Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 7:55 pm on 29 November 2017.
Thank you for that really important short debate. It is a very clever point, and while I’m glad you mentioned the report, which is the first really new evidence that we’ve got specifically focused on communities in Wales, the second thing is to draw attention to the fact that we are all now being lobbied by an industry that’s getting concerned—a £37 billion industry—and we need to be very alert. This is very similar to what happened with the tobacco industry, and we will have similar sorts of representations about how it’s really about fair lobbying, just as in America it’s all about fair gun control and so on. So, that’s important.
Our concern is, of course, that we’ve got to deal with this issue, because it’s too late to deal with it once it becomes an epidemic. Can I just make a point very quickly to the Cabinet Secretary? I think what’s really important is that the Welsh Government formally recognises the gambling issue, formally decides to develop a strategy and formally decides to start carrying out research, and also demands proper funding from the Gambling Commission, from the industry, to actually fund some of this.