Gambling Harm (Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry Committee Report)

Lord Kirkham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Kirkham (Con)]

We live in a world that is hungry for data, where every business, charity, NGO and government department is eager to gather more and more information about our health, habits, motivation, interests and desires. Whether we like it or not, every journey we make is tracked by CCTV, and every keystroke we make on a laptop, tablet or smartphone can be analysed so that we can be ever more effectively targeted by marketeers. I am sure we are all familiar with the eerie way that typing the name of a place, product or service into a search engine immediately leads to our being swamped with ads for that very thing.

As a lifelong professional retailer of scale eager to grow my business, I quickly recognised the value and importance of data and communications in fulfilling my corporate ambitions. The more I could learn about a prospective customer and their needs and aspirations, the better I could target and personalise my communications to persuade and encourage them to do business with my company. It worked for me then, and it is working for the gambling industry now, but with several key differences. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever become addicted to buying sofas—and we certainly tried hard—I never attempted to sell our products specifically to children, and I was working in the age before the smartphone became universal.

Now nearly every adult, young person and very many children in this country carry around a device that allows them to play games, have fun and gamble around the clock, and provides constant feedback on what they enjoy. This gives unscrupulous operators in the gambling industry the perfect opportunity to identify an individual’s weakness and exploit them—accentuating the thrill of risk taking, the adrenaline rush and the chance of winning money, and giving them every possible encouragement to gamble irresponsibly to the maximum. The speed of change facilitated by advancements in technology has been stellar. Regulations, legislation and implementations have clearly been left far behind, and they now desperately need to catch up and become relevant to fit the digital era.

I am no puritan; I have never been strongly against gambling as a legitimate source of entertainment. Social gambling can add interest, enjoyment and spice to sporting events, and it has become a cultural norm, but we still must take care. Giant oaks from tiny acorns grow, and the current proliferation of the compulsive behaviour of dangerously addictive gambling, particularly among young people looking for a buzz and easy money—including those under 16 whose participation is already illegal—is an evil that we just cannot allow to continue. It is a rich seam for the gaming operators to mine, but, as we have heard, it is literally destroying lives. It creates financial hardship, emotional pain, and social, job and relationship problems, and poses a major health and suicide risk. It has progressed to a magnitude and extent that I believe are not generally recognised and acknowledged. Having spent many years working with young people through the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Outward Bound to help them build their confidence, maximise their potential and realise their ambitions, I find it heartbreaking that so many young people are now at risk of being blighted by gambling addiction and gambling to excess, with lives even being lost because of it, as we have heard.

Gambling is not going anywhere. It has been around for ever, and it is here to stay; of that I think we can be assured. More than half the nation’s adults are regular gamblers. While most people do not develop a gambling problem, it can be a nightmare of epic proportions for those who do—at a massive cost to the gambler, their family and society at large, appealing as it does to those from all walks of life. It is a big money business and, consequently, it wields power and influence and can easily succumb to the temptation to compromise values and standards in the race for big profits.

We need to inform and regularly remind the public of the true magnitude of the problem, and urgently add gambling education to the national curriculum to make young people aware of its risks as clearly as we teach them about the dangers of drink and drugs and the importance of safe sex. Gambling is a bigger problem among teens than it is in adults, and research by the Mayo Clinic indicates—perhaps unsurprisingly—that gambling during childhood and teenage years increases the risk of developing compulsive gambling tendencies. Addressing this must be our priority. More widely, we need to look at ways of achieving a change in public attitudes to addictive gambling in the same way that we have successfully persuaded the overwhelming majority of the public that drink-driving is socially unacceptable, that it is irresponsible to get into a car without wearing a seatbelt, and that cigarette smoking is passé.

In the short term, we need urgent action by the Government to enforce the existing law that makes gambling by children illegal, and for the Gambling Commission to make much more use of its existing powers to mitigate the encouragement of problem gamblers spending more than they can afford. The Government have a manifesto commitment and a moral responsibility to invest in making gambling safe and honest, with strong and substantial protection for the most vulnerable.

This report is substantial, comprehensive, wide-ranging and most impressive. The process to start implementation is crucial and pressing. It should begin right now, with particular focus on online gambling, protecting the young specifically; stricter operator control; tighter statutory regulations on both gambling advertising and the promotion of inducements—the noble Lord, Lord Layard, went further and suggested a total gambling advertising ban; and the introduction of regular and hard-hitting education and information campaigns. It would be irresponsible in the extreme to add further delay.

Gambling is a compulsive behaviour, a process addiction that is chronic and progressive and can start off from the lightest touch: making a casual, recreational wager, simply buying a lottery ticket or scratchcard, or even having a flutter on the Grand National. I do not think we should make it easy for the young to be lured into gambling. Let us not make the gateway to gambling tempting and attractive, spurred by loosely restricted, heavyweight, focused marketing.

Gambling has brought pressure on society for generations, but now technological advances have allowed new, highly addictive games to be developed and made personalised communication easy and gambling convenient and accessible from almost anywhere at any time, allowing problem gamblers to wager and place bets at all hours of day or night, exacerbating the problem and fuelling its growth. The time is long overdue to mitigate this chronic scourge of society. Problem gamblers are gambling not only with money but with their lives. We should not. It is time for action.

Freedom of Speech

Lord Kirkham Excerpts

Friday 10th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkham (Con)]

My Lords, I heartily thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for today’s debate and for reminding us that free speech is fundamental to a just and generous society. Indeed, he said that it is the only means for a just and generous society. Clearly, freedom of speech is precious and should be protected.

Freedom of speech is protected by parliamentary privilege within these walls but, everywhere else in our country, it seems to be under unprecedented threat. How can it be right, as we heard from my noble friend Lady Jenkin, that senior academics are being hounded out of their jobs and prominent authors cancelled because of their views on biological sex? Speakers are “no-platformed” by universities because they may offer a view challenging the currently fashionable, progressive consensus. People are deprived of their livelihoods, without warning or notice, because they tried to tell a joke. I doubt that there is a more challenged profession in the UK in 2021 than that of the comedian, whether amateur or professional.

Unquestionably, every citizen in this country has the absolute right not to be victimised or abused for their race, religion, gender, appearance or way of life, but no one has the right not to be offended by someone else’s expression of their views or by their sense of humour, unless what they say is specifically prohibited by law. Very often we find that offence is taken vicariously by those anxious to protect the feelings of what they perceive to be sensitive minority groups. I and I am sure many of you know Muslim, Hindu and Jewish families and those of other faiths who celebrate Christmas with just as much enthusiasm as their Christian neighbours, who cannot begin to understand why some wish to remove references to Christmas out of concern for their imagined feelings, and who most certainly do not regard people of other faiths and traditions joining in the celebrations of their own feasts and holy days as unwelcome cultural appropriation.

We have not merely bent over backwards to avoid giving offence, but contorted ourselves into an almost unbelievable mess by feeling we have to pause and think before we utter even the most commonplace phrase or saying. Will I upset someone in my audience if I kick off my after-dinner speech with the traditional words, “Ladies and gentlemen”? Indeed, what, in 2021, is an acceptable alternative? Should I add my preferred pronouns to my correspondence, even though I have yet to meet anyone doing this who does not prefer the pronoun I would instinctively have chosen for myself? Am I committing a microaggression if I mispronounce a name or raise my eyebrows when someone else is speaking?

I do not use social media, which is probably just as well, but in this context I can see the sense of inserting a personal filter and pausing to think before joining a debate—of asking myself whether what I propose to say is compliant with the law and whether any offence I might give was justified by the strength of my argument. Too few people do this, not only because they are so utterly convinced of their absolute right to free speech but because in many places they are protected by anonymity. It is far too easy to post cruel and hurtful things under the shelter of an anonymous Twitter handle that the poster would surely hesitate to say face to face, or indeed online under their own name.

In my business life, every statement made to the public via the stock exchange was carefully checked by lawyers to ensure that it was true. That is the norm. Newspapers similarly take great care to ensure that anything that might put them at risk of a libel action is similarly checked and found to be legally watertight before the presses roll. There is no such check or restraint on social media, and the quality of our discourse as a society has become cruder and crueller as a result.

Even so, the list of the things we are not allowed to say in public, or indeed in private, should be kept as short as possible. Of course no one should have the right to incite war, stir up racial hatred or persecute minorities, but equally no one should have the right to absolute protection from being offended, particularly by a joke. In an ideal world we should all be kinder to each other, with that kindness extended to understanding the challenges of the older generation, who so often struggle to keep up with the words they have used all their lives suddenly becoming offensive. If we can only apply common sense and resist the zealots on both sides of the argument, we can defend, guard and protect free speech in a way that allows all of us to enjoy the civilised conversations and healthy debate that are at the heart of any worthwhile human society.

Covid-19: Museums, Galleries and Historic Buildings

Lord Kirkham Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkham (Con)]

In the current public health emergency and critical economic situation, it would be so easy to regard museums, galleries and historic buildings as a luxury option. That is nonsense. Our national heritage is our biggest attraction to overseas visitors. It is our calling card to the world, making an unmatched contribution to our quality of life, well-being, mental health and social cohesion, which is rather important with unemployment speculated to be at around 4 million. Museums, galleries and historic buildings showcase our history and proud achievements.

As the Chancellor’s much-appreciated lifelines of support are removed, to have a future, this sector desperately needs financial help. These amazing institutions will urgently need money to survive—sums that may seem petty cash within the overall cost of the pandemic, but which are vital. If we hope to emerge from this protracted trauma as a country worth living in, no part of our besieged economy deserves the Government’s understanding and tangible support more than the nation’s priceless assets—as my noble friend Lord Cormack described them. I thank my noble friend.