Online Safety Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is exactly right about that. I used the example of clickbait as shorthand. The simple truth is that “AI-generated” is also a misnomer, because these things are not normally AI; they are normally algorithms written specifically to recommend and to maximise returns and revenue. We are not surprised at that. Why should we be? After all, these are commercial companies we are talking about and that is what they are going to do. Every commercial company in the world operates within a regulatory framework that prevents them from making profits out of antisocial behaviour.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

On the AI point, let me say that the advances we have seen over the weekend are remarkable. I have just asked OpenAI.com to write a speech in favour of the Bill and it is not bad. That goes to show that the risks to people are not just going to come from algorithms; people are going to be increasingly scammed by AI. We need a Bill that can adapt with the times as we move forward.

[Mr Davis]

Perhaps we should run my speech against—[Laughter.] I am teasing. I am coming to the end of my comments, Madam Deputy Speaker. The simple truth is that these mechanisms—call them what you like—are controllable if we put our mind to it. It requires subtlety, testing the thing out in practice and enormous expert input, but we can get this right.

Football Index Collapse

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, however brutal the time limit may be. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this important debate and setting out the case so clearly—I will not do so again, given the time limits. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and let people know that I worked for Bet365 for 15 years before I came to this place. I have long experience of the Gambling Commission, and while I was in that role, it was frequently behind the curve and asleep at the wheel, which is one of the accusations levied at them regarding Football Index. In a period during which the gambling landscape was incredibly innovative, too many firms went bust with ante-post liabilities, too many punters lost money, and there was too little redress for people. Sadly, that is again the case today.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Bell, because some people have left the room, we have now increased the time limit to three minutes for you.

[Aaron Bell]

That is incredibly kind, Ms Ghani. Thank you very much.

This is a particularly egregious case. Five constituents have written to me about it; I will not name them, because I do not have their permission to do so, but a number of them have lost thousands of pounds. In this case, the Gambling Commission failed to identify the key features of the product, which then changed while Football Index was running it, and the Gambling Commission did not seem to notice. Andrew Rhodes, who I believe is a good man—I will come to that in a bit—said in his response that the Gambling Commission does not believe it licensed a Ponzi scheme. That may not be the case, but he also said,

“BetIndex was not recruiting enough customers to compensate for depleting its financial position”—

as it did by increasing the dividends—

“and ultimately collapsed as a result.”

If such a company is not recruiting enough customers to pay out the ones it already has, that looks like a Ponzi scheme to me.

It is clear that the ultimate blame lies with the operator. We have already heard a call for the directors be held to account, which I absolutely support, but we must be better at protecting people, as a Government and as a state. As I said, I have five constituents involved. I support what the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said about people wanting restitution and justice as well as compensation.

I am also very concerned that these people are vulnerable in other ways now. Football Index is finished, but there are other online products out there that, in my opinion, share some of the same characteristics. They are attractive to young men, in particular, because they look like get-rich-quick schemes. I am thinking of the crypto space and the various coins that are designed to be pumped and dumped. If people get in at the right moment they can make a profit, but if they get in too late they might lose their life savings.

Similarly, there is this ridiculous craze for non-fungible tokens, which, to their eternal shame, many football clubs and sports stars have endorsed. This is completely deplorable. I do not think those are regulated at all. Perhaps we can do something about that through the Online Safety Bill. I know that the Gambling Minister is busy with the Online Safety Bill Committee today, and I welcome his substitute, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who used to be my Whip.

This situation mostly affects young men. I believe we owe them a duty of care. My five constituents—all young men—believed, because they saw the kitemark, that the Gambling Commission understood, and almost endorsed, the product. Obviously it did not. If we license these sorts of products, then we ought to be standing behind them. We are not standing behind them now, as they are struggling to get any sort of compensation at all, although there is obviously an administration process going on.

I am sure that everyone here will have constituents who have suffered as mine have. We owe it to them to get to the bottom of this and give them some restitution. I will yield my final 20 seconds.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Beautifully done, Mr Bell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing today’s debate. As we can see, it has been very well attended.

This issue has been described as the biggest scandal in British gambling history, with thousands of customers facing cumulative losses of up to £124 million. However, I think that describing it purely as a gambling scandal does not really show any empathy or understanding about the magnitude. Comments such as those attributed to the Gambling Commission—that people should not gamble more than they can afford to lose—fail to acknowledge this was not like putting a tenner on the 2.20 at Chepstow. Football Index promoted itself as an investment, with “guaranteed yields” in a highly regulated environment, and no bets have actually been lost, of course; the money was effectively stolen.

I have a constituent who has lost a six-figure sum, and some people’s losses are into seven figures. Individuals have been driven to the brink of suicide, marriages have collapsed, families have been torn apart, and life savings for weddings, house deposits or retirements have all vanished. This was not about people chasing their losses; it was money that was supposed to have been invested and was then wrongfully taken. While there has been a Government review—and, of course, promises to do better next time—there has not been justice.

Football Index has been described as a Ponzi scheme, and we now know that its executives were warned soon after its launch, as early as 2016, that its so-called stock market would prove to be unsustainable. Proposals to make the index more stable were actually rejected because of concerns about the possible impact on revenue. That all occurred some five years before Football Index’s eventual collapse, leaving serious questions about the effectiveness of its regulation.

According to newspaper reports, the Gambling Commission was warned in January 2020 that Football Index was

“an exceptionally dangerous pyramid scheme under the guise of a football stock market”.

Has the Minister spoken to the Gambling Commission about this? What did it say? What conclusions has the Minister drawn following this?

[Aaron Bell]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because it allows me to make a point that I should have made in my speech. I believe that the new CEO of the Gambling Commission, Andrew Rhodes, understands the problems that occurred in the past. I met him in February to discuss this case and my overall experience with the sector. I think he accepts that mistakes were made repeatedly under the previous leadership of the Gambling Commission. I wanted to put that on the record and I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to do so.

Gambling-related Harm

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and it is also only right to draw everyone’s attention to the fact that before I came to this place, I was employed by Bet365 between 2006 and 2019. I have not come to this place to be a spokesperson for the gambling industry, but I hope that my experience can be used to inform the House in such debates. Bet365 is a major employer in Newcastle-under-Lyme—I see two colleagues from Stoke-on-Trent here as well—and contributes a huge amount to the local area and to skilled jobs there. I will come to that later.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important debate. I pay tribute to her tenacity and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and to everybody who has pushed the subject of gambling-related harm, which we all want to see reduced. I see the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) in his place. The Gambling Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), visited Bet365 last week, and I know that he shares that ambition. I want to share my experience and understanding of how the industry works to respond to some of the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Swansea East in her opening remarks, and to say that I do fear the impact on the black market. I will come to that in a minute.

The hon. Lady is right to have held the industry to account for so long. It has been too slow to adapt in the past, but has made some big changes in recent years, such as the whistle-to-whistle ban and the code on high-value customers, as referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. High-value customers are not just addicts; some are seriously wealthy, so have been treated as VIPs in the past. They are big customers that any capitalist firm would wish to have. However, I accept that VIPs have gone wrong in the past.

Points have already been made about advertising, but I am pleased that 20% of TV adverting by the industry now promotes safer gambling and that we are tackling problem gambling. Figures published by the regulator the Gambling Commission, covering the period to December 2021, showed that the problem gambling rate was down from 0.6% to 0.3%, and that the number of those at moderate risk has fallen from 1.2% to 0.8%. In countries such as Italy, Norway and France, those rates are much higher and there are more black markets, either because online gambling is illegal, there is a state monopoly or there are such high tax rates for the companies registered there. I accept that the black market is not a big problem in the UK at the moment, but that is because we have a well-regulated structure for gambling. We can regulate it better and I hope we do so through the review, but we must be mindful that that risk is out there.

I will now talk a little about Bet365 and what it is doing. The Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South, my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) and I visited Bet365 last week. The company has been at the forefront of the industry in trying to address the issue, and has gone above and beyond current regulatory guidance. As I have said, it is rooted in north Staffordshire and did not offshore its sports betting to Gibraltar when most other firms did in order to avoid tax. It has always paid its fair share of taxes, and Denise Coates has always paid her fair share of income tax and not sought to avoid that, despite the headlines that come with that every year.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

This is a caveat, but Denise Coates paid herself a billion pounds over the course of four years. If I earned a billion pounds, I would make sure I paid my tax as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell]

I am glad to hear that. The fact that she has paid her tax and has not sought to keep that money in the company or do anything else with it is admirable.

Bet365 pays a huge amount of tax and is a British company with huge export success. A lot of its revenue comes from abroad, and any bet taken from abroad improves our balance of payments as an export success. Denise Coates has donated a nine-figure sum to the Denise Coates Foundation, which funds charities locally, nationally and internationally. Bet365 also owns Stoke City football club, so it is rooted in that community.

The hon. Member for Swansea East rightly raised a number of issues, but Bet365 has already gone above and beyond regulatory and industry guidance, by setting deposit limits, picking up on red flags, and having a huge team for responsible gambling proactively contacting people believed to be at risk. The hon. Lady said she wanted a net deposit limit of £100 a month, but I hope she will understand my genuine concern that the process of asking people for data, such as mortgage and bank statements or pay slips, is very intrusive.

In the experience of Bet365 and other firms that I have spoken to, people do not want to provide that information and at the point at which they are asked for it, they stop betting with that firm. We do not know where they then go. Do they go to another firm, elsewhere or stop gambling all together? We do not have enough information, but lessons from the industry tell us that asking people for pay slips and mortgage and bank statements stops them engaging with the firm that already knows their behaviour best. I am not against deposit limits, and neither is Bet365, but we have to get the level right and have lower levels for young people, and so on. Equally, Bet365 has set slot stake limits lower than previously and is prepared to look at feedback.

Change is necessary. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea East for her campaign. I hope that in the course of the review the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport can learn from firms that are at the forefront of the sector, such as Bet365, which is a major local employer that is setting standards for responsible gambling within the sector that I believe we can learn from.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Can Members reduce the length of their comments to three and a half to four minutes? I call Jim Shannon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Craig Whittaker]

I was trying to highlight the fact that the hon. Lady said earlier that the industry was doing nothing, and the reality is that it is not doing nothing. It is actually part of why we have a much lower gambling problem in this country than our neighbours do. The industry is also spending a further £10 million on safer gambling education for all 11 to 19-year-olds throughout the country. As we have seen during the pandemic when we were all working from home, advertising on safer gambling is a much larger proportion of the money spent on gambling adverts.

That does not mean that we do nothing more. Of course there is more to do, and anyone who has experienced living with a problem gambler knows how potentially life-damaging it is for everyone around them. It is therefore right that any review of gambling has the most vulnerable at its heart.

Let us briefly look at what happens when we abandon a balanced, competitive, regulated market, which is the only way to deter the hugely increasing black market. I mentioned Norway earlier, which introduced restrictions on stakes, strict affordability checks, and curbs on advertising. Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, it drove them to the black market, where 66% of all gambling in Norway now takes place. There is no human interaction on that market, no checks on affordability, and no lifelines available, either. So Norway’s 1.4% problem gambling figure is much higher because it does not know where the problem gamblers are.

[Aaron Bell]

On the black market, my hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the lack of protection for problem gamblers, but there is also no protection for people to ensure they get paid if they have a winning bet. They do not have any of the security that we have here in the United Kingdom that ensures people will be treated fairly by the operator, nor all the problem gambling measures that we have.

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We get legal protection in the regulated market that we have here in the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)]

I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) for correcting the record; that is absolutely appropriate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I thank the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this very important debate and all those who have contributed, in generally a very constructive manner.

I know how committed the hon. Member for Swansea East and many other Members—in fact, I think this applies to every single person who spoke today—are to gambling reform. I thank her and other parliamentarians for the many meetings that they have had with Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Ministers in recent months. Their perspectives and evidence on the issues that we are considering through the review of the Gambling Act 2005 are very valuable indeed. She and all other hon. Members who spoke today are quite right to make the case that reform is needed. It has been 17 years since the Gambling Act was passed, and it is clear that the risks of harm and the opportunities to prevent it are very different now from when legislation was introduced. We must act to recognise that in our regulatory framework.

In recent years, the Government and the Gambling Commission have introduced a wide variety of reforms to help to protect people from gambling harm. Those include the ban on credit card gambling, the FOBT stake limit reduction, and reform to VIP schemes. The review is an opportunity to build on those changes and to do more to ensure that we have the right protections for the digital age.

As the hon. Member for Swansea East will appreciate, I cannot pre-announce what will be published in the White Paper—much as she may wish to prompt me to do so—but we are in the process of finalising it. However, I absolutely recognise the severity of the harms that gambling disorder can cause and why we all have a duty to prevent people from being led down such a dark path.

The voice of people with personal experience of harm was thoroughly represented among the submissions to our call for evidence, and I, the gambling Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp)—and all our successors have met a number of people who have suffered because of their own addictions or those of people whom they love. They have all made clear how enormous and lasting the effects of gambling disorder can be, not only in the obvious financial losses but in relationship strain, family breakdown, mental health problems and, of course, suicide in extreme cases.

As my opposite number, the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) mentioned, just last week the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) secured an Adjournment debate on the coroner’s finding that gambling contributed to the tragic death of Jack Ritchie. As my hon. Friend the gambling Minister said then, the findings are an important call to action for our Department, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education. We are considering the prevention of future deaths report carefully and will respond in due course on the actions being taken.

The causes of gambling-related harm are inherently complex to unpick and address. Individual circumstances play a role, but it is essential that we also look at the products, industry practices and wider factors that can contribute to or exacerbate them. Understanding the drivers and taking preventive action where it is needed is at the heart of our public health approach. Of course, understanding where it is needed is part of the challenge for the gambling review. About half of the population takes part in gambling each year, and the vast majority suffer no ill effects at all. The population “problem gambling” rate has been broadly stable since before the 2005 Act, with some recent signs of a decline. The White Paper’s measures will be based on the best available evidence to target risk proportionately. We want to prevent unaffordable losses and industry practices that exacerbate risk. We will also maintain the freedom for adults who choose to gamble to do so, and for a responsible and sustainable industry to service that demand.

Technology and data are central to developing effective and proportionate protections. As my hon. Friend the gambling Minister has said, there is huge potential in data-led tools, which can stop and prevent harmful gambling while letting the majority, who spend at low levels with no signs of risk, continue uninterrupted. There has been particular discussion in recent weeks—this was mentioned in the debate—about the role of so-called affordability checks, where a customer’s financial circumstances are considered as part of assessing whether their gambling is likely to be harming them. Such assessments are undoubtedly a key part of the toolkit for preventing the devastating losses that we have all heard about, but, to be workable and prevent harm, checks need to be proportionate and acceptable to customers. We are keen to explore the role of data such as that held by credit reference agencies or that already used by operators to facilitate frictionless checks.

[Aaron Bell]

I am pleased that the Minister mentioned credit reference agencies, because the current state of play is that bookmakers can get only the basic data—the credit score—and cannot use the credit reference agency to find out whether people can afford their proposed levels of stake-in. Would he and the gambling Minister be receptive to a change to the law to allow bookmakers to get more granular data about someone’s affordability—it would need to be done carefully—so that we do not have the intrusive checks that, as I mentioned, drive people away from licensed operators and potentially to the black market?

[Nigel Huddleston]

As I said, I will not pre-empt the review’s findings, but my hon. Friend makes a key point about the responsibility and role of the financial services sector in the review. The Government will continue to work closely with the Gambling Commission on this issue in the run-up to publishing the White Paper.

Another much discussed issue is data-led protection in the form of single customer views, where operators share data to protect people most at risk. That is increasingly necessary given that the average online gambler now has three accounts, and those with a gambling disorder typically have far more. I am pleased that the Betting and Gaming Council’s trial of a technical solution has been accepted into the Information Commissioner’s Office sandbox process, which will mean close scrutiny from both the information and gambling regulators to ensure that the trial proceeds with appropriate safeguards in place.

Let me turn now to a few other items raised by hon. Members. On the statutory levy proposals, we called for evidence on the best way to recoup the regulatory and societal costs of gambling. We have also been clear for a number of years that, should the existing system of taxation and voluntary contributions fail to deliver what was needed, we would look at a number of options for reform, including a statutory levy, and we will set out our conclusions in the White Paper.

The horse-racing industry was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson). The review is not looking directly at the horse-racing betting levy, but we are certainly aware of the close relationship between racing and betting. The main area of concern from the horse-racing industry is the affordability checks. As I said, these are important, but they must also be proportionate, and we are carefully considering the impact of all our proposals.

Many hon. Members mentioned advertising, and gambling advertising can help licensed gambling operators differentiate themselves from the black market. It also provides financial support for broadcasters and sport, but operators must advertise responsibly, and we are committed to tackling aggressive practices. We have called for evidence on advertising and sponsorship as part of the review.

Protections are already in place to limit children’s exposure to advertising—for example, the whistle-to-whistle ban mentioned by hon. Members. That led, for example, to about a halving in the number of adverts at the Euros last year compared with the 2018 World cup. Gambling adverts must not be targeted at children or appeal particularly to them. The Committee for Advertising Practice will soon publish more on its plans to tighten the rules in this area.

On the gambling black market, again mentioned by many hon. Members, we have called for evidence as part of our review, and we are looking at the Commission’s powers as part of that process. On customer redress, which the hon. Member for Swansea East mentioned, operators must be held accountable for their failings. The review will assess the current system of redress, and we will set out our conclusions in the forthcoming White Paper.

The hon. Member for Swansea East also mentioned the clustering of betting shops. She will be aware that local authorities already have a range of powers under the planning system and as licensing authorities under the Gambling Act to grant or reject applications for gambling premises in their areas, and we encourage them to use those powers as appropriate. We have also been reviewing the powers local authorities and other licensing authorities have in relation to gambling premises licences as part of the review.

On the issue of treatment, which was raised by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and others, the Government absolutely take a public health approach to gambling. Gambling is a regulated sector, and we have protections for the whole population, with rules to keep gambling fair, open and free from crime. We also have specific protections for vulnerable people. The DCMS works closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, which leads on treatment and health issues. She will be aware the Government are committed to strengthening treatment and support for gambling disorder. This will build on changes and reforms that have already taken place in recent years. The NHS has committed to opening up to 15 specialist problem gambling clinics by 2023-24. Five of these are already in operation and more will follow soon.

The hon. Member for York Central also mentioned loot boxes, and we are delivering on a manifesto commitment to tackle the issue in video games. We ran a call for evidence last year to understand the impact and received over 30,000 responses. We are reviewing this evidence and continue to engage with the industry to determine the most robust and proportionate solutions to the issues identified. We will also be publishing our response and next steps in the coming months. If she is patient, we will report on that soon.

In conclusion, I absolutely recognise that we have an important responsibility to get reform right. We will build on the many strong aspects of our regulatory system to make sure it is right for the digital age and the future. The White Paper is a priority for the Department and we will publish it in the coming weeks.

Gambling and Lotteries

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Gentleman expresses some legitimate concerns. One of the great problems, of course, is that, by definition, it is almost impossible to assess the size, scope and scale of the black market, but where evidence does exist we will welcome it as part of this review. We do recognise the problem, and that is why we explicitly include the unlicensed market—the black market—in the review. We need more work and more information, and we need to decide what action needs to be taken to tackle it. It is a very serious issue.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I welcome this review and the opportunity it presents to update our regulations in the gambling and gaming sector. I know from my time in the industry that some firms have gone above and beyond in developing tools to help to prevent and identify problem gambling. I hope that this review will be an opportunity to formalise and spread best practice. As the Minister said, over 100,000 people are employed in the sector, including nearly 4,000 in north Staffordshire, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stoke-on-Trent at my former employer, Bet365. Can my hon. Friend assure me, and them, that the review will look to strike a balance, acknowledging the enjoyment that millions of people from gambling in a responsible manner and how important it is that people are not driven to unlicensed operators where they would have neither basic consumer protection nor the regulatory supervision that we all want to see?

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the dangers of the unlicensed market and to point out that gambling is a legitimate business in the UK, paying £3 billion in taxes and employing about 100,000 people. However, the industry itself acknowledges that harms can happen. It has played, and I expect it to continue to play, an important role in identifying harms and what we can do to minimise them. Its voice will be heard in this review, but we all have a shared goal of making sure that we do everything we can to minimise gambling harms.

BBC

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

As the hon. Lady knows, religious broadcasting is part of the public service obligations. How the BBC goes about fulfilling those obligations is a matter for it. However, I can fully understand the concerns of her constituents, and I would urge her to take up that matter with the BBC.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. I agree with him that the BBC still does a number of things well, particularly with regard to coronavirus. However, with this decision on the over-75s, the cutbacks to regional news and regional current affairs, and the news that £12 million has been paid out of licence fee payers’ money to settle the tax bills of former BBC presenters, does he agree with me and my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme that it is far too metropolitan and out of touch with towns across the country such as Newcastle?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I think my hon. Friend will be aware that the auditor was very critical of the decision about the settlement of the tax bills of those employees who operated through public service companies. That is a matter for the BBC, but the National Audit Office is there to audit it. It is a responsibility of the BBC to look at the way in which it spends public money. The licence fee is a privilege and, going with that, it has the responsibility to spend it properly

UK Telecommunications

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend the Minister for Digital Infrastructure, who is sat next to me, will be having exactly those further conversations with the devolved nations. I did not hear him say it at the time, but I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would have welcomed our announcement of the shared rural network, which was a groundbreaking deal that brought Government money together with the telecoms networks to massively improve connectivity—particularly in Scotland, where it had not been the case previously—up to well over 90% coverage. That is an amazing achievement.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, which I welcome. Does he agree that now is the time to invest in our own domestic 5G capacity to support our future critical communications infrastructure? To that end, I urge him and his ministerial colleagues to consider seriously the Staffordshire proposal for a 5G connected region growth deal, which would establish both the first regional commercial 5G network in the UK and a wide-area test- and-innovation network to support our future aspirations in this policy area.

[Oliver Dowden]

As ever, my hon. Friend is a robust advocate for his constituency. Exactly those conversations are going on now.

Kidsgrove Sports Centre

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis]

I am grateful to my neighbour and right hon. Friend. The one thing that the people of North Staffordshire have been aware of is the absolute commitment to cross-border working, as we have seen with the Stoke to Leek line, which my right hon. Friend has relentlessly campaigned for—I joined that campaign— but also obviously with the sports centre, which will serve her constituents as well as mine.

The tensions between local government institutions and figures continued until very recently when Councillor Simon Tagg became leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and unleashed a fresh appetite for the re-establishment of sporting facilities in North Staffordshire. I would like to take this moment, as seems apt, to offer my unreserved thanks to Councillor Tagg for recentring the focus on the wellbeing of the community and for his tireless efforts to drive this forward. On a similar note, Councillor Gill Burnett of Staffordshire County Council and Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, who is also a trustee of the Kidsgrove Sports Centre Community Group, has been closely involved in a campaign to reopen the centre.

The dedication of those public servants and many others, alongside the commitment of the community to see swimming and sports brought back to Kidsgrove, is a source of inspiration. I vowed during the election campaign to do everything in my power to bring this issue to Government and lobby for the funding the people of Stoke-on-Trent, North Kidsgrove and Talke need and deserve.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour on securing this debate. He paid me a fulsome tribute earlier, so let me pay him one now. It is a shame that I cannot represent the whole of Newcastle-under-Lyme, but it is good to know that the people of Kidsgrove and Talke have my hon. Friend sticking up for them in this place. I congratulate him, Councillor Tagg, Councillor Burnett and of course, the local community on what they are doing. It will not only benefit Kidsgrove but benefit my constituents in Crackley, Red Street, Audley and beyond.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I thank my honourable Friend and neighbour. I could not agree with him more that this has huge implications. Having recently moved into Talke and therefore into the Newcastle borough, which has caused some controversy with my Stoke-on-Trent constituents, I can absolutely understand the wider implications of the sports centre. As he knows, there are many people who do not necessarily want to travel into the town of Newcastle but are able more easily to access the town of Kidsgrove, where they could use the sports centre.

Following the sudden announcement of the closure, a public meeting was called and attended by hundreds of members of the public. That laid the foundations for the establishment of the Kidsgrove Sports Centre Community Group. Before I proceed to outline the fantastic work and unrivalled dedication displayed by the group, I would like to take a moment to praise it. It is often the tenacity and unpaid labour of community volunteers that make the most powerful impact, and Kidsgrove is fortunate to have a dedicated team of community champions fighting tooth and nail to facilitate the return of sporting facilities in our local community.

Shortly after the contentious closure in 2017, which was authorised by the then Labour-run borough council after it refused to buy the sports centre for £1 from Staffordshire County Council, the Kidsgrove Sports Centre Community Group was formed. It is spearheaded by Mark Clews, alongside Dave Rigby and Ray Williams, and I am lucky to have such members in the community I serve. They deserve acknowledgement in this Chamber for their tireless efforts. The group has pressed continuously for the centre to be reopened, and it has worked so closely with the council that it is now the designated charitable incorporated organisation. That is to say that if the funding comes from central Government, local government and other stakeholders, the community group could very well assume management of the centre when it reopens. I say “when”, because if I have learned anything in my time working with the group, it is that its passion and tenacity cannot be rivalled. The sports centre was, and can again be, at the heart of the community. I am glad to say that significant efforts have been made to reinstate the facility, but I would like to focus for a moment on the difference it has made to the community.