National Lottery Bill

As drafted, new clause 3 would require a distributing body to have regard to the ease of application for its grants if it solicits applications for grants. However, I wonder whether the intention behind the new clause was the more general one of requiring distributing bodies to have constant regard to the ease of applications, whether or not they have been sought. I agree with the sentiments behind the new clause, which was tabled jointly by the hon. Members for Bath (Mr. Foster) and for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson). It is very important that it be made easier for people to access lottery funding; indeed, that is one of the Bill’s aims. As the hon. Member for Bath said, we have made steady progress in that regard and, hopefully, we will continue to do so. As I said to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) earlier, that is what we want to achieve. We are encouraging all lottery distributing bodies to make their application processes easier, and that is already happening. Where we need to legislate, we have already done so. Clause 14 inserts a new section 36D into the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 that will enable the Big Lottery Fund to give wider lottery advice, particularly on the inviting, making or considering of applications for grants. That will, in turn, enable the BLF to develop common application forms, and to take a lead on the sharing of best practice and on the developing of pre-application support and common standards of service. A good example of the sort of thing that new section 36D will enable is the lottery funding website, which will be launched soon. It will provide a single front door and give up-to-date detailed advice and guidance on how and where to apply for lottery grants. That will be particularly helpful to organisations and people who find it difficult to apply for lottery funding under the current system. One such example is village halls, as the hon. Member for Truro and St. Austell (Matthew Taylor) pointed out in an Adjournment debate last October. However, we see no case for introducing a specific requirement in that regard. As I said earlier, we are keen to reduce bureaucratic and administrative burdens, not to add to them. We see no reason to link such a requirement specifically to the soliciting of applications. We gave lottery distributing bodies the power to solicit applications back in 1998, and doing so has proved very successful indeed. Before 1998, distributing bodies had to wait for an application to arrive, often from the great and good. That change has had a considerable impact. The lottery forum, which represents lottery distributing bodies, told us that introducing the enabling power to solicit applications was key to widening access to the lottery; it enabled distributing bodies actively to seek applications from certain communities. We do not want distributing bodies to be restricted in any way in their ability to solicit applications. Amendment No. 13 takes us back to a debate in Committee. I appreciate that in tabling it, the hon. Members for Bath and for East Dunbartonshire were to some extent prompted by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. They are concerned that, as drafted, clause 11 will encourage people to play the lottery and to regard it as a good way to give money to charity. As I tried to explain in Committee, it will do no such thing. Promotion of the lottery games is entirely a matter for Camelot, the lottery licence holder. Clause 11 will remove the doubt that exists in some minds about whether the lottery distributing bodies have the proper powers to publicise the national lottery beyond the grants that they award and the purpose behind them. It will allow them to publish more general information about the work of all lottery distributing bodies, so that the public can be better informed about where the money was awarded. I agree with what the hon. Member for Bath said so succinctly in respect of today’s national newspaper reports about the Heritage Lottery Fund and St. Paul’s. The reports are unacceptable, and the newspapers involved should read Hansard and make amends by clarifying what actually happened. However, that case underlines why we believe that it is necessary for the lottery to promote the good causes that it supports.