Financial Risk Checks for Gambling

Debate between Matt Hancock and George Freeman

Monday 26th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[George Freeman]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a good point. They are beautiful and what a joy it is to watch them exercising, whether in Malton in Yorkshire or wherever else around the country. The sight of horses exercising in preparation for racing is part of the rural economy.

Secondly, I want to make the point that horseracing, as an activity and an industry, is a jewel in the crown of our global soft power. The truth is that, having grown up in Newmarket as a child, I have watched as that town and its horseracing have become very reliant—over-reliant, I would suggest—on a few very wealthy families. Those families have done an amazing service to our sport, but we have to make sure that we are not reliant on a very small number of individuals to maintain the viability of an entire industry. That point puts this debate in a wider context.

Crucially, I also want to highlight that there is a very serious problem in our society of addiction to gambling, particularly online gambling, and there is a growing body of evidence—I say this as the former Minister for Life Sciences and as somebody who has had a career in medical research—that the causes of such addictive behaviour and cycles of addiction are not simply based on repeat activity. They are a symptom of much deeper underlying causes, which are often genetic and nearly always neurological. There are a whole series of conditions that drive that underlying cycle of addictive behaviour. It is not that someone has a bet on a horse, then a second bet and it is entirely addictive. Indeed, in my own experience, betting on horses is quite the opposite; I have very seldom made much money doing it and I very seldom carry on doing it with that in mind. No, that is not what drives the addictive behaviour; it is underpinning neuroscience and wider conditions. As a society we really need to take those factors very seriously.

[Matt Hancock]

Is there not the more specific distinction, which the hon. Gentleman almost drew out, that the placing of a bet and then waiting many minutes as a minimum for a result is neurologically distinct from a bet that gives an immediate hit? Where the repeat bet would be based on the physiological immediacy of the previous result, horseracing breaks that and therefore has a different neurological impact in relation to addiction. Would it therefore not be right in law and in policy to completely separate the proposals for online games of chance from the wonderful sport of horseracing? It would be easy to do in law—let’s just split the two.

[George Freeman]

The right hon. Gentleman anticipates the logic of the argument I was building towards—he is exactly right. That is why if we are seriously thinking of tackling this curse of addictive online gambling, surely we should be looking at a whole range of other behaviours and products. The proposal seems to be a disproportionate way of tackling a real problem, if indeed that is what it is. Others have mentioned the logical consistency of extending these checks on alcohol, tobacco, car hire purchases and—dare I say it—mortgages, and all sorts of things that we might say people cannot afford. I worry that this could be the thin end of a very big wedge in which the state decides that it is its job not to regulate properly, but to start asking whether people can afford to do something. That is an Orwellian dystopia that I do not want to live in.

The truth is we have to think properly about the sustainable resilience of racing. I absolutely echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson): prize money is falling fast, costs have risen fast and are stubbornly high, and competition is eating our lunch. If we look to Irish and French racing, we see that we are haemorrhaging from a serious industry. This proposal would not make a small reform to a healthy industry—the industry is struggling and it needs our help, but I am worried that the law of unintended consequences will make the situation worse.

I want to make a point about technology. It has often been asserted that we do not have the technology to do these checks properly. That is right at the moment, but would it not be an amazing thing if we decided to use technology properly—we are already an AI powerhouse—to start to analyse addictive behaviour and look at the trades on digital betting that indicate such behaviour? Over 70 markers of harmful gambling have been identified in studies, 16 of which really drive this activity. I suggest there might be an opportunity for us to use technology better to tackle those behaviours online that drive the problem we are trying to solve.

I echo the comments of the right hon. Member for West Suffolk on track racing, which I would go so far as to say is one of the best ways to introduce people to responsible gambling. I remember taking my two children to the 2000 Guineas and giving them £5 each, and they decided to put it together on an each-way bet. It was a smart move; they are clever children. Even more clever, my son decided to take my daughter’s advice, because she knows about horses, and he looked at the odds, because he knows about numbers, and they put £5 each way on Galileo Gold, who stormed to victory. They learned a lot that day about gambling. They saw people who had drunk too much and who were losing too much. They didn’t. I took the money and gave it to them. They discovered a lot, and on-track gambling is a fabulous way of getting people to realise that most of the decisions we take in life are a gamble one way or another, and it is how we deal with them that really matters.

I am not here in any way for the health of the gambling industry. I am interested in the health of UK racing and the real identification of the at-risk addiction that we see cursing so much of our society, in particular those games of chance that have driven such addiction. I simply say to the Minister that I know he has a difficult job on his hands. I have sat at that Dispatch Box with a packed Westminster Hall calling for reform. The Prime Minister, in North Yorkshire, understands the importance of the industry. The Secretary of State’s constituency is next to Newmarket—in fact, she has the breeder of Galileo Gold in her constituency—and understands it. It is not too late to change tact and come back with a serious package of measures designed for the twin problems of the sustainability of racing’s finances and the genuine opportunity for this country to lead in harnessing technology and smart regulation for the tackling of gambling addiction. If not, I urge the Minister to look seriously at the net loss provisions, which are too low. When an industry warns that something will cost it £50 million, we have a duty to listen.

Large Solar Farms

Debate between Matt Hancock and George Freeman

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Matt Hancock]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I have made several interventions. On the point about fire safety, will he take on board, and comment on, the need for transparency about past fires? I should also have mentioned in my speech that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), cannot speak because she is a member of the Government, but she wholeheartedly endorses my views and is a great campaigner for her constituency when it comes to the Sunnica plant—and more broadly.

[George Freeman]

I will happily pick that point up. My right hon. Friend invites me—wisely, perhaps, given the time—to clarify that at the end of this debate, I will raise all the points that have been made today with the relevant Ministers, including, perhaps, the Minister for fire safety. When such a number of colleagues meet in the Chamber, their points deserve to be heard and passed through.

I want to pick up on the planning point. Colleagues will be aware, but those listening may not be, that planning applications for projects below 50 MW are determined by the local planning system. Many hundreds of them around the country have been approved satisfactorily. Projects up to 350 MW in Wales are devolved, with decisions made either by local authorities or the Welsh Government. Planning in Scotland and Northern Ireland is fully devolved. For projects over 50 MW in England and over 350 MW in Wales, planning decisions are made by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.