GwL families meet with new gambling minister at Labour Conference

Last week, GwL family members and staff met with the new gambling minister, Baroness Twycross, at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

With Labour now in power, we were at the conference to ask the government to investigate every gambling suicide.

We were especially encouraged by the hundreds of supportive MPs, ministers, journalists, councillors, and members of the public who spent time at our stand speaking with families.

We were particularly grateful for the support of Baroness Twycross, the new gambling minister (pictured below), and Andrew Gwynne, the Minister for Public Health and Prevention, both of whom took the time to listen to the experiences of bereaved families. We also really valued speaking with other organisations doing amazing wider work such as Inquest and Hillsborough Law Now.

Baroness Twycross, the new gambling minister, with GwL families and staff.

On Monday we held a fringe event, Stopping Gambling Suicides, which was impeccably chaired by football commentator Clive Tyldesley, and featured a superb panel of Abtisam Mohamed, Labour MP for Sheffield Central, Julie Bentley, CEO of Samaritans, Tom Witherow, special investigations reporter at the Times, and our Charles Ritchie.

Like last year’s event, the session was standing room only – people were sitting in the gangway – and generated some fruitful conversations, from both the panel and audience. Thank you to everyone who squeezed in.

GwL families and staff at our stand.

Most of all though, we’d like to give a huge thanks to the family members who travelled across the country and spent many hours on their feet talking to people about the changes needed to prevent future deaths.

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