Minister sets out gambling harm treatment funding after MP query
Dame Diana Johnson told Parliament that gambling treatment services have received extra funding, after a Labour MP asked about disruption to referrals under new commissioning rules.
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Chris Evans, the Labour MP for Caerphilly, asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care how many people had seen their referrals to gambling harm treatment services disrupted by changes to commissioning arrangements since 1 April 2026.
Replying for the Department of Health and Social Care, health minister Dame Diana Johnson did not give a figure for disrupted referrals. Instead, she set out how treatment is organised under the statutory gambling levy.
She said commissioners across Great Britain, including through the Gambling Levy Delivery Group, work together so that people experiencing gambling harms can get support where they need it. Because health is devolved, she said, England, Scotland and Wales each commission their own treatment pathways under the levy, and anyone from Scotland or Wales who contacts a service in England is directed to an appropriate service in their own nation.
Dame Diana also confirmed that NHS England has put in place a £20 million grant scheme for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations to deliver gambling harm support in the 2026/27 financial year. She said this represents an increase in funding for these organisations compared with previous years.
Combined with extra funding for regional NHS gambling services, she said, this has “increased treatment system capacity”, though she gave no estimate of how many referrals, if any, had been affected by the commissioning changes raised in the original question.
Source: UK Parliament written question 36275.
Contains parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.