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Sports Betting

May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) not only on securing this debate but on the interest he has long shown in this important issue? It pains me to say this and it is a rare occurrence, but I agree with almost everything the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said. My remarks will be shorter than they might have been because he has said much of what I was going to say. It is important to place it on the record that sports betting in the UK is big business. According to various sources, it has seen about a fourfold increase over the last few years. Whether we believe it is the responsibility of sports governing bodies or others to pay for it, integrity work in each sport is expensive and the cost is rising. No major sports governing bodies have been able to give me a precise cost because such work is often integrated with other activities. However, many millions of pounds are spent by major sports governing bodies. It is critical that they do that work. A number of cases have been mentioned in this debate. The hon. Member for Norwich, North referred to various examples and I will speak about a couple of those later. I was delighted that a number of hon. Members used this opportunity to raise other outstanding business in relation to gambling, and in particular to horse racing. The hon. Members for Barnsley, East and Mexborough (Jeff Ennis) and for Livingston (Mr. Devine) spoke passionately. I, too, believe it is vital that we resolve the question of on-course bookmaker lists. I have attended Westminster Hall debates on that topic over the last two years. I hope the hon. Gentlemen will not mind if I do not comment further on that; they can find my views on the matter in Hansard. I share their view that the issue must be resolved soon, in the interests not only of on-course bookmakers but of the people who go to the races and enjoy the benefit brought by on-course bookmakers. I will not follow other hon. Members in pressing the Minister to tell us about the sale of the Tote because we have debated that on many occasions. However, it could legitimately have been brought into this debate. I will not even ask him for the latest details in the saga of the horse race betting levy, although a comment from him would be interesting. My point is simple. A lot of money is made from sports betting by the betting industry in this country. A lot of costs are incurred by sports governing bodies in relation to integrity. The question is whether a greater contribution to those costs should be made by betting organisations. Like the hon. Member for Shipley, I do not think the case for that has yet been made. I do not believe we should go down that route now. The question that remains is, what more can we do if there is a continuing problem? There are a number of cases of matches being rigged for betting purposes. I welcome the Minister's establishment of the expert panel. I look forward to hearing more details from him today and in the near future about who will serve on that body and what its remit will be. That body must help to resolve a number of ongoing problems, which centre around two things. The first is how we gather information about what is going on. The second is how we provide help to sports governing bodies so that they can put in place appropriate rules and sanctions to deal with any incidents. The hon. Member for Norwich, North raised the matter of the Norwich City versus Derby match, on which my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) has asked a number of parliamentary questions. The issue concerned betting on the Asian-Chinese market. It became apparent from the debate on that issue that the Football Association finds it extremely difficult to act and to prove a case of match fixing. The FA has made it clear that it is able to act only if a whistleblower comes forward. It needs help in looking at these issues. An interesting article in The Independent on 24 April said that the FA was "powerless to act" in such cases. It stated that""an informed source told The Independent that the FA 'is highly unlikely to charge a player with match-fixing' and will not do so in this case. Match-fixing is simply too hard to prove, to specific legal satisfaction, whereas infringements of football's own betting rules are more clear-cut and more likely to end in convictions, though the matter remains within the sport's governing body."" I hope that the expert panel will consider what help can be given to deal with those difficulties. I share the concern that the hon. Member for Shipley touched on about the role of the Gambling Commission. In an intervention, I asked the hon. Member for Norwich, North whether he had confidence in the commission's work in this area. He said that it was almost up to top gear. That is in marked contrast with the view of the hon. Member for Shipley. The commission document of March this year contained a degree of complacency. At least it is acknowledged that more work needs to be done, and I welcome the fact that the commission will focus more on this matter in future. I would welcome the Minister's comments on that. The recent worrying incidents demonstrate why it is difficult to have confidence in the Gambling Commission in this area. Many hon. Members will have read the reports of the recent mystery shopping exercise in bookmakers' shops. The commission discovered that a 17-year-old was able to place a bet illegally in 98 of the 100 shops that were visited. However, the only resulting action that seems to have been taken is that a letter has been sent to each of those betting shops, telling them they must have procedures in place to prevent that from happening again. Similarly, we have discussed many times white-listed jurisdictions and the promise of mystery shopping as a way of checking that they are behaving correctly. However, as we have discovered in other debates, no mystery shopping took place on overseas-regulated, white-listed regulated betting sites until very recently. The Minister has told me in a letter that that has now started to happen; I would be grateful if he told me what progress we have made and what information we have received.