Gambling Advertising

Louie French Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank the hon. Members for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) and for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) for securing this debate.

I wish everyone a happy St George’s day. Perhaps the Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts is off celebrating St George’s day in his own Scottish way somewhere—I was looking forward to delivering that joke to him, so I am disappointed he is not here. Although I welcome the Minister covering this very important debate, I know there will be some confusion among the public about why no one from DCMS with direct responsibility for this policy area was available to respond. Hopefully, the Minister will still be able to answer some of the key questions on behalf of the Government before their complete collapse.

We all know that the Government are yet again distracted by their latest scandal in Downing Street, and that Labour MPs are preparing the runners and riders for their leadership contest; but we meet today to discuss gambling regulation at a very important juncture in terms of how we move forward with the regulated gambling industry in the UK. As we predicted would happen before Labour’s latest tax-hiking Budget, jobs are being lost and high street shops are closing, as we have already heard. Sponsorship for British sport is also being cut, and an illegal, dangerous black market continues to grow each week. Quite clearly, Labour did not properly vet the information they were being provided.

This is also a crucial time for the Gambling Commission. Major changes are happening at the top of the organisation and, as I understand it, it is deliberating on whether to move forward with controversial affordability checks despite major concerns from a range of stakeholders about their accuracy and, again, the unintended consequences of fuelling the illegal and dangerous black market. Today’s debate is therefore timely, and I have listened very carefully to contributions from hon. Members across the Chamber.

As always, there are a range of views. On the left, we have some who are more prohibitionist and view all forms of gambling through the prism of harm. On the right—thankfully not represented in the Chamber today—there are those who believe that party leaders should be allowed to promote their own crypto and pyramid schemes with no accountability. Then we have the rest of us, more in the middle ground, who are trying to find a sensible and pragmatic approach to regulation that provides protections and support for those suffering from addiction while recognising the regulated gambling sector’s contribution to jobs, the economy, British culture and sport.

As I have said in previous debates, I have no problem bashing the bookies; it is a British pastime between punter and bookmaker, and I am unashamedly pro-consumer. But as we are seeing now, the Government have inadvertently stacked the deck in favour of the illegal black market. In preparing for this debate, I was reminded of what gambling looked like when I was growing up in south-east London: those dark and dingy betting shops with beads covering the shop doors, and the wall of smoke that would occasionally escape, allowing some fresh air into the building.

While some of those small pens might have stayed in some shops, times have changed. The regulated industry has modernised, and technology has transformed how many people gamble across the country.

[Alex Ballinger]

The shadow Minister is talking about an historical example of a bookmaker’s. At that time, how many children and young people were exposed to gambling advertising? Is he happy with a Premier League weekend having 27,000 adverts that families might be watching?

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[Mr French]

That is an interesting point about how bookmakers operate. My grandfather was really keen on horseracing when I was growing up; I remember often standing in the corner of the betting shop while he had a gamble or watching horseracing on the TV. The hon. Member’s APPG has made an interesting distinction about the carve-out of the advertising ban that it has committed to; if I understand it correctly, the APPG believes that younger people or children do not watch horseracing, compared with football—is that the argument for why there is a carve-out?

[Alex Ballinger]

Will the hon. Gentleman let me respond?

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Ballinger, please sit down. Shadow Minister, please speak through the Chair.

[Mr French]

I apologise, Mrs Harris.

[Carolyn Harris (in the Chair)]

Thank you. Mr Ballinger, if you want to intervene, can you do it appropriately?

[Alex Ballinger]

The APPG recognise that horseracing and greyhound racing are much more dependent on gambling advertising than other industries; that is why we made that separation.

[Mr French]

I thank the hon. Member for making that distinction; I understood it as being something to do with whether children watched racing. The point I was trying to make was that times have changed. When I worked in a shop—some 20-odd years ago, when I was a student—a strict rule was brought in to stop children being allowed inside the premises. There was a lot of discussion then about whether it was safer for a child to be just inside the door of a bookmaker’s or to be standing outside. That is probably not as big an issue today as it was then, but I remember that discussion being had circa 20 years ago. Times have changed, and how bookmakers operate has also changed.

The debate around gambling and gambling harms boils down to a simple but important question: how do we reduce harm from gambling without driving people into more dangerous spaces? Advertising, the subject of today’s debate, forms an important part of that discussion. Gambling, when properly regulated, is a legitimate leisure activity enjoyed by more than 20 million people across the United Kingdom every month. That averages out at more than 30,000 people in every constituency across the country. The overwhelming majority of those people gamble without harm.

The role of Government is to balance regulation for people who enjoy a flutter safely, while ensuring that those who need help can receive it as a matter of urgency. Government should not act as a heavy, puritanical hand prohibiting all avenues of fun. That is why the distinction between the regulated and unregulated market is so important. Advertising by UK-licensed operators is not a free-for-all, as some would have us believe; it is controlled and is subject to oversight by the anti-gambling commission and the Advertising Standards Authority, which has been strengthened significantly in recent years. That has resulted in some good progress: for example, I understand that the whistle-to-whistle ban has reduced children’s exposure to betting adverts during live sport by 97%. The Premier League will soon ban front-of-shirt gambling sponsors, and online campaigns are age-gated, with operators prohibited from using personalities with strong appeal to children. However, those regulations do not apply to those who act beyond the law in the black market.

The Government have been clear that there is little evidence of a causal link between exposure to advertising and problem gambling. Crucially, the evidence does not show that advertising drives participation. Advertising influences which brand people choose, not whether they gamble at all. That matters, because restricting the regulated sector too heavily will not remove demand; the Government will simply be redirecting it to the unregulated market, where harm becomes the norm. Independent analysis from WARC suggests that UK gambling advertising spend will reach around £1.9 billion this year, with half—between £800 million and £900 million, and increasing—already coming from unregulated operators.

We are approaching a tipping point. Close to half of all gambling advertising seen by UK consumers comes from operators that are not licensed in this country and can act beyond the law. It is the direction of travel that concerns me most: WARC’s research shows that while licensed operator spend has fallen, illegal and unregulated spend is growing sharply. That is a sign of a market shifting quickly and decisively, and we must be honest about what sits behind that shift. The Government have increased regulation on the legal sector, but done very little so far to stop the illegal black market.

While licensed operators are seeing their ability to advertise reduced, illegal operators are expanding aggressively, particularly online, and particularly aimed at children and younger people. Those unregulated operators do not follow the rules. They do not verify age; they do not offer safeguards such as deposit limits or self-exclusion; they do not contribute to treatment or research; they do not pay tax. Those companies actively market themselves as being outside the system, with “Not on GamStop”—a favoured slogan that is deliberately used to appeal to the most vulnerable. This is not a marginal issue. Up to 1.5 million people in Britain are estimated to be using these sites already, staking as much as £10 billion a year.

Today’s advertising frontline is not so much television as social media, streaming platforms and influencers. Around 62% of children report regularly seeing gambling-related content online on platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Twitch and Instagram—I use some of those platforms myself, though I am not sure what Twitch is. What they see is not the regulated sector: they are seeing influencers who are paid to promote black market gambling sites—sites that would never be allowed to advertise through regulated channels and that offer inducements and access without safeguards. Among those young people who follow gambling content, nearly one in three report seeing an influencer advertising the products. The reality is that we have built a system that tightly regulates those who comply with the law, while those who do not are free to exploit the faster-growing parts of the media landscape.

We must be honest about the risk of getting this wrong. By clamping down further on regulated advertising without tackling illegal activity, we will not clean up this space. We will simply cede the territory to the illegal operators. We will make it harder for consumers to distinguish between safe and unsafe operators, pushing more people towards platforms that offer no protections at all. The Government’s priority must be enforcement in the spaces where harm is now most concentrated.

I will conclude by asking the Minister a series of specific questions that I hope she can answer or follow up in writing. First, will the Government bring forward proposals to place a clear duty on social media platforms to identify and remove illegal gambling advertising, particularly influencer-led promotion of unlicensed sites? Secondly, what steps are the Government taking against unlicensed operators targeting UK consumers online? Thirdly, can the Minister set out a timeline for action on unlicensed gambling sponsorship in sport, and will the Government go further to prevent UK clubs from entering into partnerships with operators that are not licensed in this country?

[Esther McVey]

Can my hon. Friend help me? A little earlier I raised a point about misinformation being used by the Gambling Commission, and the hon. Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) said that it had not been called out for misusing statistics. However, this is listed on three separate occasions on the Gambling Commission’s public log of requested corrections. Can my hon. Friend explain the clear discrepancy on what we have heard in this debate?

[Mr French]

I do not believe I can answer my right hon. Friend’s question, but it might be something that other Members want to correct via a point of order to ensure that, as we have this important discussion, we have all the facts in front of us. That is vital. There is a range of views, but we are here as policymakers and we need to ensure that we make informed decisions.

My fourth question is, what steps are being taken to improve consumer awareness, so that individuals can more easily distinguish between regulated and unregulated operators, as well as the dangers of the latter over the former? Finally, will the Minister commit to ensuring that any future restrictions on regulated advertising are assessed against the risk of displacement into the black market?

If the Government are serious about reducing harm, we must focus on where harm is growing fastest. If they fail to act, the Government risk undermining the very protections that successive Governments have worked hard to build. While there are risks that this House should not be willing to take, there must be balance. Let us not start legislating and regulating just because some Labour Members have the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lilian Greenwood]

I thank the right hon. Member for her question, and I will ensure that she receives a written response.

By bringing together industry, platforms, regulators and Government, we will identify ways to clamp down on illegal advertising. We hope to ensure that exposure to illegal gambling advertising is reduced, particularly for vulnerable individuals. The Gambling Commission also continues to engage with online platforms to support the removal of illegal gambling content, which remains an ongoing priority. An additional £26 million has also been allocated to the Gambling Commission across the next three years to increase investment, resources and capacity to tackle the illegal market.

More recently, we announced our intention to consult on banning sports sponsorship by unlicensed gambling operators. By reducing awareness of and exposure to unlicensed operators, such a ban would further protect vulnerable consumers from the unregulated illegal market.

It is important that we do what we can to ensure that all advertising is socially responsible and does not exacerbate harm. Where there is evidence to support it, the Government would like to see more action being taken to ensure that advertising does not adversely affect the young and vulnerable. In the coming months, we will continue to explore this alongside our wider work on reducing gambling-related harms.

[Mr French]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady is covering for another Minister. However, I made the point in a previous debate that the Government seem to be saying that they are keen to reduce the harm to children from gambling and that they particularly recognise the issue of social media, which I raised in my speech today. Why do they not just back the Conservative party’s proposed ban on social media for under-16s?

[Lilian Greenwood]

As the hon. Member will know, we are currently consulting on measures to protect young people from online harms. He is aware of that work, which is continuing. Of course we want to protect children and young people, but we need to make sure that any measures we bring in will be effective.

We recognise that the regulatory framework must keep pace with technological change. That is why we are working with the Gambling Commission and the ASA to ensure that existing rules are applied to new and emerging channels. We are also clear that all policy and regulatory decisions must be made after considering a wide range of impartial, accurate and up-to-date research about the scale and impact of gambling advertising. We must ensure that our interventions are as impactful as possible.

As Members may be aware, last year we introduced the landmark statutory gambling levy, which has raised just under £120 million in its first year. This funding will be ringfenced solely for independent research into and prevention and treatment of gambling-related harms; 20% of the funding collected will be spent on research to strengthen the evidence base on gambling-related harms, which includes research on the impacts of gambling advertising. We will therefore consider next steps in the context of this strengthening evidence base.

Where appropriate, our approach will also include comparison with regulation in other jurisdictions. A number of suggestions were made, and examples have been given of the way in which other countries are doing this. However, just because a particular country has moved further than us on advertising restrictions, that does not mean that we should automatically attempt to match it. We should instead be guided by the lessons that such jurisdictions offer, and we should consider what has and has not worked.

An important point that I want to stress is that if we decide to encourage or take further action on advertising, we want to do so in a way that is supported by the evidence available. We should avoid putting in place too many restrictions that could have unintended consequences. Where standards can be raised in a careful way, we should look to do that. The Government remain open-minded about how that can be done, and we will reflect on the points that have been raised today, including in the important contributions from the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins), on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and from the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup.

I want to address a couple of questions that hon. Members have raised. The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup raised concerns about the introduction of financial risk assessments. FRAs of online gambling customers are a widely supported principle and a key consumer protection measure from the White Paper. We are aware of concerns about so-called operator affordability checks; new financial risk checks would replace those and are better for customers and for racing. The Department has worked closely with the Gambling Commission throughout, to ensure that FRAs remain in line with the clear principles in the White Paper. If the Gambling Commission decides to introduce FRAs, it will work with operators on guidance. That guidance will ensure a proportionate approach when deciding how to manage consumers where financial risk is present and the customer continues to spend at a high level.

The hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup also asked a number of specific questions. I will ensure that, where I have not already dealt with them in my speech, he receives a response in writing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr French]

On financial risk assessments, also known as affordability checks, will the Minister pass on a query relating to the gambling White Paper? My understanding from the previous Gambling Minister and from the then shadow Gambling Minister, who is now the Sports Minister, was that the checks could go ahead only if they were truly frictionless, hence the pilot. Can the Government confirm whether the Gambling Commission has the authority to proceed if that is not the will of Parliament?

[Lilian Greenwood]

I can tell the hon. Member that FRAs have been piloted to ensure that they are genuinely frictionless before implementation and that they are targeted at those showing signs of harm, rather than simply those spending high amounts safely. The FRA pilot found that only 3% of all gambling accounts would be subject to an FRA where their losses were significant enough to warrant it, and 97% of checks would be frictionless without any change to customer experience. Nevertheless, if there is further information that the hon. Member requires, I am sure he will follow that up.

I conclude by reiterating our commitment to working with a wide range of stakeholders, including industry, on this issue. We will continue to do what we can to ensure that gambling advertising, wherever it appears, is socially responsible and does not exacerbate the risks of gambling-related harm. I am grateful for the contributions from all hon. Members today; it has been a genuinely interesting and constructive discussion. The Government look forward to continuing this work in the months ahead.

Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Louie French Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

The hon. Gentleman said he feels sorry for me—he needn’t. I am proud to be defending a Labour Budget in this Chamber. Frankly, I might repay the sympathies to him: I feel sorry for him to be stuck on the Opposition Benches, where I fear he may be for a long time.

The other point of process in the motion, to which the shadow Chancellor referred in his comments, is speculation ahead of the Budget. Let me start by addressing the premature publication of the “Economic and fiscal outlook”. We know that the EFO is a highly sensitive document, which is obviously not meant to be published until after the Chancellor has finished presenting the Budget to the House. The fact that it was accessed online before she began her Budget speech was a serious matter.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

The Minister refers to the accidental or deliberate release of this information, but we know that on 14 November the press were briefed, clearly with incorrect information. Will he confirm to this House today who gave authority for that press briefing to go ahead, which misled not only the press, but the country?

[James Murray]

I think the hon. Gentleman is incorrect in what he said. He said that I may have implied the premature publication was deliberate; I certainly did not. It is none the less a serious matter, which is why we are responding to it with the commensurate seriousness that it deserves. We know that the OBR rightly took responsibility for this mistake, and soon afterwards—while we were discussing the matter at these Dispatch Boxes last Monday—its chair, Richard Hughes, resigned. That, of course, is a matter for Mr Hughes, and is his decision. The Chancellor wrote to him to thank him for his professionalism and dedication. Many Members and I have made clear our gratitude for his work as a public servant. Nonetheless, it was a serious breach, and the Government are acting with seriousness in response.

Property Taxes

Louie French Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

After a summer of rumoured tax rises, my constituents are deeply concerned. They are already paying more, because Labour broke its promise to freeze council tax, broke its promise not to increase national insurance, and broke its promises to first-time buyers, small businesses and farmers. Thanks to the Chancellor’s anti-business policies, growth forecasts are collapsing, borrowing costs are sky-high, and our national finances are shot.

Instead of looking at its reckless decisions, Labour is now calculating the best way to raise taxes, and my constituents are worried that the Chancellor is eyeing up their family home. In Bromley and Biggin Hill, on the edge of Greater London, homes are expensive. The average house price is well over half a million pounds, and there are rumours that the Government may scrap the private residence relief, which would be devastating. It would slap my constituents with an average £33,000 tax bill when they sell their family home. If someone has scrimped and saved, and been lucky enough to see the value of their home go up, they should not be handed a punitive tax bill. It only serves to knock working people back down when they are trying to get ahead.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

Residents in Bromley, like those in Bexley, have been hit by the Mayor of London’s 77% increase in his share of council tax since he took office, alongside various driving taxes. Does my hon. Friend agree that this increase in property taxes would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for many residents?

[Peter Fortune]

I agree that the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is causing residents in Bromley and Bexley real financial hardship. However, I in no way believe that this will be the final straw—the final way that the Mayor of London can find to damage my constituents and those of my hon. Friend. I am sure that he has plenty more straws, and a lot more camel to lay them on.

As I was saying, scrapping private residence relief would be irresponsible and economically ruinous. Imagine if somebody bought a house in Bromley in 2010 for £350,000. Today, it would cost somewhere in the region of £550,000. If they wanted to move to a new area for work or to be closer to family, without that relief, the tax bill would be somewhere in the region of £50,000. That eye-watering bill would stop people moving and wreck the housing market. That is why I urge others to support the motion, which rules out any further reckless tax rises. Working people cannot afford to keep bailing out Labour.

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[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be called in this debate, even if I must start by questioning the wisdom of the Opposition’s decision to bring forward today’s motion. After all, the memories and consequences of their so-called mini-Budget are still fresh—the culmination of Liz Truss’s economic policies, which the present Leader of the Opposition said were “aspirational and inspirational”. Their dreams became our constituents’ nightmares—to say nothing of the Conservatives’ failure to pass renters’ rights reform, which this Government are now putting through, or of their dreadful record on wages, which left people in my constituency with £300 a month less, after inflation, every month.

It cannot be reasonably denied—although the Conservatives have tried—that the incoming Government faced a bedevilled inheritance last July. For all the sound and fury, there is little mystery about this now. As Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR, told the Treasury Committee:

“When we had a high-trust relationship with the Treasury those things were being well managed, and managed within the total. That system very clearly broke down… there was about £9.5 billion-worth of net pressure on Departments’ budgets, which they did not disclose…which under the law and under the Act they should have done.”

What a disgraceful set of affairs, and decisions that awaited the Government on public sector pay had been ducked and delayed until after the election.

We need to be clear about this: Conservative Ministers already knew the recommendation of the schoolteachers review body. They also knew that the recommendations of each pay review body tend to be similar. Why were those recommendations delayed, given that the pay year started not in July or even at the beginning of the pre-election period, but in April? It was because Conservative Ministers and their Departments submitted the remit letters and their evidence late.

As the Office of Manpower Economics said in its 2022 efficiency review:

“The work of the PRBs is demand led and essentially non-negotiable—departments set the remits and timetables.”

There we have it: the additional cost was always coming, and the only reason why it came seven months into an election year was because Conservative Ministers were content for it to be so delayed. Today Opposition Front Benchers claim that they would have rejected the recommendations, but not once has any Opposition Member had the courage to say how much less they would have paid nurses, paramedics, teachers, police officers and armed forces personnel in each of our constituencies.

Are any Opposition Members able to enlighten us today? No. The reality is that they want the investment that means 25,000 fewer people are on a University Hospitals Birmingham waiting list compared with last year, and which is almost doubling the free school meals entitlement in my constituency of Birmingham Northfield, but they do not support a single measure to pay for it. We should be clear in saying that strong public services create value. Businesses and working people in all our constituencies need roads, schools and hospitals that are resourced and decent.

[Mr French]

As the hon. Member represents Birmingham Northfield, does he believe that residents in Birmingham deserve to get their bins collected in return for their council tax payments?

[Laurence Turner]

The hon. Member tempts me to get drawn into a discussion to which, in one minute and 30 seconds, I do not have enough time to do justice. Of course we need a bin service that is fit and decent—I have spoken about that many times in this House.

What my constituents did not need were the sharpest cuts in resourcing of any unitary authority in the entire country, coupled with the sharpest increases in council tax, and those were signed off by Conservative Ministers. I have in front of me the impact assessment of the 10% council tax increase from January last year, which says:

“The decision for Ministers across Government, as No. 10 and HMT clearance will be needed, is whether to grant these increases.”

That is the legacy of the hon. Member’s party for my constituents: the highest spending cuts and the highest tax rises. The last thing they need is a return to the failed approach of the Conservatives, who deserve to be reminded of that every time they bring such a debate to this House.

Taxes

Louie French Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, who is an excellent champion for her constituency. She is right to point out that the investment announced for her constituency was a consequence of the decisions made by this Chancellor and this Labour Government to invest in the renewal of Britain.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

I am not sure what financial qualifications the Chief Secretary has, if any, but last week’s reports suggested that, privately, Ministers are briefing their Back Benchers that they will introduce a wealth tax without calling it a wealth tax. Can he confirm whether or not that is true?

[Darren Jones]

That is a slightly odd question, but I can definitely confirm that any tax changes, one way or the other, will be announced by the Chancellor at the Dispatch Box in the normal way in the autumn.

As I say, Conservative Members are welcome to come forward with suggestions about how they might pay for the decisions that this Government have taken. Maybe they disagree with our fiscal rules, which are our assurance to the financial markets that we will live within our means and reduce Government debt.