Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gareth Snell and Ian Murray

Wednesday 17th December 2025 Commons Chamber

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

When the Minister rolls out digital ID, will he give serious thought to engaging organisations like conformity assessment bodies and the public libraries network so that those who need the ID can get help at the point of application?

[Ian Murray]

One of the aspects of digital ID that is under-debated in this House is the fact that those who are furthest away geographically and economically from digital inclusion will benefit the most from it. That is why we are investing millions of pounds into the digital inclusion programme, which has just announced 80 projects, including many in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have to make sure that the entirety of the public, wherever they are in the country and whichever economic situation they are in, benefit from digital government and better public services.

Gambling: Regulatory Reform

Debate between Gareth Snell and Ian Murray

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[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.

Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Debate between Gareth Snell and Ian Murray

2nd reading
Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

I did not accuse the hon. Gentleman of being dishonest. Those are his words. Maybe he is reflecting on his own contribution. Let me take that intervention straight on and give the House the actual quote from the deputy leader of the Scottish Labour party, not what Members have determined that she may have said. I will come on to why what she said is really important and completely aligned with UK Government policy. The quote from the deputy leader of the Scottish Labour party was:

“there would be dialogue and discussion but we need to recognise that growing home-grown talent is really important.

At the moment there are no plans for”

A Scottish visa,

“but I think if you have governments taking common-sense approaches”

to skills shortages, as

“an incoming Labour Government would do,”

that helps resolve the problem. That is what she said, and what we are working on.

Let me conclude my remarks with some clarity on the Scotland Act 1998. As I said, if something is in the Scotland Act and is mentioned in schedule 5, it is reserved. If it is not, it is deemed to be devolved. The Bill would devolve immigration to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament. I make that point strongly at the start because it leads into all the other arguments we have heard from hon. Members from across the House about what the requirement would be at Berwick, on the border between Scotland and England.

[Gareth Snell]

I, too, have read the very short sentence in the Bill, which does not talk just about immigration. It states:

“including asylum and the status and capacity of persons in the United Kingdom who are not British citizens”.

My understanding—I am happy to be corrected—is that if the issue was devolved to the Scottish Government, they could, essentially, grant indefinite leave to remain and all sorts of British citizenship statuses through their powers in Scotland. That could distort the entire immigration system of the United Kingdom.

[Ian Murray]

And the consequence is that we would require checks in both directions. As the Minister for Independence—did my hon. Friend know that the Scottish Government had a Minister for Independence?—clearly said, as we have heard, that a hard border would be required in particular cases. Scottish Ministers, incidentally, have just awarded themselves a £20,000 pay rise—certainly not on the basis of their performance.

It is important to acknowledge the complexities of immigration as a cross-cutting policy area. SNP Members do not want to talk about it as a cross-cutting policy area, because many of the policy areas around immigration are devolved to the Scottish Government. This is not simply about numbers. It covers issues of social cohesion, as we heard this morning, economic stability and public services. Ensuring we have a fair and properly managed immigration system that takes account of those complexities is a priority for this Government. We have made clear that the immigration system we inherited is not working. Indeed, the previous Government, which the shadow Secretary of State served in, said that the immigration system in the UK was broken. Under the previous Government, between 2019 and 2024, net migration almost quadrupled, heavily driven by a big increase in overseas recruitment.

I have the net migration figures here, and they have been a key part of the debate. In 2023, the net migration figure for the United Kingdom was 906,000. If there was a proportionate share of that net migration going to Scotland, then the immigration to Scotland would be somewhere in the region of 80,000 to 85,000. Indeed, it was below 60,000, so a huge number of net migrants who are coming to the UK are not going to Scotland. The big question has to be why. We had a huge tirade from the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry about Brexit and its consequences, but those lower figures are still higher than before the UK left the European Union. The big question has to be asked: why are people not going to Scotland to work and live?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

This UK Labour Government are determined to reset our relationship with the European Union, have a much closer trading relationship and do what is in the UK national interest. The biggest impediment to growth in the economy in Scotland is the SNP Scottish Government, and that has been proven through time.

[Gareth Snell]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way once again. He will know, because he was here with me when it happened, that this House came within six votes of coming to a settled position on customs union membership, which I appreciate is no longer the Government’s policy. When they became aware of how close the vote was going to be, 48 Scottish National party Members abstained, so that it would fail and they could pursue their hard Brexit grievance, to try to make sure Brexit failed, because that is what they wanted to put on their party leaflets.

[Ian Murray]

We should not rerun the Brexit debate in this House, but it is worth acknowledging that the Bill is written in a different way from what the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry wants to deliver. He wants to pretend that it will go to Committee, and we will all sit around the campfire with marshmallows and decide on a wonderful way forward, but that is not what the Bill says.

My hon. Friend gets to the heart of the problem, because ultimately this is all to do with the advancement of the Scottish National party’s independence agenda. Nothing else gets them out of bed in the morning. I get out of bed in the morning to try to make sure that everybody in this country, including in my constituency, has better lives and better opportunities. SNP Members get out of bed to push for independence. That is the difference. When the Division bells rang on that occasion—I remember it very well—everybody thought that the vote would be carried. Those SNP Members sat on their hands and the vote was lost by six. All their credibility in trying to push something else through was completely shot at that moment—and do not forget that they also pushed for the 2019 general election at the same time.

I will now canter through page 2 of my speech. It is important for us to work together to ensure positive integration outcomes and improved processes overall. Let me turn to the valuable contribution that workers from overseas make to our economy, our public services and national life throughout the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has highlighted, the remote parts of Scotland face depopulation issues, and they have for a long time—I talk to my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) about this on a regular basis. Skills shortages also remain across Scotland, as they do in different places across the UK. Indeed, according to the latest population projections from the National Records of Scotland, the factors driving population change are exactly the same across the whole United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

The flippancy with which SNP Members deal with these relevant and serious issues is there for all to see. I hope that a lot of our non-Scottish colleagues who are here today have seen how utterly deplorably they operate in this Chamber and how rude and patronising they are when we are dealing with serious issues for our constituents. Brand Scotland is there to do exactly that: to ensure that we get inward investment into Scotland, to sell Scotland to the world and to have a much more thriving economy for our communities.

[Gareth Snell]

The Secretary of State is being exceedingly generous with his time. SNP Members keep saying, “Don’t talk about the Scottish Government”, but the Bill’s aim is to devolve power from this place to the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Government, so I think the competence of the Scottish Parliament is in scope. Immigration is neatly and importantly linked to our national security. We have one system, which is an important layer of our national security. The Scottish National party wishes to frack that situation. Has the Secretary of State had any guidance from the Ministry of Defence or the Home Office on the implications of the immigration system changes that SNP Members are attempting to achieve?

[Ian Murray]

We have not yet examined this in any great detail in this debate, but defence and our national security are huge issues. We heard a bit about boat crossings; nobody wants to see those. We want to smash the gangs and stop the crossings. One person crossing by small boat is one too many, because they are putting in danger their life and the lives of others, and that has to stop. There is a huge defence and national security issue here, because the small boats crossings are run by criminal gangs in Europe and on the streets of constituencies all around the country.

The answer to the question my hon. Friend just posed is not in the Bill. This is a short Bill to devolve the whole immigration and asylum system to the Scottish Parliament. The Bill does not actually say what it will do. I have no doubt about the honesty and integrity—and any other word we might pluck out of the sky—of the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, but we cannot take the Bill at face value. He says, “Pop it into Committee and everything will be wonderful,” but we do not know the implications of his Bill. If he wanted to, he could have brought in a Bill that addressed that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

Absolutely, and I hope that my hon. Friend would say that this contribution from the Government Dispatch Box is a very good use of the Government’s time.

[Gareth Snell]

The very best!

[Ian Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend very much—I hope Hansard heard that. I did say that the attractiveness of Scotland as a place to live and work is down to policy delivery, and let me mention one policy in particular.