Sport: Doping and Illegal Gambling

Lord Naseby Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this point. Her Majesty’s Government are committed to combating match fixing. The recently published sports strategy set this out. We will sign and ratify the Council of Europe’s match-fixing convention and, in so doing, will review the existing legislation framework. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister is hosting an international anti-corruption summit later this year, at which sport will play a key part.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that many of the leading clubs in the United Kingdom, such as the All England club for tennis and the MCC for cricket—I declare a hurried interest in both—have worked on this for years and continue to do so, but the change in the market is the increase in betting on specific, very short-term instances? Has the time not come for Her Majesty’s Government to call in the betting industry to make sure that these are absolutely genuine bets and not, frankly, fixed bets?

[The Earl of Courtown]

My Lords, my noble friend makes a good point, especially relating to gambling. We keep this situation under continual review. There have been questions over whether Section 42 of the Gambling Act is sufficient for our needs. A review by the last Government found it to be effective. Only two months ago, somebody was prosecuted under Section 42.