Damian Collins
Main Page: Damian Collins (Conservative - Folkestone and Hythe)(10 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Clive Efford
Absolutely. There are eminent people in the Responsible Gambling Trust and I endorse what my hon. Friend says, but I do have something to say about the research.
The concerns about FOBTs and the impact that betting shops have on our communities are not just about gambling. We will wait for proper research, but the Minister needs to understand that saying that we will wait for the research and then doing nothing to gather the information that we need to make informed decisions is just not good enough. After all, this Government scrapped the gambling prevalence survey. Let me quote again from her press release:
“This Government is undertaking the biggest ever study into the effect of these machines and have made clear that we will not hesitate to take action if the evidence points in that direction. To act without evidence is inappropriate and extraordinarily cynical, even by Labour’s standards.”
The Government are deluding themselves if they think that all the answers will come from the current study. In December, NatCen published a scoping report that states:
“Across the category B estate in Great Britain, there is a great deal of inconsistency in the level and type of data collected.”
That will seriously undermine the ability of the Responsible Gambling Trust to give us the information we need to make informed decisions when the research is completed next autumn. As the Minister well knows, the report will come out six months away from a general election, yet it will be inconclusive because the data are not robust enough to allow us to make informed decisions on FOBTs.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Labour’s motion says that local authorities should have the power to license the number of FOBTs in existing betting shops. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that that would allow a local authority to increase the number per shop on the high street today?
Clive Efford
No, because we would not allow the cap to extend beyond four per shop.
Clive Efford
The motion says that local authorities would have to limit the number. We certainly would not lift the cap.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) and his thoughtful, careful speech on this sensitive subject. The Government’s approach is that we need firm evidence before any change is made to our gambling laws. That is absolutely right, and when I sat on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, our gambling inquiry showed that it is an incredibly complex area with a lot of contradictory evidence.
Several Members have asserted that there has been an uncontrollable, unsustainable boom in gambling, but a study of the facts simply does not support that. There was an increase in the use of FOBTs after the Gambling Act 2005 was introduced, but the number of them on the high street has declined in the past three years. Betting shops are changing location, but there has been no explosion in their total number. Some Members have cited the gambling prevalence survey, which they say shows a 50% increase in problem gambling, but that increase is from 0.6% to 0.9% in problem gambling, according to surveys taken between 2007 and 2010. The change in numbers in those two studies are within the margin of error, so not necessarily statistically significant, and other studies since 2010 have demonstrated that instances of problem gambling are declining. That is why we must have a sensible evidence-based approach.
The scenario that the Labour party paints about gambling on the high street, the prevalence of FOBTs, and the clustering of betting shops was created entirely by the 2005 Act. Was the decision of the then Labour Government based on robust evidence and science? No. The Act perhaps had good intentions, but it has had massive unintended consequences. When Richard Caborn gave evidence to the Select Committee, he was asked why the previous Government settled on having four FOBTs in betting shops—what was the reason for that number? He responded:
“There was no magic, scientific arrangement for four, I can honestly assure you. It was an agreement saying what was reasonable and what we believed—with the evidence that we had—was proportionate at the time. That is exactly how it happened.”
It was their best guess, and it has led to the clustering of FOBTs on the high streets. Because there is demand for FOBTs and not enough premises to play them in, bookmakers have opened new betting shops so they can have new terminals.
I was interested in the shadow Minister’s response to my earlier intervention when I said that, on face value, the wording of the Labour motion suggested that local authorities could retrospectively change the number of terminals in a shop, but only downwards. I think that refutes the idea that the motion is localist or about giving powers to local communities in any way. If it was, it might do what the Select Committee recommended and give local authorities the power to say, “Perhaps we will have more terminals in fewer shops, and fewer shops on the high street” and have the power to make that decision. This is not a localist motion but one in which the Labour party is asking councils to do what it wants—close betting shops and get rid of FOBTs altogether.