Loot Boxes

Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for bringing this important debate before your Lordships’ House. I also welcome my noble friend to his new role in government. Noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I do not intend to use my full time allocation, but rather to use the time I have to lay out my own position on the response to the consultation.

I begin by laying out where I stand on the gaming industry, a position that I believe is shared across this House—we have already heard from the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Butler—and within the Government. There is an opportunity now to find a sensible and responsible way forward in response to the response to the consultation. I pay tribute to the games industry and the enormous contribution it makes to the creative and electronic economy across the UK. It would be remiss of me not to make a special note of the impact that the games industry has had in Scotland, specifically in Dundee—a city where it has made a huge difference to the economy.

When I was a member of your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Committee I had several very helpful interactions with the industry, including chairing a conference on its future. I am not some Luddite who in any way denigrates the enormous part that gaming now plays across the ages and sexes. This is not an industry maintained by a stereotype of teenage boys gaming in their bedrooms through the night, but rather a market which is extremely diverse in age and gender. I speak as a friend of the industry and an advocate of the positive part that gaming plays in a healthy, managed way in the lives of millions across this country. Also, I am not someone whose first reaction to any problem is to look for a ban.

However, turning to the matter in hand, the Government’s response to the consultation currently does not goes quite as far as I would like in managing the balance between a thriving industry, while protecting young people from gambling, and the potential for acting as a gateway to negative life choices as they go forward. The fact is, as far as I can see it, that nearly all empirical studies have identified a relationship between loot boxes and gambling. That relationship, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said, may not be conclusively causal or directional, but the fact that one has been found suggests that the matter requires a precautionary approach. This has also been the outcome of committee inquiries in your Lordships’ House and the other place.

I have no issue with the ability of players, including under-18s, to augment their playing with specific purchases that are transparent and obvious, where an informed decision, with knowledge of value, can be made. The measures to allow probability to be shown before a purchase are a good step in the right direction, but this does not go far enough in providing categorical assurance that minors are not engaged in activities that can be viewed as gambling.

My noble friend the Minister’s department has invested significant time and effort in examining this knotty problem. I and others, I am sure, are very grateful for that investment of time and resource. The issue is indeed complex, but complexity should not be an excuse to avoid action. The fundamental point is that we have laws, which in the case of the National Lottery were tightened only in April 2021, to disallow under-18s from being able to gamble.

I have absolutely no issue with over-18s being able to buy loot boxes with a knowledge of probability and good practice safeguards; they are making an informed decision. But, for under-18s, we have a responsibility to safeguard. I therefore favour loot boxes not being allowed to be available to under-18s. We read in the consultation document that there is a concern that this could lead to minors using 18-plus accounts, but this argument would be equally valid about banning anything for under-18s.

Loot boxes clearly create an element of risk in the purchase that encourages further purchases. The analogy of a Kinder Surprise egg, which some in the industry used in response to the consultation, does not hold up to scrutiny, not least in terms of the financial resource involved. I reiterate that I am not saying that younger players should not be able to buy player and performance augmentation, but this should be on a straight purchase basis, just as it is with skins and other gaming elements.

Parental safeguards just do not work when so many parents are unaware of them. In preparation for this debate, I spoke to a number of responsible parents of gamers of my acquaintance. I asked them about loot boxes: some were vague, some thought that they had already been banned, some said they were no longer credible and some said that their children never bought them. I asked them to check with their children, and every single one of them had bought one in the last year, using their parents’ credit cards. They did not know it was a loot box; they just assumed that it was an extra augmentation to the game. Surely it would be more sensible to provide clarity to parents and children that they just cannot buy loot boxes.

In conclusion, I ask my noble friend the Minister to ensure that the Government build on the very real improvements included in the response to the consultation, and I ask that they work with industry and improve safeguards for all users. I am glad to hear that the working group will report early next year, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said. However, I ask my noble friend to ensure that consideration of the banning of loot boxes for under-18s remains part of the discussions, and that the door is not completely closed within the consideration of the review of the Gambling Act 2005. This is not about stopping income generation within gaming; rather, it is about removing the ability to gamble from those who would not be permitted to do so by the law in other areas.