Tracey Crouch has resigned as minister for sports and civil society after the government U-turned on its pledge to reduce the maximum stake on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) from £100 to £2 by April 2019, delaying action until the autumn of 2019.
For the government, the delay allows the Treasury to bank an extra £1.5bn in revenue. Why did Crouch think it was worth sacrificing a ministerial job she excelled at? It comes back to one of the reasons why she is widely respected across Westminster and by almost everyone who has dealt with her as a minister as someone who has mastered her brief: she felt very keenly that having seen the number of people per day whose lives are ruined by FOBTs, she couldn’t sign off an arrangement that would prolong that misery.
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