Two Tory MPs just take gambling employment before review of betting laws

Two Conservative MPs have accepted jobs with the gambling business value tens of 1000’s of lbs . right before a govt critique of betting laws, the Guardian can reveal.

The Ladbrokes operator, GVC, paid Philip Davies £49,980 for “providing guidance on responsible gambling and client service”, in accordance to parliamentary disclosures.

He recognized the very first instalment of the dollars on 27 August but did not step down as a member of the decide on committee for digital, lifestyle, media and sport, the division managing the forthcoming overview of gambling regulation, right up until this week.

Davies did 124 hrs of function for GVC at a rate of £403 for every hour, 68 moments the £5.93 least wage in 2011, when he proposed that companies should be permitted to pay back disabled individuals much less than that.

Fellow Tory MP Laurence Robertson will be paid £2,000 for 10 hours a month doing work for the Betting and Gaming Council (BCG), a career he started on 1 Oct.

In the far more modestly paid position, equal to £24,000 a calendar year, he will serve as the BCG’s parliamentary adviser on activity and safer gambling.

Robertson reported he would not advocate for the betting field, nor make submissions to the gambling assessment on behalf of the cross-bash parliamentary on betting and gaming, of which he is a member.

Both of those Robertson and Davies have been vocal advocates for the horseracing and gambling sector and have previously confronted concerns around countless numbers of lbs well worth of hospitality presented to them by gambling firms.

But their acceptance of really compensated roles with two organisations envisioned to be major voices in the £14bn-a-yr industry’s initiatives to avoid challenging regulation has provoked renewed criticism.

The Labour MP Carolyn Harris, a leading advocate for gambling reform and parliamentary personal secretary to the celebration leader, Keir Starmer, claimed: “Laurence and Philip Davies are the two individuals who’ve spoken out most in help of the business.

“There’s a conflict of fascination below, is not there?”

Davies and Robertson’s function for the gambling field emerged weeks soon after the Labour deputy chief Tom Watson, a vocal critic of the field for the duration of his time as a politician, faced major criticism for accepting an advisory position with Flutter, the proprietor of Paddy Electric power.

But when Watson is no for a longer period in parliament, Davies and Robertson keep on being prominent backbenchers in the celebration in governing administration.

A spokesperson for GVC said Davies was no lengthier doing work for the organization. They stated he had encouraged “on a variety of safer gambling and purchaser safety initiatives”, pointing to his history as a bookmaker and former chairman of a cross-occasion group on betting and gaming.

“As this kind of, he has helpful perception and viewpoint to offer on a selection of business difficulties such as individuals that relate to safer gambling,” the business reported. “However, next the new management alter at GVC, we determined it was a natural time to convey this arrangement to an stop.”

Davies has beforehand attracted notice for his lobbying initiatives on behalf of the gambling field.

In 2018, the athletics minister Tracey Crouch was mentioned to have been “furious” at studies that Davies had satisfied ministers in an endeavor to delay the reduction in stakes on fastened-odds betting terminals.

She give up when the Treasury agreed to postpone the implementation of the coverage, triggering a revolt that compelled the governing administration into a U-switch.

In 2016, Davies was cleared of any wrongdoing by the parliamentary requirements watchdog about promises that he experienced unsuccessful to disclose £10,000 in hospitality from gambling companies although sitting down on a committee investigating the sector.

A BCG spokesperson pointed to Robertson’s yrs of knowledge and expertise, including about safer gambling and activity, such as his membership of various cross-social gathering groups on gambling.

“He is a powerful advocate of large modifications in the betting marketplace,” the BGC said.

“Indeed, as a Conservative applicant at the last basic election, he stood on a manifesto especially dedicated to reforming the Gambling Act. His appointment is steady with the rigid parliamentary regulations and has already been declared, so it is fully transparent.”

Robertson explained: “I have, of training course, had registered pursuits in betting and horseracing for in excess of 20 decades and have generally, and proceed, to notice the rigorous parliamentary guidelines on this kind of matters.

“Paid advocacy is, of program, rightly prohibited in parliament and my agreement with the BGC rules out such methods in any case.”

The Guardian has approached Davies for remark.