EU-UK Summit

Debate between John Hayes and Alex Ballinger

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) for arranging this debate. Maybe it will be the start of cross-party working on the EU.

The people of Halesowen voted to leave at the Brexit referendum of 2016 because they believed the promises that were made by the Brexit campaign, but what they got from the last Conservative Government was a botched Brexit deal, half-baked and deeply damaging. I am proud to come to the debate as we welcome a landmark trade deal with the European Union, one that delivers real benefits for British businesses, workers and families. Labour promised to fix the damage left by the Tories’ failed Brexit deal, and this week that is exactly what we are doing.

For years, Britain was held back: 21% fewer exports, rising food prices and businesses drowning in red tape. But this week, that changed. The deal marks a new chapter, ensuring that Britain is stronger, fairer and more competitive on the world stage. It is a game changer for the west midlands, and for my constituents in Halesowen. Nowhere will the benefits be felt more than in the Black Country, an area built on industry. The deal cuts red tape on over 1,500 products, slashes costs, and secures greater certainty for local businesses.

Manufacturing makes up 14% of jobs in my area. It is a massive employer, but in the last 30 years the Black Country has lost over 30,000 jobs in the sector. We were once the engine room of the British economy, but while promises piled up, investments passed us by. This deal, on top of the deals Labour has secured with the US and India, will get our economy turbocharged once again. It is about supporting British steel, protecting jobs, and our future as a manufacturing powerhouse. Labour has cut £25 million a year from tariffs, which will help our steel industry to compete on the world stage and will save steelmaking jobs. It is about bringing down energy costs because we know how critical that is for households and businesses alike. This deal dodges a £7 billion carbon tax, and Octopus Energy tells us that it will bring down household bills and provide relief to normal consumers.

[Sir John Hayes]

I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) to talk about the imbalance in food exports and imports. The EU sells us far more than we sell it. Are we not moving to a less globalist age—a post-liberal age—in which countries will need to be more economically resilient, as I described earlier? We need to shorten supply lines and so on. On that basis, why would we want to make it easier for people from abroad to sell goods to compete with our farmers and growers?

[Alex Ballinger]

We have been talking in this debate about some of the advantages to British agriculture and the British fishing industry of access to the European market. Of course, it will be fantastic for the people who have been welcoming this deal, and the deal will also be very much welcomed by the many consumers in Halesowen who will see prices on their supermarket shop fall as a result of it.

Gambling Harms

Debate between John Hayes and Alex Ballinger

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alex Ballinger]

I agree that balance is important, but the situations that hon. Members have described in this debate show that balance is not there at the moment. No one is suggesting banning traditional forms of gambling such as bookmakers, horseracing, lotteries and so on. However, pernicious advertising and harmful online gambling need to be properly regulated, and that is not happening at the moment.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for arriving a little late to his opening remarks. The point is that the occasional flutter on the Grand National or a game of bingo, such as my mother played, is a world away from the gambling that he describes. A statutory levy has been announced; will he ask the Minister perhaps to talk about how it will operate? It must not be controlled by the very people who are doing the harm.

[Alex Ballinger]

I am delighted that the right hon. Member raises this important point, and I agree with him wholeheartedly; I will come on to the levy in a moment.

The public, too, are concerned about gambling advertising, with opinion polls consistently showing most people in the UK want a clampdown. As we have heard, we fall well behind other countries, with the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all having almost full bans on gambling advertising and sponsorship. We can clearly see that the boom in online gambling and huge rise in advertising and marketing is leading to an increase in gambling harms.

That leads me on to the legislation, which is in urgent need of an update. The last time primary gambling legislation was put forward was the Gambling Act 2005, which established the Gambling Commission, with the primary aims of preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, ensuring that it was conducted fairly and openly, and protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling companies. The Act was delivered before the rise of online gambling and before smartphones even existed; it is an analogue Act in a digital age and has long been in need of an update.

However, I was pleased to see the statutory levy introduced last week by the Government, which will generate £100 million from gambling operators to fund the research, prevention and treatment of gambling harms —without a doubt, an important step in ensuring that the industry begins to pay for the harm it causes. While the changes to the levy are welcome, however, we lack clarity on where the money raised through the levy will go on prevention. It is important that prevention commissioning is undertaken independently of the gambling industry. We cannot expect people to access services commissioned by the industry that they have been harmed or exploited by.