National Lottery Bill

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, although my colleagues may well have argued in the way that he describes. Let me offer him an example of how lottery money is used that runs counter to what he has just said. School sports co-ordinators are an integral part of the school sports partnerships, of which there are now 3,000. Under that scheme, teachers are able to devote two or three days a week to that role, and originally they were funded out of the lottery. However, that funding is now part of the core expenditure of the Department for Education and Skills. The amount of money involved is significant, and it contributes towards delivering the sports programme in schools throughout the country. The investment is sustainable, because it has been taken over by the Department for Education and Skills and, through Sport England, the money thus liberated has been put back into sport. There are a number of other examples of how the problem identified by the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) can be seen to work both ways. In those cases, lottery money has made a significant contribution in the first instance, but has then been taken over by core expenditure in the relevant Department. I have not prepared a balance sheet or conducted a cost-benefit analysis of these matters, but I urge the House to be careful about questioning additionality, as it cuts both ways, in the way that I have set out. On getting money to causes quickly and balances down, let me say some more about how the Bill responds to concerns in Parliament that lottery money is not always distributed as quickly as it might be. I am hopeful that the advice from the National Audit Office will be followed, but we have made slower progress than I would have liked. I have said that many times at the Dispatch Box and outside the House. We cannot be complacent, because £2.5 billion in reserve is still a great deal of money that should be, at least in part, distributed. We can no longer be relaxed about that until more progress has been made, so the reserve powers are designed to ensure that all distributors act quickly. Last year, the proposed new powers were misrepresented as an attack on our heritage. That attack has been echoed this afternoon. It was said that our proposals would mean less money for heritage projects. That was simply not true, and I hope that in the discussions and exchanges of letters that we have had since then, we have been able to explain that and put minds at rest. Nothing in the Bill will allow money to be taken from heritage and spent on something else. The Bill has been clarified in that respect.