Gambling White Paper

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I take the opportunity to pay tribute to my honourable friend Chris Philp, who led a lot of the work on the preparation for this White Paper. There will be a new Prime Minister in place in a matter of weeks, and we want to ensure that the hard work that has gone into the review sees its speedy publication. We have not waited for the review to take action where it is needed to address the sorts of harms that the noble Lord points to. For instance, we have banned gambling on credit cards; tightened restrictions on VIP schemes; strengthened the rules for how online operators identify and interact with people at risk of harm; and updated the advertising codes of practice to make sure that content that has a strong appeal to children is banned.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his appearance at “My Fair Lady” last night, indulging his passion for musical theatre. It was a great pleasure to see him. I also congratulate him on the real progress that he has made in publishing the Government’s response to the call for evidence on loot boxes. I congratulate the Government on adopting a light-touch regulatory but vigilant approach on the use of loot boxes in video games—and could he tell me when the video games body mentioned in that response will be established?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to see my noble friend at cultural events. To quote the musical:

“Every duke and earl and peer”


was there last night. We are committed to ensure that video games are enjoyed safely by everybody, and we undertook the call for evidence to look at loot boxes. We believe that the games industry can and should go further to protect children and adults from the risks of harm associated with loot boxes. If that does not happen, we will not hesitate to consider legislative change. As my noble friend points out, we will pursue our objectives to get better evidence and research and improved access to data through the technical working group led by DCMS and through the development of a video games research framework.