Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the number of betting shops on high streets; and if he will make a statement.

The Gambling Commission publishes figures on the total number of licensed betting shops. Their most recent figures show that as of March 2012, there were 9,128 licensed betting shops in Great Britain; 9,066 as of March 2013; and 9,021 as of March 2014. In other words, the number of betting shops is falling.

In April 2014, the Government published its gambling strategy “Gambling protections and controls” including a number of measures to tackle problem gambling and address the problems caused by the Labour Government’s gambling legislation.

In July 2014, my Department published a technical consultation paper on planning, which included reforms to require a planning application for a change of use to a betting shop. We are currently reviewing the responses and will publish our conclusions in due course.