Examination of Witnesses (Questions 274
- 279)
THURSDAY 8 JANUARY 2004
MS HELENA
CHAMBERS, MRS
JENNIFER HOGG,
MS RACHEL
LAMPARD AND
MR JONATHAN
LOMAX
Q274 Chairman: We now welcome our
next group of witnesses. It is probably best if I take them in
order from left to right, so we have Jennifer Hogg from the Evangelical
Alliance, Helena Chambers, who is the Director of Quaker Action
on Alcohol and Drugs, Rachel Lampard, who is the secretary for
parliamentary and political affairs to the Methodist Church, and
Jonathan Lomax, the public affairs officer for the Salvation Army.
I understand that as we have given you notice of the questions
we would like to ask you, you have tried to divide up who will
give the answers and that is extremely helpful, but, Rachel, I
wondered whether also at the beginning you might just like to
clarify the various organisations that you represent as well as
the Methodist Church.
Ms Lampard:
Certainly. Obviously Jonathan is speaking on behalf of the Salvation
Army and Helena on behalf of Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs.
Jennifer is speaking on behalf of the Evangelical Alliance as
a member of the Evangelical Alliance, but is coming from the Guildford
Churches. I am speaking on behalf of the Methodist Church, but,
as you will have seen in our submission, it was supported by a
range of other denominations, including Churches Together in Britain
and Ireland, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Salvation
Army, the United Reformed Church and also the relevant part of
the Church of England.
Q275 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Can I begin by asking you this: in its policy document, the Government
has said that in the development of casinos, it "does not
wish to revive any moral objection to gambling". Are there
any moral objections that the Government should be aware of and
that should inform its and the Commission's policy?
Ms Lampard: By answering on behalf
of the group, perhaps I can begin by thanking the Committee for
asking us to join you today. It is probably most helpful if I
widen the response just beyond casinos to talk about gambling
in general. The Committee will be aware that there are a variety
of personal beliefs and personal practices within our churches
towards gambling. Some of our members gamble and a lot do not
for what they would see as moral and ethical concerns, but none
of the churches involved here is advocating anything approaching
a prohibitionist approach to the Gambling Bill. What we are concerned
about is effective regulation which is going to be able to minimise
the harm that gambling can cause to some groups of people. I think
what drives us in what we are doing is a passion for our communities
that we live and work in, so we are concerned about the impact
that the legislation might have on those communities and individuals
within them. I think coming from that, therefore, the moral question
for us is that if you say to us that the cost of deregulation
is going to be an increase in people who have a problem with gambling,
that for us is unacceptable and that is a moral issue, so from
that we are particularly concerned with a number of areas, and
this has true consensus across the churches. They are: the proliferation
of high-value machines, which we heard about this morning; the
impact of gambling on children and adolescents; the need for social
responsibility as a concept and a practice to be embedded in the
Bill itself; the need for local communities to be involved in
the changes that are going on here, and; finally, for the whole
process to proceed cautiously, accompanied by the kind of research
that we heard talked about in the first session. I am sure we
will explore these in later sessions, but we are trying to put
the moral approach to gambling, as it might be termed, in a broader
context here.
Q276 Chairman: That is very helpful
for you to clarify that you are not taking a prohibitionist approach
and that the structure of regulation in the future is clearly
the issue, but the Commission has two objectives which may appear
to be in conflict and I wonder whether you think they are. On
the one hand, it is clearly there to oversee the deregulation
of gambling, but, on the other hand, it has the job of preventing
the potentially negative consequences of gambling. Do you feel
that in some way is incompatible and, if you do, building on what
you have just said, what is your advice as to how this should
be structured?
Ms Chambers: First of all, there
are some aspects that we would welcome where there is some compatibility
between the policies that are being advanced and particularly,
for example, in the area of Internet gambling, the proposal to
regulate that, if it is done thoroughly and carefully, we think
will be an advance. However, I think it is correct to identify
that there is some potential conflict at least between the two
aims and the reason that we say this is, as you have heard elaborated
earlier this morning, that on the basis of the empirical evidence,
if there is any increase in gambling activity, then there is also
likely to be an increase in problem activity and that is an inescapable
difficulty, I think. Now, some reasons for that relationship I
think are not understood, as was also outlined, or not perfectly
understood, but there are some areas where the evidence is clear
about the factors that give rise to problem gambling, so we feel
very much that if gambling opportunities are to be increased,
then these need to be addressed in order to reduce the likelihood
of problem gambling. If I can concentrate on three of those points,
which again have been elaborated, so I will not go into detail
on them, the first is that we know that there are certain features
of certain types of machines, particularly slot machines, but
also other forms of gambling, and particularly the Category A
machines, which are likely to cause problem play and a higher
incidence of problem play. The second is the exposure of children
to gambling for the Category D machines. We know that children
have higher levels of problem play and that the earlier they begin
to play, the more it becomes apparent, and we also know that alcohol
can exacerbate problem play, so in those areas where there is
good evidence for an association of increased levels of problem
play with those particular features, we would be looking to a
more stringent and gradual approach to changes in those areas
and to those changes being gradually introduced, very thoroughly
monitored and only increased if the evidence is that there is
no increase in problem play.
Q277 Chairman: Is it your view that
there will be an increase in problem gambling, and you may have
heard our comments earlier about the definition of what is problem
gambling, and that there will be an increase greater than the
volume of the increase in gambling activity or is it simply that
the increase will arise simply because more people will gamble?
Ms Lampard: I think it is quite
possible that the increase will be disproportionate if we are
moving towards things like the high-value slot machines, which,
as I think was said earlier, have been shown to particularly cause
problem gambling in other jurisdictions. I think if we are kind
of moving in that direction, the rise could be disproportionate.
However, as we will perhaps come on to later, the whole question
of introducing the concept of social responsibility within business
practices within the gambling industry, if the Gambling Commission
is able to get the Code right, it is possible that we may be able
to have an increase in gambling without a similar rise in problem
gambling, but that is absolutely crucial and, to reiterate, we
believe that it is unacceptable for there to be an increase in
problem gambling.
Q278 Mr Page: Professor Orford, in
the last session, said words to the effect that there had been
no real study into the demand for any increased gambling activity.
We have seen that the Salvation Army produced a figure that 93
per cent of the public have no desire for any further gambling
activity. Have the churches in any other way carried out any other
surveys to buttress that 93 per cent figure or to disprove it?
When you then follow on from that in your reply, I would be very
grateful if you could just let us know whether you think that
there should be any form of controlled deregulation of the gaming
activity at all?
Mr Lomax: Perhaps unsurprisingly
I have been asked to speak to this on behalf of the Salvation
Army and the other churches. I would have to say that that is
the only piece of public opinion research that we, as the Salvation
Army and, as far as I am aware, the churches, have conducted on
this. As far as I am aware, I have seen no other public opinion
research in the last few months certainly on this issue, so I
am sure there is scope there for more. On the second part of the
question of whether deregulation should go ahead even though there
seems to be no or little demand for it, I think the first thing
that we would say is that we accept that there needs to be change
in the legislation because we are talking about very old and outdated
legislation and we are very happy with some of the things in the
Bill, so we would not want to see the Bill fall, and that is not
our intention to come here and ask for that. We, in all of our
submissions, wholeheartedly support the Government's position
of wanting to protect children and vulnerable people and that
is why we are here, to try and ensure that that happens. However,
it does have to be said that the decision to deregulate is the
Government's and there is no demonstrable public demand for it
until somebody can show some demand, which seems slightly problematic
and incredibly risky in one sense because we are deregulating
potentially in an area that could cause people some serious harm
in their lives and the wider family sphere as well. If we see
that in a few years' time that has been the case when there was
no public demand for it in the first instance, then I think that
could be very problematic. As was mentioned earlier, I think,
by Dr Moran, we are particularly concerned about this issue of
stimulating demand and one of the things this poll shows is that
at present there is little active demand on the public's part
for a dramatic increase in gambling opportunities, but quite the
opposite, so if the deregulation goes ahead as proposed, we fear
that there will be a real need on the part of the gambling industry
to try and stimulate that demand through aggressive marketing
techniques and some of the things that were mentioned earlier
and we would be incredibly concerned about that. To sum up, we
agree that there needs to be modernisation of the legislation,
but we are concerned that the modernisation is being caught up
with almost total liberalisation or very quick liberalisation
and we do not believe those two things necessarily have to go
together. If the Government is going to press ahead with deregulation,
which it seems it wants to quite strongly, then let's make it
smart deregulation that protects those vulnerable people we are
all concerned about because we are concerned that once it has
started, despite the Government's assurances, it might be difficult
to go back.
Q279 Lord Walpole: I think again
this is for the Methodist Church. What impact would you expect
an increase in problem gambling to have on other public services,
such as the NHS and the police?
Ms Lampard: Perhaps I could refer
that to Helena Chambers because the point deals with a number
of addictions, so it is a relevant question for her.
Ms Chambers: I think the first
thing to comment on in this regard is that some of the increased
impact on public services may not present most obviously as a
gambling problem, and we know this from our experience in other
problems of dependency. For example, from the information that
you probably also have from GamCare, if you look at their counselling
information, there are health problems associated with problem
gambling and 41 per cent of the people that they surveyed reported,
say, sleep disruption, stomach problems and teeth problems, so
they may present to primary care facilities with another presenting
problem, of which this is an underlying factor. Similarly, that
might be the case with psychological distress and only 3 per cent
of those they dealt with experienced no psychological symptoms,
which ranged from mood swings and anxieties to much more serious
conditions. In a similar way, things might come to the attention
of education services through truancy (where gambling might be
an underlying problem) which might be an underlying problem, and
to various support agencies in the community, (and I think we
are all working in different ways in our communities), through
marital stress and family problems and to social services departments
through neglect, family breakdown, and to criminal justice agencies
through offending, so in all those areas it may not be the presenting
problem, but the exacerbating problem. In those jurisdictions
where gambling has been deregulated, one of the needs that their
research has pointed to is for primary care workers to learn screening
techniques for at-risk groups, so that would be another cost,
if you like, in terms of training and the development of such
procedures in primary healthcare services and these other services.
Then when you get to the more obvious end when perhaps the problem
is clearly recognisable and identifiable, that may be a straight
gambling dependency problem or it may be associated with other
problems, such as substance misuse or psychiatric or criminal
activity where we know there is an increased incidence of these
problems with such groups, then we get into the area, which I
think has been brought to your attention before, that there is
a paucity of provision certainly in the NHS for support of such
problems which often require quite skilled and medium-term intervention.
One of the things that I think we have all brought to your attention
in our submissions is our concern at the relatively small amount
of money that is being raised for the Gambling Commission and
our feeling that much, much more will be needed and also that
much more will be needed through statutory agencies, so yes, potentially
the problem is large and I think Jennifer wants to go into that.
Mrs Hogg: I am going to answer
in respect of the police and just to confirm that I am a member
of the Evangelical Alliance, but I do come with grassroots experience
because Guildford has received four casino planning applications
so far, so we have looked at this and it does concentrate the
mind. Our experience is that when it comes to the police, they
have a statutory duty to comment on community safety issues, and
this is not just actual crime, but fear of crime, and their concern
will be primarily in those areas, so it all depends on where the
casino is. If a casino is, as is the case in Guildford, planned
to be located in our hotspot for violence and public disorder
where nightclubs and pubs are already, then the police would be
concerned and very energetically opposed a massive nine-floor
casino in that area because they would be concerned about expansion
of binge-drinking problems and all that that brings and the fear
of crime because some people are already finding that area a no-go
area. We are very concerned as churches with the ripple effect
that problem gambling will have not just in association with alcohol
in the streets, but in the families and people around. We have
had statistics that one problem gambler can affect up to ten people
in the immediate family, we have also had an American statistic
of 17 and this is something that exercises us very much as churches
which are used to picking up the social strain.
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