Addiction: England and Wales

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a remarkable debate and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman: it is a pity that we could not have more time. I hope that we will have a further, lengthy debate on this important matter. My noble friend made a moving speech and graphically described the impact of addiction on individuals and families. His most telling point was that the opportunity to access activities that are addictive through technology, particularly for young people, is frightening. The spectre we see today is of young people who are offered so much temptation but given so little protection.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that PSHE curricula in schools are important, but the challenge to the Minister is to come forward with a cohesive response to the many challenges that noble Lords have raised tonight. At the moment, we have different departments dealing with different areas of addiction. There is little consistency. From what we have heard tonight, we need a much more cohesive response, both to reduce the opportunity for addiction —we must deal with that head on—and to provide more support and more addiction services.

I want to focus on just three areas. On the question of gambling, I think that it is remarkable that a significant proportion of football teams in the Premier League depend on betting companies for sponsorship and that the whole of the English Football League is sponsored corporately by Sky Bet.

Several noble Lords commented on the number of betting adverts during the World Cup, which was absolutely phenomenal. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is right: a huge amount of gambling is also advertised during the cricket. My party has announced plans to introduce a mandatory levy on the industry to fund increased research into, education on and treatment of gambling addiction, as well as to study the effects of advertising.

I always think that in QSDs one is allowed to go further and express personal views; I will certainly do so. We need to go further. Take Simon Stevens as an interesting example. It is great to see an NHS leader tackling this issue head on. He pointed out that eight Premiership football clubs with sponsorship from overseas gambling companies are refusing to pay the voluntary levy. Ministers could call in those clubs. As was said by the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, exposing clubs to websites related to youth activity with gambling clearly had an immediate effect. The Government need to stop giving the response that this is nothing to do with them. Of course it is. Most of their departments are dealing with the after-effects of people whose lives have been destroyed by gambling.

Surely we have to revisit the liberalisation of our gambling laws. Is that not an inevitable consequence of the problems that we face? We need to revisit the official attitude towards gambling, which seems to be that it is all okay, basically. I am afraid that it is not. We need to make moves to discourage gambling as much as we possibly can. We will certainly have arguments about the nanny state; I understand that. I also understand that our society currently resists the concept of the nanny state. However, when you see how our young people are being damaged in so many ways, surely the Government have to reflect on whether they need a more restrictive policy, including on advertising. We also need to look at what happened with sponsorship and smoking. Seeing clubs being sponsored by betting gives the sense that everything is okay, but everything is not okay.