Financial Risk Checks for Gambling

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

Monday 26th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) on her thoughtful and balanced introduction to the debate. I find it fascinating that so many of the contributions to it have been about the horseracing industry. I had to check the petition again, because it mentions the horseracing industry only in the last sentence, as an afterthought. We would all want to defend and protect the horseracing industry, but I fear that in this debate it is being used as a wedge by a gambling industry that is using something for which there is great affection in order to prevent something that is doing much wider harm.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I apologise for intervening on the hon. Member, but this has been the case all along and in all the inquiries. The real damage lies in the slots, the fast gambling and the speed of all those chases, not in something that takes about four or five minutes to finish. This is all about the speed of gambling and the incentive to gamble quickly, quietly and in the darkness of one’s own room.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. Member, my friend in this context, for his intervention. He has done such good work on this issue, and on this point he is absolutely right.

I have become involved in gambling reform only in the past six years or so, following the death of one of my constituents, Jack Ritchie, as a result of gambling addiction. What I learned from the tragedy of Jack’s death was that often when people take their own lives it is because they are overwhelmed not by gambling debt, but by the addiction itself. When I talked to Jack’s parents, they were very clear—this echoes a point that the right hon. Member has made—that if there had been checks, balances and preventive measures in place at an early stage of Jack’s journey into addiction, it could have transformed the tragic outcome when he took his life.

Jack is not alone. According to Public Health England, over 400 people take their lives each year as a result of gambling. A recent Gambling Commission survey, which I think has been mentioned, found that 2.5% of the population—over 1.5 million people—score over eight on the problem gambling severity index.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

That is certainly an additional answer.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says that this is about a collapse in trust. The collapse in trust in that description is one way; that is to say with the UK Government, because they are apparently breaching treaty law. However, if he were to go to the case Kadi v. Commission, he would see that the Advocate General at the time of the case made it very clear. I want to quote this, as it is quite important:

“first and foremost, to preserve the constitutional framework created by the Treaty…it would be wrong to conclude that, once the Community is bound by a rule of international law…The relationship between international law and the Community legal order”—

that is their constitution—

“is governed by the Community legal order itself, and international law can permeate that legal order only under the conditions set by the constitutional principles of the Community.”

So the EU itself has the principle that it will vet its obligations and not necessarily implement them, as it requires.

[Paul Blomfield]

The right hon. Gentleman came back at me on the quote I gave about trust. That quote was from the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, and it was about trust in relation to the Government’s actions. In terms of how we deal with the issues that the right hon. Gentleman refers to, I will come on to those subsequently.

The Government’s cavalier disregard for the rule of law has been condemned by the Law Society and by the Bar Council. It has shocked people across the country, and it has disturbed our friends and allies around the world. Part of the tragedy of the Government’s actions is that they never needed to do this. Instead of throwing their toys out of the pram, there was a grown-up solution there in the Northern Ireland protocol itself: the dispute resolution mechanisms agreed by the Prime Minister, to which the Minister has referred at length and which have been utilised already on other issues. However, in recognising those, the Minister failed to explain to the House satisfactorily why the Government have chosen not to exercise that route and have instead put this proposed legislation before the House. Article 16 provides for either the EU or the UK to take unilateral safeguard measures:

“If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”,

and annex 7, to which I think he alluded, sets out the process to which matters can be resolved through the Joint Committee set up to oversee the implementation of the withdrawal agreement.

Do not take my word for it. The former Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), who I seem to recall was once celebrated in the Conservative party, made the case in The Times last week when he said:

“There are clear and lawful responses available to Her Majesty’s Government”,

which

“include triggering the agreed independent arbitration procedure set out in the withdrawal agreement and, in extremis, these might legitimately extend to taking temporary and proportionate measures, where they are urgently necessary to protect the fundamental interests of the UK”.

That was his conclusion. And the Prime Minister could not answer my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) at the Liaison Committee last week when he asked the simple question why he had not been prepared to use those measures, which he negotiated, to resolve any disagreements, rather than engage in lawbreaking.

So let me ask the Minister a simple question, which I hope he will come back to at the end of this very long debate, on the question of state aid. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), said it was a matter for the Joint Committee. Will the Minister be able to confirm in his winding up whether the Government have actually raised their concerns there for resolution?

Our amendments seek to put the Bill right. They reassert our commitment to the rule of law by removing the notwithstanding clauses, which have been the subject of so much attention, but also the other references to disapplying the protocol and disregarding the law.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I am happy to do that. We stood at the last election on a commitment to respect the result of the referendum but to rip up the negotiating mandate that the Tory Government had, which we felt failed the British people. I said from this Dispatch Box on 4 December 2018, when winding up the debate that the Prime Minister opened on the withdrawal deal, that if only she had seized the opportunity to be straight with the British people that they had voted to leave but by a painfully close margin and that the mandate was that we would no longer be members of the European Union but that we could retain a close relationship—in a customs union, aligned with the single market and part of the agencies and partnerships that we had built together—then we could have secured a deal. We entered into the cross-party talks in that spirit.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

Committee: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman is a good example of those who see conspiracy in any corner. I note the article he wrote in The Guardian on 8 October under the title “It’s a sad truth: on Brexit we just can’t trust the Treasury”. He went on to say:

“There is no intrinsic reason why Brexit should be difficult or damaging, but the EU itself has so far demonstrated it wants to make it so…it has co-opted the CBI…the City and…the Treasury to assist.”

Well, I think that the majority of Members take a more rational view.

The decision taken in 2016 was not a mandate for driving over a cliff edge with no deal or for having no transitional arrangement in place. It was not a vote for leaving all the agencies and partnerships from which we have benefited over the years and could continue to benefit or for turning our back on the single market, walking away from the customs union or—I say this with an eye on the contribution made in the last debate by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who is paying more attention to his phone than to the debate—turning our back on the Court of Justice of the European Union.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Would the hon. Gentleman let me intervene?

[Paul Blomfield]

I was hoping the right hon. Gentleman would.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Is the hon. Gentleman not guilty himself, however, of attempting to interpret what the vote was for? On the ballot paper was the issue of whether to leave; the rest is down to negotiation. So, surely, his position is as absurd as that of anyone who says they know these things. He does not know. He knows only one thing: that the British people voted to leave. The rest is for negotiation.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The rest is indeed down to negotiation, and it is down to this Parliament to make the final decisions.

In the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution to, I think, the debate on day one, he sought to interpret the mandate by saying that the primary reason, from the research he had done, for leave voters voting as they did was their antipathy to the Court of Justice of the European Union. I was quite surprised by that, because I talked to hundreds of people on the doorstep who told me they were voting to leave, and the jurisdiction of the CJEU was not one of the regular issues raised.

Therefore, after day one, I took the time to look at the right hon. Gentleman’s research, which was carried out in partnership with the Foreign Secretary’s and the Environment Secretary’s favourite think-tank, the Legatum Institute. I located the report, and I read it with interest. Unusually, it did not include data on the full results, only the final weighted results, but the interesting thing was the question itself. Whereas the other choices were value-neutral—the economy, immigration, national security or the NHS— one option was

“The ability for Britain to make its own laws”—

a leading question if ever I heard one. [Interruption.] If the question had been “Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice”, the right hon. Gentleman may well have found a different answer. Other research, with larger samples—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can skip that and go to the point that was in that pamphlet, which made it clear that when people were asked what their primary reason was for voting to leave, it was “Take back control”—control of our laws, our borders and our money. He can debate that as much as he likes, but the public knew about that when they voted.

[Paul Blomfield]

rose—

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

There are some strands of fair comment in that intervention. We have tabled the amendments precisely because, in relation to our previous debate, we do not want the Government closing options down. If the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice is not clear during a transitional period, options would be closed down.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

No, I will not. I gave way many times during the previous debate, and I am conscious that many more amendments relate to this clause.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on his point about the Court of Justice?

[Paul Blomfield]

I have said no. I want to give others the opportunity to speak. I took every single intervention in the previous debate—except perhaps from one of my hon. Friends towards the end of my speech—so I want to make some progress.

The Government have a choice to make today—[Interruption.] I wish hon. Members would stop chuntering. The Government have a choice to make, and they have to make it in relation to our amendment 278.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I will try to make some progress.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

As it is the right hon. Gentleman, I will.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do not want to delay the hon. Gentleman, but I listened carefully to what he said about his new clause. He said, when pressed, that the Labour party’s view was that control of migration—sustainable through whatever arrangements—was important. However, I note that new clause 2 is missing any reference whatsoever to that being an important matter. Whether it is as important as the economy or of secondary importance, it will remain an important issue when the balance of negotiation comes down. What is his position? Why has he left migration control out of the new clause, which is currently unbalanced and makes no sense?

[Paul Blomfield]

The right hon. Gentleman misrepresents my observations, but then I know that the leave campaign strongly supported alternative facts. Moving on to his specific point—[Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes. What happens now when someone on jobseeker’s allowance gets a job is that they disappear and nobody sees them. Under universal credit they will stay with their adviser, who will help them with any subsidiary training, help them to find extra hours if they want them, and help them to sort out any problems at work. That is a remarkable change, and it will give us the opportunity really to help people to progress in work.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T2. According to the Office for National Statistics, nearly one in four jobs in my city of Sheffield pays less than the real living wage. On the day that the living wage is being increased to £8.25 an hour, will the Secretary of State congratulate the Living Wage Foundation on its work and outline what he will do to ensure that more people are paid the real living wage, which is now over £1 an hour more than the Government’s bogus national living wage?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Paul Blomfield

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Today I welcomed the national roll-out of the claimant commitment across around 100 jobcentres a month from now, mirroring a contract of employment. These contracts are about a cultural shift making it easier for claimants to understand what they must do in return for benefits and that they are in work now to find work. During the pathfinder both claimants and staff have found this helps enormously in focusing people on their requirements and the consequences if they do not meet them. This now marks the next stage of delivery.

[Paul Blomfield]

One of my constituents who is still without a job after his involvement in the Work programme came to one of the public consultation meetings I organised during the recess because he was angered by his experience of the programme. Bright and articulate with a postgraduate degree from Oxford, he had been sent on an eight-week employability course that included the completion of questions by ticking boxes with smiley faces or sad faces. Does the Secretary of State understand why he and others on the course angrily felt it was a waste of time, and does his experience explain why the Work programme has failed the overwhelming majority of people who have been sent on it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I just do not agree with that because the reality is that the Work programme figures show that it is performing incredibly well and it will just get better: some 72% of the first tranche or cohort are off benefits; 380,000 people who before were written off by the last Government are now in work; 168,000 are now in sustained employment; and we now know that 90% of those who are in sustained employment go on to another year at least of employment, which is better than any of the last Government’s programmes—cheaper, more effective and better for those trying to get into work.