National Lottery Bill

We will give the noble Lord two questions at the same time to see how he deals with that. We have a glimmer of light in that there will be a description of broadly based criteria based on a formula based on population. At least we have made modest progress; we know the basis on which the Government will decide what Scotland gets, what Wales gets, what the Isle of Man gets, and so on. However, we have not made any progress—and I never accused the Government of wanting powers to decide who gets what—on how those broadly based criteria will split charitable, health, education and environment themes. Those are the words in the Bill. Will it be equally split? Will there be some formula? What will the Government say to the Big Lottery Fund, and what guidelines will they have on how it should be split up? Either we go down the road put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, where the Big Lottery Fund makes up its own mind and gets on with it, as happened in the past, or the Government are going to say—because they have the powers—that 50 per cent will be allocated for prescribed expenditure. Within that broad formula, how will they decide, out of these four areas, on roughly the principles of who gets what?