Future of Horseracing

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hosie, and for a change, I actually mean that this time around. Can I start with an apology to Members for being a little late for the start, and particularly to the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) for missing the opening couple of minutes of his remarks? From the Australian jungle with Ant and Dec to the Vietnamese jungle with the SAS to plain old Westminster Hall, it is indeed a pleasure to see him here. I agreed with a chunk of what he said, but I have to say that I disagree with what he and many others on the Tory Benches said about affordability, which I will come to later.

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I seem to have found ourselves on different sides of just about every argument since I was elected in 2015. He made a comparison between spending on gambling and spending on suits and shoes and other forms of expenditure. The contribution from the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), who spoke of how severe the issues are with problem gambling, shows how ridiculous that analogy actually is.

In my first year as an MP, one of the first cases I took was from a chap in Linwood who had lost absolutely everything because of his problem gambling. He then spent a long time campaigning to try to improve the lot of others and some of the safeguards around gambling. I very much remember that case and have obviously stuck up for that.

[Philip Davies]

Given that he is particularly concerned about the damage that certain things do, and affordability checks are therefore important in that, does he believe that affordability checks should be brought in for people who buy alcohol, since alcohol does far more damage to people than gambling?

[Gavin Newlands]

When we talk about gambling, we often compare it with alcohol and tobacco, so that is a perfectly fair challenge. The Scottish Government have tried to recognise the harms of alcohol, with our minimum unit price on it.

[Philip Davies]

But that is not an affordability check.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Gavin Newlands]

But it is a problem, so that supports my argument, not the hon. Gentleman’s, I would suggest. I will come on to affordability checks later and if he wants to intervene then, he is more than welcome to do so.

With that all being said, the Scottish Government obviously recognise the benefits of racing to the economy and the positive impact that it has had on employment in communities across Scotland. The 2018 annual review highlighted that the sport generated more than £300 million to the Scottish economy, as well as sustaining nearly 3,500 full-time equivalent jobs. Who can forget that, yet again, Corach Rambler brought home the grand national to Scotland earlier this year? According to Scottish Racing, by 2025, the impact of Scottish racing is projected to rise from just over £300 million to half a billion pounds of revenue for Scotland’s economy, with £50 million in tax revenues. Each year, most of that goes to the Scottish Government.

Racing remains the second most popularly attended sport in Scotland after football. It attracts a diverse section of society, with nearly nine out of 10 racegoers comprising people from both middle and lower socioeconomic groups. Females account for over half of all race-goers in Scotland, and it is set to support 3,700 jobs, including in employment across Scotland’s racecourses and tourism activities supported by race-goers. It also supports or sustains jobs through the development of racehorses such as Corach Rambler, media coverage of race days and off-course betting.

From time to time, all of us will receive, particularly around the grand national and what have you, a number of emails about animal welfare in relation to horseracing. The hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) can speak better than the rest of us combined on this issue, given his depth of knowledge, so it was good to have his input, too.

Animal welfare is covered by devolved legislation, which makes the keeper of an animal responsible for its welfare and permits the prosecution of those who do not ensure such welfare, such as the need for a suitable environment, and so on. The British Horseracing Authority, which I have met a couple of times over the years, assures us that it complies with all aspects of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 through its rules of racing and the licensing and inspection of participants. It works closely with a range of animal welfare organisations, such as World Horse Welfare, to maintain and promote horse welfare. The BHA also seeks to minimise the risk of injury and fatality to thoroughbred horses on racecourses, and it records and analyses such incidents.

Much of today’s discussion has been about the gambling levy and affordability. We in the SNP think that the gambling levy should go further to tackle gambling-related harms, such as by dealing with advertising, regulating online bookmakers and ensuring that the levy funding is allocated properly. As the Minister will know, this is a completely reserved matter, and a review took place that generated some 16,000 responses. Forty-seven per cent of people surveyed in the UK had gambled in some way in the four weeks before the survey. Most gambling—I am happy to admit that I very occasionally dabble, although it has been a number of years since I have done so—is done without any harm. However, for those who face problem gambling, the impact can be harmful and addictive, with one person committing suicide in the UK every day because of gambling-related harms. Thankfully, the Gambling Act will be modernised and made more effective for the digital age by providing adequate protections, notwithstanding a lot of the very good points made about some of the overseas websites, which we need to do more to address.

[Philip Davies]

I think I heard the hon. Gentleman repeat the figure of one person committing suicide every day as a result of gambling. He should know that that figure is not accurate but has virtually been plucked out of thin air. If he wants to give a quote for the basis of the figure, I would love to hear it. The figure, which has often been quoted by Gambling with Lives, has been debunked, not least by the Gambling Commission. I hope he will not rely on that dodgy information.

[Gavin Newlands]

That is the other side of the argument. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I am happy to write to him with the source of the figure I am using.

Two million families in the UK are blighted by problem gambling, and more than 55,000 children aged between 11 and 16 are addicted to gambling, with 60% of the gambling industry’s profits coming from 5% of gamblers. A poll by Clean Up Gambling found that 72% of the public supported affordability checks for those who want to bet more than £100 a month, and 74% supported limits on how much money can be staked on a single online bet. Without affordability being addressed, individuals suffering from gambling harm will switch between online operators and continue losing money, with potentially catastrophic consequences, as I outlined by mentioning my constituent and, indeed—

[Matt Hancock]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gavin Newlands]

I have only a minute or two left, but I am happy to do so.

[Matt Hancock]

I bow to no one in my support for tackling problem gambling. I went toe to toe with the gambling industry by introducing FOBTs as Secretary of State, to its great unhappiness, but is the industry not right on this? The hon. Gentleman just said that the public want action on online gambling, but it comes down to this point: gambling on horseracing is materially different from gambling on games of pure chance, whereby people know they are going to lose over time because the technology is designed in such a way that there is no fluke, no luck and no skill. The two are materially different. If we do not understand that, we will simply end up destroying a sport to try to protect people from something completely different.

[Gavin Newlands]

I accept the premise of the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but that is why the SNP is calling for a smart gambling levy that is scaled to the damage that gambling does. There has obviously been cross-party agreement on FOBTs over the past couple of years, but the levy would be higher. We can agree to disagree on many things, but we can certainly agree on others.

I have another couple of points that I would like to make, but time has defeated me. I should perhaps not be so generous in taking interventions next time around.