Gambling Review Body (Hansard, 17 July 2001)

§ Tessa Jowell

I am today laying copies of the report before Parliament. It is being published as a Command Paper, and the full text will be available on my Department's website (www. culture. gov.uk).

I am very grateful to Sir Alan Budd and his fellow members of the Review Body for their work. They have done a fine job. They were given a wide and challenging remit: to modernise the regulation of gambling in Great Britain, taking account of all relevant factors, including its social impact. Their report, based on extensive evidence and research, provides a thorough analysis of the issues and a coherent package of proposals. We are all in their debt.

All around the world legislators have grappled with the problem of how best to regulate gambling. There is no single solution which is right for all times and for all places. Gambling itself is continually evolving. Our present gambling laws were, for example, enacted before the internet was created and they make no provision for its use as a gambling medium. Regulation equally needs to take account of changing social circumstances and public expectations. There is no doubt that our current 81W laws, as well as being too complex and out of date, fail to reflect the extent to which gambling has become an everyday part of the way in which millions of people choose to spend their leisure.

The Gambling Review Body has identified a number of proposals which would lift regulatory constraints which may no longer be justified. At the same time there are proposals which would provide additional safeguards which the Review Body sees as needed to achieve the overall policy aims of protecting children and the vulnerable, ensuring fairness to the punter and keeping crime out of gambling. The report accordingly recommends a new balance of regulation in the public interest. It is also clear from the report that we are looking at the scope for improving a system with many strengths: through its own and its regulators' efforts British gambling is among the world leaders.

We now plan to discuss with interested bodies the issues which implementation of the Review Body's recommendations would raise. We shall also welcome comments from members of the public and all sources: these should be sent to my Department by the end of October. I shall want to take these consultation and comments into account before reaching final decisions on the way ahead. I shall also want to consider carefully the potential impact of the Review Body's proposals on the National Lottery before deciding how to proceed.

In the meantime there is no reason to halt all work on changes which are consistent with the Review Body's conclusions and which can be taken forward without cutting across future legislation. We shall, for example, continue to work on plans to sell the Tote to racing and to end the horserace betting levy; and there are also regulatory reform proposals which are already subject to public consultation or parliamentary scrutiny. We need to consider them again in the light of the Review Body's work, but where progress can sensibly be made which will bring early benefits to the public and the industry alike, it should be made.