Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill

Debate between Paul Farrelly and Clive Efford

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

I have seen no evidence suggesting that any white-listed countries have a significantly lesser regulatory system. Indeed, the position appears to be quite the opposite when it comes to protecting vulnerable people. The Bill, however, opens the market to people who currently cannot operate within the United Kingdom, and that is one of the main points of concern. What steps does the Minister expect the Gambling Commission to take, and at what stage does she expect it to intervene if operators fail in their duty to monitor gambling activity?

There is widespread concern about pre-watershed gambling advertising. Although most gambling is not advertised before the watershed, there are exceptions for betting during sports fixtures that are televised before 9 pm. Can the Minister assure us, given the amount of concern about the issue, that she will consider reviewing that aspect of advertising regulation?

Although it is welcome that every gambling operator who advertises in the United Kingdom will be required to be licensed by the Gambling Commission, the Bill will open up the market to operators outside the European economic area and the white list. In her evidence to the Select Committee Jenny Williams, chief executive of the commission, said that

“the Gambling Commission received one or two reports per month from its online gambling licensees, who handled…20% of the market, but from the 80% licensed overseas the Commission had received a total of about ten since 2007. Ms Williams suggested it was implausible there were so few suspicious transactions.”

In that context, the Bill is a giant leap in the dark. What will be the demand on the commission’s resources? No one can say for certain what the scale of the problem may be. The Government have allowed themselves scope to regulate in the future, but given their reluctance so far to act to protect the consumer, we must insist on some indication from them of what they are prepared to tolerate before they will take such action. What will be their response if the commission says that it cannot cope with money from licence fees alone, and asks for extra resources? What if it needs extra powers with which to tackle the problems presented by the opening of our market to companies that are currently excluded? The Minister must explain what benchmarks the Government will set themselves, according to which we can hold them to account. It has taken so long for them to present the Bill that we cannot pass up the opportunity to secure from them clear guidelines explaining how they expect the market and the regulators to deal with these important issues.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I do not by any means agree with everything that is said by the Remote Gambling Association, but I do believe that the enforcement issue needs to be explored further during the Bill’s subsequent stages. According to the RGA, not only is the lack of enforcement measures problematic for the licensing regime, but the Government may experience problems in collecting the revenue that it expects to receive as a result of the change in the system overall.

[Clive Efford]

There is a great deal of concern about the details of the Bill. It is easy to understand why it is desirable, and, as I have said, we support it, but its application may present problems. As my hon. Friend says, during its further consideration we need to look into exactly how it will be enforced.

Any company that is paying the licence fee and doing its best to operate according to the highest standards has a right to expect the integrity of the licensing system to be rigorously enforced. There should be a kitemark on the website of every UK licensed operator to indicate clearly to the public that the company is a registered, licensed operator that is overseen by the Gambling Commission. We need to see some evidence that the Government have thought that through. Does the commission have enough scope within its powers to take action to protect consumers? What does it mean when it says that the provision of a kitemark will effectively happen? What form will the kitemark take, will it be easy to recognise, and will it provide links to information and advice from the commission, particularly information about the dangers of using unlicensed sites?

According to the Select Committee’s report, when asked why the Bill did not include measures on enforcement, such as provision for financial blocking or the blocking of specific internet protocol sites, the Government assured the Committee that “most were already available”. What does that mean? Will the commission have the power to request financial blocking? Will it be able to request an internet service provider to block an IP address? We should be expecting matters to move on considerably as a consequence of the Bill. Why should we miss this opportunity to give the commission the full range of powers? Why should we risk being behind the game and having to wait again for time in which to legislate?

It is surprising that the Bill contains no measures to ensure that spread betting is licensed in the same way as other forms of betting. It rightly requires all betting operators, wherever they are based, to comply with Gambling Commission licence condition 15.1, which means that betting operators will have to share irregular betting patterns with the commission and with sports bodies. The licence condition will then be integrated across the industry, with one notable exception. Spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, but it currently has no licence condition 15.1, although compliance with that code is cited—rightly—as one of the main justifications for the Bill. Just today I looked at the Sporting Index site. It offers a range of sporting spread bets, including on shirt supremacy. The specific example I looked at involved the Tonga versus Cook Islands match in the rugby league world cup. For anyone who is unclear, I should explain that shirt supremacy bets are about the difference between the totals of the numbers on the shirts of the try scorers of each team. Unlike traditional bets where people can win or lose a set amount, spread betting allows potentially unlimited losses. If I place a bet on Tonga and it loses on shirt supremacy by 23 points, I will be liable for 23 times my stake money.

Action on spread betting is strongly urged by sports bodies including the English cricket board, the Football Association, the Premier League and the Rugby Football League. They are experts in this field and work together on sports betting. Will the Minister accept an amendment to the Bill to require those who offer spread betting and who advertise to comply with licence condition 15.1, or will she give a commitment to work with her ministerial colleagues at the Treasury, who have responsibility for the FCA, to get it to introduce its own version of licence condition 15.1 as soon as possible?