National Lottery Bill

We are not going to prescribe amounts of expenditure. That would be prescription with a vengeance. The Big Lottery Fund will make the decisions on expenditure, but we will identify broad areas in which it will be appropriate for the fund to encourage schemes to come forward, which it will then support. I described the position of the devolved administrations. Solely within that context I indicated that there would need to be a formula of some precision. The one that I described was that used at the present time by the Big Lottery Fund. There is no reason why that formula should necessarily be continued—the fund may decide on others—but it must stand up to the examination of what is reasonable. As I have indicated, the assemblies to which the devolved administrations are responsible would make it clear if they were treated unfairly. It is true that in that area we have figures of some precision. The Big Lottery Fund last year allocated 77.5 per cent to England, 11.5 per cent to Scotland, 6.5 per cent to Wales and 4.5 per cent to Northern Ireland. It was not Ministers but the Big Lottery Fund which made the allocation against explicit criteria on which it could be challenged. I have not the slightest doubt that if that formula is unpopular or unfair, we will speedily know about it from the devolved administrations and their assemblies. With regard to the other issues, I was indicating that, again, it would be for the Big Lottery Fund to divide up the resources. I was indicating broad areas for expenditure, and those broad themes will be covered by an order to go before both Houses. I have nothing further to add other than it seems entirely sensible that there should be some way in which the will of the public regarding broad areas of expenditure is identified through the Big Lottery Fund, given the vast amount of resources that it will have at its disposal and given that it will be working in parallel with other good cause allocations in which the prescription is far more obviously defined.