Gambling (Categorisation and Use of B2 Gaming Machines) Bill [HL]

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the Motion that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has moved so eloquently. I do not propose to rehearse the ground that he has covered so clearly and well.

I want to make three points. First, it is obvious that this type of machine produces very substantial returns for the industry. That is usually quite an important factor if you believe in a market economy, but the market economy requires action to prevent abuse in some cases. Not long ago, your Lordships passed a Bill to restrict legal highs, which are very popular as far as markets are concerned—rather dubious markets at that—but are of terrific harm to people across the community. The Government have rightly acted in that area. In my submission, the Government should act effectively in this area also, given that, as the noble Lord has demonstrated so clearly in his speech, this is a very damaging social problem in our communities, particularly in the less affluent communities. Obviously, if one is in a desperate situation, one takes desperate measures. Sometimes, the idea that you will possibly make a big profit overcomes every other consideration. In the mean time, what you have done is deplete your assets even more.

Secondly, I want to say a word or two about the question of money laundering. This is an important area, and I was interested to know how this money laundering works. Apparently, if somebody has some money that is of doubtful origin, he goes into the betting shop and uses this money to wager on these machines. But because the maximum wager is so high, it is possible to choose a machine in such a way as to reduce to a minimum—to about 4%—the actual risk of loss. Therefore, to launder the money, all you have to do is be prepared to suffer a discount of 4%. In these conditions, that is probably a pretty good bargain. It seems to me that this is a desperate situation, and the Government certainly need to do something about it. The idea that the recent regulations introduced do anything about that is completely farcical. I would very much like the Minister to tell the House what the Government’s view is on money laundering in this particular area and what, if anything, they propose to do to put a stop to it. The importance of a reduction in the maximum wager is that, if it were brought down to £2, the option of a 4% maximum loss would be eliminated.

The third point I want to make was already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. The Scottish committee with responsibility in this area was very much in favour of taking drastic action in connection with this. However, the Scottish Parliament did not have any powers in this area. In view of the Scotland Bill—soon, I hope, the Scotland Act—the Scottish Parliament will have the possibility of dealing with new machines, but there is still a difficulty about existing machines. Therefore, the Government of the United Kingdom have a responsibility to see what they can do to implement measures to deal with the very deep concern that the Scottish authorities have drawn attention to and which they are powerless to deal with. In my submission, this Bill is a very simple and adequate remedy to a very serious social problem in our United Kingdom.