We now move on to the short debate, and I call on—[Interruption.] We’ll wait a minute. If you’re leaving the Chamber, please do so quickly and quietly. Thank you.

Right, we’ll now move to the short debate, and I call on Darren Millar to speak to the topic he has chosen. Darren.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I want to confirm that I’ve given Simon Thomas, Jenny Rathbone and Joyce Watson a minute each of my time.

This week is Gamble Aware Week. It’s seven days when betting shops across the country are spreading the message to not bet more than you can afford to lose, but I’m afraid that their message is just not hitting home. Thanks to poor public policy decisions from successive Governments of all colours, gambling has never been easier than it is today. No longer are you required to venture into a local betting shop to take a punt, you can now bet on the telephone, via a computer, a mobile phone or even your smart tv. And with almost 400 betting shops and around 1,500 fixed-odds betting terminals in Wales, it’s easy to see how people can quickly get sucked into a gambling spiral that gets out of control.

Gambling, of course, is nothing new. It’s been around for a very long time. But excessive gambling is on the rise, and Wales seems to have a bigger problem with it than other parts of the United Kingdom. In fact, the figures are stark. Gambling Commission surveys have estimated that around 1.1 per cent of the Welsh population are problem gamblers, around 34,000 people, with an additional 118,000 at risk of becoming problem gamblers. You’re more than twice as likely to be a problem gambler if you live in Wales than in England, and a third more likely than if you live in Scotland.

It’s estimated that more than £1.6 billion is staked annually on fixed-odds betting terminals alone, and that’s more than an average of £1 million per machine here in Wales, around £675 per head of the adult Welsh population. It really is eye-watering. And, of course, these machines are so quick that it’s absolutely possible to bet around £100 every 20 seconds. Research, in fact, has shown that it’s every bit as addictive as a class A drug, and it’s no wonder that they’ve been called the crack cocaine of gambling.

What’s even more concerning, though, is that there’s a growing body of evidence that indicates that unscrupulous businesses are locating these machines in deprived areas. More than a third of betting shops with these machines are in the poorest communities across Wales. These are the areas where there’s underinvestment and high unemployment, and making a quick bet and a big win, no matter what the odds, seems an attractive prospect. But the people placing these stakes are very often the ones who can ill afford to lose them. But we know that gambling is not a route out of poverty. In fact, it’s route to breakdown—relationship breakdown, health breakdown and financial breakdown. Thanks to our digital age, even after the betting shops close and the casinos have closed, gamblers can still continue to take their chances online. Online gambling isolates and hides gambling addiction, but it’s also on the increase. More and more people are gambling behind closed doors and in secret. It’s gambling that is happening all around us constantly. Slots can be played in meetings, they can be played in the school car park while waiting to pick the children up from school, and they can even be played on shift breaks. It makes it harder to know about those people who need help and for others to be able to reach out to them before it turns into a crisis.

Some, of course, are underage gamblers. We know from the Gambling Commission that the people most at risk of problem gambling are those between the ages of 16 and 24. People with their whole lives ahead of them are in danger of losing everything. The Gambling Commission’s ‘Young People and Gambling 2016’ report suggests that there are hundreds of child problem gamblers here in Wales, and if you combine that with the fact that 65 per cent of teenagers under 18 have already admitted addiction to their mobile phones, I think it’s very clear to see that there’s a very real public health crisis, which is brewing and playing itself out in young people’s pockets right now.

Often, the money used to gamble is taken out on credit. Many gambling addicts are caught in the catch-22 situation of escalating debt, which they then try to repay through gambling more. Life savings are being wiped out, and credit card limits are being exceeded. Gambling is no respecter of persons. It can affect people from any part of the social stratum and all walks of life, but don’t just take my word for it. I want us to take a few moments to look at the screens to listen to some of the experiences of Sarah and Joseph here in Wales.

An audio-visual presentation was shown. The transcription in quotation marks below is a transcription of the oral contributions in the presentation. The presentation can be accessed by following this link:

Audio-visual presentation.

Sarah: ‘I just felt really silly sometimes, because I would go and gamble my money, and you always think, “Oh, I’ll just go and gamble £10, £20”, and the next thing you know, I’ve gambled my whole month’s wages, and then you panic and you think, “How am I going to afford food? How am I going to do anything?” I had to try and ask people for help, like my parents, and then they’d ask, “Well, where’s your money?”, so then you’d have to start saying, I don’t know, “I lost it” or “I didn’t get paid on time”.’

Joseph Nolloth: ‘I lost everything. I lost my flat. I lost everything. I was in countless amounts of debt. I had payday loans. I sold all my stuff—my personal items. I mean, I was even selling bags of clothes—old clothes—to cash-for-clothes and that, just to get some money, just to get food in. Even with that spare money I had left over, I’d go and gamble it to try and win more money.’

Looking back at your life, what have you lost?’

Joseph Nolloth: ‘At least £50,000, and I’m only 24. If I had £1 million, I probably would have spent that £1 million gambling.’

According to the regulator, the Gambling Commission, Joseph falls right into the age bracket that are most likely to have a problem with gambling. More men will have an issue than women, but we don’t know how much of a problem it is here in Wales, because there are no official statistics.’

So, you can see. We’ve heard from Sarah and Joseph. Gambling isn’t a game, it’s a very real problem. They’re paying a high price for it, and they’re not the only ones. You may have heard about Cardiff postal worker Colin Chapman, who was arrested just last week for stealing parcels worth £40,000 in order to fund his gambling addiction. Or you might even remember Willie Thorne, the former UK snooker champion who went bankrupt after gambling away more than £1 million, but, of course, it’s not just money that’s being lost. People are losing their homes, they’re losing their marriages, they’re losing their health from stress, and they’re losing their place and purpose in society. And, I’m afraid, some have even lost their lives.

On 31 March last year, 18-year-old Omair Abbas from Cardiff put on his work uniform and he said goodbye to his parents and left home, but, unfortunately, it wasn’t a day like any other. Fewer than two weeks later, he was found dead. He’d taken his own life after struggling with thousands of pounds-worth of debt. He’d maxed out his overdraft, he’d taken out credit on his credit cards, and even though he’d confided in close friends that he was depressed and had occasionally thought of taking his own life, unfortunately they were unable to prevent it from happening. I think his story, his death, should be a wake-up call to us all.

Excessive gambling is trapping people into an addictive cycle of losing and winning and losing and losing and losing. As we’ve heard, it can lead to incredibly tough emotional, financial and mental health problems. But the majority of addicts struggle in silence. Many people who struggle with gambling don’t reach out for help until they’ve hit crisis point, and recent research suggests that just one in 10 people with gambling problems actually do seek formal help. But, unfortunately, all too often the help that they need isn’t always available to them.

Now, thankfully, people are beginning to wake up to this public health time bomb, and I was very pleased to hear, from the chief medical officer at the recent Beat the Odds conference, that there is some work that he’s been doing on this subject. We were also hearing, of course, about the excellent work of the Living Room, here in Cardiff, and North Wales-based CAIS, which are helping to raise awareness of problem-gambling and helping to develop services to support addicts, and it’s beginning now, I think, to pay some dividends. The Living Room and CAIS, of course, organise the annual Beat the Odds conference—the Excessive Gambling Wales conference, which is held here in Cardiff, in the Pierhead, and it’s been invaluable in bringing academics, policy makers, public health experts and service providers together to examine the challenges presented by this problem and to work towards solutions. It’s helped dozens of gambling addicts so far, and it’s pioneered and developed new programmes that have helped addicts to turn their lives around. Of course, I mustn’t forget either to acknowledge the excellent work that has been undertaken by Carolyn Harris and the all-party parliamentary group on gambling also.

GambleAware, GamCare, Beat the Odds, the Living Room, CAIS—they’re all doing their bit, but there’s still a huge amount of work to do. So, what can we do? Well, we need to restrict gambling advertising. It’s wrong that every time you click on to Google or you turn on your tv, there’s an advert encouraging you to gamble. We need to change the planning system here in Wales to prevent the proliferation of betting shops in our communities and to stop further fixed-odds betting terminals turning up in our communities. We need greater recognition of the public health risks of problem gambling and significant investment in recovery services such as those provided by Beat the Odds, and we need to take immediate and urgent action to reduce the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals and reduce the number of them across the country. Now, I recognise that some of the powers to do and deliver those things lie in Westminster, but that doesn’t stop us doing our bit with the powers that we’ve already got, such as changing the planning system and developing those universally accessible support services from being delivered.

The stakes are too high to ignore this problem any longer. Gambling is destroying lives. It can affect anyone anywhere at any time, and our young people are particularly vulnerable. So, instead of reading about crises that have happened, I think we all need to work harder to prevent them from becoming a news item in the first place. We owe it to Omair, Sarah, Joseph and the thousands of others in Wales who are victims of gambling addiction, to address this growing problem, and we must act now.

I thank Darren Millar for bringing this debate today. We would not tolerate the promotion of addictive substances such as alcohol and tobacco in modern society the way we have tolerated, due to the lack of regulation, gambling, and we must treat gambling as an addictive pastime in that sense. We’re not talking about banning, we’re talking about regulation and we’re talking about a real approach. I look forward to hearing from the Government—if not today, very soon—how they will use the limited powers they get over fixed-odds terminals to try and address and set the right tone. Because one thing we can do here is set the tone of debate and the tone and approach on gambling, rather than this acceptance that we have at the moment in modern society that gambling is somehow a normal thing to do and something that particularly is rewarded with an element of glamour around it, which I think is particularly concerning. We don’t have Welsh figures, but Living Room Cardiff estimates that there are 114,000 people at risk in Wales, and excessive gamblers, those who have a real gambling disorder, number 12,000. This is a serious medical and social problem that I hope we can address.

Finally, if I may say so, I’d like to thank Wynford Ellis Owen for his work. He’s retiring this week.

Diolch yn fawr iddo fe am y gwaith y mae e wedi’i wneud yn y maes yma.

I’d just like to pay tribute to Wynford Ellis Owen, whose life was nearly completely wrecked by prescription drugs and alcohol. He used that insight into what addiction involves and the lengths that people will go to to promote the cause of the need to tackle addiction in gambling. So, I think it’s really important that we respond to the work that has been done by Wynford Ellis Owen and others by ensuring that we bear down on addiction, which is absolutely wrecking people’s lives. I’ve met constituents who’ve gambled away the proceeds of two houses and a private business, who cannot even dare to get the bus into town because they know that they will stop off at one of these fixed-odds betting terminals.

I think we must change the planning laws so that the presumption where there is an application for yet another betting business—that the presumption will be on refusal, unless we can prove, or it can prove, that it will do no harm. That is my big ask to the Minister today.

I’d like to thank Darren for giving me time to speak in what is a really, really important debate. The issue of gambling that I want to focus on is football games. I am a huge football fan and I’ve noticed recently that I cannot watch a football game without being bombarded on the tv in my sitting room to bet on the next outcome—whether somebody’s going to score a goal, whether it’s with the right foot or left foot, it doesn’t really matter. The point is it is absolutely aimed at the age group that you have just identified as those having the worst problem, or the most significant problem, with gambling. It is invasive, and I think that when we look at preventing gambling, we need to also look at preventing it happening on our tv screens when we’re actually trying to promote a healthy style of living—that is, taking part in sport—and it is completely ruined by offering an alternative addiction that people will find virtually impossible to get out of.

Thank you very much. I call on the Minister for Social Services and Public Health to reply to this debate. Rebecca Evans.

I’d like to thank Darren Millar for bringing forward this debate today and all Members for their valuable contributions. I’m really pleased to see that there is cross-party support for addressing the issue of problem gambling in Wales. Whilst we know that many people participate in gambling activities without any apparent problems, we also know that for some people gambling becomes an addiction that leads to harmful health and social impacts. I think Darren has shared with us some very powerful stories today—the stories of Sarah, Joseph, Omair and others.

Whilst the prevalence of problematic gambling is low, the health and social impact is significant, and it disproportionately affects more disadvantaged people, who are five times more likely to develop problem gambling. The impact of gambling on individuals includes the inability to function at work, and financial problems that can lead to homelessness. The harm from gambling to the wider society includes fraud, theft, loss of productivity in the workforce and the cost of treating this addiction.

It’s estimated that for every person with a gambling problem a further six to 13 people will be affected and this can include family members, friends and work colleagues. I can assure you that, as a Government, we are working across portfolios to identify the actions that we can take to reduce the prevalence of problem gambling and limit the impact it has on the health of people in Wales and on wider society.

Although the regulation and licensing for gambling is not devolved to Wales, the Wales Act does provide for Welsh Ministers and the Assembly to have new powers in relation to fixed-odds betting terminals, and we’ll be exploring this further from April 2018 when we expect the full provisions of the Act to commence.

The Welsh Government’s national planning policy seeks to sustain and enhance vibrancy—

Will you take an intervention?

Yes, of course.

We know that this responsibility is coming to the Assembly as of next year. I hope the Government aren’t waiting to do some of the preparatory work that might be required to put the safeguards in place when there seems to be a consensus around this Chamber. As I said, we know the scope of the responsibilities that we’ll be inheriting come April next year, so can you confirm that the Government is undertaking that preparatory work so that you can hit the ground running when you do get those responsibilities?

I think my statement there was probably poorly worded, because I do reassure you that Government is looking across all of our portfolios in terms of what we can be doing, as I said, to prevent people becoming addicted to gambling in the first place and then to lessen the impact that it might have.

The Welsh Government has a planning policy seeking to sustain and enhance the vibrancy, viability and attractiveness of our established retail and commercial centres, and the effects of problem gambling on health or crime and disorder are material considerations at a local planning authority level, where they may take into account these issues when determining a planning application.

The Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs has already said that she’s reviewing the permitted development granted through use classes and will consult on the proposed changes later this year, and that review is considering whether changes are needed to prevent the overconcentration of betting shops. Like others, I look forward to receiving the outcome of that review.

Public Health Wales has commissioned research to map out all of the gambling venues across Wales and this work will include a visual heat map showing the density of gambling venues geographically. That will enable us to highlight the areas where gambling venues are concentrated and will aid our thinking and discussion on this issue.

In general, there is no medical intervention for gambling, but in some cases psychological interventions can help to support an individual to change their behaviour. In ‘Together for Mental Health’ we have agreed a plan with the NHS to expand psychological therapy services for both adults and children, and we’ve provided an additional £4 million a year to support the delivery of this plan.

Although patients can discuss anything with their GP, for those affected by a pathological or problematic gambling addiction, there are also services such as Gamblers Anonymous or GamCare, which can provide information and support, and we’ve heard from Members about other work, such as the Living Room, CAIS, Beat the Odds and so on.

Other organisations also provide information and advice, including the citizens advice bureaux. The bureau in Newport is undertaking some work to support gambling related harm. It’s funded by Gamble Aware, and they are delivering gambling harm minimisation projects in Wales, aiming to tackle gambling-related harm at its root through education and awareness, working particularly with young people and other vulnerable groups.

Online gambling is of particular concern. Gambling is now more accessible, as we’ve heard, than it’s ever been before—24 hour access available at home, at work, while picking up children from school, and even whilst commuting on your mobile phones. Gambling online has increased significantly between 2008 and 2014, from 9.7 per cent of the population to 15.4 per cent of the population. This is one of the reasons why our chief medical officer is very clear that we should be looking at gambling, or problematic gambling, as an emerging public health issue.

We need to take the new opportunities for action provided by the Public Health (Wales) Act 2017. This will help embed health and well-being in all policies and programmes, and we’ll be consulting on the circumstances in which health impact assessments should be undertaken by public bodies. Comments will be very welcome on how these assessments can address the whole wide range of issues, but also including problematic gambling.

In undertaking such assessments, we have to also recognise that the gambling industry offers employment and leisure opportunities, along with other social and economic benefits. In 2015, there were 3,500 people employed in the gambling and betting industry in Wales, around 0.3 per cent of total employment.

So, I’m therefore keen that we do have a thorough analysis of this issue, and I’m very pleased that the chief medical officer is leading on the work on the harms caused by gambling as part of the development of his annual report, and I look forward, as others will, to seeing his initial recommendations later on this year.

I also welcome the opportunity to have further dialogue and engagement with the Gambling Commission on the issue of problem gambling in Wales when they host their stakeholder reception here at the Senedd in September. That will provide Ministers and other Assembly Members with the opportunity to discuss issues relating to the gambling industry and, in particular, the issues of problem gambling.

It’s clear from all the contributions that we’ve had in the debate today—and I would say also in recent times in the Chamber in First Minister’s questions and on other occasions—that we do agree that we must work together and across portfolios. And it’s clearly not an issue that the NHS can tackle alone. We recognise there’s a real opportunity for other areas of public service, such as education, local government and the third sector to take a leadership role in helping to reduce the number of people experiencing problem gambling. Such a multi-partner approach has real potential to reduce the prevalence of problem gambling and the impact it has on the health of the people of Wales and our wider society. And as part of this work, we will continue to urge the UK Government to do more that it can to tackle the concerns and to maximise the various options that lie within its gift to address the issue of problem gambling. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That brings today’s proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 17.55.