On 12th September 2018 the Bishop of St Albans, Rt Revd Alan Smith, spoke in a House of Lords debate tabled by Lord Broooke of Alverthorpe “To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the trends in different types of addiction in England and Wales.” He focused his comments on gambling addiction and the steps needed to address the social harm being caused.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for raising this issue and to the noble Lord, Lord Chadlington; I wish to address the same area, but he has done it with eloquence and passion. I will try not to repeat the arguments he made, although there may be a little bit of duplication.
Gambling addiction is now a major public health issue in the UK. We have an estimated 430,000 problem gamblers. As well as the huge financial cost to us as a nation, which falls on the taxpayer, it is affecting other areas of life. Last week, for example, Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, spoke of the huge additional burden it is putting on the NHS; some estimate that it is costing the NHS £610 million per year at a time when budgets are really stretched. But this is not about the financial costs alone. Gambling addicts have higher rates of separation and divorce than the general population, and higher levels of homelessness. Problem gambling affects all age groups, but particularly large numbers of children are either at risk or designated as problem gamblers. Continue reading “Bishop of St Albans suggests steps to tackle social harm caused by problem gambling”
On 25th July 2018 the Bishop of St Albans, Rt Revd Alan Smith, received a written answer to a question on meetings held by civil servants and ministers with stakeholders on fixed-odds betting terminals: