Key gambling reform campaigner calls for pause to controversial ‘affordability checks’

• Noyes ‘deeply concerned over a lack of transparency’

• Unexpected intervention echoes pressure on Nandy

Dr James Noyes, one of the key early advocates of affordability checks for online gamblers, has joined calls for Lisa Nandy MP, the culture secretary, to instruct the Gambling Commission to “pause” the implementation of checks “until there has been adequate evaluation and scrutiny” of a pilot scheme to assess how checks might work in practice.

Noyes’ intervention in the long-running debate over affordability checks comes in an open letter sent to Nandy on Monday.