National Lottery Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord for the way in which he moved the amendment. I think I know where he is coming from, and I greatly applaud the objectives of his amendment, although I will ask him to withdraw it. As I see it, the noble Lord’s argument is that distributors should take a suitably strategic approach before putting a major lottery award to a public vote or consulting relevant experts. I imagine that he is worried that the less popular causes might miss out, because of a great number of misconceptions about where lottery money goes, of which he gave an excellent illustration. I recognise that consideration. We are aware of the importance of worthwhile causes which, for whatever reason, do not have mass support but merit consideration. Let me emphasise first that we have no intention of putting more than a small proportion of distribution decisions to public votes. In each case, distributors will take great care in making the necessary preparations. The power is not compulsory for distributors but permissive and enabling. It makes clear that distributors have the power to take account of public views when making distribution decisions if they wish to do so, and where they think that it is appropriate. That will include consultation with appropriate bodies, sometimes in the voluntary and community sector and sometimes the devolved administrations, as mentioned in the amendment. In other cases, other bodies entirely will be consulted; it will depend on the subject of the grant. I understand the noble Lord’s anxiety and I am glad he has aired it this afternoon. But the problem with the amendment is that it would require each distributor to carry out a consultation process with the Secretary of State, the voluntary and community sector and the devolved Administrations for every award of grant, regardless of whether it was relevant to them and regardless of whether the award involved public consultation. That is a pretty considerable burden to place on the distributors, and a costly one too. It would also make lottery distributors dependent on the Government because, before the grants were made, there would have to be consultation with government. A significant principle is that the distributors make decisions independent of government. The amendment would also increase the time taken to award grants, yet, with very significant balances, we have been discussing the necessity of streamlining the process of allocating new grants so that the money can be used intelligently and quickly. The measures in the Bill are designed to help lottery money go more quickly and efficiently to good cause projects and to reduce unspent balances. The distributors already consult widely, and we already have policy directions to set the overall framework. That seems to be the necessary basis on which this structure can work. I fear that the amendment goes too far. It would compromise certain important principles and slow the whole process down when the Government are getting general public support for trying to make the process more efficient, distributing funds more effectively and quickly and reducing the unspent balances. That is why I hope that the noble Lord will recognise that despite this good cause, the amendment is not the appropriate way in which to amend the Bill.