Lord Lipsey
Main Page: Lord Lipsey (Labour - Life peer)Gambling: Fixed-odds Betting Machines
Lord Lipsey Excerpts
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I was for many years a happy constituent of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in Battersea South but in my many perambulations around the betting shops of the area I very rarely bumped into him, although he was a most assiduous MP. I suspect that like many of the participants in this debate, he probably does not go into them very much.
Lord Dubs
Just so that everything should be above board, I go into a betting shop once a year when we have a small bet on the Grand National. The year when I won the most was during an election campaign, when a horse called “Party Politics” won and the odds were good. Beyond that, I do not go into betting shops and never did in Battersea.
Lord Lipsey
I will give the noble Lord a tip for next year’s Grand National and tell him which shop to place it in.
We have had a slightly testing afternoon, so I may risk a rather racy analogy which gives my view of FOBTs. I am not very fond of them. If betting on a horse race is the full sexual intercourse of betting and gambling, with foreplay when you select your horse and mounting excitement as the race goes on—we know what happens after that, when the result comes—then FOBTs are a form of onanism. You see sad-eyed blokes—it is always blokes—in front of porn-like machines, made very glittery and unrealistic, shoving in pounds for momentary pleasure. If FOBTs evaporated into the air tomorrow, I for one should be delighted but that does not mean that I would ban them. There are a lot of pastimes that I do not much like: fox hunting, shooting and, although the noble Baroness, Lady Golding, is beside me, I have to say also fishing. However, if others wish to practise them within the law—and of course on fox hunting there is a strict law—that is their affair. Perhaps more importantly, there is the matter of unforeseen consequences.
You do not have to go into a betting shop to place a bet. The online alternative is increasingly attractive, and I cannot see much advantage in forcing determined punters to do what they do in private rather than doing it in a betting shop, where at least there is some element of sociable atmosphere. I can also see some disadvantages. I quite take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on this: there would be a threat to the jobs of the hard-working staff—some 45,276 of them nationwide—who work in these shops. There would be a loss of tax and the loss of betting levy revenues. Those have to be weighed against the arguments we hear. Having said that—which favours the bookmakers’ arguments—I cannot believe the hash that the bookmakers have made of arguing their case on this. I cannot believe it. They were legendary lobbyists once upon a time. If William Hill or Ladbrokes came through your door, you shivered with fear and slavered to do their will. But now their approach has been that of the tobacco industry at its very worst. First, they denied that there was a problem. Then they said more research was needed—an echo of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in the debate we have just had; there is always more research needed—at the same time doing everything they could to obstruct that research by not making FOBTs available to researchers. Now, finally, their answer is to do more about problem gambling.
Of course, I welcome everything that is done about problem gambling. I applaud the work of the new Senet Group, including on gambling advertising in the windows of shops, but also more widely. I also tremendously welcome the appointment of Martin Cruddace as interim chief executive of the Association of British Bookmakers. Martin is a 21st-century man who has some possibility of helping us find a way through this difficult problem without catastrophic damage either to the betting industry or to the people of this country.
I said that the present answer of the bookmakers is to say, “We are going to fight problem gambling”. Of course I favour that very much, but I do not think it is any more likely to wash than the bookmakers’ previous defensive strategies. There is a lively academic debate about problem gambling. I will not go into it here: “Is there such a thing?”; “Is there a clear distinction between problem gambling and non-problem gambling?”; “How prevalent is it?”. I greatly applaud the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for getting this debate tonight, but the notion that one-third of those who play FOBTs are problem gamblers is not in line with the evidence.
We must do everything we can to stop the terrible affliction that genuine addictive problem gambling can do to people and their families. As far as I am concerned, it is not those who shove every penny they can get hold of into these damned machines who are the only people with a gambling problem. Anyone—anyone—who stuffs a hard-earned £100 into a slot has a gambling problem. You therefore have to tackle it across the board.
What should be done? The title of this debate refers to the growing number of FOBTs. Again, I am afraid that I have to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Clement- Jones, who I much respect. The number of machines is not rising very much. It is nearly 40,000, actually—not the 9,000 he suggested—but it is rising at only about 2% a year. Indeed, I suspect, as we speak, that it has fallen because bookmakers are closing betting shops on quite a large scale now and there will be fewer machines. I give way to the noble Lord.
Lord Strasburger (LD)
I think the noble Lord will find that although the total numbers are not changing very much, they are migrating towards the poorest areas.
Lord Lipsey
Yes, but that does not relate to the point I was making that just controlling numbers is not enough. There may be a case for local controls in some areas. I will come back to that at the end of my speech, but I think that the numbers are probably falling now. However, if you really want to put money into an FOBT, you are not going to have much trouble finding a machine; there are plenty about.
It is also true that there might be fewer betting shops on our high streets if there were a crackdown on the numbers of FOBTs. Again, with regard to unintended consequences, anyone who thinks that that would mean all the great shops and chains moving back on to the high street are deluding themselves; the only reason why there are so many betting shops on the high street is that no one else wants the premises, and they are therefore available. I would rather that our high streets consisted of well maintained betting shops than ill maintained, ramshackle, empty shops that are falling down.
So if we are not going to try to control numbers, what should we try? I think that the alternative, as has been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is the tool we already have: a limit on the amount that you can put into the machine at once. A hundred pounds is a very high limit, is it not? It means—in theory, at least—that the punter can lose a hell of a lot of money in no time at all. It is, incidentally, the bookmakers’ adamant refusal to take the counsel of their wiser friends and reduce that amount, a refusal that I think is motivated by sheer greed and the need to feed the maws of their shareholders, that has persuaded me that they simply do not get it or, at best, that their judgment has taken second place to the size of their bonuses. Had they voluntarily reduced the top stake by one-quarter, one-half or three-quarters when problems started to emerge, I suspect that we would not be here having this debate today.
Outside bookmaking, a consensus is emerging for reducing the maximum stake substantially; the figure of £2 seems to have emerged among campaigners at the right sort of level. Going back to sex, that would turn the porn machines into a sort of page 3—if that still exists; I get confused from day to day as to whether it does—that is, mild titillation rather than hardcore, and FOBTs into something more akin to entertainment-with-prizes machines, a bit of fun rather than a serious gambling product. In my view, it is a matter for serious further consideration whether such a limit should be imposed at the national level or decided by local decision by local government.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I do not recognise that figure. However, prior to this debate, I read that researchers had said that we should not seek to extrapolate any arguments from the figures that they had looked at as they came from a fairly limited survey. I will look at the research further but I do not recognise the figure the noble Lord has given.
Lord Lipsey
Perhaps the Minister will also point out that the survey was carried out among the 10% of users of properties who have loyalty cards. By definition, you are far more likely to have a loyalty card if you are putting a lot of money into a machine than if you are putting in the odd pound or two.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
I am very grateful to the noble Lord. It is, indeed, somewhat self-selecting in that sense: that is absolutely clear. However, I should move on within the time allocated to me.
Although local authorities are bound by law to aim to permit gambling in so far as it is reasonably consistent with the licensing objectives of preventing crime and disorder, ensuring that it is fair and open and protecting children and vulnerable people, the licensing process at present gives authorities considerable scope to attach additional conditions to licences. At present, two licences are needed to open a betting shop: an operating licence from the Gambling Commission to show that the person operating the premises is a fit and proper person, and a premises licence from the local authority. Of course the local authority has to marshal the evidence, if it has a particular planning objection, but it can do that within the existing law. I think that Barking and Dagenham, for example, is looking at that process and seeking to use it. I am not sure exactly where it has got to, but I know that that local authority, at least, is looking into it. That is something that I would encourage, because there are existing powers, as well as those that we seek to introduce.
Now I shall return, as I promised I would, to the conditions that we seek to introduce in the code, via the Gambling Commission. As I have said, they will give powers to local communities, by requiring planning applications to be submitted to local authorities for new betting shops. Putting the change-of-use regulations on a different basis will make that a more powerful tool. It will require those accessing stakes over £50 to use account-based play or to load cash over the counter, putting an end to unsupervised high-stakes play, and it will require all players of FOBTs to be presented with the choice to set time and money at the machine itself. These measures are on track to start in April, and will, I think, make a real difference. The sensible thing to do now is to see how they bed in before thinking about further action. That is a fair and reasonable approach.
I shall now seek to answer some of the specific points raised in the debate. In case I miss any, I undertake that we will look at Hansard and write to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate. First, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, suggested that planning was not the answer. It is not the whole answer—I accept that—but it is part of the answer. Intervention is also important, and that is a key part of the code.
In response to the useful and valid points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, I say that the point is to achieve a balance. We need to protect the vulnerable—that is absolutely right—but we should not seek to stop people gambling. Like some other noble Lords, I have a very rare flutter: I went to Las Vegas and never placed a bet, so I imagine I am a bookmaker’s nightmare. I can see that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, shares that position, so we have that in common—although his contribution seemed to turn into “Fifty Shades of Betting Shops”, and some of the time I was not quite sure where we were going. I am all in favour of permissive elements, but there are limits. I shall be coming to the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for tips for the Grand National when we reach that part of the year, which is very close now.
Several noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, rightly raised the issue of problem gamblers. To try to put this in context, FOBTs are in decline overall, according to our most recent figures: 4% of adults played them in 2010, and that dropped to 3.4% in 2011-12. Average stake size on a FOBT machine in a bookmaker’s was £5.13; on a B2 it was £14.08. That does not mean that this is not a serious problem, or potential problem, but we need to get it into context. Most people who use these machines do not have gambling problems. The idea that they do is not borne out by the research.
This has been a useful debate, and obviously the department will study it. In case I have not made this absolutely clear, I want to nail again the point that the Government remain very vigilant on this matter, and in reviewing evidence on the effects of fixed-odds betting terminals. We want to make sure that the betting industry is well aware of that. The Rubicon has not been crossed, nor will it ever be. Nothing is final, except that the Government will work in partnership with the Gambling Commission, which is neutral. In answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Strasburger, about the questionable nature of the Responsible Gambling Trust’s independence, I should explain that it is the Gambling Commission that reviews the research. I know it has an industry element to it, but its research is reviewed by the Gambling Commission, which is a statutory body. We shall study this useful debate, and during 2016 we will also study closely the evidence and the research, to see how effective the reforms being introduced this spring have been.