Gambling Advertising

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, our minds are filled with the terrible things which are happening in Ukraine, so much so that it would be easy to push other essential issues out of focus, but we must not allow ourselves to do that. I am therefore grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for giving us this opportunity to look again at the question of gambling, and especially the way it affects our children. Despite repeated attempts to stir, prod, dynamite those with power into taking action, we seem to have to go on making the same case again and again.

I am sure many of us share the same feeling of horror when told that there are 450,000 gamblers aged 11 to 16, of whom more than 60,000 are deemed addicts—figures cited by those who have preceded me in this debate. This is not the inadvertent repetition of an old man losing his marbles; it is a statement that needs repeating as many times as it takes to sink into the heads of those with power to act.

As a nation, we are now opening clinics offering advice and support to children and young people suffering from an addiction to gambling. This is, as has been said, a health crisis. We must find the will and fashion the tools to flatten the curve, and a ban on gambling advertising during sports matches is, as has been said, as good a place as any to begin and is long overdue. There is no reason for this not to happen—except, I suppose, for the shedloads of money that the gambling industry pours into the Exchequer every year.

If we know that children and at-risk gamblers are likely to watch sports games, why knowingly put them in harm’s way? An endorsement of gambling by someone’s favourite football team or player must surely influence the opinion of young fans. Legal it may be, at least for the moment; harmful it certainly is. As such, it fits easily among the legal but harmful issues currently being set forth in the online safety Bill.

This is indeed a health crisis: an epidemic. So, I ask the Minister a simple question. If we have the vaccine, the capability drastically to reduce the number of child problem gamblers and the experts begging us to do it, will the Government be part of the mission—or will they content themselves with being anti-vaxxers?