My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-chair of Peers for Gambling Reform. I rise to speak to Amendment 60 in my name. I tabled it because I am concerned that the Ministry of Defence is not taking gambling-related harm in the military community sufficiently seriously. On two occasions in response to my concerns in this area, the Ministry of Defence has stated that it has seen no evidence, or does not hold information, suggesting that serving personnel are more prone to problem gambling than any other group in society.
At the same time, it was disappointing to hear that evidence from the United States that suggested that serving personnel were more prone to problem gambling did not constitute an evidence base for the UK Armed Forces. This leaves us with a clear impasse, where the Government refuse to accept research from abroad but, at the same time, do not commit to researching whether there is a problem.
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I suggest that the Government’s position contradicts that of the Army Headquarters Regional Command, whose 14th transition to civilian life individual planning and personal development sheet, titled Gambling—A Serious Risk to Military Personnel, contained a section entitled, “Why are soldiers more vulnerable to gambling?” Some of the reasons listed included, first, “Personality traits”, whereby soldiers’ personality characteristics, such as
“decisiveness, enjoying risk taking, … single-mindedness, … competitiveness and being unaccepting of failure”,
though invaluable in a military environment, crossed over with the characteristics of many problem gamblers.
The second reason was “Motivation to gamble”, whereby the transition from
“high tempo … operations … can seem unfulfilling”
and lead some to seek a similar “buzz” in gambling, as an escape from the routine of the barracks.
The third reason was “Opportunity to gamble”, whereby, since
“Off duty hours in barracks can be boring, lonely and are largely unsupervised”,
the secluded single-living accommodation can provide a “secure and private place” for serving personnel to gamble, particularly online.
Even if the UK lacks studies specifically relating to serving personnel, the position of the Army Headquarters Regional Command seems to chime with the research from the Unites States of America, which the Government argue is not relevant. A 2021 US study, titled Gambling and Military Service: Characteristics, Comorbidity, and Problem Severity in an Epidemiological Sample, found that the rate of moderate or higher problem risk among military service members was double that of the comparative general population sample. The 2008 US study Gambling and Health Risk-Taking Behavior in a Military Sample reviewed the gambling habits of a
cohort of US Air Force recruits and again found higher reported rates of levels 2 and 3 problem gambling, compared with the adult lifetime gambling rate.
Efforts are being made in the UK to build up an evidence base on gambling-related harm in the veteran community. I personally thank the charity Forces in Mind Trust and the research team from Swansea University for their work on the United Kingdom Armed Forces Veterans’ Health and Gambling Study, which was published in September this year. Aside from the headline figure from their research that the veterans in their sample were “ten times more likely” to experience problem gambling than non-veterans, which was very similar to the same research team’s earlier finding that they were eight times more likely, perhaps the most interesting thing was that their study represented, for the first time, the fact that
“problem gambling and … PTSD have been found to co-occur”.
It is important to point out that PTSD does not begin once a soldier leaves active service and becomes a veteran but afflicts those currently within the military.
Unlike the UK, where research is, admittedly, limited, the USA, with its greater history of academic research in this area, responded by legislating, in Section 733 of the National Defense Authorization Act 2019, to mandate screening for gambling-related harm in the military and for annual research to be conducted into how gambling-related harm affects the military. Seeing as the UK is significantly behind the USA in its evidence base on gambling-related harm in the military, screening does not form part of Amendment 60. However, it is important to mention that the MoD is not against screening in principle. In 2016, the AUDIT-C questionnaire for alcohol screening was introduced as part of routine dental appointments for serving personnel.
Amendment 60 seeks to mandate the MoD to include research on gambling-related harm in the military in current initiatives reviewing the mental health of the Armed Forces. Each year, the Ministry of Defence publishes its UK Armed Forces mental health annual statistics and summarises those findings in the UK Armed Forces Mental Health: Annual Summary and Trends Over Time reports. Already contained in this research are reported rates of substance misuse, including alcohol misuse. In fact, since the introduction of the AUDIT-C questionnaire, reported rates of alcohol misuse have fallen. That aside, there is a need for the MoD to include rates of gambling-related harm in this research programme.
Problem gambling and alcohol misuse differ in that problem gambling is very difficult to identify, as pointed out by the Transition IPPD Information Sheet 14, which speaks about gambling as an activity that can occur largely unsupervised, often online, in secluded single-living accommodation. As we have been reminded in respect of Covid mask mandates, not all exemptions are visible. Likewise, not all addictions are visible, but that does not mean that individuals do not need intervention. Unlike the MoD, I think there is sufficient evidence to suggest that serving personnel may suffer gambling-related harm at higher rates compared with other groups. I certainly think there is enough evidence to warrant the MoD including gambling-related harm in its existing research on the mental health of the Armed Forces.
I hope that the Minister might be able to outline her specific objections to including rates of gambling-related harm as part of the MoD’s existing research on UK Armed Forces mental health, beyond the argument that the department does not view it as a problem. Many people who are intimately involved with this, and in particular with veterans, do believe that it is a huge problem that deserves attention equal to that given to other mental health harms.