Joint Committee on the Draft Gambling Bill Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1220 - 1239)

TUESDAY 3 FEBRUARY 2004

MS MOIRA BLACK CBE AND MR MARK HARRIS

  Q1220  Lord Donoughue of Ashton: We understand that it is not up to you, but it is interesting if you have a view?

  Mr Harris: We have commissioned some major pieces of research on playing of the Lottery and similar products by under 16s through very extensive questionnaires carried out by research agencies who specialise in these areas, and looking at the behaviour of 12-15s, for example. One of the things which came out of the most recent piece of research we have commissioned is that the incidence of problem-gambling on scratch cards in 12-15s is much lower than that of gaming machines.

  Q1221  Lord Donoughue of Ashton: You are aware of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report and you reject that, or do you feel the other research is more impressive?

  Mr Harris: All I can say is, that is research we have carried out. At the time of that research there was a difference. That does not mean we accept for the Lottery that even a relatively lower incidence is acceptable. This is why, for example, we required the operator to carry out test-purchasing under the licence. Under the latest licence we doubled the degree of test-purchasing the operator was required to carry out, because we think it is a very serious issue if under 16s are playing the Lottery illegally.

  Q1222  Lord Donoughue of Ashton: Who did that research?

  Mr Harris: The research for us was carried out initially by Sue Fisher of the University of Plymouth; and the subsequent research, using a similar methodology, was carried out by an organisation called BMRB, and they carry out social research.

  Q1223  Chairman: By volume and value, how many Lottery tickets were bought by 16 and 17 years olds? If we were to bring the age of ticket sales and the ability to play the Lottery up to 18 what sort of impact would it have on Lottery turnover?

  Mr Harris: I am afraid, Chairman, I do not have that figure to hand. My suspicion would be the same as yours, that it would not be a large amount. I think our position would be that if the Government wished to raise the age we are certainly not taking the stance that we would object to that, or we would wish to see it kept at 16. It is just an issue where the Commission has always focussed on making sure that every effort is made to stop under-16s playing, rather than to take a view on where the age should lie in policy terms.

  Q1224  Baroness Golding: You said earlier that everything to do with this is through your economic adviser, not a gambling adviser. Surely the big thing is to prevent children getting into a state where they need GamCare. I just cannot understand your laidback attitude towards gambling and the proliferation of gambling and the effects it might have on younger children?

  Mr Harris: I do not believe we do have a laidback view about gambling; I think we take it very seriously. This work was not carried out by our economic advisers, we used a range of advisers, and these are advisers who were specialists in social research. They are specialists in the area of how you find out from under 16s whether they are playing or not playing.

  Q1225  Baroness Golding: I do understand that, but that is finding out whether they are playing under 16; but 16-18 can obviously be vulnerable and you do not seem to have anybody on board or any view about it at all.

  Ms Black: GamCare have done work on that suggesting that particularly scratch cards are very much at the end where there is less problem-gambling.

  Mr Harris: What we have done is look very closely, for example, at the prevalence study that was carried out a number of years ago now by GamCare which was an independent study. That showed there was a 0.8 per cent incidence of problem-gambling from scratch cards. GamCare's own hotline shows that about 1 per cent of calls it receives are from scratch card players. I am not sitting here saying that is entirely acceptable and we will not do anything about it. What we are saying is we continue to take what research we can, and continue to do our own research and we consider very carefully the types of game Camelot is offering before we license them.

  Q1226  Mr Wright: Do you think the National Lottery operator should contribute to the Gambling Industry Charitable Trust (which is now re-named The Responsibility in Gambling Trust) as a matter of principle?

  Ms Black: We can certainly see the benefits in this as we anticipate that the Trust will carry out work that will be of relevance to us and of benefit to the National Lottery. There are specific considerations that apply to the National Lottery. We are under direction from the Secretary of State that we are not allowed to license games that, in our opinion, would encourage people to play excessively—in other words, problem-gambling; or which did not have sufficient controls, in our view, to prevent the under-16s gambling. We, therefore, expect Camelot, and indeed ourselves, to carry out work to ensure that these requirements are met specifically for the National Lottery. Clearly, that work takes on board work in other areas and may well be informed by the work of the Trust. My slight concern at the moment, as we have said, is that it appears there is relatively little incidence of problem-gambling amongst National Lottery products; and I would expect the Trust to carry out its work to look at what it was going to do on the basis of risk. We might be rather low down on their list of priorities. Having said that, they may well do other relevant work. We cannot require Camelot to contribute at the moment under the terms of its licence; but, clearly, come the next licence, or licences, that is something we need to consider. We do need to make sure that the work we need to do gets done.

  Q1227  Mr Wright: With everything you have said, do you think in principle it would be right and proper for the operator to actually contribute to the Gambling Industry Charitable Trust?

  Ms Black: I do not have a problem with that at all. It is gambling, we agree with that, so therefore logically it should be right that the costs ought to be proportionate to the benefits that people who play the Lottery, the Commission and the operators get out of it, I suggest.

  Q1228  Lord Wade of Chorlton: Having listened to what you have said this morning, could you remind me of your budget and the size of your organisation, and what you might expect it to become if the various suggested changes come about?

  Mr Harris: Our gross budget at the moment is around £4 million; some of that is recovered but not paid into our budget through licence fees and so on. We currently employ just over 40 people. We would clearly envisage, firstly, that there will be growth in our budget, not so much the numbers of staff but the numbers of advisers, to carry out the next licence competition; in any case that is a very resource-intensive piece of work and one that absolutely needs to be got right. That will be one contribution. The second contribution, which I think you are alluding to, maybe the increased complexity of regulation. That depends very much on the number of licences if the multiple licence path is authorised and that is the path the Commission goes down. I am really not in a position to give you a clear figure. We would not expect it to increase, very significantly from the existing budget; but clearly there may need to be a degree of extra resource within the Commission to cope with that.

  Q1229  Lord Wade of Chorlton: You mentioned the public's perception of gambling. What do you think the public's perception of the Commission is?

  Ms Black: Limited. Whenever I say I am involved with the National Lottery Commission people always assume I hand out the money. I think that is a very general perception.

  Q1230  Chairman: That you hand out the money?

  Ms Black: Yes, for good causes. I think generally the public does not understand there are a variety of bodies that hand out monies to good causes and that there is a regulator.

  Q1231  Lord Wade of Chorlton: Is that a good or a bad thing, that the perception is limited?

  Ms Black: I do not think that is terribly important, to be honest. If we had a very high profile I think I might start to get worried because it might be an implication that something was going seriously wrong.

  Q1232  Viscount Falkland: Could you tell us how the Commission decides what is excessive play and what steps they take before they take a decision that a game does lead to excessive play?

  Mr Harris: We have considered but not been able to adopt a straightforward definition, a straightforward legal test if you like, of what excessive play amounts to.

  Q1233  Viscount Falkland: I think we all understand what it is.

  Mr Harris: In terms of the general proposition, we would look at the design of the game, the way it was likely to be marketed, what the proposition to the players was, and how clear that proposition to players was. If we had concerns about that game we would then seek specialised advice, where we considered that appropriate, in order to inform the Commission on whether or not the game was, in its judgment, likely to encourage excessive play.

  Q1234  Viscount Falkland: You would have to go to a gambling consultant for that, would you not?

  Mr Harris: We would have to go to specialist advisers. I am not entirely clear what is mean by a "gambling consultant" because there is a wide range of different consultants, and many consultancies offer advice that covers gambling. What we would be particularly keen to see is advice from people who have knowledge of the gambling market clearly, but also knowledge of a games likelihood to encourage excessive play, knowledge about addition and knowledge about social studies and social research.

  Q1235  Viscount Falkland: Would you go to GamCare?

  Mr Harris: GamCare would certainly be someone we would talk to early on. We have a regular relationship with GamCare. If we had a particular case where we had an issue we might well talk to GamCare about who are the best people, and the independent people, to seek further advice from to help us understand what the game is likely to do.

  Q1236  Viscount Falkland: Have you any documented steps that you have taken in particular cases?

  Mr Harris: I do not think we have a procedure which lays down, "This is how we will deal with individual cases". Game licences are relatively infrequent, in the sense that for main games and high risk games, as opposed to games that replicate existing games, we probably deal with a couple of applications a year, and we tend to deal with those as the case progresses and as the issues arise. The issues may fall within problem-gambling; they may fall within other aspects of player protection, such as the nature of the rules of the game or the way the game works or something like that.

  Q1237  Viscount Falkland: This documentation, would you not agree, would be what most people looking at this objective would expect from the Gambling Commission, if it were in a position to be regulated?

  Mr Harris: Yes. I am not saying to you I do not believe there is any need for such documentation; certainly it is something we will look at.

  Q1238  Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Would you agree that it would not be impossible for the regulatory role for the National Lottery Commission to be transferred to the Gambling Commission, as it were, a National Lottery subdivision of that organisation?

  Ms Black: We still have the conflicts of interest within the Gambling Commission and we have talked about that.

  Q1239  Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Specifically a regulatory role.

  Ms Black: We find it very difficult to separate everything out, because everything really does inform everything else, whether it is the granting of licences or amendments to the licences. Compliance work, regulatory work and player protection is all linked in together.


 
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