PoC amendments rejected at committee stage
MPs vote against a series of amendments to the Gambling Bill including a measure for ISP blocking
Members of the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill committee yesterday rejected a series of amendments tabled by the opposition including a measure for ISP blocking.
Labour’s shadow sports minister Clive Efford put forward a total of 16 amendments to the controversial Bill, including clauses to allow for ISP blocking and to oblige spread betting firms to comply with licence condition 15.1 in relation to the reporting of suspicious betting activity.
However, all the proposed clauses failed to satisfy the committee, and its members, which included sports minister Helen Grant, voted against each individual amendment.
Grant had previously left the door open to the possibility of ISP blocking yet yesterday the minister said evidence received the previous week from witnesses such as Remote Gambling Authority chief exec Clive Hawkswood and Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association chief exec Peter Howitt showed the value of ISP blocking was questionable.
Grant said any ISP blocking measures would prove “disruptive and labour intensive” and could lead to unintentionally blocking legitimate websites that may share the targets’ web domain.
Grant did, however, assure the committee that the government would continue to review the situation.
Other clauses that failed to gain support included a review into social gaming and the ‘grooming’ of real-money gamblers, the blocking of bank accounts belonging to operators found in breach of its licence and the requirement for operators to disclose the amount of unclaimed winnings laying in dormant accounts.
The Bill now moves onto the parliamentary reports stage before its expected passage to the House of Lords in December.
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