High Street Gambling Reform

Alex Ballinger Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler]

Absolutely. I hope I was not a bad influence on my hon. Friend. It was the first time that I had gone into one, but you have to go into one to really understand what it is like. Like he says, we went in and a machine had been reserved for a person who had gone somewhere for when they came back. The business model is extreme and rather cruel.

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is delivering an excellent speech, and I support her campaign to end the aim to permit. Another issue I have heard lots of people concerned about is the 80:20 rule, which requires gambling shops to have only 20% of their machines to be the higher stake, more dangerous and addictive machines. There is a rumour or a consultation out that the rule might be liberalised. Does she agree that the liberalisation of that rule, at a time when gambling regulation is not fit for purpose, would be completely unacceptable?

[Dawn Butler]

That rule must not be changed, and I will tell my hon. Friend for why. Gambling shops get around that rule by having iPads, which are classified as lower stake machines, that do not work. That is how they get away with having more B3 machines, which are the most addictive machines where you can put in £20 and lose it in a minute. That is why the rule should not be liberalised. As I say, the business model is quite shocking.

Across the nation, an average of 13.4% of people are categorised as low-risk gamblers, with 2.9% categorised as high-risk. In Brent, 17.1% of residents are categorised as low-risk and 6.2% as high-risk. This shows the link between the proliferation of gambling shops and harm. One kind of business that is found on high streets when there are lots of gambling shops is pawn shops, because people lose their money and then pawn what they can to gamble more to try to win it back.

I am not saying that we should ban gambling all together, but we have to be honest about the harm that is being caused at the moment. The Gambling Act 2005 is completely out of date.

The latest iteration of this campaign has been a personal journey for me and has increased my understanding of the harms of gambling. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), with whom I went into some gambling shops, and who is running an excellent campaign to stop a huge gambling shop opening in his constituency, I have met some amazing people, and I want to talk about their testimonies. I interviewed two of them, and those interviews are on my Substack. Their testimonies opened my eyes, and I hope they do the same for anyone else who hears them. They also moved me to tears.

Jackie Olden is a phenomenal campaigner. Her mum, Wendy Hughes, worked at a bookmaker. After Wendy was given free plays on the machine so that she could entice the punters with the bright lights, the sounds and the music when the customer wins, she became addicted and started gambling with her own money. Towards the end of her life, Wendy gambled on a slot machine for 16 hours straight; the staff knew how she liked her tea and coffee, and bought her food so that she did not leave. Wendy had maxed out her credit card, so they kept her in the shop over 12 hours so that her credit card limit would be renewed and she could take out money and start gambling again. They knew her favourite chair and her favourite machine, and they let her gamble for 16 hours. Wendy lost almost £2,000 in that session. Merkur was fined £95,000 as a result of social responsibility failings—none of that money, I might add, went to the family.

Wendy later died of cancer. [Interruption.] I am getting quite emotional, sorry—Jackie is an amazing campaigner. Wendy had told her daughter that she was gambling to win enough money to pay for her funeral. The people in that gambling shop knew she was dying of cancer; they saw her emaciated body as she kept going in to gamble.

Charles and Liz Ritchie lost their son, Jack, at the tender age of 24. Jack had a gambling addiction. In his suicide note, he said that he would never be free from gambling, and that is why he took his life. Charles told me that Jack got addicted at school; he and his friends would go into gambling shops and he would place bets with his dinner money. Okay, things have been strengthened, and there are now checks on young people who look under 18, but there were not then. Using his dinner money to gamble, Jack had two big wins, winning £1,000, and became addicted, chasing that win time and again. His parents did not find this out until after he died.

In their grief, Charles and Liz decided to mobilise others, and they have since set up an amazing charity called Gambling with Lives. There are so many people who have been fighting this addiction on their own. The Labour Government have done some good work; there was just one NHS gambling clinic when Jack died, and now there are 15. However, there is so much more that we must do.

UK Town of Culture

Alex Ballinger Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the UK Town of Culture competition.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I want to begin by saying why the UK town of culture competition matters to towns like Halesowen. At its best, culture is not a luxury for places that are already well off; it is the glue that keeps communities together when the economy is changing around them. It is the thing that turns a high street into a meeting place, a park into a shared memory, and local history into a source of confidence for the next generation. The town of culture award is not just a title for the tourist brochures; it can be a lever for investment, volunteering, skills and pride, and for the practical business of renewal, as well as the poetry.

It is right that the competition has arrived when it has, because anyone who has spent time in the Black Country will know that we have quietly been a centre of British culture for years. London may have the west end, but the Black Country was the birthplace of British rock music, with Led Zeppelin and Slade hailing from our part of the world. The capital may have art galleries, but we have the Black Country Living Museum to preserve the history of glass making, chain making and real industrial crafts. Through the Hawne Halesowen townswomen’s guild we have probably the best yarn bombers in the history of the world.

We are not short on culture, but we have been short on other people noticing it. That is why I am proud to speak today about Halesowen, a town that deserves to be understood. Halesowen sits at a remarkable junction: a market town with the industrial inheritance of the Black Country and the green breathing space of the surrounding countryside. It is a place where in the same afternoon people can feel the legacy of making and the comfort of landscape. That combination is not accidental: it is the outcome of centuries of people working the land, working the forge, and creating a community that knows what it means to pull together.

When we speak about the Black Country, we speak rightly about manufacturing, and Halesowen has that story in its bones. In and around Halesowen, families built livelihoods through skilled trades and hard physical work done in small workshops and backyards, with a pride in workmanship that still shapes our local character today. It is tempting to describe that as history and move on, but that would miss the point. The value of that heritage is not simply that it happened, but what it tells us about the people of Halesowen today. It is a town where practical intelligence is still prized, where people understand the dignity of work, and where small and medium-sized businesses do not need lectures on resilience, because they have been living it for decades.

If Halesowen is a town that makes, it is also a town that imagines. One of the great cultural treasures of the constituency is the Leasowes, a historic landscape that was shaped by the poet William Shenstone. The Leasowes is not merely a park; it represents an idea—an early expression of the English landscape tradition where beauty, nature and the rhythms of rural life were brought together in a way that influenced English gardens far beyond our town. Its remarkable beauty drew two former US Presidents to visit: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. I issue an open invitation to the sitting US President to follow in their footsteps—it is a much nicer place than Greenland.

Within the Leasowes is a place that is exactly what the town of culture competition should be about: the Leasowes walled garden. It is hard to think of a more fitting symbol of what we are discussing. The walled garden is Halesowen at its best: respectful of the past, practical in the present and quietly ambitious for the future. It is not just a historical feature; it is a demonstration of civic pride in action. The walled garden has been brought back from ruin through the determined efforts of the Halesowen Abbey Trust and a remarkable team of volunteers who have given their time, skill and patience to restore a piece of heritage for public benefit. That work has received national recognition: just last month, the Leasowes walled garden was listed as grade II by Historic England, recognising both its historic significance and its architectural interest.

Halesowen has not only landscape but cultural reach through literature. It is the birthplace of Francis Brett Young, whose writing helped to put our region in the frame. Culture is not only what happens in big cities; it is also the patient recording of lives and places that feel to the people who live there like the centre of the world.

Halesowen is also the world centre of music. I mentioned Led Zeppelin earlier. Robert Plant grew up in Hayley Green and went on to become one of the defining voices in British rock; indeed, he was voted the best lead singer of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. And no town is complete without sport. Halesowen Town football club is not merely a team but an institution. It is one of the places where community life is renewed weekly, through familiar rituals: the talk on the terraces, the work of the volunteers behind the scenes and the intergenerational bonds that non-league football clubs uniquely sustain.

That brings me to someone who deserves to be named in this debate—Colin Brookes, the long-standing chairman of Halesowen Town FC, who passed away at the end of last year. Colin was a towering figure at the club, and he is remembered by many as the embodiment of its spirit and in many ways the town’s spirit, too. Colin guided Halesowen Town through many challenges, always remained close to the club and—fittingly—passed away while watching his beloved Yeltz.

However, the truth is that Halesowen’s culture is not only what I can list in a speech; it is also the daily life of the town. It is what happens in community centres, churches, schools, parks, cafés and small businesses; it is the volunteers who turn up in the cold to help run a youth club; and it is the sense that the town is more than a collection of streets. That matters profoundly when we talk about a town of culture, because the competition should not be about parachuting in a programme of events, and leaving behind a banner and a few glossy photographs. Instead, it should be about enabling a town to tell the truth about itself: what it has been, what it is now and what it wants to become.

In Halesowen, one of the truths that we can express with confidence is that ours is a welcoming town. For generations, people have come to Halesowen to work, to build families, to contribute and to become part of the place. That is not a recent trend—it is part of the Black Country story. We have communities who have shaped the local economy and culture over time, bringing traditions and different languages, food and faiths, that have widened the town’s horizons.

That diversity is not a weakness to be managed, but a strength to be celebrated. It is seen in the way that communities support one another. It is also seen in the celebration of the Black Country Multicultural Day in the town centre, or at the Halesowen/Dudley Yemeni community association, which offers language classes and youth activities. Culture, after all, is a shared language that allows people of different backgrounds to recognise themselves in a common home.

[Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He has given an eloquent appraisal of why Halesowen is such a beacon for culture, and I note that Morgan Rogers, who plays for Aston Villa, was born in Halesowen. Will my hon. Friend join me in saying that this competition is not just about celebrating our past but about celebrating our future and people such as Max Stokes, a constituent of mine in Redditch, who curates the “Villa On Tour” YouTube channel, which has over 80,000 subscribers? People such as Max Stokes provide an outlet for our culture, including our sporting culture, to be seen by people across the world—culture with a Redditch accent and a Redditch voice. Does he agree that this competition should be about celebrating our future as well as our past?

[Alex Ballinger]

I join my hon. Friend in celebrating Max Stokes and his wonderful achievements in Redditch. My hon. Friend knows Halesowen well, because he has campaigned there for many years, so I hope that he will be an advocate for my town throughout the competition.

When I ask the Minister to recognise Halesowen’s cultural claim, I am not simply asking for a prize; I am making a practical argument. The town of culture award can help towns such as Halesowen in at least four concrete ways. First, it can boost our local economy, bringing in visitors to spend money in our shops, cafés and venues, supporting jobs that are rooted in a place. Secondly, it can strengthen skills and pathways for young people, particularly in the creative industries, events, heritage, digital media and community enterprise. Those sectors are growing and towns such as Halesowen should not be left to watch them grow from the sidelines. Thirdly, it can drive investment in local assets—our parks, halls, libraries and heritage sites—that towns rely on for civic life, but that often struggle to receive sustained funding. Finally and perhaps most importantly, the award can restore confidence. A community that feels seen and valued tends to act like it. Pride is not merely an ambition—it is a catalyst that changes what a town believes is possible.

In that spirit, I will put on the record what Halesowen can offer this competition. We can offer the story of a town that helped to build the country through skilled work, honest labour, technical ability and enterprise. We can offer landscape and heritage that connects people to the long thread of English history, and not as nostalgia but as stewardship. We can offer a living and modern cultural identity, and music, sport and community traditions that are rooted in place but outward-looking. We can also offer a model of community cohesion that is quietly impressive—diverse, practical and neighbourly.

I would want our programme to reflect those truths. I would want it to celebrate the makers and their skills to revitalise green spaces and heritage sites, to open doors for young people into culture and creative work, and to showcase the everyday institutions and individuals—community groups, faith organisations and volunteers—that keep our town strong.

Halesowen has the story, the assets and the people. With the right support, we can turn that into a bid that does justice not only to our town, but to the wider Black Country. If we are serious about culture at the heart of renewal, we should start with the towns that have never lost their sense of community, even when the national spotlight has looked elsewhere. Halesowen is one of those towns. It has earned its place in the national story and I hope that, through this competition, it will be given a platform to tell that story with the confidence it deserves.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Ballinger]

I will just say that it has been an absolute pleasure to hear all the pitches from various Members about the many beautiful, interesting and historical towns in their areas; indeed, it feels like I now have my bank holiday weekend plans for the next 20 years all sorted out. I look forward to visiting many of those places, although I also heard mention of a couple of cities—Truro and Bradford—sneak into our discussion. I think that cities have their own competition, so please allow us to compete among ourselves.

I thank the Minister for laying out so clearly the reasons for the competition. We are, of course, still keen to hear details; indeed, we are chomping at the bit to hear them, as we are to get our applications in. I say to those towns that are ultimately not successful in the competition that just going through this process is positive—it has been for the community groups in my area, and I am sure that that is the case across the country. I say a big “thank you” to DCMS. We await both the competition process and the celebration of Halesowen that is surely coming soon.

[Gill Furniss (in the Chair)]

Thank you all very much for a really respectful and interesting debate; it has been one of the best that I have chaired—and you all behaved and came in on time, which is always a pleasure.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the UK Town of Culture competition.

Youth Services

Alex Ballinger Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

For many of our communities, youth services are a lifeline. They provide essential support to young people, helping them to navigate the complexities of adolescence and the transition into adulthood, but unfortunately those services have disappeared across the country. The decline of youth services in towns such as Halesowen has not made headlines, but it is being felt every single day.

I recently sat down with young people aged between 16 and 25—school leavers and graduates, some with master’s degrees, all full of ambition but struggling to find support. These are young people who have worked hard, who have dreams and aspirations and are eager to contribute to society, yet they find themselves facing barriers at every turn. They told me that there is nowhere safe to go after school, that mental health services take months to access, and that they are sending out CV after CV but getting nothing back. One young woman said:

“It feels like we’re expected to survive, not succeed.”

In many ways, she is right.

In Halesowen there is no council-run youth centre. That is not a coincidence; it is the result of political choices. Under Conservative-run Dudley council, over £42 million has been cut from local services. In 2023 the borough’s youth service was shut down entirely, with youth workers redeployed, outreach teams cut and community assets sold off. Council documents show 157 service reductions, and youth provision was the first to go. We know that such cuts have real-world consequences.

The National Youth Agency has found that youth workers play a critical role in preventing crime, improving mental health and keeping young people in education, training or work. When that support is taken away, the risks grow. We see higher rates of youth unemployment, increased mental health issues and a rise in antisocial behaviour.

The young people I spoke to are not asking for favours; they are asking for fairness and a Government who have not given up on them. They want to be seen, heard and supported. They want to know that their future matters. We owe them better, and it is time that we delivered.

Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan: 80th Anniversary

Alex Ballinger Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

Eighty years ago, Britain celebrated victory in Europe. The war was over, although the real achievement was not just the military triumph but the extraordinary effort that got us there: the unity, the resolve and the national determination to stand up to fascism and defend freedom and democracy. I have thought about that a lot over the years, listening to my grandad share memories of his time as a commando during the Italian campaign, as I watched my dad leave home to go to the first Gulf war, and again as I served in Afghanistan. The message of VE Day has stayed with me. Victory is not just about those serving; it is about the whole country behind them.

When I was in Afghanistan, we faced daily attacks from rockets, snipers and mortar fire. Those moments still come back to me, but I remember just as clearly how our fight on the frontline relied on so many others. During that time, we lost many good soldiers and marines tragically, but we learned: our tactics changed and military surgeons developed new procedures. The same innovation was happening back home, where our engineers were designing mine-resistant vehicles, better body armour and equipment to jam radio-controlled explosives. That innovation saved lives. In Ukraine, where I was last month, the same is happening right now. The Ukrainian defence industry has gone into overdrive to engineer the kit that will help save it from Russian aggression.

There is no denying that we live in increasingly dangerous times. War is raging on our continent. Eighty years on from VE Day, the idea of a lasting peace in Europe is a fading reality. That is why I support the Government’s plans to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, not because it sounds tough, but because it is necessary. However, if we are truly serious about security, we must go further than just raising the budget. We must ensure that spending builds strength at home.

In 1945, it was British industry in shipyards, foundries and engineering firms that turned the war effort around. HMS Catterick—the ship my grandad served on before he landed at Salerno—was built in Barrow shipyard. Industrial heartlands like the Black Country made tanks, armoured cars, weapons and ammunition. Those places did not just support the war; they made victory possible.

Today the Black Country still has the talent, the tools and the tradition. Somers Forge in Halesowen produces vital equipment for the Royal Navy and B. B. Price in Cradley Heath has been forging parts for ships, tanks and aircraft for generations. They are not relics of the past; they are the backbone of the future defence industry, because deterrence starts long before the first shots are fired.

As we are seeing in Ukraine, a strong and capable military is essential to deterring our enemies. This VE Day, as we honour those who served and sacrificed, we also have a duty to ask what country we are building today. Are we ready for the challenges ahead? Are we investing in the skills, industries and infrastructures that kept us free 80 years ago? We owe it to that generation and to the next to be bold, to rebuild our strength at home so we can face threats abroad and to remember that Britain’s security has always rested not just on the courage of its troops but on the quiet determination of the people and places that back them. That spirit of 1945—unity, purpose and resilience—is not a memory; it is a blueprint. It is time that we followed it again.

Gambling Harms

Alex Ballinger Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered gambling harms.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner—your premier chairmanship, I might add.

I want to begin this debate by sharing a heartbreaking story about a young man, who I will call Ben. Tragically, last year, Ben took his own life at the age of just 19. He was addicted to gambling. In the two months leading up to his tragic suicide, he received 63 promotional emails from a single gambling company—63 emails, despite his addiction, relentlessly encouraging him to gamble. Despite his attempts to manage his gambling, Ben could not avoid being drawn back in by these persistent efforts. He ultimately felt that there was no way out.

Ben’s story is not an anomaly. In fact, around 40% of gamblers who seek treatment in the UK have considered suicide. In 2023 the Government’s own national suicide prevention strategy cited gambling as one of the six main factors linked to suicide in the UK. Ben’s story is one example of how gambling addiction can lead to a tragic end, but Ben represents just one of the approximately 400 people across the UK who lose their lives to gambling each year.

Last week I had the deeply moving experience of meeting families who have lost children to such suicides. Their grief and pain are unimaginable, and their stories underscore the urgent need for further measures to address the crisis. During the meeting I spoke to Liz. Liz and Charles Ritchie lost their son Jack in November 2017. Jack was aged just 24. He had started gambling when he was 17. It was fixed-odds betting terminals that got him into gambling. These terminals are extremely addictive, and Jack found it increasingly difficult to stop. He reached out to his parents, and they helped him to exclude himself from the local bookmakers, but he was then drawn into gambling online. He again looked for help, this time installing blocking software on his computer.

Over the years, Jack managed to stop gambling for long periods of time, but the ubiquity of gambling marketing during his time at university made it impossible for him to escape. In 2017 Jack was lured back into gambling and relapsed for the last time. At Jack’s inquest, which found that gambling had led to his death, the coroner highlighted the inadequacy of gambling regulation and the poor state of information and treatment. Jack’s parents have dedicated their lives to raising awareness of gambling disorders, and his dad Charles is in the Gallery for this debate.

Every year hundreds of people across the UK end their own lives because of gambling, but there are many whose lives are hurt in other ways—through mental ill health, soaring debts, family break-ups and more.

[Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with my perspective as a public health doctor that there is a need for population-level interventions? There is ample evidence of a need for stronger policy and regulatory controls that protect public health and wellbeing and prevent harm. Gambling is not simply a cultural pastime for people or a leisure facility; it is an addiction and it needs to be addressed appropriately.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Ballinger]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend that a population approach is appropriate in this case, particularly considering the number of people that are harmed and the NHS’s expertise in this area.

As a country we are experiencing record levels of harm caused by gambling. The most recent statistics from the Gambling Commission show that the scale of harm in the UK is huge, with 2.5% of adults—well over a million people—experiencing the most severe gambling harms. The Royal College of Psychiatrists tells me that it has seen a threefold increase in those referred for gambling treatment since people moved online during the pandemic. The Dudley-based charity Gordon Moody, which provides gambling treatment centres across the west midlands, tells me that it has seen an increase in referrals, especially among younger people. Last year it received 12,000 applications for its six-week treatment programme.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. According to GambleAware, around one in eight people in my Shipley constituency engage in gambling behaviour that is deemed to be harmful. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper), I see gambling as an addiction and a public health issue. I therefore welcome the Government’s commitment to introduce the statutory levy on gambling and to put that £50 million into NHS services. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that there are NHS services in every part of the country to support those suffering from gambling addiction?

[Alex Ballinger]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will come on to the statutory levy in a moment. It is particularly important that that fund is used not just for treatment, but for prevention; I will talk a little bit about that as I get through my speech. Last year, the Gordon Moody charity received 12,000 applications for its six-week programme. That clear spike in gambling harm goes hand in hand with the increase in online gambling.

As people turned to online gambling during the pandemic, they were often engaged in the most harmful forms of gambling. Online slots, for example, have all the characteristics associated with the most problematic types of gambling: the high speed of play, making it easier to quickly and repeatedly receive the psychological hit and potentially rack up huge debts; the ease of availability, allowing people 24/7 access from home through their smartphone, where they are potentially at their most vulnerable, and relentless marketing, with advertising ever present on social media and videogames, as well as in offers through email.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is speaking very movingly about these tragic cases. I was also at the Gambling with Lives annual forum, and I met Lesley Wade, who tragically lost her son Aaron to gambling-related harm. He was 30, with a bright future ahead of him. His brother lives in my constituency. This insidious industry constantly offered Aaron perks and freebies, such as so-called VIP clubs, free tickets to football matches and hospitality. These companies are like parasites preying on people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the vast pay packets of the CEOs of some of the companies in this pernicious industry are not worth a single life, and that we must do all we can to reduce the number of lives lost?

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I remind Members that interventions must be short.

[Alex Ballinger]

I agree with my hon. Friend that gambling companies are often preying on the most vulnerable in our society; those with the least and the most to lose. I wholeheartedly agree that stronger regulation is needed, and I will talk about that somewhat as I go.

Children and young people are particularly at risk. Just last week, The i Paper newspaper reported that children playing free mobile phone games are being targeted with gambling advertisements. Such adverts are priming children to gamble as soon as they are old enough to do so. A critical part of tackling gambling harms has to be stronger regulations on marketing, advertising and sponsorship.

Both Ben and Jack were drawn back into gambling by the constant offers and inducements to gamble that were seen everywhere. We cannot now watch a football match without being bombarded by gambling adverts. At the opening weekend of the premier league this season, there were 29,000 gambling messages—a 165% increase on the year before. How is that acceptable in a sport that so many children enjoy?

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we are falling behind other countries with evidence of less harm? Countries including Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain have chosen almost full bans on gambling advertising and sponsorship. Does he agree that we need stronger controls to protect people, especially children, from harmful gambling advertising?

[Alex Ballinger]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I wholeheartedly agree. Many European countries, as well as Australia, have put forward much stronger restrictions on gambling advertising, and it is very important for the protection of our children that we follow suit.

It is also the same on social media: on X—formerly known as Twitter—alone, there are now 1 million gambling adverts every year. The industry is clearly doubling down on this approach as it spends £1.5 billion a year on gambling advertising in the UK. While the gambling industry sometimes attempts to frame advertising and marketing as having no connection to harm, there is ample evidence that the marketing increases the use of the most harmful forms of gambling. Online incentivisation schemes, including VIP schemes, bonuses and free spins, are evidence that gambling companies think marketing gets people to gamble in their most profitable and harmful sectors.

Advertising and the exposure to gambling cues are the No. 1 issue for patients who access NHS gambling services, and 87% of people with a gambling disorder said that marketing and advertising prompted them to gamble when they otherwise were not going to. I spoke earlier of Ben, who was contacted more than once a day in the months leading up to his death. That level of contact and pressure must be addressed; it is simply unethical and puts gambling profits above the lives of our young people.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

I also had a deeply moving meeting last week with a constituent whose son, aged just 19, had tragically taken his own life, having become addicted to online gambling after six months of the same sort of advertising pressure my hon. Friend described. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is time for all parts of Government to acknowledge that problem gambling has become a public health emergency, that it is not enough for gambling to be left to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport alone to regulate and that it is time to stop listening to gambling operators’ siren voices?

[Alex Ballinger]

I agree that the time to act is now—we need stronger regulations and stronger presence of the health system in our response.

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. One death is one too many. However, 22.5 million people in this country gamble and enjoy betting safely without any problems, and there are 42,000 employed in betting shops on our hard-pressed high streets. Is it not important that we have regulation that is proportionate in the impact it has on this industry, which is so important to the United Kingdom?

[Alex Ballinger]

I agree that balance is important, but the situations that hon. Members have described in this debate show that balance is not there at the moment. No one is suggesting banning traditional forms of gambling such as bookmakers, horseracing, lotteries and so on. However, pernicious advertising and harmful online gambling need to be properly regulated, and that is not happening at the moment.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for arriving a little late to his opening remarks. The point is that the occasional flutter on the Grand National or a game of bingo, such as my mother played, is a world away from the gambling that he describes. A statutory levy has been announced; will he ask the Minister perhaps to talk about how it will operate? It must not be controlled by the very people who are doing the harm.

[Alex Ballinger]

I am delighted that the right hon. Member raises this important point, and I agree with him wholeheartedly; I will come on to the levy in a moment.

The public, too, are concerned about gambling advertising, with opinion polls consistently showing most people in the UK want a clampdown. As we have heard, we fall well behind other countries, with the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all having almost full bans on gambling advertising and sponsorship. We can clearly see that the boom in online gambling and huge rise in advertising and marketing is leading to an increase in gambling harms.

That leads me on to the legislation, which is in urgent need of an update. The last time primary gambling legislation was put forward was the Gambling Act 2005, which established the Gambling Commission, with the primary aims of preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, ensuring that it was conducted fairly and openly, and protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling companies. The Act was delivered before the rise of online gambling and before smartphones even existed; it is an analogue Act in a digital age and has long been in need of an update.

However, I was pleased to see the statutory levy introduced last week by the Government, which will generate £100 million from gambling operators to fund the research, prevention and treatment of gambling harms —without a doubt, an important step in ensuring that the industry begins to pay for the harm it causes. While the changes to the levy are welcome, however, we lack clarity on where the money raised through the levy will go on prevention. It is important that prevention commissioning is undertaken independently of the gambling industry. We cannot expect people to access services commissioned by the industry that they have been harmed or exploited by.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has just spoken about the levy, which is a big step forward. Does he agree that prevention needs to focus on people who are at immediate risk but also, more widely, on our education system and services for young people?

[Alex Ballinger]

Yes, I agree that it is important that prevention should work across the piece, but I think it is more important to reduce the ubiquity of advertising that our young people are exposed to. They do not need to learn too young about gambling, and prevention should take that into account.

As I said, the changes to the levy are welcome, but we lack clarity on where the money that is raised will go with regard to prevention. It is important that the prevention commissioner be from the Department of Health and Social Care, given the synergy between the role and the Department’s current expertise in the delivery of similar services.

The introduction of the levy is a good first step, but it is just that—a first step. Two decades on from the Gambling Act, further action is needed to protect individuals and families from harm. I am thinking of the families of Ben and Jack and the thousands of others who have lost someone to gambling-related suicide, as well as the more than 1 million people who are experiencing gambling harms right now.

I am a member of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling reform, working with Members from both sides of the House to minimise the harms from gambling—I am pleased to see so many of them present. I will highlight to the Minister some of the proposals on which the group has been working.

I ask the Minister to continue to monitor and regularly review the statutory levy on gambling operators. As I mentioned, it is important that the levy should commission preventive work independent of the gambling industry. I ask that mandatory affordability checks be implemented, which would help to prevent individuals from gambling beyond their means by identifying those at risk of financial harm and providing timely interventions.

I ask the Minister to commit to properly investigating every gambling-related suicide. Families such as Ben’s and Jack’s deserve each of these tragedies to be fully examined to understand the underlying causes and to develop better strategies for prevention. I would encourage the introduction of a gambling ombudsman to deal with disputes and provide appropriate redress where a customer suffered harm due to the operator’s social responsibility failure.

I would strongly push for greater restrictions on gambling advertising, sponsorship and inducements. We need to stop the practices that encourage children to gamble and that create unavoidable risks for the more than 1 million adults who are already suffering harms from gambling. Many of these challenges can be addressed by reviewing the 2005 Act in the light of the huge technological developments that have happened over the last two decades. That would allow us to follow through on the Labour party’s manifesto commitment to reduce gambling harms.

[Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for organising this much-needed debate; I will declare a conflict of interest in that my partner runs the licensing team for a local authority in London. Is my hon. Friend aware of the 2021 University of Bristol study that found that betting shops are 10 times more likely to be in deprived towns than in affluent areas? It also found that although only 10% of food stores are located in the poorest areas, those places are home to 34% of amusement arcades, 30% of bingo venues and 29% of adult gaming centres. Will he join me in asking the Minister to take steps to give more powers to stop the proliferation of such—

[Karl Turner (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Alex Ballinger.

[Alex Ballinger]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I support her call. It is very concerning that those sites are concentrated around the most deprived areas in our society—arguably, the areas that need greater investment rather than money being extracted from their communities.

The 2005 Act is an analogue law in a digital age. The harms from online gambling have accelerated since covid, and it is vital that the Government act now to protect gamblers from harm. The stories of Ben and Jack are a stark reminder of the urgent need for comprehensive gambling reform. We cannot wait any longer.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Ballinger]

I start this winding-up speech by paying tribute to Liz and Charles from Gambling with Lives, who have done so much to support measures to protect people who are suffering from gambling harms, and have worked with so many Members across the House on this campaign for so many years. I thank them.

Turning to the points raised by my colleagues, first, I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for his long work on this campaign. It has been a pleasure to join his all-party parliamentary group, and I appreciate the work he has done on fixed-odds betting terminals. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden) for his long work on addiction. It was important and relevant to this debate, and I thank him for comparing gambling to other types of addiction.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for raising the absence of proper legislation in Northern Ireland on this issue. I am glad the Minister is looking into that. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East (Dawn Butler) for talking about the proliferation of gambling shops in her constituency, and how they are concentrated in the areas with the most deprivation, which is a challenge that other Members have spoken about. I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) for talking about the benefits of horseracing in his constituency, and comparing that with the harms done by more damaging and challenging forms of online gambling.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) for talking about the challenges in Greater Manchester, her constituent David Smith, and the example of the treatment he undertook; and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Chris Evans) for talking very powerfully about the connection between gambling and sports. Many gambling commentators are, in my view, taking advantage of their position to push this harmful activity on people who are just there to enjoy a game of football.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Maureen Burke) spoke about the challenges around debt, her constituents’ problems and the campaign she is pushing forward, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) talked about the economic and social costs of gambling. We have heard from the shadow Minister and others about the economic benefits, but there huge economic costs associated with the harms that we should reflect on.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) spoke about her campaign to make online gambling safer. We are neighbours; we agree on many of these issues and have similar challenges, and I agree with her that we should encourage the gambling industry to make the process more transparent. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), who talked about his constituents Judith and Liz, and the very painful situation they have gone through. It is always so difficult to hear these stories, and I thank him for championing theirs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna) spoke about the challenges in coastal areas and about how there are different grades of harms from different types of gambling. Challenging and tackling more difficult online forms may sometimes be of benefit to the less dangerous forms that he has in his constituency. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) also talked about horseracing, but compared it with the difficult harms that people face, as well as the addiction to gambling apps and online gambling, which many of us see among younger people.

[Alex Mayer]

What does my hon. Friend think about online games that are not gambling, but in which, when someone loses a turn, they are immediately presented with something like an online app roulette wheel to win an extra game? Is that normalising gambling?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Ballinger]

That is a concern. We might need another debate to talk about the effect of online games on children.

I welcome the Minister’s comments and thank her for the work she has been doing on this issue, alongside the Minister for Gambling. More needs to be done. We need a stronger push on gambling marketing, sponsorship—

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).