National Lottery Bill

People reading Hansard will make their own judgment. The Liberal party tabled new clause 1, and I have delivered all the information required from the Dispatch Box. The information will be there for Parliament to debate, but the hon. Gentleman will not make a commitment from the Front Bench to give up a Supply day to use that information to inform the nation. I think that the nation will make a judgment on how he can be so hypocritical. New clause 2 seeks to define additionality by reference to what Governments do not usually fund and to hold both distributing bodies and the Secretary of State to such a definition. The Government entirely reject new clause 2 for reasons that I explained at some length in Committee. Strictly speaking, additionality is a matter between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Treasury. If my Department were ever to seek to replace its funding with lottery funding, the Treasury would rightly reduce our funding by the same amount. Additionality will never be constant, so we cannot define what Governments usually provide. The Government provide money—[Interruption.] I wish that the hon. Member for Bath would listen—he has tabled new clause 1 but he is not even listening to what I am saying. I am trying to explain to him and to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster why we reject new clause 2. The Government provide money to some charities, which is not core Government spending. Does that mean that the lottery should not give more to charities? The Government provide money to arts, sports and heritage in many areas—that is not core, or mainstream, Government spending. Does that mean that lottery funding cannot be used as well? We can follow the principle of additionality, but if we try to define it, or what the Government should ““usually”” fund, we will be restricted in some way from funding genuine good cause projects in the future. We cannot predict what those projects will be, but it is likely that those who will be most upset when we do not continue to fund them are those calling on us to set a definition. It might help if I highlight some examples of good projects that have been funded from just one lottery programme—““New Opportunities for PE and Sport””—in the constituencies of hon. Members who tabled the new clause. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, Westminster city council awarded almost £80,000 for improvements to the sports hall at Millbank primary school. Does he want us to withdraw that money because it is part of mainstream Government funding? In the constituency of the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), Cambridgeshire county council received more than £1.1 million for sporting facilities to provide young people and the community generally with high-quality tennis courts, a floodlit multi-use games area and a wide range of after-school sports activities. Should we withdraw those areas of funding because they are additional to Government spending?