Financial Risk Checks for Gambling

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Matt Hancock

Monday 26th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in this debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) for introducing it. I am even more grateful to the more than 100,000 people who signed the petition; it reached 100,000 people calling for the debate in only 27 days. Some 1,200 of the signatures are from Newmarket in my constituency—my constituency is called West Suffolk, but the vast majority of the signatures are from Newmarket. Being here feels like the start of a horse race as I am surrounded by so many colleagues and it is so busy in here today. I have been contacted by other Members, including two Ministers, who wanted to speak in this debate but cannot, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), the former Chancellor. This issue is huge and I do not want to leave the Minister with the impression that affordability checks are a side issue; they are absolutely central to the future of horseracing. We are making a mistake, so we must stop and start again, and I will set out why.

I bow to no one in caring about and paying regard to the problems of gambling harms. I have seen them for myself; I have spoken to those who have lost children to gambling. As the Culture Secretary, I introduced the limits on fixed-odds betting terminals, or FOBTs, which were far below the recommended rate. I overruled the official advice to bring in the £2 limit, with the support of the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). We worked together on that.

I care deeply about gambling harms and as both a former Culture Secretary and a former Health Secretary, I understand them. However, these proposals, as they are being introduced, will make the gambling harms worse. The PwC report published recently showed that the amount staked by UK online gamblers on the unregulated market in 2020 had doubled to £2.8 billion in the previous one to two years. In December 2022, more than 250,000 people visited unregulated black market sites, compared with only 80,000 during the same month the previous year. That has a huge impact on horseracing, which I will come on to, but also on gambling-related harm. Online casinos—games of chance rather than games of skill—are a serious problem that need addressing. I would recommend that the limit of £5 being proposed by some is reduced to £2. We should be extremely tough on games of chance, which are programmed algorithmically to ensure that people lose money. I do not think anybody in this debate would oppose the introduction of measures to resist those types of addictions, for addictions they are.

As I say, I bow to nobody in my support for measures to tackle problem gambling, but I am afraid to say that, having examined the evidence, I am convinced that introducing these measures—not just as they are being proposed, but as they are actually being brought in—is increasing gambling harms and not decreasing them. We should not fall for the old adage of, “We have a problem, and we must do something; this is something, therefore we must do it.” I am afraid to say that the current proposals will make problems worse rather than reducing them.

Many of the offshore gambling firms explicitly target those signed up to the GAMSTOP service and there is a grim irony that the regulator and the Government are, unfortunately, making the problem worse.

A couple of Members have said that the checks have already been introduced by the industry; the hon. Member for Neath said that they had already been introduced “voluntarily”. I am afraid to say that I do not think that is true. The gambling industry, for which I have absolutely no regard, is introducing checks now in the shadow of expected future regulation, because it knows about the Gambling Commission—indeed, it is regulated by the Gambling Commission. These things are not being introduced “voluntarily”; they are being brought in because the gambling companies think that further regulation is coming down the track. We are already seeing the negative impact in the uptake of black market offshore gambling, as I have already said, and we are already seeing the impact on the horseracing industry.

I am incredibly lucky to represent Newmarket. Horseracing is the UK’s second largest sport, with 5 million racegoers annually, generating over £4 billion for the economy and untold soft power. In Newmarket, 7,000 people are employed in or around horseracing, which puts a quarter of a billion pounds into the local economy. In addition to all of that, it creates the joy that so many of us have spoken about.

We know that 26% of bettors have already experienced an affordability check, ahead of the proposals officially coming in. We have seen that the betting turnover on racing fell by £900 million in 2022-23. The financial impact on the horseracing industry is already happening. Prize money is going up in the rest of the world but is incredibly tight in the United Kingdom. The impact is biggest on the small racecourses, but there is even an impact on Newmarket, which hosts the two finest racecourses in the world.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

One of the two!

[Matt Hancock]

I certainly will not have that challenged.

[Sir Bill Wiggin]

The industry estimates that this will cost it £50 million. Does the right hon. Member agree that if we can separate the challenges of problem gambling from the joy and importance of horseracing, which employs 80,000 people, perhaps progress is possible? However, at the moment that is not clear.

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. Horseracing already has its own legislative framework; it has had it since Churchill introduced the Tote. There is already in law a definition of and a separation of horseracing. I recommend that the Government separate games of chance, in which there is no skill and there are guaranteed losses, from horseracing, which is one of this country’s finest achievements and brings joy to so many.

Let me turn to “frictionless”, which we have heard a lot about. I was thrilled when the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that checks would be frictionless; he has said it here and he said it in the White Paper. Here we come to something of a constitutional point, if I may say so. The Gambling Commission has interpreted the Minister saying checks will be frictionless as meaning “frictionless for the vast majority”, which is different. These checks, if they are to happen at all, should be frictionless. The Minister has committed to that and it is Government policy, yet we have a regulator wrongly misinterpreting “frictionless” as “frictionless for the vast majority”. It is a distinct problem. Also, if checks are frictionless, they have to be based on data that people have already consented to make publicly available. If somebody looks at one’s bank account details, there has to be friction, because they will need permission to look at those details, so there is already a problem with implementing frictionless checks.

The hon. Member for Swansea East made the point that it is difficult to see why people would worry about these checks or why they would go to unregulated online sites. There are two responses to that. The first is that people fear the Government looking into their financial affairs. The second is a practical point: it is happening. That is how people are responding to these proposals. I know it is happening among my constituents, because they tell me on the doorsteps. They are changing the way they place bets, because of fears about what the Government are going to look at. We need to recognise reality in this place. We cannot just wish away people’s behavioural response, which is making the tackling of problem gambling worse rather than better.

Any jockey knows when a race is going wrong. I surely do. With this one, I say to the Minister that it is time to return to the stalls and start again.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Matt Hancock

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to work with the team to see what we can put in the public domain. However, the challenge of a maximum file size error is that it would not necessarily have appeared on that sort of flow chart and, given the massive expansion of the availability of data storage over recent years, would not, I expect, be a feature of the system that is already in train to replace the one that caused the problem this weekend. However, I wholeheartedly agree with what the hon. Lady has said about the civil servants in the Department and the staff at PHE, who are working so hard during this pandemic.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend gave an excellent answer to our right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). The JCVI report is indeed most helpful and reassuring because it prioritises the vulnerable, the elderly and, of course, our health workers. However, it last met on 1 September, and the report is dated 23 September. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that if there is more information on the progress of the vaccine, that committee will meet again and we will get another excellent report?

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. People are asking questions about how the vaccine will be rolled out and of course I understand why people are so interested in that. We will of course protect the most vulnerable first and we will do that on the basis of clinical advice. The JCVI brings together the best clinicians in this area and it meets very regularly. Decisions of the JCVI will not be on the critical path to the roll-out of the vaccine—I have been assured of that.

Coronavirus

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Matt Hancock

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

We are, of course, working with Public Health England on making sure that we have the right answers should this happen. Looking into what happens on cruise ships and what advice will be given with respect to people going on future cruises is a critical piece of work that we are undertaking.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Today, we had the first acknowledgement that there was a case in Herefordshire and yet I am still waiting to hear from the Government about the 70 children who are planning to go to northern Italy to ski. Can we make sure that airlines are giving these parents their money back?

[Matt Hancock]

We advise against all but essential travel to northern Italy, and I do not regard skiing as essential.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Matt Hancock

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I will come on to what has changed in the many years since 2013, not least of which is the fact that we now have a full-blown independent press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which did not exist back then.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. First, IPSO is not a press regulator, because it does not comply with the requirements to be a regulator; it is merely a complaints handler. Secondly, he may have inadvertently misled the House, because it is not necessary to join IMPRESS as he said earlier on. It is necessary for regulators to comply with the rules, which is slightly different.

Blagging: Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I want the low-cost arbitration system that has been put in place by the Independent Press Standards Organisation to work. At the moment, we have not seen a full case go through it. It has just been put in place, in November, and I want to see it work better. I want to make sure that when wrong decisions are made, there is a proper acknowledgment of and apology for that.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Those who believe in a truly free press should not accept IPSO, and those who do not believe in a truly free press cannot accept it either. In the light of these criminal confessions, which only The Guardian and the BBC reported, does my right hon. Friend agree that implementing section 40 would be more in the spirit of building a country that works for everyone than the current system, whereby only the very rich can challenge the press?

[Matt Hancock]

I have a lot of time for my hon. Friend. Making sure the country works for everyone means making sure we have a press that can investigate people and cannot be put off such investigations by the threat of costs, even if everything they report is accurate. Therefore, I think that section 40 is not appropriate, but it is important that we have proper redress through IPSO, which has recently brought in a new system, and, as I said in my previous response, I would like to see that working.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Debate between Bill Wiggin and Matt Hancock

Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

Yes, I can.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Before he does, will the Secretary of State give way?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course.

[Bill Wiggin]

Will the provisions apply to Wikipedia as well?

[Matt Hancock]

I will happily respond to both points. Under the Bill, data must be deleted unless there are legitimate grounds for retaining it. The details of what is meant by legitimate grounds will be set out in recitals and then guidance from the Information Commissioner. This is one area in which the right to be forgotten, which has been long dreamt of and thought about, is now being legislated for, and the precise details of where it applies will be set out in guidance, as the Bill states only that there need to be legitimate grounds for retaining data.