Fixed Odds Betting Terminals Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Andrew Selous
Main Page: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)Department Debates - View all Andrew Selous's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(5 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Jeremy Wright
I will not repeat what I have said on delay, but perhaps I should say this. Before we have too many more contributions from the Labour Benches arguing that this Government are bringing about misery that could be avoided, may I gently remind the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that these machines were conceived when the Labour party was in government? That Government passed legislation in 2005 to allow for £100 stake levels, and in the last three years of the Labour Government, the numbers of these machines increased by 37%. The Labour party in government did not do anything about any of that, so before we have very much more of this conversation, I think it would be appropriate to accept that that was wrong—as, to be fair, the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for West Bromwich East has had the grace to do—and that the mistake we are now correcting was a mistake made by the Labour Government.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept the point made by the Chair of the Liaison Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), that delay could indeed cost lives? The Health Committee’s suicide prevention inquiry was told by Dr Peter Aitken of the Royal College of Psychiatrists that gambling is a
“significant addiction of our day”
and that it
“figures very much in the stories our patients tell us as to why they are in debt and feeling vulnerable”.
We have to put a high cost on the loss of human life.
Jeremy Wright
Of course I agree with my hon. Friend about that, and I pay tribute to him for the way in which he approaches these matters. Again, it is entirely for that reason that we are taking the action that we are taking, and we are seeking to implement it in a way that will ensure that the change lasts and does the good that he rightly describes.