Gambling Harms

Deirdre Costigan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.