National Lottery Bill

moved Amendment No. 10:"Page 6, line 31, leave out from ““body”” to ““person”” in line 32 and insert ““—" (za)   must consult— (i)   the Secretary of State, (ii)   bodies (other than public or local authorities) whose activities are carried out not for profit, (iii)   the National Assembly for Wales in relation to Welsh devolved expenditure, (iv)   the Scottish Ministers in relation to Scottish devolved expenditure, and (v)   the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in relation to Northern Ireland devolved expenditure; (a)   may consult any other”” The noble Lord said: We broadly support Clause 10, which allows lottery distributors to take account of public opinion in determining funding programmes and priorities. However, we believe that this must not be in lieu of full and proper consultation with relevant stakeholders, including the voluntary and community sector. The declared aim of the Big Lottery Fund is to bring improvements to communities and to the lives of people most in need. It is difficult to envisage how this will be achieved without the voluntary and community sector. If lottery funding is to have the maximum impact on communities, programmes should be designed in consultation with voluntary and community organisations. Greater public involvement in the lottery must be preceded by, or coupled with, attempts to increase public understanding of the true destination of lottery funding. The majority of respondents to an ICM poll commissioned by NCVO in 2004 believed that organisations supporting asylum seekers received the same level of lottery funding as organisations supporting the disabled. That is a typical example. In reality, asylum seekers’ organisations received 2.5 per cent of Community Fund money while the disabled organisations received 22 per cent. Therefore, there is quite a lot of room for greater public understanding, and it is essential that a balance is struck between public involvement and full and proper consultation in the distribution of money. This should help to control a situation in which simple beauty contests could dictate the distribution of funds or lottery funds might be diverted away from their original targets—those causes worthy of money above and beyond the remit of government spending. I beg to move.