National Lottery Bill

The Minister, from a sedentary position, gives a confidence boost to Bath’s bid. I am delighted at that. Parts of the Bill will be criticised today, but I stress that my party supports much of it. For example, the establishment of a legal framework for the Big Lottery Fund is especially welcome, as that organisation has operated for 18 months before being allowed to come into formal existence. However, our biggest disagreement with the Government has to do with additionality, the subject of new clause 1, as we are concerned about the Government’s tendency to try to get their hands on lottery money. Sir John Major set up the lottery when he was Prime Minister, and made it clear that the money raised would ““not replace public expenditure””. In 1997, the present Prime Minister used similar words, saying that it would not be right"““to use Lottery money to pay for things that are the Government’s responsibilities.””" More recently, the Minister responding to this debate said in Standing Committee that lottery money was ““special”” and that it"““should add to, not substitute for, Government expenditure””—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 3 November 2005; c. 240.]" Last June, the Minister told the House that additionality was"““an important principle that should be embodied in future legislation.””—[Official Report, 14 June 2005; Vol. 434, c. 168.]" That is exactly why we have tabled new clause 1; to put into effect what the Minister said that he wanted. The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) will move new clause 2 shortly. Both it and new clause 1 are attempts to give the Minister what he said wanted and ensure that the Bill deals with the question of additionality. If new clause 2 were to be pressed to a Division, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my party would support it. The public also believe that additionality is an important matter. Almost three-quarters of respondents to a 2003 YouGov poll said that it was ““vitally important”” that lottery distribution remain independent of Government interference. We must ensure that lottery money is not used as a slush fund by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, something that has happened far too often already. For example, £93 million of lottery funds has been spent on magnetic resonance imaging scanners for the NHS, and £42 million on providing fruit in school. That led Sir Clive Booth, the Big Lottery Fund’s excellent chairman, to say that the"““days of the government issuing instructions over Lottery cash for schemes such as the distribution of fruit to schoolchildren are gone””." I hope that is true but, to make sure, we must get a guarantee enshrined in the Bill. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee expressed concern about this matter in its 2003–04 report. It stated:"““The National Lottery has meant that there has been an erosion, in real terms, of the DCMS core funding.””" Increasingly, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is not spending as much money, as a proportion of gross domestic product, as it used to, but that is because it has come to rely increasingly on money from the various lottery distributors. Another aspect of the problem is that there is increasing confusion about which expenditure comes from the DCMS and which comes from the lottery. I shall give two examples. On the one hand, the Government claim credit for projects that in fact are funded by the lottery; on the other, they try to pass the buck for failure to the lottery. Parliamentary answers last November revealed that one Department incorrectly claimed credit for a supposedly independent project that was successful, whereas a Minister in another Department has blamed the lottery for unwise Government spending. A report from the Department for Trade and Industry said that the £1.9 million spent on renewable energy research into biomass was funded by ““DTI and lottery spend””. However, further questions uncovered the fact that none of the money spent on that research came from the DTI. In other words, the Government were claiming credit for research that was funded entirely by the lottery. On 31 October last year, I asked a parliamentary question about a highly contentious sports questionnaire survey that was criticised by various newspapers. The survey cost £6 million, but the Government answered that the money came from the national lottery. I pursued the matter, and several weeks later the DCMS admitted that the original answer was incorrect and that the vast majority of funding for that controversial project came from the Department. That shows that the Government have tried to confuse the public about what is lottery money and what is departmental money. Have the Government plundered lottery money? There are many arguments about that, but today’s Daily Mail carries an article about a report from the Centre for Policy Studies. That is a Conservative-leaning think tank, but that does not mean that it is always wrong. The newspaper uses the headline ““Labour Has ‘Plundered Billions out of the Lottery’””, and its analysis may go a little far. However, the centre’s website carries the preface to the report, which I understand will be published tomorrow, and it makes very interesting reading. In it, Sir John Major—who, as I noted earlier, founded the lottery—states:"““From the outset, I insisted that Lottery money should be used for additional spending on causes or activities that the taxpayer should not be expected to cover . . . When the Lottery Bill was going through Parliament, the Labour Opposition was at pains to stress the importance of Government keeping an arms-length relationship from the Lottery and, in particular, grant distribution. But, since it took power, Labour has diverted Lottery funding into areas that have historically been funded by the Exchequer. Indeed, the ““Big Lottery Fund”” has a specific remit to fund health, education and environment projects when taxpayers would rightly expect many of these projects to be funded directly by Government. The Labour Government’s deliberate muddying of the waters between Exchequer and Lottery revenues is an unwelcome development and which, as its creator, dismays me greatly.””"