Minister resigns over betting crackdown delay

Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch, has resigned over “delays” to a crackdown on maximum stakes for fixed-odds betting machines.
Chancellor Philip Hammond said in Monday’s Budget that the cut in stakes from £100 to £2 would come into force in October 2019.
But Ms Crouch said the delay was “unjustifiable” and it could cost the lives of problem gamblers.
She tweeted: “Politicians come and go but principles stay with us forever.”
Speculation around Ms Crouch’s resignation began after she failed to appear in the Commons earlier to answer an urgent question around the policy’s timing.
But her boss, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright, refused to say if she had resigned, after being put on the spot by Labour’s deputy leaderN, Tom Watson.
After Ms Crouch’s resignation was confirmed, Mr Watson praised her “courageous and principled decision” and said Mr. Wright “should be thoroughly ashamed” of prioritising “corporate interests over victims, profits over public health and greed over good”.
In his Budget on Monday, the chancellor said the change to fixed-odds stakes would come into force next October at the same time as changes to duty charged on gambling firms based abroad but operating in the UK.
Mr. Wright said that coordinating the date of the two changes would mean the government would not be hit by a fall in tax revenue.
Campaigners for action noted that Ms Crouch had told an all party parliamentary group in September that the implementation would be in “the financial year starting April 2019”.
Mr Watson told the Commons: “Everyone, both sides of the house was led to believe that the cut would take place in April 2019.”
He said the delay would save the Treasury £900m and accused the government of “capitulating to the gambling industry”.
MPs from all sides of the House joined in his criticism.
Culled from BBC