Philip Davies
Main Page: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill
Philip Davies Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
As ever, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) who, as people have said, is an expert in these matters and did an excellent job when he was the Minister responsible for them. I agree with his comments about new clause 1, although I think he was characteristically —and perhaps unnecessarily—generous to his Front-Bench colleague, the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), about his new clauses.
Before I go any further I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) on new clause 1, which is absolutely spot on and follows the conclusions we reached in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny. His point about the clear anomaly in this area is right. It seems ridiculous that somebody can play on a tablet or remote machine three paces outside the door of a casino, but is not allowed to do so three paces inside that door. It is about time legislation in that area caught up with modern technology. We cannot allow the law to be so behind the times; some of us may be considered luddites, but the law should not exist to protect luddites in such a way.
Paul Farrelly
Before the hon. Gentleman goes on to being under-generous to the shadow Minister, does he agree that throughout this debate, the Government have yet to give a reason for why they are rejecting a provision such as new clause 1 to remove that anomaly?
Philip Davies
I agree with the hon. Gentleman; he is absolutely right and I am sure we all look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope we can look forward to hearing her accept new clause 1. It seems that Governments often refuse to accept amendments and new clauses simply because they have been tabled by a Back Bencher rather than the Government. It would be to the Government’s credit if they were to accept that the new clause is sensible and has cross-party support and support from the Select Committee that scrutinised it. The new clause does not add a great deal of complexity to the Bill; it is fairly straightforward and would be easy to implement. When the Minister responds, I hope she will say that she has listened to the argument and realised that we should pursue this sensible measure.
Mr Nuttall
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on that point. Clause 5 provides that
“Section 1(4) to (7)…come into force on the day on which this Act is passed…The other provisions of this Act come into force”
on whatever day the Secretary of State determines by way of statutory instrument. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is therefore no reason why the new clause could not be inserted in the Bill and the Secretary of State could trigger it at some point in the future?
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is right and if the Minister felt it necessary, she would be able to do that. The other point that has been well made is that we are not likely to have another suitable Bill in the foreseeable future to deal with this issue. To be honest, it would be unacceptable for the Minister simply to give the House some warm words and agree to look into it at some future date, as that would, in effect, be kicking it into the long grass for an indeterminate time. If we are going to implement this measure, as seems sensible, there seems to be no reason why we cannot just crack on and do it now. I support new clause 1, and if the Minister will not accept it, I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East to push it to a vote. I think he will see that the new clause finds a great deal of favour in the House, although I hope it does not come to that.
The next group of new clauses are tabled by the hon. Member for Eltham and I consider them a combination of the unnecessary and the undesirable. I will attempt a quick canter round the course for each of them. I do not intend to delay proceedings for long, but it is worth setting out why I would not agree to any of the new clauses, and why I hope that the Minister will follow suit.
New clause 2 on licence, compliance, stipulations and control of spread betting seems completely unnecessary, and I hope the Minister will reject it on those grounds. New clause 3 has an interesting idea about ensuring there is a kitemark on all licensed and legitimate websites. I understand why some might think that idea superficially attractive, but my view is that the new clause is completely pointless. A kitemark does not attract people to a particular gambling website or company—it tends to be the odds being offered that attract people to those websites or companies. I admire the naivety, I suppose, of the shadow Minister who thinks that if we put a kitemark on the bottom of every licensed website, every punter in the country will ignore all better odds available and just bet blindly because of the kitemark. It would be nice if the world worked that way, but that is cloud cuckoo land. It is completely naive and unnecessary.
New clause 4 concerns remote gambling licensees, customer protection and making sure licensees participate in a programme of research into and treatment of problem gambling. I do not have a problem with that; it is quite desirable that all of those companies participate in providing finance to research problem gambling and to provide treatment. The issue with the new clause putting that into statute is that it is already happening on a voluntary basis by the gambling industry. The hon. Member for Bradford South knows all about this because he was involved in it.
Mr Sutcliffe
The hon. Gentleman is quite right that this would provide statutory underpinning. One of the difficulties is that it is a voluntary arrangement. A large percentage of the companies contribute, but there are a few notable exceptions. One thing that might flow from the clause is that the Minister might be able to support the Responsible Gambling Trust in getting those companies that do not contribute to do so.
Philip Davies
I take his point and, as Minister, he basically got the gambling companies to agree to the voluntary levy, which raises around £5 million or £6 million a year. It was he who said that if they did not do it voluntarily, he would legislate to ensure that they did it. How voluntary that would have made it is a different matter; we can debate the definition of “voluntary”. The upshot is that the companies are doing this and are doing so on a voluntary basis. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; not every single gambling company contributes and it relies on some of the larger ones—such as Ladbrokes and William Hill—to make what might be considered a disproportionate contribution to raise the required amount. But the money that is being requested is being raised each year. We do not really need new clause 4; the money that people are seeking, properly, for the treatment of problem gamblers and research into problem gambling is already being raised. New clause 4 is unnecessary. If the money were not being raised, I could see the point.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the percentage of gamblers who could be called “problem gamblers” is very small? It is important that they have the proper treatment and that establishments are aware of the problem and have active policies. However, the vast majority of gamblers are controlled.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The proportion of gamblers who are problem gamblers is 0.9 per cent, according to the latest research. Obviously it is right that anyone who has an addiction to or a problem with gambling has treatment made available to them to try to help them. That is what we should be focusing on and the gambling industry is contributing to ensure that that is the case. It is a small number, but that does not detract from the problems it causes for those individuals and their families. That is why it is right that that finance is provided.
The gambling industry provides finance to people who have a problem with gambling in a way that other industries do not; for example, for alcoholics or for people with an addition to tobacco. I do not notice the cream cake industry producing a voluntary levy to deal with the problem of obesity. The gambling industry, to its credit, does make this contribution and we should recognise that it does, even if it is for a small number of people.
New clause 5 is about the reporting of suspicious activities and the power to obtain financial information by the Gambling Commission. I do not think that this is necessary. As far as I am aware from all the evidence that we have had from the Gambling Commission, it gets the information that it requests from gambling companies, so I do not see that there is a problem. It seems to be a solution looking for a problem. I have not heard evidence from the Gambling Commission that it has not been able to access the relevant information from the people that it regulates and licences.
On the issue of match fixing and sports betting there are two points that make the new clause undesirable as well. The first thing, which never comes out, is that bookmakers are the victims of match fixing, not the cause of it. It is usually people involved in a particular sport, or referees or umpires, who conspire in effect to defraud bookmakers. On the principle that the polluter should pay, it seems bizarre to say that the bookmakers are being ripped off by people involved in sport and that we should therefore penalise bookmakers for being the victims of the crime. The people who should be paying to clean up their sports are the sports. It is the participants, umpires or referees who are causing the problem and causing a cost to the bookmaker.
Mr Sutcliffe
I am with the hon. Gentleman most of the way, but part of the problem is that the sports are not in control of the types of bet that can be put on their sport. That is how players—particularly young players—can be corrupted. There is an issue in terms of the relationship between betting and sports and it would be better if the sports had control over what could be bet upon.
Philip Davies
I never like disagreeing with the hon. Gentleman, not least because he is a constituent of mine and it might jeopardise my chances of him voting for me at the next election. But to say that bookmakers offer products that therefore encourage sportsmen to fix matches is like blaming retailers for shoplifting by putting products on display. It is a bizarre way of looking at things and it is certainly not the way I look at it.
The other point on match fixing—for example, all the issues recently in cricket, with no-balls being bowled and issues related to the Pakistan team—is that much of the money gambled was not with legitimate bookmakers in the UK but with illegal bookmakers in the far east. All the proposals in new clause 5 will not make a blind bit of difference because much of the activity is not taking place with legitimate bookmakers. It is completely pointless and I hope for that reason the Minister will reject it.
New clauses 6, 7 and 9 in effect ask the Government to legislate to be able to consult on something. It seems bizarre that we would put into law a requirement on the Government to consult. The Government can consult on all these issues without legislating to do so. I suspect that, as all these issues are important, the Minister will be consulting the industry and others on an ongoing basis. It is rather bizarre that these new clauses should seek to put into a Bill a statutory obligation for the Minister to consult. If we started going down that line and placing in Acts of Parliament requirements on Ministers to consult, legislation would look very bizarre in this place. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reject all those new clauses, too.
It is sad that the Labour party is once again resorting to its nanny state instincts on the advertising watershed. This ludicrous idea of a watershed for advertising is a complete nonsense particularly when children are not even allowed to gamble. If the issue is that children are gambling, the best way to deal with it is to enforce the existing law that prevents children from gambling. I am wholly opposed to children gambling. I am one of the few Members who believe that it is wrong for 16-year-olds to play the national lottery; I think it should not be played until people are 18, which is the right age for people to be allowed to gamble. If the issue that the hon. Member for Eltham is trying to address is one of children gambling, we should make sure that the law as it stands is enforced.
I have heard the argument that we need to deal with “marketing grooming”—the idea that people are subjected to adverts when they are very young, so that when they become adults, they are addicted to the product before they have even started. I used to work in marketing for Asda, and the idea that any company would spend its marketing budget to try to get a new customer eight years down the line is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard in my entire life. I would like to meet anyone working for any marketing department that has that as its strategy, as I have never encountered any such person. Most business organisations cannot see beyond the end of their nose; they certainly cannot see beyond the end of the financial year in which they are operating. The idea that they would use marketing on TV to boost their sales in five or eight years’ time is absolutely ridiculous. New clause 9, therefore, is not only unnecessary; it is completely ridiculous.
New clauses 10 and 11 relate to a horse racing levy. I spoke on that on Second Reading, but given that most of my speeches—or probably all of them—are not memorable, I will briefly repeat for the benefit of Members why I think these provisions are unnecessary. First, I think the Minister will confirm that extending the Bill to include a levy would introduce a legal problem, or certainly a complication, that might scupper the Bill in its entirety. It is not worth risking the Bill as a whole to introduce the levy.
As I mentioned on Second Reading, it seems to me as an onlooker that what tends to happen if any Government have to determine the levy—let us hope that we keep the current position of an agreement being reached between bookmakers and the racing industry without the intervention of Ministers—is that they look to produce a certain figure that they think should be raised by the gambling industry to pay towards the levy. Most Ministers would think £75 million was a roughly appropriate sum. The formula for the levy is then worked out to generate the £75 that the Government think should go to the industry.
All that will happen by forcing through these new clauses is that the Government will still come to the conclusion that the gambling industry should pay about £75 million, and will adjust the formula accordingly to make sure that that amount is raised in this way rather than in another way. The new clauses are completely unnecessary and I do not think they will generate an extra penny piece for racing and the racing industry. To risk legally scuppering the whole Bill to put in a provision that will not make any difference is pointless.
Mr Sutcliffe
Will the hon. Gentleman go through what he believes the legal impediments are? If he is referring to the European Union, it appears that the French have overcome any problems emanating from that. Is he arguing that the advice of the DCMS lawyers is inappropriate?
Philip Davies
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am no lawyer and no legal expert. I am regurgitating the Government’s position when they said that this might cause a legal problem. We have seen in the past how legal decisions taken by the European Court of Justice on gambling issues related to the levy came as a great surprise to all concerned at the time. We are not in a position to be clear about what the result of any legal challenge would be. All we could be clear about is that there would be a legal challenge, at which point the result would become uncertain. I do not see any great gain—to be honest, I do not see any gain—in precipitating such a legal challenge. For that reason, I hope that new clauses 10 and 11 will be rejected.
New clause 12 is about financial blocking for illegal sites. Superficially, it seems attractive that measures should be taken to try to stop people gambling through sites that are not properly licensed or illegal. The problem with new clause 12, however, is that other countries have shown that financial blocking does not work. Other countries have tried to restrict online gambling and tried to make licences available only to a few operators, but this has failed in every single country that has tried it. It fails because there are ways around financial blocking—by using PayPal and other methods, for example, which cannot be blocked by the banks. It does not work. New clause 12 is well meaning, and I understand why the shadow Minister wishes to pursue it, but it is pointless because it simply will not work.
New clause 13—the last of the new clauses proposed by the hon. Member for Eltham—is also unnecessary, so I hope that the Minister will reject all the shadow Minister’s new clauses. Although I do not doubt his motives in bringing them forward—the motives are good—I think that they are either unnecessary or undesirable.
New clause 14 was tabled by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who represents the Democratic Unionist party. Again, I think it has much to commend it on a superficial level and I understand exactly what he is trying to do and why he is trying to do it. Again, too, the motives are very good. I doubt whether many people would disagree with the principle of what is suggested. The hon. Gentleman wants to make sure that there is a register of people who should be self-excluded. The self-exclusion is done through the Gambling Commission and would then apply to every operator who had a licence with it. If someone is self-excluded once, they are self-excluded with everybody. We would like to get to that scenario.
The problem with putting this provision into statute is that it will put many gambling operators in a very difficult position. Once someone who has self-excluded goes on to gamble, the gambling operator would be breaking the law, but the new clause does not provide for a sufficient “due diligence defence”. If someone self-excludes and tries to use different names, different addresses, different bank accounts and slips through the net in that way, my worry would be that, through no fault of their own, they will be in breach of the law.
If we are to go down the line of the new clause—as I say, I have no problem with the principle and view it as a desirable outcome for someone self-excluded from one operator to be self-excluded across the industry—without some kind of due diligence defence, it could put gambling operators in an impossible position. We would be asking them to do something that would be impossible to achieve if someone were determined to get round it. Perhaps the other place could consider the problem and I would be happy for the Minister to look further at it. As the new clause stands, however, I cannot support it.
I would like to think that, unusually for me, my amendment 1 is non-controversial and could easily be accepted by the whole House. It simply requests:
“The Secretary of State shall publish a report to Parliament one year after the commencement of this Act, and annually thereafter, on the enforcement activity of the Gambling Commission in respect of unlicensed operators attempting to provide facilities for gambling in the UK.”
One of my concerns about the Bill—certainly one I expressed on Second Reading—is that it might lead to an increase in the number of people gambling with unlicensed operators, with the tax bill encouraging some companies to go outside of the licensing regime. The Treasury forecast of how much tax will be collected—about 20%—seems to confirm the danger that 20% of gambling will take place with unlicensed operators. If we are to go down the route suggested by the Bill, we need to focus the Gambling Commission’s attention on stopping gambling with unlicensed operators.
Philip Davies
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I take it from what he has said that he agrees with my amendment. The fear has been expressed, both in the Treasury’s forecast and during the debate, that the number of people gambling with unlicensed operators could increase. I therefore think it only right for the Government to present a report to the House once a year—it need not be an oral report; it could be in written form—to update us on what the Gambling Commission has been doing and how successful it has been, so that we can decide whether it is dealing properly with a problem that we all fear may arise.
Paul Farrelly
The hon. Gentleman said that the report need not be in written form, but the amendment says:
“The Secretary of State shall publish a report to Parliament”.
That implies that it should indeed be a written report. Will the hon. Gentleman provide some guidance for the Government and the Gambling Commission by saying a few words about what he expects to be its form and content?
Philip Davies
I think that the hon. Gentleman misheard me. I actually said that the report need not be oral, and could be written. The amendment is worded as it is because otherwise there could simply be a written report with no accompanying oral statement.
I should like the Gambling Commission to explain, in its own words, exactly what actions it has taken to try to close down unlicensed operators in order to prevent people from gambling with them; to update us on how successful it has been; and to give us an idea of how big the issue remains each year. That will enable us to decide whether the legislation that we have passed has succeeded, or whether we need to revisit it. If we are to proceed with the Bill, all of us will want to ensure that people gamble only with properly licensed legal operators, and any measure that focuses the minds of the Gambling Commission and the Government on that can only be a good thing.
Paul Farrelly
Does the hon. Gentleman think it advisable for the Gambling Commission to give us an annual running commentary on its estimate of the percentage of the market that is captured by licensed operators and the percentage that is lost to unlicensed operators? That might help the Treasury to determine the amount of the necessary tax levy, which will clearly be crucial in the context of how much of the gambling market is captured by licensed operators in the future.
Philip Davies
I am not entirely sure whether an annual report constitutes a “running commentary”, but if it does, then yes, I do want a running commentary on the steps that the Gambling Commission is taking, how effective those steps are proving to be, and how big the market is. Only if we know that will we know whether the Bill has been successful or whether we need to change it in some way.
When I table an amendment, I can often understand why the Government would not accept it, but I genuinely cannot understand why they would not accept this amendment, which is modest and which goes to the heart of some of the concerns that have been expressed about the Bill. On that basis, I hope that the Minister will accept my amendment and new clause 1, but will reject the new clauses tabled by Opposition Members.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak about new clause 14, and, indeed, about the other new clauses.
Some Members have suggested that the Government’s basic objective is to close a tax loophole that led numerous online gambling companies to relocate from the United Kingdom to white-listed or European economic area jurisdictions back in 2007. However, the Government have made clear that that is not the case, arguing that the Bill is actually all about consumer protection, and I am very pleased that they are focusing on that issue.
On the face of it, the Bill requires all online gambling providers that are located beyond the UK but are accessed by the UK market to have UK licences. That too is good news, but it seems to me that the Government’s good intention breaks down on two bases. It is all very well to have good intentions, but those good intentions must be translated into specific rules and legislation if we are to help problem gamblers, who are vulnerable people. I had the impression in Committee that both Government and Opposition were in favour of that, and I therefore think that all Members should feel able to support new clause 14.
First, as has been said in earlier debates, although the Bill presents companies outside the UK with a carrot in the form of the offer of advertising, it does not provide any kind of stick. There is nothing to prevent companies without licences from continuing to access the UK market; they just cannot advertise. That first failing feeds directly into the second. If there is nothing to prevent companies without licences from accessing the UK market, the primary practical implication of the Bill will be that there is more advertising for online gambling, which has increased hugely in recent years in any event. There is a risk that a Bill that was supposed to be about better consumer protection will quickly become, to a significant extent, the “Liberalisation of Gambling Advertising Bill”, although I am sure that that is not the intention.
The prospect of further advertising liberalisation for online gambling is particularly worrying, because online gambling has one of the highest “problem prevalence” figures. To understand the basis for public concern about that prospect, we need to have an understanding of the very real issue of problem gambling, which is a profoundly destructive addiction that ruins lives and, on occasion, ends in suicide. According to the gambling prevalence survey of 2010, there are approximately 450,000 problem gamblers in the UK today. However, if we are to understand that problem fully, we must remember that no man—or woman—is an island, and that each of those people is likely to be connected to family members who feel the destructive impact of problem gambling on their lives as well. Problem gambling goes beyond the problem gamblers themselves; it affects their families too, which means that the 450,000 figure can quickly increase to some 2 million.
In Committee, the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) expressed concern about those with gambling addictions, and suggested that the Secretary of State for Health should look into the possibility of money from the gambling profession being set aside to help people with addictions. I am sure that many of us agree with that valuable suggestion, which served as another indication of the concern about the Bill that was felt by all members of the Committee. When we focus on remote gambling, we discover that while the average problem prevalence figure is 0.9%, the figure relating to online slot machines is over 9%. On a monthly basis, it shoots up even further, to over 17%. That problem will continue unless we establish robust legislation to deal with it.
Before the Bill was published, concern had already been expressed about discrimination in the provision of less credible care for online problem gamblers than for terrestrial online gamblers with respect to “self-exclusion”, which is one of the key measures to help problem gamblers. Problem gamblers have the option of going to a gambling provider and excluding themselves from the services of that provider for a fixed period such as six months. That works in practice, because, as with other addictions, while people have weak days, they also have strong days. On a strong day, problem gamblers will be able to get around the five betting shops in their town to exclude themselves and thus ensure that they are protected from accessing gambling from the place where they live for a full six months, during which time they can build up their defences, obtain help, and decide what they want to do when the self-imposed period of exclusion ends.
What is the problem with that? The key problem is that, while in an offline context there is a credible opportunity for problem gamblers to benefit from a key tool that has been developed for them, there is no such credible opportunity online. As I have said, it is quite possible for a problem gambler to self-exclude from all five betting shops in his town on a strong day, but the same is not true online. The problem gambler could self-exclude from five online gambling sites that he can access from his or her bedroom, but could still have access to hundreds of other sites from that bedroom. It would be physically impossible for the online gambler to self-exclude from all online gambling opportunities that are accessible to him in his bedroom.
In short, we offer the offline problem gambler a credible form of protection through self-exclusion, but deny it to the online gambler. I believe that that anomaly must be addressed, because it is not just at a time when providing a credible one-stop shop is technologically possible. A one-stop shop self-exclusion mechanism, as set out in new clause 14, would mean that people have only to self-exclude from online gambling once by registering with the Gambling Commission. The commission would keep a list of all those who had self-excluded, and all those in receipt of an online gambling licence from the commission would be required to respect the list. This idea, which has been backed by many academics, was discussed in Committee, but is worth repeating today.
Dr Sally Gainsbury, author of “Internet Gambling: Current Research Findings and Implications”, published by Springer in its SpringerBriefs in Behavioral Medicine, series 2012, states that “a significant limitation” of self-exclusion
“is the lack of collaboration between different online gambling sites and venues, so that excluded individuals may find it easy to gamble at another site or venue.”
She argues that the technology is available and points to its feasibility, particularly in the UK, owing to the current existing licensing conditions and code of conduct upheld by the Gambling Commission. In demonstrating that the provision of a one-stop shop facility is technologically possible, Dr Gainsbury highlights a program called VeriPlay.com, developed by Bet Buddy, which allows the secure exchange of anonymous data and has been successful in some parts of the world.
The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) referred to due diligence and the support across the House on this subject. I believe we have to start somewhere, and we should start here today. The bones might come from the House of Lords, but new clause 14 would give this House the opportunity to decide in what direction we want to go, and if we want to go in the direction of helping these problem gamblers and vulnerable people, new clause 14 would be a step in the right direction. The Bet Buddy system enables operators to check whether someone is on a centralised list of players who have self-excluded. Dr Gainsbury argues that collaborative efforts would help strengthen self-exclusion, and research presented to the Canadian-based Responsible Gambling Council in 2011 by British-based GamCare and the university of Salford, along with Bet Buddy, endorsed the proposal—further examples of support from within the gambling sector and also, I hope, from the Gambling Commission.
The arguments I have made for a one-stop shop in terms of non-discrimination hold at the moment, but with the proposal in the Bill to make people in the UK—and therefore problem gamblers in the UK—more aware of online gambling opportunities, the failure to provide a credible model of self-exclusion for those gambling online becomes much more serious. We already effectively discriminate against online problem gamblers in the care that we offer by providing them with a far weaker self-exclusion opportunity than that afforded to other problem gamblers. The Bill not only gives us an opportunity to put that right, but massively compounds the imperative for us to do so by introducing new arrangements that will make problem gamblers more aware of online gambling opportunities.
Given that online problem gambling has one of the higher problem prevalence figures, that one of the key accepted tools to help problem gamblers—self-exclusion —does not work as effectively online as it does in a terrestrial context, and that it is technologically possible to make good this shortcoming through the provision of a one-stop shop self-exclusion mechanism, the only possible reason for inaction can be a lack of political will within the House. I am sure that that is not the case. Given that we are proposing to make life even more difficult for online problem gamblers by making them more aware of online gambling opportunities and that we have the opportunity to introduce new compensatory measures to help them, a failure to act could only be the result of a terrible failure of moral will. Why is there a political and moral will to address online safety challenges in other contexts, but not in this context? Given that doing so would help thousands of online problem gamblers, what possible justification can there be for not backing new clause 14 as a step in that direction?
Philip Davies
If these sites are illegal and, as is probable, in some far-flung part of the world, what would prevent people from just putting the kitemark on there themselves?
Clive Efford
It would have to be policed, would it not? Like anything else that is happening on the internet, it would have to be policed. The ultimate argument the hon. Gentleman is making is: what is the point in regulating at all? I think we are getting to the root of his position on all these issues.
On research and treatment, the figure of 0.9% has been used a lot. The 2010 gambling prevalence survey identified that for problem gambling in respect of online slots the figure rises to 9%—we are dealing with online gambling here, so we are talking about almost one in 10 and something that is very serious. The overall figure of 0.9% equates to 450,000 people and we should take note of that, because it equates to 700 people per constituency. It is not the insignificant number it may seem when we say 0.9%—we see that when we talk in terms of 700 people per constituency.
Philip Davies
I, too, rise to support the Bill, although not necessarily for the reasons it was introduced. The Government introduced the Bill—if we believe what they say—for the purposes of regulation, but it seems to me that for the purposes of regulation it is completely unnecessary. In fact, it will probably make the regulatory system worse, because although virtually every gambling operator used by UK consumers is currently properly regulated, either here or in other places such as Gibraltar, the chances are—the Treasury’s own forecasts show this—that as a result of the Bill around 20% of betting will take place with unlicensed and unregulated operators. As far as the regulation of gambling is concerned, the Bill represents a step backwards, rather than a step forwards.
However, I support the Bill for the real reason behind it, which the Government dare not say: it will allow them to tax gambling companies currently based in places such as Gibraltar and allow people in the UK who place bets with those companies to be subject to taxation. I think that is a perfectly legitimate thing for the Government to do, but I understand that for legal reasons within the EU they do not want to say it. I am pretty certain that is the reason for the Bill, and on that basis I support it.
I have one question for the Minister, which I hope she can answer. She will be relieved to know that it is not about sport. I was tempted to ask her the name of this year’s winner of the grand national—a clue is that it was trained in my constituency—but I will resist that temptation. Will she give me a guarantee that the Bill will not lead to any empire building by the Gambling Commission, which could claim that it needs ever more resources, ever more money and ever bigger fees to do the regulation that will be expected of it as a result of the Bill? The Culture, Media and Sport Committee was keen to get assurances on that during our pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope that she will make it clear to the Gambling Commission that the Bill cannot be used as an excuse.
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend makes a fair point. Does he accept that one way to avoid the needless spread of bureaucracy would be for the UK’s Gambling Commission to use some of the expertise that exists in the Alderney gambling control commission or Gibraltar’s commission, where there is likely to be spare capacity? Using what is already there, rather than inventing new methods and posts, might be a way of achieving sensible regulation at a reasonable price.
Philip Davies
I very much agree with my hon. Friend. He gets to the nub of my concern about the Bill, which is that companies based in places such as Gibraltar are already particularly well regulated by the authorities there, which is why the Bill is complete nonsense from any regulatory or licensing perspective—it is clearly about taxation. Once we get over the emperor’s new clothes situation, I hope that the Government will take my hon. Friend’s advice, because the most effective way to license and regulate those industries will be by using the expertise that already exists.
Notwithstanding my concerns about empire building by the Gambling Commission, which I hope will not be a consequence of the Bill, and the fact that I consider the regulatory system for gambling to have taken a step backwards, I support the Bill and hope that the revenue raised will be useful in paying down our debts. The success or failure of the Bill will depend not on the legislation, but on the rates of taxation the Treasury places on the gambling industry as a consequence of it. The Treasury—I hope that the Minister will take this message back—must not stifle some of the smaller niche gambling companies, which employ many people in this country, because they would be finished off by a rate of 15%. The big gambling companies can look after themselves, but the smaller ones need a competitive rate. Otherwise, they will go out of business and we will end up losing jobs and tax revenue. Notwithstanding those concerns, I support the Bill.