National Lottery Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. It is 10 years since the national lottery was introduced, and it has grown to be part of our national way of life; indeed, some would now call it an institution. That is underlined by the fact that 70 per cent. of us play on a regular basis. Last year, just under 5 billion tickets were sold. Over the period of its life, the lottery has raised about £17 billion for good causes. By any standards, it has been a huge success, and I give credit to the Opposition for introducing it when they were in power. In particular, the Prime Minister of the time, John Major, played a major role in introducing the lottery, which has had broad support across the House for that decade or so. That is to the credit of all those on both sides of the House who promoted the original National Lottery Bill back in 1993 and developed it further in 1998. Tickets do not sell themselves, and the choices between good-cause projects are sometimes hard to make. Success is the result of constant hard work and creativity by Camelot, the lottery distributor, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and the National Lottery Commission, all of which should be congratulated on how they have conducted themselves over the past decade or so. They have helped to maintain interest and, importantly, confidence in the lottery. Last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the first lottery draw, and people all over the country have been marking the 10 years since the first lottery awards went to good causes. Advice centres, leisure centres, cricket clubs, wetlands sites and film theatres from all over the country have joined in and held celebration open days to say, ““Thank you”” to the people of this country who have played the lottery and who have therefore contributed to good causes. Nowhere celebrated more enthusiastically than the Eden project in Cornwall, which is one of many excellent projects that the Millennium Commission has supported with spectacular success. When I became a Minister in 1997, I worked on regeneration, setting up the regeneration agencies and planning. I travelled to Mevagissey in Cornwall to examine the site of the Eden project and visited the Cornish clay quarry, as it was then, in a battered old Land Rover. When someone explained the concept of a big bubble on the side of the quarry, I thought, ““They must be mad””, but the Millennium Commission and others had the vision to back that futuristic project, and they were right to do so. I have visited the Eden project on a number of subsequent occasions—my children have visited it, too, and I hope to take my grandchildren there this year. The project was a good investment in itself, but it has also had a considerable impact on that part of Cornwall’s economy, and it is important to acknowledge the contribution of the lottery, the Millennium Commission and others.