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely important point. Obviously, the context of all these discussions is the Hillsborough tragedy, which he rightly raises. The department is currently working with a wide range of supporter groups. Our absolute abiding principle is that we will never compromise safety and never return to the tragedies of old.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, safe standing is already working very successfully all around the world, including in Scotland. However, the Minister will be aware that there are many different forms of safe standing, even within the lower divisions in England. Can the Minister give us an absolute assurance that any new regulations that come forward will take this into account to make sure that a range of allowable options will suit the needs of clubs of all sizes and all sorts of stadia, not just those in the top flight of the game? With so many examples working so successfully, can she explain why we are still talking about the need for further pilots?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that the Sports Grounds Safety Authority commissioned independent research into this, which is in the public domain. It published its Safe Management of Persistent Standing in Seated Areas report. As the noble Lord said, this confirmed the very positive impact this has had on spectator behaviour, particularly in relation to away fans. That is what we will be updating on in more detail in the coming weeks.

National Lottery

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that we are planning to carry out a review of society lotteries, to which he refers. It will be an early check based on evidence to see whether the increased limits have had the intended impact and that the limits are enabling the sector to increase the proportion that goes to good causes.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD) [V]]

My Lords, research shows that replacing lottery duty with gross profit tax could, over a 10-year period, lead to more than £6 billion extra for good causes and the Treasury. The Minister just reminded us that returns to society are a key objective, so can she explain why the Government have rejected the recommendation from your Lordships’ Gambling Industry Committee? Will she publish the Government’s own analysis of this proposal?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government reviewed all the evidence available and, based on that, concluded that to protect income for good causes and tax revenue for the Exchequer—which, obviously, is also spent in the public interest—the current model of taxation should remain in place.