Lord Addington (LD)

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 23, 29, 53 and 54 standing in my name. This is something that we have touched on—gambling and football. Certain sports such as horseracing tend to be dependent on gambling, but we have something of a surfeit of gambling advertising on our televisions: it is everywhere. In these amendments, I am suggesting that football might be one place we could do without it. The revenue might be very useful to the clubs involved, but we have already heard about the huge reach of football as a subject, and the fact that there is a huge demand for it. Can we not get rid of gambling here? I have proposed four different ways of removing gambling from the football structure. We have removed other forms of gambling. The occasional flutter might not be as damaging as cigarettes, but it is very damaging for some people. It is an international sport. Look at Kenya and its problems with children gambling on the Premier League. Gambling has developed, and football is a lovely thing because you have lots of nice options to have occasional bets on. It has grown out of all recognition, into probably something none of us would even have suspected 20 years ago. I am proposing four ways of getting gambling to exit from professional football. I could go on at great length about this, but it is fairly late and we had a good go at it in Committee. I hope the Government will say that they are going to do something on gambling in this Bill. I have given four options, and a bit of movement might make me more willing to withdraw the amendment. If I do not hear that at the appropriate time, I will press the amendment to a vote, because we have to draw a line in the sand at some point. We have to stop it. Football markets itself as the universal game from childhood onwards. It is almost impossible. I had a discussion with the Advertising Association over a very nice dinner provided by it. The people there were talking about AI, and I asked them whether AI would allow them to filter out children. It was a resolute no, or at least they do not think so at the moment. We have to do something here; it has got ridiculous. Can we please take some steps to stop advertising in football being quite so pervasive? It is not just on television, is on the radio, et cetera. If the Government are prepared to take some steps I will of course back them, because a slice is better than no cake. So, if the Government are prepared to do that, they will have my full support. If not, I will push this to a vote, probably on Amendment 53. I beg to move.