THE recent Gambling Commission report confirms the widely held view that our MPs ‘know the price of everything and the value of nothing: Britons now lose £12billion every year gambling.

Yes, the Gambling Act of 2005 resulted in considerable extra revenues from taxation on greatly increased betting but where is the value of £425 million in gambling tax (from fixed-odds betting terminals alone) when gambling is now cited in 20 percent of divorce petitions as a reason for the break-up of the marriage and divorce, especially when children are involved, tends to lead to an increase in benefits paid out by the Exchequer?

Yet, we need to look more deeply and question if gambling liberalisation has brought about any real financial value to the Treasury at all. If we agree that services that are directly or indirectly injurious to people should not be classed as wealth-creating because there is no worthwhile outcome for the consumer, it is reasonable to conclude that one cannot tax gambling – there is nothing there of meaningful value to tax.

What is really happening is that the government is using the tax revenue from gambling as a means – a currency conduit – to tax the real pool of wealth produced by beneficial activities elsewhere. Economists do not appear to understand that you cannot get good from bad: cannot fund beneficial public services from the taxation of harmful activities; governments do, but it is an illusion.

No wonder public services are under pressure when MPs ‘know the value of nothing’.

Geoff Naylor, Colden Common