Future of Horseracing
Debate between Stewart Hosie and Philip Davies(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Philip Davies
My hon. Friend makes a fair point. How many people will go to the black market is a matter of dispute; it is impossible to know. However, people like a bet, and the chances are that they will keep betting. If they cannot bet on legitimate sites, they will go to illegitimate sites. There is a lot of truth in what my hon. Friend says.
I ask the Minister to ensure that the Government’s policy on this matter has a Conservative philosophy behind it. We believe that people should be free to spend their money as they wish, and we should not have bookmakers, the Gambling Commission and the Government deciding how much each individual can afford to bet on something. Let people make their own judgments and decisions; we have to have some individual responsibility. Any decisions must be proportionate to the problem, and we are very blessed to have low levels of problem gambling in this country. Those decisions have to focus on the wider impact on the horseracing industry, which cannot cope with the kind of reductions in betting that the right hon. Member for West Suffolk spoke about. That would be a disaster.
Many people in the racing industry think—I would be interested to know what the Minister thinks—that betting on horseracing is a game of skill; it is a matter of checking out the form, the draw, the ground and so on. When I back a horse, I do so scientifically. I can vouch for the fact that they do not always run scientifically, but I pick them scientifically. Does he think that games of skill should be treated differently from games of chance when it comes to betting? I would be interested to know his thoughts on that, because some people think that horseracing should be treated differently.
Many people make a living out of betting—professional gamblers. They go through good runs and bad runs. They will lose more than £2,000 over 90 days on many occasions, but they have won far more than that in the past. We cannot have blanket rules that are not sensible and that do not look at people’s overall patterns of behaviour. On the back of the consultation, I urge the Minister to think again. I urge him to think about making affordability checks proportionate and about Conservative principles, and ask him to have at the forefront of his mind the future of the horseracing industry, which I know he does not want to damage in any way.
Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)
If hon. Members can keep their speeches to around eight minutes or less, we should be great with time. I call Laura Farris.