I start by welcoming the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) to her new post, which I neglected to do under pressure of time at questions last week. I look forward to debating with her over the coming years. [Interruption.] Well, she may well keep her position in opposition.
The Bill has been a long time coming. The need for changes in the licensing of remote gambling operators was first identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) when he was Minister for Sport. Online gambling was first regulated in the UK in 2007. Since that time, in order to avoid taxation, all but one of our major online betting companies has moved offshore and they justified that by claiming that that is necessary to remain competitive. The consequence has been that these operators are outside UK regulation, which is one of the reasons why we are here debating this Bill today.
In 2009, my hon. Friend ordered a review of overseas gambling operators who advertised in the UK. In 2010, we began the consultation on extending Gambling Commission licensing to include online gambling operators offering services in the UK. Consultation responses were published after the general election in July of that year by the then Minister with responsibility for gambling, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), who I see in his place. It was then a full year before he issued a written statement on the Government’s plans to legislate. The draft Bill was published in December 2012, and the Select Committee published its report on the draft Bill in May 2013. Four years and four Ministers later, we have finally got the Bill, so what was all the waiting about?