Speeches by Ballinger.

“You said yourself that because you and the National Security Adviser were appointed without DV, it was not unusual. Do you think that No. 10, when you were chief of staff, had a “dismissive” or an “uninterested” approach to security vetting because of your own experience?”

“Sir Philip, you have talked about the short timescale causing problems. Do you think there was a reasonable diplomatic reason why No. 10 wanted the appointment done by Trump’s inauguration?”

“We heard from Sir Philip this morning that he felt that the speed of the appointment was unnecessary: Karen Pierce was doing a good job, and the Administration would take some time to set up. In his evidence, Olly Robbins said that the whole process felt “weirdly rushed”. Why did you push for such a short timeline betw…”

“We twice heard, both from Philip Barton and Sir Olly, that the Cabinet Office was asking whether DV was necessary at all and whether, because Lord Mandelson was a Privy Counsellor, that would be sufficient. Presumably the Cabinet Office would not have done that of their own volition. Did that come from No. 10? Where di…”

“Do you think the argument that Lord Mandelson would not need DV clearance because he was a Privy Counsellor was credible?”

“Did the intelligence agencies ever share any concerns with you about Mandelson’s appointment or his access to information?”

“I am terribly sorry to hear my hon. Friend’s story about her constituent. It does sound like another failure of the self-exclusion system. We have heard similar stories in other places; I met one person with lived experience in Portsmouth, who signed up to self-exclusion but was able to gamble away his life savings in …”

“I was not expecting to hear the hon. Member parroting big tobacco talking lines. Because of all the public health benefits and because of the reduced number of people dying from lung cancer, I think the public would be happy that the rate of smoking has reduced from 60% in the 1950s to 10%. Some 65% of people think chi…”

“I am afraid that is not correct. The Gambling Commission has not written to me challenging my figures. Members of the gambling industry have written to the all-party group challenging some of the figures in other reports, but our figures are from the Gambling Commission’s own survey on children and young people. The st…”

“The hon. Member raises the scale of public interest in this issue in Northern Ireland, and the number of people who are fed up and have had too much of gambling adverts, particularly those that are bombarding our children. I am glad he raises the situation in Northern Ireland, and we should be working together more to …”

“The hon. Member is making his point very well. He is talking about the unregulated market, which we also have real concerns about. Does he share my concern that some unregulated market advertising is being mixed with the regulated market advertising? Right now, we have premier league football clubs with unregulated fro…”

“I will not accept that. Having met lots of people with lived experience of gambling and having seen the evidence in our report, I know there is a clear link between gambling advertising and halting the recovery of people with gambling addictions. An argument often used by the industry is that more evidence is needed, b…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered gambling advertising. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Harris, particularly as you have taken such an interest in gambling harm over many years. I am grateful to be able to open this debate on gambling advertising and its impact across the United Kingdom,…”

“The hon. Member is completely right: gambling regulation is devolved in Northern Ireland, and the problem there is similar to the one we have in the rest of the country; in fact, the scale of gambling harm is even higher than it is in Great Britain. Members of the APPG have been talking to colleagues in Stormont in a s…”

“They have not written to me. We need to properly safeguard the next generation from gambling advertising that aims to normalise an activity that has been proven to be extremely harmful, and something that the Government have the power to act on today.”

“The hon. Member talks about Formula 1, as well as other sports, but does he remember the rules that changed the tobacco sponsorship of Formula 1 and the strong resistance of that industry to those changes because of the arguments he is making right now? Does he also recognise that Formula 1 has become more successful a…”

“I will not give way at this point, because I am just wrapping up—”

“The hon. Member’s concerns are about the unregulated market. However, the proposals in the APPG report are talking about restrictions on gambling advertising, including unregulated gambling advertising. He talks about the growth in unregulated gambling advertising, which is of course a big problem. But surely if those …”

“You have rightly talked about the importance of keeping this highly classified information in the vetting system away from the Committee and away from the public generally, but there appear to be at least two occasions where this information was leaked to the press. Two days after you informed the Prime Minister, there…”

“When the information was shared with the Prime Minister, the whole of No. 10 would have been able to know that information. Or how many individuals, roughly, in that circle might have known about it?”