National Lottery Bill

I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate because he has presented an argument which I need to address, whereas I am having difficulty in thinking up fresh arguments over those I deployed earlier in response to the preceding amendment, although I do have one. But I do not want to appear too unkind to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in raising the point. I shall come to it later when I have summoned up enough courage to confront him on it. First, on the amendment tabled by the right reverend Prelate, of course we would openly and clearly conduct any process involving the reallocation of a distributor’s balance or part of that balance. We would not do it in secret. The process would need to be open in order to maintain confidence in the whole operation of the lottery and the distribution of the resources. Interested parties, including the very important role played by the Church of England in crucial parts of the lottery distribution, would have every opportunity to comment on the proposed use of this power. Ministers were pressed on this point in another place and every assurance was given then. I am pleased to re-emphasise those points today. We would expect to publish the reasons for carrying out an act as significant as the use of the reallocation power. As I have indicated all along, this is not meant to be anything except a power to be used only in dire extremis when things have gone wrong to the extent that significant balance reductions are not being effected in line with recommendations made by the National Audit Office itself. Further, any use of the power would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure and it is certainly the case that all interests would have an opportunity to make their position clear—not least on the part of the Church of England in this House through its representation on the Bishops’ Benches. I can give full assurances on consultation. I turn to Amendment No. 7. I fall back on the arguments used in response to the previous amendment: we are considering this only against a background of extreme circumstances. Let me describe the present position. The overall lottery distribution fund balance has fallen substantially from a peak of £3.7 billion in 1999 to just over £2.2 billion today. That is a reduction of about 40 per cent. It is good progress, but not as good as we would like. But for all the reasons I have already outlined, I know that all noble Lords recognise that there are reasons why there should be balances. Flows of money from the lottery take place at a certain rate because difficult judgments must be made about effective allocation. A very thorough vetting process is employed before the granting of those resources. However, I can assure noble Lords that the Government would not seek to use the reallocation order-making power in this clause without giving the matter the fullest consideration. I employed that argument in response to the last amendment and I use it again now—and I add one for the noble Lord who at times is a little dismissive of my answers. I speak having given full consideration not only to the issues in the Bill but to his judiciously placed amendments. However, this is one of his least judicious amendments. Here he confuses a very important constitutional position. By involving the Comptroller and Auditor-General in the work of the Executive—because that is what he would be doing if the C&AG were involved in this process—he would involve an individual with the powers of the C&AG in decisions that are properly matters for the Executive. That would undermine the strength of the comptroller’s role. He and his office are held in such high repute because of their total independence from government. We could not possibly have a situation where the role of audit and evaluation on behalf of the public of actions taken by the Executive in their spending decisions were compromised because the comptroller himself had become a part of the decision-making process. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will rethink this part of his amendment. I do not suggest to the noble Lord that he should abandon his amendment in its entirety at this early stage. He would come back to the issue on Report and, if I were in a lot of trouble, at Third Reading as well. But I hope that the noble Lord will think again on this issue because here he offends one of the constitutional principles by which we all abide, and I am not prepared for him to fall again into such a pit of error. If he does so again, he will find that I am equally robust in rejecting his amendments. However, I am sure that he will withdraw his amendment today and that if he does bring it back, it will be in a better form.