Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility

Peter Bone Excerpts
Tuesday 31st October 2017

(6 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I call Mr Peter Bone.

Peter Bone Portrait Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
- Hansard - -

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling another Spurs fan immediately. Your neutrality in the Chair, of course, would not prevent you from intervening. This excellent Minister is bringing forward a really sensible consultation. What worries me is that if we make the wrong decision, we may make the situation worse by driving problem gamblers out of betting shops, which are a controlled environment, and towards online gambling. The consultation is right, but we should look at that issue as part of it.

Tracey Crouch Portrait Tracey Crouch
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Online gambling has, in many respects, a better opportunity to protect players, because sites have all the details of players’ practices. Obviously, as part of the consultation, we are going to look at how we can protect online gamblers, but we definitely have more opportunity to do that than we do to protect somebody going in and out of different bookmakers.