Donoughue puts an end to All-Party Betting & Gaming Group’s debates
The All-Party Betting & Gaming Group’s activities have been restricted after it was announced that it will not be hosting any more independent seminars that are aimed towards exploring and discussing the British gambling industry policies.
An email was sent to members by the Group Secretariat Steve Donoughue announcing that the APPG will shut down after Conservative MP for Tewkesbury Laurence Robertson was declared as the new Chair of the group.
In the email, it was noted that the new Chair decided to ultimately set limits to the activities that the group actively takes part in and put an end to its seminars. And consequently, Donoughue stated that he will be closing the website and ending his 15-year term with the group.
Donoughue’s email mentioned:
As I work, voluntarily, at the behest of the Chair, there is nothing I can do about it and so my 15 years in the role must come to an end. During this time I have enjoyed myself thoroughly under the expert joint Chairmanships of Baroness Golding and Lord Lipsey followed by an enormously fun decade under Philip Davies MP.The forces of prohibition and populism have never been stronger in their emotive and evidence-light attacks on a great industry and the potential of a massive black-market explosion due to over-regulation, especially the fatally flawed concept of affordability.
Donoughue also said that APPG had a ‘hugely influential impact on gambling policy’, hinting that the members should feel quite proud and accomplished about their many conversations and debates concerning gambling. Donoughue, who is a policy advisor, also said that it was ‘crying shame that the group was ending at a time when its expertise was needed the most’.
He was also not afraid to give fair warning that the sector is at a critical standpoint as of now, and it could massively deteriorate if there were no independent advisory or group that will openly discuss its policies and issues in parliament. He said that the recent hiring of Laurence Robertson was quite contrary to the ‘very nature of the group’, since he is a paid advisor of the Betting and Gaming Council.
Donoughue concluded by saying:
This includes the good and the bad, the libertarians and the nanny staters. I like to think that during my time we supported the industry when it needed it and we criticised it when it was due.