Business of the House

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend asks me a very difficult question. It is impossible to guarantee what might happen after a general election, because we do not know what will be in the various manifestos and we do not know what a new Parliament will decide to do. The deal, as it currently stands, has had its Second Reading. If there were to be an election, any Bills that had not completed their passage would, of course, fall, so there can be no guarantees of that kind.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituent, Kay Wadsworth, and her husband became homeless because they sold their home to pay off their daughter’s gambling debts. Kay tells me she believes that the stress contributed to her husband’s untimely death. Sadly, their only daughter took her own life because of the pressure of gambling debts. May we have a debate in Government time about gambling and its impact on family life, including with reference to advertising directed at women?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Again, many of us have seen in constituency surgeries the most appalling cases of gambling addiction and also the very limited help that bookmakers sometimes give to people with gambling problems. I cannot promise a debate in Government time, although I am very sympathetic to the suggestion, but I am looking at the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee—[Interruption.] He is nodding—ish—but I do not think he is promising anything.