Gambling: Regulatory Reform

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Sir Desmond Swayne in the Chair]

14:30

[Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered reform of gambling regulation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. We are here to talk about gambling regulation and to discuss the scale of the problem. There is clear evidence that current regulation of the gambling industry is not adequate to protect people from harm, including children and young people. Figures published by the Gambling Commission this October showed that 1.4 million people in Britain have a gambling problem. That number is not spread equally: young men aged 25 to 34 are most affected, with 5.5% experiencing at least moderate-risk gambling, and rates are much higher in more deprived communities, with men in the most deprived areas twice as likely as those in more well-off areas to be moderate-risk gamblers.

Evidence suggests that while many people gamble a bit, the vast majority of profits derived by gambling firms come from a small number of gamblers. The House of Lords Gambling Industry Committee found that 60% of the industry’s profits come from just 5% of customers, who are either problem gamblers or at risk. Recent Gambling Commission figures also show that the harms caused by gambling are increasingly being experienced by children, with the proportion of young people being exposed to significant harms more than doubling between 2023 and 2024. Moreover, the harms caused by gambling are not isolated to the individuals who take part; when it reaches a harmful level, it can have devastating impacts for families and right across communities, in every constituency.

Gambling is linked to addiction, debt and other serious harms, and can negatively impact mental and physical health, relationships, finances, employment and education, but it is comparatively less regulated than other harmful industries and not taxed to directly reflect the harms it causes. In my home patch of Witney, Oxfordshire county council identified gambling addiction as a key risk factor in its recently updated suicide prevention strategy. Research by Gambling with Lives, a charity established in 2018 by families bereaved by gambling suicides, shows that, shockingly, there are hundreds of gambling-related suicides each year, an average of around one a day.

The impact on the public purse is also significant. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that a person experiencing problem gambling leads to an additional £3,700 spend per year in higher welfare payments, healthcare and criminal justice costs, and the cost of homelessness. A research report from the University of Oxford by Dr Naomi Muggleton showed that as many as one in four gamblers are harmed.

The industry continues to develop rapidly, and regulation must keep pace and remain fit for purpose. The Lancet public health commission on gambling found in 2024:

“Digitalisation has transformed the production and operation of commercial gambling… The commercial gambling industry has also developed strong partnerships in media and social media. Sponsoring and partnering with professional sports organisations provides gambling operators with marketing opportunities with huge new audiences.”

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

In the light of that, some two years ago it was recommended very clearly that a gambling ombudsman should be set up. So far, across two Governments, nothing has happened on that. That is needed to check that all these elements are being dealt with at the same time. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree with me that that should be one of the first acts that the Government should get on with right now?

[Charlie Maynard]

I fully agree and will cover that shortly.

The Lancet commission concluded that

“gambling poses a threat to public health, the control of which requires a substantial expansion and tightening of gambling industry regulation”.

So what should we do? First, we should limit the impact of gambling advertising, marketing and sponsorship, especially the extent to which children and young people are exposed to it. The industry spends £2 billion a year on gambling advertising and would not be putting that money in without a high degree of certainty that it will be more than paid back in profits. Some 80% of that is spent online, which is why children so often come across gambling and gambling companies.

Research undertaken by the Gambling Commission found that 34% of British bettors admitted to being influenced by advertising, and 16% stated that ads caused them to increase their gambling. Research published this year found that 96% of people aged 11 to 24 had seen gambling marketing messages in the month before the study, and were more likely to bet as a result. On Twitter—or X—alone, there are more than a million gambling ads in the UK each year. Football matches are saturated by gambling ads; there were thousands of gambling messages during the opening weekend of the English premier league alone, across various channels.

Many of our neighbours have taken action. In 2018, Italy banned all online advertising of gambling products. Spain added strong restrictions in 2020. Germany did the same in 2021, as did the Netherlands and Belgium in 2023. Finland and Sweden are set to implement restrictions in 2027. By contrast, here in the UK, the 2023 White Paper on reforming gambling for the digital age acknowledged the harm caused by marketing but opted to continue with a mostly self-regulatory approach. I think such an approach means a huge amount of harm will continue, so I urge the Minister to look again at that, given the damage the sector does and the action already taken by others to mitigate it in their countries. There is strong public support for greater restrictions, too, with polling showing that 51% of people think all gambling advertising, promotion and sponsorship should be banned, and 78% think that nobody under the age of 18 should be exposed to it.

Secondly, underpinning all this, we need a statutory independent gambling ombudsman with real power, exactly as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) stated. That was recommended in the 2023 gambling White Paper and was intended to be established and operational within 12 months, and yet no progress has been made. I also understand that the Government have asked the gambling industry, of all people, to come up with ideas on how the ombudsman should be run—a case of poacher turned gamekeeper if ever there was one. If that is the case, are the Government really serious about setting up an ombudsman with effective powers that it actually uses? Will the Minister please clarify what steps are being taken to achieve that?

Thirdly, another area where our regulation has a disconnect is licensing frameworks. Pubs are licensed by local authorities. Licensing for vape shops, requiring retailers to obtain a personal licence to sell the products and a premises licence for their storage and sale, is currently under consideration in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Given that, why do local authorities not have the powers they need to prevent new gambling premises from opening? We should review and implement the relevant commitments in the 2023 gambling White Paper, which seeks to strengthen local authority discretion and better reflect community harm. I would welcome an update from the Minister on plans to review and progress the recommendations in the White Paper.

Finally, I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to increase gaming duty in last week’s Budget—that was an important step. I now encourage the Government to consider directing some of the revenue raised from that towards taking steps better to regulate the industry and reduce the personal and social harms it contributes to in the long term.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I suggest eight minutes to start? I call Gareth Snell.

14:39

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will not need that long, Sir Desmond, don’t worry. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) on securing the debate. After the recent Budget, it is a timely moment to discuss how we regulate the gambling sector in this country, and what that means both for taxation as a way of regulating and for regulation itself.

I will be up front: I come to this debate from a slightly different position. The single largest employer in my constituency is bet365, which employs 5,500 people in some of the high-value jobs in Stoke-on-Trent, and there will be job-loss implications as a result of the Budget. I am not here to plead the case of bet365; the company will do that itself. I also have no interest to declare, because I have never taken any hospitality or financial support from it. However, it is important to put it on the record that there are always consequences to the way that we regulate companies, and real people will lose their jobs as a result of the decisions that this House will presumably take later this evening.

As a result of that constituency interest, I have had to do some rapid learning in this area. I have genuinely had to consider and understand how we do regulation in a way that is good. I am a firm believer that regulation should genuinely be a force for making things better. In this country, we often pull the regulation lever when we see something bad, because we think that regulating can solve it. Sometimes that regulation works; sometimes it does not.

Not all 62 recommendations in the White Paper have been implemented. I think that everyone would agree that there are things that have been identified and worked on with the sector that need to be implemented, and implemented more quickly, so that the full package of actions that was determined as being necessary for better regulation of the sector is implemented. There is a cost to the sector from that, and a cost that often gets passed on to consumers.

The other issue, which I will touch on later, is how we do regulation in a way that does not drive people into the unregulated sector. I think we would all accept that one of the huge challenges we face, not just in gambling but in a whole host of other areas, is that access to the unregulated sector is becoming easier. I would wager that every single one of us has a smartphone in our pocket and, within a couple of clicks, can be in a highly unregulated gambling environment that does not subscribe to any of the normal social protections that have been put in place for the big regulated industries.

Quite often, consumers do not know whether they are in a regulated sector or an unregulated sector. Those in the unregulated sector have larger cash-outs and better odds, because they are not restricted in how they conduct their operations and frequently they are headquartered far away, in much more favourable tax regimes, so none of the tax they pay comes to the UK at all. However, consumers will not know that. They will not really know from looking at a website on their phone whether or not they are in a regulated sector.

We must change that. We have to find a way of making sure that if someone in this country is choosing, as 22 million people do each year, to access to gaming or gambling, they know that they are doing it somewhere where they will get protection and security, and that the lockouts are there so that, if they need to access help, they can get it. At the moment, too many people do not. Too many people in this country are able to access unregulated gambling services that bleed them dry and take them for everything they have got, leading to the social harms that the hon. Member for Witney rightly referred to.

Regardless of where we sit in this debate—we might be avid gamblers who enjoy doing so regularly; as it happens, I do not gamble myself, other than perhaps on the Grand National once a year, because I did it with my grandad 20 years ago and it is a fond memory—we all want to make gambling safer and to ensure that it operates within a system that is regulated, secure and provides the help and support that people want. That is where I am trying to come from with my comments today.

We all have constituents who enjoy gambling, but we all have constituents for whom gambling is a problem, and fundamentally we must take action to support them. I was heartened to see the written ministerial statement that the Minister recirculated today about the amount raised through the statutory gambling levy. There are genuine questions that we need to answer about who will get that money in order to provide support services. I think that £120 million has been raised since April, yet, other than a couple of large organisations, there is not really clarity about who will receive that funding. That needs to be sorted out very quickly, because there are people who need that help and support who are not getting it.

There is also work that we need to do to ensure that some of the provisions in the review that took place previously are properly implemented. I welcome the fact that we have things such as the whistle-to-whistle ad ban, so that there is no advertising of gambling while sports matches are happening. Stoke City, who are sponsored by bet365, are currently fourth in the championship. They might get promoted to the premier league, at which point they would have to think about their sponsorship arrangements, because they would not be able to have their shirts sponsored by a gambling company; that is something the sector has signed up to. I really hope that Stoke get promoted—it has been a long time since we were in the premier league—but if they have to make that change, there will be a cost to both the football club and the company in my constituency.

More work could probably be done around the seventh industry code for socially responsible advertising. The mandate is for someone to be over 25, unless there is the targeting technology to do it specifically to over-18s, but I freely accept that there is leakage in that. How we tighten that to ensure that under-18s are not exposed to gambling adverts, as part of the code that the sector has signed up to, is important. I am the father of a 15-year-old who has access to myriad social media apps. There are many I do not like but I have lost the battle. I am confident that she is able to make some decisions for herself, but I know that there will be other young people who will be more attracted to that.

We need to think about what the Gambling Commission is able to do. The Office for Budget Responsibility report, on the back of the tax changes this week, says it expects to see some leakage into the black market. As a result, the Treasury must allocate £26 million to the Gambling Commission to try to resolve that possible movement—a £500 million reduction in yield due to that leakage. We must think about that. If the social and behavioural change caused by regulation and taxation pushes more people into the black market, we must be cognisant of that consequence of our actions and think how to prevent it.

We also need to think about how to ensure that more people do not try to access riskier, higher-value games—I am thinking about games rather than sports betting in that instance, because the 40% rate of the remote gaming duty will mean that some companies will remove products from the market and shrink their offer, and that gap will be filled by others who do not take it so seriously. We have to think about the social consequences of that.

I did say I would not take eight minutes; I have barely 30 more seconds. It is almost certain that next week we will put through the tax changes announced by the Chancellor in the Budget, so this debate is timely in allowing us to explore those issues. We now need a regular reporting mechanism, which I hope the Minister will consider. Significant parts of the White Paper have still not been implemented; those parts that have been implemented have had only 18 months to bed in, and now we have a new tax regime, which means that people will move towards the black market.

We must measure and deal with that, to combat abuse by nefarious gaming organisations that work outside the regulated market and inflict harm. We collectively cannot allow that to happen. We need to be clear that the more we regulate and tax an industry that wants to be part of the solution, the easier we potentially make that move towards an unregulated market.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

I call Lee Dillon. It seems he is not here, so I call Cameron Thomas.

14:47

[Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)]

In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon), I thank you, Sir Desmond. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for securing this important debate.

As a teenaged boy, every morning on my way to school I would stop off at the home of my friend M and we would walk the last few hundred metres to school together. We shared a number of classes, and every lunch time we would abscond back to his house to play video games. As we became adults, we enjoyed betting on weekend football accumulators as we watched the live scores come in, at the small cost of a few pounds.

As I came to spend fewer weekends with our friendship group, and gradually lost interest in betting, M continued to bet more consistently and with ever greater stakes. The rise in online gambling firms was followed by increasingly invasive advertising campaigns, not only on the shirts of the footballers he watched or on the hoardings of premier league football stadiums, but increasingly in his social media feeds. Everywhere M looked, there was a betting company chipping away at his judgment, enticing him to put money down.

Adverts showed groups of young men cheering at TV screens in packed bars. They did not show dark bedrooms dimly illuminated by computer monitors or mobile phones. They did not show vulnerable young men in despair, having lost a pay packet on the first weekend of the month. M was well into his 20s by the time he realised he was a problem gambler. By the time he had reached his 30s, family members were protecting his wages from his addiction. By the time he was 40, he had twice lost deposits he had been saving to buy a home.

There is a sensible and nuanced course of action to be charted here. People such as my friend M need action, but establishments such as Cheltenham Racecourse in my constituency of Tewkesbury must not be conflated with online betting companies. Cheltenham Racecourse’s 250,000 annual visitors generate £274 million for the Gloucestershire economy, but the Jockey Club, which operates the racecourse in my Tewkesbury constituency, generates a tiny fraction of the huge profits enjoyed by large online gambling companies.

Taxation that fails to discriminate between such vastly different operations risks undermining the viability of horseracing, one of Britain’s oldest and most recognisable national sports, which contributes more than £3 billion annually to the British economy. I welcome the Government’s implementation of a Liberal Democrat policy in its increase to the remote gaming duty, though that money should be ringfenced to treat victims of gambling-related harms.

The most crucial action that must be taken, however, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney said, is to restrict betting advertisement, particularly of the type that bombards sports viewers and seeks to blur the lines between sports and betting. Effective affordability checks could better protect those vulnerable to gambling addiction. I also note the speech by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who said that a betting ombudsman is long overdue.

The Government should tackle gambling harms, but they must distinguish between those operations that prey on the vulnerable—at all hours, across all platforms—and those that genuinely contribute to our culture and economy.

14:51

[Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for securing this timely debate. It is interesting to hear different Members from across the House taking a stand on this issue. I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who has bet365 in his constituency; he spoke about his need to make sure his residents have good jobs, but also about how to balance those harms. It is interesting to hear how we can move forward with that.

I welcome the Government’s Budget announcements increasing remote gaming duty and general betting duty as a way to tackle some of our more harmful forms of gambling, particularly in online gaming. That is something that the all-party parliamentary group on gambling reform and many Members across this House have championed—it is a cross-party issue.

This move from the Chancellor goes some way towards addressing the many billions of pounds that gambling harm costs the public purse. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities estimates that the public health costs of gambling in England alone are between £1 billion and £1.77 billion, but that figure captures only a subset of costs: it relies on self-reporting and the methodology does not include costs including secondary mental health services, alcohol and drug use, lost tax from employment and the cost of lives lost to gambling suicide.

Furthermore, the cost of gambling goes far beyond the individual themselves. For every person experiencing problem gambling, it is estimated that up to six others are affected—their families, children, employers and community members.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

On the point about the effects going beyond the person experiencing problem gambling, I was contacted by my constituent Chloe Long, who tragically and heartbreakingly lost her brother to gambling-related suicide last year. In his case, the challenge was not the regulated gambling industry, as we have been discussing; he was doing all the right things in terms of self-excluding and signing up to GamStop, but was still able to access the black market sites. We have to think more creatively about how we can solve that problem. Does my hon. Friend agree that there must be much more awareness out there of just how severe the risks of gambling addiction can be and of the devastating effect it can have, not just on the people we lose through it, but on their families, children and friends for decades to come?

[Dr Cooper]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Gambling has become ubiquitous in our society. It is endemic. We watch the television; we have online roulette in our pockets—it is everywhere. We must also be mindful of the black market as well as the legal gambling companies, and go after both with ferocity to make sure the harms are reduced.

Having established the need to recognise the public health costs of the most dangerous gambling products, we should review the taxation of other harmful forms of gambling, particularly the most dangerous category—the B3 machines in adult gaming centres. It is right that the duty paid by those machines is set at a higher rate. The Gambling Commission, which we have already heard about, must do more to ensure that licence conditions are followed by adult gaming centres. There are widespread reports of breaches of the rules, notably the 80/20 rule relating to the most harmful category of machine, and games that facilitate much higher stakes than is permitted in the licensing codes.

Let us be clear; gambling is highly profitable, and that profit cannot be separated from the harm inflicted. We have already heard this, but it is worth stating again: 60% of the industry’s profits come from 5% of customers who are either addicted or at risk.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the excellent and knowledgeable speech she is making. One other important piece of context in all this is the men’s health strategy, which I know was widely welcomed across the House and was published two weeks ago, and which identified gambling harms as a key element that it needed to tackle. Most of us have welcomed the introduction of the remote gambling tax; that fits very well within the men’s health strategy, because it seeks to disincentivise the most harmful forms of gambling. Does she agree that, while the tax was very welcome, we need to make sure that the money coming in via the levy is as well spent as possible to tackle the harms caused by gambling?

[Dr Cooper]

Those are points very well made. Tackling gambling harms should be at the top of our public health priorities—I make a declaration of interest: I am a public health consultant—to ensure our country thrives economically as well as in health terms. The two are intertwined; we cannot separate them.

Gambling profit cannot be separated from the harm inflicted. In online gambling, 86% of profits come from the top 5% of customers. We have already heard from the hon. Member for Witney and others about the ubiquity of advertising. A recent report showed that the industry spends £2 billion a year on advertising—an astronomical sum that is fuelling a public health crisis in this country. Targeted digital marketing means that someone with a gambling problem is nine times more likely to be offered a so-called free bet, according to the Gambling Commission.

We need regulatory and legislative tools to tackle industry marketing practices, and we must make sure that children are protected from the proliferation of gambling ads, sponsorship and influencer marketing. As someone who has teenage children, I am only too aware that responsible mobile phone usage only goes so far; we must ensure that our children are protected from this insidious way of introducing people to gambling far too early and far too often. Gambling Commission statistics show that 1.2% of children experience problem gambling, and 3.4% of 11 to 17-year-olds are already being harmed by their gambling. That is astonishing and outrageous. Children should receive independent education about the dangers of gambling, and we must stop incentivising them to gamble through widespread advertising, both online and offline.

We cannot treat gambling as a harmless leisure activity when 14% of British adults are at risk of gambling harm and gambling-related suicides occur in their hundreds every year. Gambling is a matter of public health. I appreciate that it is overseen by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but I think it should be overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, with a legislative framework that is fit for purpose for the digital age.

We have heard about the last Government’s White Paper, which does not give us the right road map to address this public health crisis; it does not address the fact that councils have no adequate powers to prevent adult gaming centres from proliferating locally, sucking the life out of our more deprived communities, and it fails to address advertising, sponsorship and the modern marketing of gambling. We must look to review the White Paper and set a timeline for a new gambling Act.

14:59

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for leading this important debate, and for setting the scene so well for all of us. What brings me here, like many others who have spoken, are personal relationships with those who have a gambling addiction. That is foremost in my mind when we have debates that refer to gambling regulation.

Not so long ago I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate on gambling harm, particularly the impact on health and the damage it does to people across the United Kingdom, especially in Northern Ireland, where the rates are much higher. I am going to give some very worrying stats, but it is great to be here to further advocate better gambling regulation.

About 10 years ago, a couple from Northern Ireland came to me when they heard about gambling legislation and the problems with addiction, and they told me the story of their son. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) told the story about his friend, and this started off similarly, with small bets. However, all of a sudden it escalated to giant amounts of money, and he found himself in so much debt that he could not deal with it, and unfortunately he took his own life. When I think of gambling addiction, I think of those parents and their son, and I think of that loss of life. That story reminds me that there are consequences to gambling. There are many people who gamble for whom it is a flutter and nothing else, but for others it becomes an addiction—a life-focusing addiction that ultimately takes away their life.

I remember one morning getting some petrol from the garage, and there was a wee lady ahead of me in the queue, who had a pram and youngster outside. She bought £10-worth of lottery tickets. Forgive me for saying this, but as I see it, that lady had perhaps hoped that the £10 of lottery tickets would give her the money that she needed for her shopping—the money she needed for her children. I was at the back of the queue, she was at the front, so when I walked out of the shop, she had scraped off all the coverings on the tickets, but there were no winners. She had not won anything, but she had spent £10 on tickets. I realised that this lady was desperate, and had thought a flutter on lottery tickets would bring her the money she needed to help her pay for the groceries and look after her children. It was desperation. Sometimes gambling does that to ordinary people.

I am pleased to see the Minister in his place, and I look forward to his response. I will probably have an ask of him—indeed, I always do. In Northern Ireland there is legislation that is trying to change things, so I hope the Minister can update us on the Northern Ireland Assembly in relation to where the legislation is and how we can help them advance it. My understanding is that something has to be done here to make it happen there.

In the last Parliament, I was vice-chair of the APPG for gambling related harm. I was pleased to hear of the proposed changes to gambling regulations in last week’s Budget, when the Chancellor announced that the duty on remote online gambling will increase from 21% to 40%, starting next April. I fully support the Government’s Budget intentions—they are doing the right thing, in my opinion. There was also a change to online sports betting duty, from 15% to 25% from April 2027. Again, I support the Government on that; it is the right thing to do and it should have happened a long time ago.

We are all aware of the dangers of online betting, especially for young people. In the last 12 months there have been very worrying figures about Northern Ireland: 30% of 11 to 16-year-olds in Northern Ireland have gambled in one form or another. Imagine if that was here on the mainland, in England, Wales or Scotland. It is really worrying.

There is no doubt that gambling is becoming increasingly more accessible, with the prevalence of people present online. The DUP leadership in the Northern Ireland Assembly has previously endorsed and used updated legislation that regulates gambling in Northern Ireland, due to the knock-on effect it has been proven to have on people’s lives. The recognition of the potential harm, based on evidence, is important. There is a willingness in Northern Ireland to change the legislation and to perhaps follow the direction that this Government have taken. The older framework for gambling has been described previously as outdated and there is no doubt that there is a need for change.

There are major issues surrounding the accessibility of gambling throughout the United Kingdom. I have seen first hand the devastation that gambling addiction can cause. From the emotional to the financial, the impacts are endless. Unfortunately, it is a hole that many struggle to get out of; they just seem to get in deeper and deeper, and into more and more debt. Sometimes, they see no way out.

The prevalence of gambling in Northern Ireland is among the highest in the whole of the United Kingdom. Reports have shown that Northern Ireland exceeds the mainland statistics by yards—indeed, probably by miles. We also have higher levels of poverty, poor mental health and social disadvantage. Adding gambling on top of that creates a very heavy issue and a potential for harm that is at times hard to comprehend.

We have the potential through this Budget to mark a turning point in how we regard gambling, particularly online and remote gambling. This is a clear step to taking responsibility, but more must still be done. This is not enough. The Government and this Budget have set a trend that I and many others welcome, but it is not enough.

All regions across the whole of the United Kingdom need to do more to ensure that this is not an accessible process. We must embed robust safeguards to protect young people, address online gambling and aid vulnerable individuals and those who already face hardships, which means stronger regulation of advertising and tighter restrictions.

I look forward very much to seeing the plans put into action and to enhancing the regulation across the whole of the United Kingdom. Today, I look forward very much to the Minister’s reply to the requests we are putting to him. I believe the Government are going in the right direction. Let us do more. Let us save all these young people with addictions and give them the chance to have a better life, which we are duty bound to provide.

15:07

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for bringing forward this incredibly important debate. We have heard some sad and powerful stories.

Reforms to address the risks and harms associated with gambling are long overdue. Many families and communities across the country continue to feel the consequences of problem gambling.

The gambling industry has grown significantly in recent years. Excluding the National Lottery, it is an £11.5 billion sector, with profit margins in some companies well above the UK average for non-financial businesses. Yet taxation levels in the UK for online gambling remain lower than those in several other countries.

At the same time, gambling harm imposes a substantial cost on society. It is estimated to cost our economy around £1.4 billion a year through financial harms and impacts on physical and mental health, employment and pressures on public services. Research from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research suggests that a person experiencing serious gambling problems may cost the public purse an additional £3,700 a year. Further analysis from NERA indicates that the economic contribution of remote gambling is relatively modest compared with other forms of discretionary spending.

We must also acknowledge the serious mental health consequences linked to gambling. Public Health England has estimated that there may be more than 400 gambling-related suicides a year. Recent data from the Gambling Commission also suggests that the scale of harm may be greater than previously understood, with 2.5% of respondents in its latest survey scoring eight or above on the problem gambling severity index scale, placing them in the highest risk category. The numbers are concerning and highlight the need for a regulatory framework that can better identify and reduce risk.

The Liberal Democrats have long called for an increase to remote gaming duty. we were pleased to see the Government implement that policy at the Budget, but we believe they can go further, by ensuring that more of the revenue raised is directed specifically towards treatment and support for those affected by gambling-related harms.

Taxation alone will not reduce risk or ensure accountability. That is why the Liberal Democrats have consistently called for stronger restrictions on gambling advertising, particularly given the sheer volume of adverts on television and online, and for effective, proportionate affordability checks, so that people are not gambling at levels that put them at significant financial risk. It is also essential that the Gambling Commission has the tools and resources it needs to take firmer action against the black market, where unregulated operators pose serious dangers to consumers.

These proposals are not about demonising gambling or those who enjoy it responsibly. Many people do so every day without experiencing harm. Rather, the proposals are about ensuring that our regulatory system reflects the realities of today’s gambling landscape, particularly the rapid growth of online gambling and the emerging risks faced by young people and vulnerable adults. We must ensure that policy is consistent and fair, so that we can protect those who are most at risk. By taking those steps, we can strike a better balance, and support a sustainable industry while ensuring that people are adequately protected from harm.

15:10

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

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. For transparency, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Regulation of gambling must be a careful balance to avoid unintended consequences. Last week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer chose to take a gamble on this regulated industry, and on the lives of some of the most vulnerable people, who are at risk of gambling harms. She took an ideological position instead of a practical one. Despite clear warnings, she chose to fuel the black market, where there are no protections for problem gamblers, and to jeopardise thousands of jobs and livelihoods in the regulated sector as a result, as we have heard today.

Labour’s tax raid was not just anti-gambling industry; it was anti-consumer and, we believe, anti-common sense. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for securing this debate, so that we can properly interrogate the facts and the impact that the Chancellor’s actions will have on the more than 22 million people across the country who safely enjoy a flutter each month. To put that number into context, it is more than 34,500 people per constituency represented in this House—enough to enjoy a majority anywhere in the country.

Whether or not Members like gambling, the facts are clear. The highly regulated gambling sector in the United Kingdom supports tens of thousands of jobs, contributes billions of pounds in tax each year, and sustains industries and sports, from horseracing to the high street betting shops that sit firmly in the fabric of the communities that we all represent.

The choices the Chancellor has made will, according to modelling by EY, result in an estimated 16,000 job losses throughout the UK. Those will be particularly concentrated in areas where large operators are based, such as Stoke, Warrington, Leeds, Sunderland, Manchester, Nottingham and Newcastle-under-Lyme, before filtering through to betting shop closures on high streets throughout our constituencies. The Labour party has so far failed to explain how those missing jobs and business rates will be paid for—perhaps by even higher welfare spending and taxes.

We are all aware that, particularly in recent years, the debate about gambling and its regulation has been dominated by those who see gambling exclusively through the lens of harm. It is, of course, right to support those who struggle with addiction, and I am proud to support a range of specialist charities in that space that do fantastic work on the frontline, helping people across the country. However, the vast majority of punters enjoy a bet safely each week. We cannot and should not build a regulatory system that assumes that every person who gambles is high risk. That is simply untrue. It is the nanny state on steroids from the left of British politics. From buying a weekly National Lottery ticket to a casual acca with your mates on the 3 o’clock kick-offs and beyond, there is a spectrum of risk and reward, as well as exposures, the complexities of which we must appreciate and understand.

The oversimplification of the issue does far more harm than good. We can learn how that happens from neighbouring countries such as the Netherlands. At the start of this year, the Dutch Government raised their gambling tax on gross gaming revenue from 30.5% to 34.2%—a much smaller rise than that which this Government have announced, with another rise planned. The Dutch Government combined it with much tighter restrictions, strict spending caps, deposit limits and sweeping advertising bans. Within months, the Netherlands has seen regulated gambling revenue collapse by around 25% and tax receipts fall significantly, despite the higher rate, which has left a €200 million shortfall. The percentage of gamblers using regulated sites dropped below 50%, and the Dutch regulator itself reported that illegal gambling sites now receive more visits than regulated ones, with searches for the “100 best illegal gambling sites” surging.

That is the reality of the situation in a comparable European country. Over-regulation and excessive taxation have driven gamblers to the black market. We can see the same pattern developing here in the UK, with even the OBR highlighting that the black market will gain from those tax choices. That is before we even consider debating outstanding issues such as affordability checks. In the black market, there are no affordability checks, no safer gambling tools, no self-exclusion and no protection at all for punters.

We can see that moralistic and heavy-handed regulations simply displace gambling into the unregulated sector, rather than reducing gambling rates and risks of harm. The sector could not be clearer: once punters have entered the black market, they are unlikely to come back. That would be a lose-lose situation for the Government that could result in lower tax revenue and fewer jobs, a loss of revenue for bookies and sports that rely on their sponsorship, and a loss of consumer protections for the public. Sadly, however, that is where the Government are now heading fast.

There is another area where the Government’s policy is simply not functioning: the new statutory levy. The industry has spent the past three years implementing more than 60 measures from the gambling White Paper. The statutory levy, introduced in April this year, is one of the most significant and most costly. Operators have now made their first payments under the mandatory system, totalling more than £100 million, but there is still no clarity about how charities such as Gordon Moody, GamCare, Betknowmore UK and others that do fantastic work in the treatment and prevention space can actually access any of that.

We have warned the Government about that, privately and publicly, for many months. That is why we did not feel that we could support the gambling levy legislation as drafted. To date, only UK Research and Innovation has published basic guidance. Organisations that were promised long-term certainty have no idea how, when or even if they will be able to bid for levy funds to continue their vital work. Frontline charities supporting people suffering from gambling harms tell us that they cannot plan ahead, cannot recruit or even retain staff, and in some cases cannot continue services at all because the system remains so opaque.

Before the Government bring down another wave of major reforms, impose the most aggressive tax rises in Europe, and throw operators and charities into further uncertainty, should they not first ensure that the levy is actually up and running properly? Should they not ensure that charities with experts who have decades of experience are not forced to close because of the ongoing ideological madness in Westminster, which has stacked the deck against those with more pragmatic views about gambling and how we prevent harms? It makes no sense—literally none—to introduce new burdens when the existing regulatory framework is still incomplete and not functioning as the Government promised. Perhaps if the Minister could get his ministerial colleagues to properly engage with anybody in the sector, the Government might have a clue about what is happening: they are gambling with lives.

Protecting consumers means keeping them in the regulated domestic market if they choose to gamble: that is a very simple truth. I am all in favour of bashing the bookies—it is a long-established British tradition—but I want it to be done by the punter, not by this anti-fun Labour Government. Hon. Members should already know that British operators, although not perfect, prevent the use of credit cards, enforce 18-plus age verification, operate GamStop self-exclusion, display prominent safer gambling messages, use data to identify markers of harm, adhere to the strict advertising rules that are in place, and provide stable funding for research, education and treatment. The unregulated market that the Government are fuelling to the tune of £6 billion in extra stakes does none of that. Once someone has moved into that unregulated environment, there is no longer any meaningful ability to protect them from gambling harms.

Will the Minister personally review the commissioning of prevention and treatment to ensure that it is being managed fairly and that charities are not being deliberately excluded? Will he commit to a formal review, across the House, of affordability checks and of the pilot that has been extended by the Gambling Commission? Does he believe that the £26 million of funding given to the Gambling Commission is sufficient to stop the growth of the black market? Lastly, what message does he have for the thousands of employees at risk of losing their jobs this Christmas because of Labour’s tax raid?

15:18

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Arts (Ian Murray)]

It is great to have you in the Chair, Sir Desmond, for this important debate. I am pleased to respond to it. I congratulate—as all other hon. Members have—the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) on securing this debate, and on the balanced way in which he presented his case, with the gambling industry on one side and the harms that it causes on the other.

The Government care deeply about gambling regulation. The number of debates that we have had on the issue, and the constructive contributions that we have had from hon. Members from both sides of the House, show that Parliament is very interested in the issue as well. Since the election last year, we have tried hard to strike the right balance between taking action to reduce gambling-related harm in areas where it has the greatest impact and supporting the gambling sector to modernise. I wish to set out how we have approached that task and what might come next, not least in the context of last week’s Budget. I hope to address as many points from hon. Members as I possibly can.

Gambling is enjoyed responsibly by many tens of millions of people, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), laid out. It is an industry that is part of our national life. Having a little flutter on the grand national and betting on the world cup semi-final or the grand prix are the kinds of big events that bring people together. My mother was a bookmaker. What she could do on that chalkboard on grand national day to work out the odds and the winnings—and often the losses—for the punters was something to behold. Many hon. Members have mentioned family members, and I remember my grandfather looking to win that million pounds with 25p a bet on a Saturday afternoon—he died a pauper, never quite making it that far. Gambling also brings people together, so that flutter is something that we should cherish. The industry has worked very hard to protect it and, in last week’s Budget, we tried very hard to protect it too.

For many people, including many Members who have spoken, the regulation of the online sector is of the greatest concern. We recognise that the risk of harm is greater for many online products and we have taken targeted action on that. In May, we introduced a £2 online slots stake limit for 18 to 24-year-olds and a £5 limit for those 25 and over. Those limits are a targeted intervention to protect those most at risk of gambling harm and unaffordable losses. It took a long time to get that through—it was a debate that went on right through the last Parliament if I recall—and many hon. Members, including the former Member for Hyndburn, took that forward to get some limits in place.

Several hon. Members have mentioned advertising. We recognise the impact that harmful gambling can have on children and vulnerable people, and we are committed to strengthening protections for those at risk. There are already rules to ensure that adverts are not targeted at, and do not strongly appeal to, children and those at risk of harm. The hon. Member for Witney majored on the way that advertising can affect children, and I am grateful for his contribution on that, so I want to address it particularly.

We want to protect young people from gambling-related harm, and my noble Friend the gambling Minister, Baroness Twycross, cares a great deal about this issue as well. As part of the prevention stream of the statutory gambling levy, gambling education funding will improve access to and support for gambling education. We also welcome the Department for Education’s expanded guidance on gambling as part of the statutory relationships, sex and health education curriculum. I am sure that my noble Friend would be happy to meet the hon. Member for Witney to discuss those harms for young people.

I will run through some of the prevention measures that have been introduced that the shadow Minister mentioned, such as financial vulnerability checks, safer online casino game design, improving consumer choice on direct marketing, Think 25, extending test purchasing to small operators, financial risk assessments, better access to safer gambling tools such as deposit limits that restrict people’s gambling, and socially responsible incentives. I do hear, however, that there are issues with trying to pull people into gambling—to get them on to the platforms and betting—through free spins, free bets and free cash. That is something we should be looking at.

The industry has voluntarily done a number of things. It has introduced GamProtect, as we have heard already, and the front-of-shirt sponsorship ban for next season, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell). I wish Stoke all the very best in being promoted from the championship; my own club, Heart of Midlothian, have burst my coupon on many a Saturday afternoon by not getting the results that they surely deserved. The industry has also voluntarily introduced improved gambling transaction and bank blocking, which is ongoing, and worked on creating the gambling ombudsman. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) is no longer in his place, but we are very much looking at that ombudsman issue. It will take primary legislation to bring in something like that, but I assure hon. Members that it has not left the agenda.

We need to work closely with the gambling industry, where we can, on those big advertising issues to ensure that advertising does not exacerbate harm. We intend to redouble our efforts to work cross-Government and with tech platforms to address illegal gambling advertising, which poses the most risk for children and vulnerable people, as hon. Members have mentioned. We will continue to work with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Gambling Commission to develop a new, evidence-based model for independently developed safer gambling messages.

I am sure that many hon. Members will have seen in today’s written ministerial statement, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, that the statutory levy has raised just under £120 million so far. That will be ringfenced, ensuring that it is used solely to address gambling-related harm across the UK. That will support our priority of making sure that there is sufficient independent and sustainable funding in the system for projects and services to tackle and treat gambling-related harm. It will also help to fill the gaps that we know exist in the evidence base and in the provision of treatment and support.

To answer the shadow Minister’s challenge on the timescale, we have appointed a number of commissioners to oversee the delivery of levy funding. Some 20% of levy funding has been allocated to UK Research and Innovation for the establishment of a bespoke research programme on gambling, and to the Gambling Commission to direct further research in line with its licensing objectives. Some 30% will go to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the Scottish and Welsh Governments—they will get their share of that—to develop a comprehensive approach to the prevention of gambling-related harms across all three nations of Great Britain: Wales, Scotland and England. In England, the OHID will prioritise the development of an industry-independent public health approach that recognises the importance of the voluntary sector and local authorities in delivering effective prevention. I think that answers some of the issues that we heard from the shadow Minister about how expertise needs to be involved in this process and to be funded to deliver on some of those issues.

This is really important: the remaining 50% of the levy will go to NHS England and the Scottish and Welsh equivalents to commission the full treatment pathway, working collaboratively with the third sector to increase access to treatment and support for those experiencing gambling-related harm. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) and my hon. Friends the Members for Dartford (Jim Dickson) and for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) said that this should be a public health issue, and I think that the breakdown of that £120 million from the levy—the amount going directly into health issues—shows that the levy is dealing with this as a public health issue, rather than it being a gambling or DCMS issue.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked about Northern Ireland, of course, but this is just a Great Britain initiative. Gambling, as he mentioned, is substantially devolved in Northern Ireland, where a separate regulatory system is in place. We are open to working with the Government in Northern Ireland on issues relating to gambling regulation. I understand that DCMS officials—many of them are sitting behind me—are having a meeting with counterparts in Northern Ireland on this very issue next week, so hopefully there will be progress on that. If there any issues that the hon. Member wants to bring forward, he should please get in touch with the ministerial team and we will certainly take those forward, on behalf of Northern Ireland, to help where we can.

Let me say a little about the modernising measures that we have put in place. Our work to tackle gambling-related harm has not prevented us from introducing modernisation measures, where appropriate, in a balanced way. For example, in June we introduced modernising reforms to the casino licensing regime to support growth in the land-based casino sector. Those were enacted following consideration of all the available evidence and are proportionate modernisations that reflect the changes in gambling behaviour since former restrictions were set many years ago. In October, we launched a consultation on changes to stakes and prizes for low-risk category D machines to support the family entertainment sector that runs seaside amusement arcades and piers. We all remember, as kids, being on the pier and putting 1p and 2p pieces into those kinds of low-stake machines.

Only last week, of course, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the abolition of bingo duty in recognition of the benefits that bingo halls bring to our local communities and in support of a sector loved by many. I am sure that the shadow Minister will have the odd bingo game at one of his fundraisers to entertain the masses—or not. We are also consulting on the issue of venues that are operating under bingo licences but may be difficult to distinguish from adult gaming centres to see whether there is an appetite for change to ensure that any premises with a bingo licence has bingo at the heart of its offering.

I know that there have been concerns about consumer protection in adult gaming centres. Baroness Twycross, the gambling Minister, has been clear that she will not consider any deregulatory changes to adult gaming centres without improved protections. The industry has announced new measures on self-exclusion, and the Government will continue to work with it and the Gambling Commission to ensure that the protections are fit for purpose.

Many Members have also raised concerns about the concentration of gambling premises, particularly in deprived areas. To strengthen the powers available to local authorities, the Government will introduce cumulative impact assessments for gambling licensing as soon as parliamentary time allows, and that will empower local authorities to take data-driven decisions on premises licences, particularly in areas identified as vulnerable to gambling-related harms. I hope that answers the question that the hon. Member for Witney raised.

Let me also mention the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central about the way in which the gambling industry supports local communities as well as sports through that kind of advertising. Sports support is obviously an issue for governing bodies, and the governing bodies for the premiership have determined that such advertising on the front of shirts will not be allowed next season. We would encourage every sporting body, or any body, that is taking advertising from the industry to look very clearly at what the impact of that is.

[Gareth Snell]

I welcome the Minister to his new role. He is right that a number of sporting sectors derive a lot of sponsorship from the gambling sector, such as darts, the English Football League and horseracing. If, as a result of the tax changes announced last week, those companies withdraw their sponsorship, do the Government have a contingency plan? Have they had conversations with those sectors about how to make up that shortfall? In particular, I think £350 million goes into horseracing every year from gambling companies through sponsorship. If it loses that, the horseracing sector in this country will die.

[Ian Murray]

We talk to the gambling industry about that constantly. My noble Friend Baroness Twycross, the gambling Minister, is taking some of those discussions forward. We will continue to monitor it because a huge amount of sponsorship comes from the gambling industry. That is not a judgment on whether it is right or wrong, as we have heard today how damaging it may be; the hon. Member for Witney mentioned that the industry spends £2 billion a year on advertising. We should monitor it, and individual governing bodies will be looking at it. Premier league football is a good example of where a governing body has made a decision on shirt sponsorship, although I do not think it will have any difficulty in attracting sponsors, but other sports will find it more difficult to attract new money. We have seen this before with tobacco and alcohol advertising being banned, and we will continue to monitor it.

I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury for telling the personal story of his friend M. I am sure that story is reflected all over the country. We have heard from other Members this afternoon about suicides and the impact that gambling has had on families and the wider community. We should always reflect on those stories when talking about the positives and negatives of gambling.

I want to address the gambling taxation changes, which the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup, mentioned in some detail. The changes to gambling duties were outlined by the Chancellor last week at the Budget, which we will vote on this evening. Everyone will be aware that, in addition to the abolishing of bingo duty, we have announced an increase in the remote gambling duty from 21% to 40%. We have also announced a new remote betting duty set at 25%, with a carve-out to protect horseracing.

We have introduced those increases in gambling duties to reflect the way in which the sector has gone and to support our public finances. I take issue with how the shadow Minister presented that issue, because it is all about making balanced judgments. Of the money that will be raised for the Treasury, £26 million will be used to tackle the black and illegal market, which is a concern for us all. The money will also ensure that we can pull 450,000 children out of poverty, addressing any correlation between gambling addiction and poverty. The Chancellor and I believe that pulling 450,000 children out of poverty would be the best societal way of using that money.

With the Budget changes, it is clear that the Government are not anti-gambling. I have set out some of the measures that we have introduced in support of the sector. Through the Budget, we have also sought to limit the impact on the high street and protect activities that are lower risk and have greater levels of employment. We recognise the dangers posed by the illegal market, and for those in the regulated sector and those at risk of gambling-related harm. That is why we have allocated that £26 million to the Gambling Commission over three years to increase investment, resources and capacity to tackle the illegal market. That will be kept under constant review. We also hope to work closely with the industry and others to see how we can go further in this space.

The issue of consumer awareness was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central and for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith), and by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury. I hope that we can work on customer awareness to demonstrate that the regulated sector is where people should be, and to spot the unregulated sector. If someone were to land on a website from an advert on social media, is it obvious to the vast majority whether it is a regulated or unregulated website? How would they know? I suspect that the unregulated sector has rather less regulated ways of pulling customers in. Education on customer and consumer awareness through the Gambling Commission would certainly be something that we should look at as well. There is no doubt that the social harms in the illegal industry are more amplified than those in the regulated industry.

I will talk a little about the national lottery, because it is a part of gambling that we do not tend to talk about in this country. I know that the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned national lottery scratchcards, but most people do not see playing the national lottery as gambling. It would be interesting for some analysis to be done about what the public thinks gambling actually is—whether it is the 25p accumulator on the Grand National or playing the national lottery. There is no doubt that the national lottery is a national institution and it has had a huge impact on good causes in our communities. I suspect that a lot of people in this country play the national lottery, yes, to win the big prize, drift off on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean and hand in their resignation—I suppose it would be to the Prime Minister in my case if I were to win—and retire. But people also play the national lottery knowing that a lot of that money goes into good causes and they see transformation, whether through heritage or charitable cases and those kinds of things.

To conclude, it is important that as a Government we now take stock of where we are. I know that there are further regulatory reforms that many Members want to see, and we will continue to act when evidence shows us that we need to intervene. Nevertheless, it is important that we implement and evaluate our recent reforms properly and give them time to bed in before moving on to the next thing. For example, we need to ensure that the three strands of the statutory levy are running smoothly. I hope that that gives some reassurance to the shadow Minister. We need to fully engage with stakeholders to understand the impact of the tax changes on their businesses and provide as much certainty as we can while that happens. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central in particular. This all requires a bit of time to bed in.

Ultimately, the Government want a gambling sector that is modern, sustainable and protects the most vulnerable from harm but that is also thriving. Our manifesto committed us to working with the industry to ensure responsible gambling, and that remains important to us. In parallel, we will continue to regulate gambling in a balanced and modernising way and support the regulatory sector where we can.

[Gareth Snell]

I welcome some of the submissions that the Minister has made. Could I press him on what monitoring there will be of movement towards the unregulated market? The OBR report is quite clear that the Government expect to see a proportion of people from the regulated sector move to the unregulated sector. The increased money for the Gambling Commission to tackle that is welcome. However, can the Minister say whether there will be a concerted and specific effort to monitor the direction of travel? The Netherlands saw a five times increase when it made some changes, and is struggling to recoup that. I want to make sure that we learn from those lessons and do not end up repeating the same drive towards the more damaging part of the sector.

[Ian Murray]

I think that the Government have acknowledged the issue around the black and illegal market, given the £26 million that has gone into the Gambling Commission. Since April 2024, the Gambling Commission has significantly increased its disruption activity and has focused on finding innovative ways to tackle the illegal market. The Crime and Policing Bill, introduced to Parliament in February, has passed through the House of Commons and is now in Committee in the other place. It will give the Gambling Commission greater powers to act quicker to take down illegal websites, so there are legislative moves on this issue as well.

As part of the Budget there is £26 million specifically for the Gambling Commission to increase its investment resources and capacity to tackle the illegal market. The message from Government is that if someone is operating in the illegal market, we are coming after them—legislatively, regulatorily and with money. We will continue to monitor the outcomes from that.

This has been a very balanced debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Witney for securing it. No doubt we will return to this for regular updates on where we are. I hope that the levy, the new tax changes and the money for the Gambling Commission for the illegal market can now bed in and that we can try and get some of that £120 million levy into the organisations that deal with gambling harms. I hope, also, that we can celebrate that gambling is harmless for the vast majority of the public who participate in it—and something that this Government are very keen to support.

15:39

[Charlie Maynard]

I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French), as well as all the Members who attended the debate; and you, Sir Desmond, for chairing it. I appreciate the sensible, fair and respectful way that we have handled the debate and the shared recognition that gambling can be fun but can also do a whole lot of damage. We have to try to balance that as best we can. I think we have all tried to do that in our own way.

I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for doing his best to make the other case. He did a fair job of that. I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did excellent jobs in detailing the damage done, particularly so with regard to M, who my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury mentioned. After the debate, I will be asking about where he is now.

I also thank the hon. Member for Worthing West (Dr Cooper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) for bringing a great range of thought with regard to the public health aspects of this issue. They made very valuable contributions on that. The shadow Minister did a great job of making the case for the other side of the argument.

I thank the Minister for all his input. It was very helpful that he explained where the Government are on the gambling levy, local authorities and the cumulative impact assessments. I will admit to being less clear about the Government’s position on online advertising and what they are planning to do with that £2 billion—when, where and how. I look forward to staying in touch on that. Similarly, the issue of the ombudsman was not covered in detail. I would welcome an intervention from the Minister to provide some clarity on that.

[Ian Murray]

I am surprised and grateful to the hon. Member for allowing me to intervene. The gambling ombudsman is the most effective way to deliver independent alternative dispute resolution. We know that that will require primary legislation, and we are conscious of the need to put in place an appropriate mechanism as soon as possible. It has not been ruled out. Work on this is ongoing, but it will require primary legislation. As I said at the end of my speech, with all the other things that we want to do to try to bed this in, we are very conscious that the industry is having to deal with an awful lot of change at the moment, but it is still on the agenda.

[Charlie Maynard]

I thank the Minister for that. I believe we have covered everything. I appreciate everybody’s being here.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered reform of gambling regulation.

15:42

Sitting suspended.