Liberal Democrats: Tax gambling industry to fund social care

The leader of the Liberal Democrats has called on the gambling industry to pay more tax to help fund his planned health and social care policies.

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the channel’s flagship political programme, Sir Ed Davey laid down the gauntlet to gambling operators in the UK and said he would target the industry to support his new policy.

The policy would see social care workers under a Liberal Democrat government paid at least £2 an hour more than the current minimum wage.

The party said this would benefit 850,000 workers, making up more than half of all people working in frontline care.

Sir Davey said: “We would pay for it through asking the gambling industry to pay more tax. We’ve set out that problem and the real issue is the gambling industry poses costs on the health service and we think they should pay their fair share.

“I think it is very liberal and the trust is that the gambling industry, according to Public Health England, are causing mental and physical health problems posing a charge to our NHS, and I think it is therefore quite a good idea to ask them to pay more so we can pay the carers more,” he added.

Some Liberal Democrat sources have indicated the tax rise could come in the form of a huge uptick in remote gaming duty, from 21% to 42%.

The rhetoric from Sir Davey will not sit well with the industry, after it was revealed in the Sunday Times Tax List that bet365’s Denise Coates and Betfred’s Done brothers paid hundreds of millions of pounds in tax last year.