National Lottery Bill

moved Amendment No. 11:"Page 6, line 38, leave out ““may”” and insert ““shall””" The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 11, I should like to speak to Amendment No. 12 as well. These are probing amendments, designed to look at the width and intentions of the clause. The Minister, being his usual astute self, will have noticed that they both stretch the clause in different directions. The first amendment is designed to tease out where the Government are coming from in terms of requirements on the distributors to publicise their activities. The lottery operator has a sense of frustration about how the fact that these projects are funded by the National Lottery does not always come through. Some progress has been made in developing a good causes common brand via the National Lottery Promotions Unit—blue crossed fingers, blue plaques, and so on. The power now resides in the Bill but what sort of injunction will be placed on the distributors? There is sometimes negative coverage of the National Lottery as a concept, but very rarely is that counteracted by good publicity for the fact that good projects are funded. The transformation of our museums in London has been due to National Lottery funding, but I wonder whether that really comes through. The second amendment to Clause 11 reflects a number of different concerns. Could the wording of the clause place, if not an obligation, certainly a moral imperative, on the distributors to publicise the lottery itself? Many voluntary organisations and some distributors feel extremely nervous and, indeed, negative about this issue. Why should there be a duty to promote the National Lottery? They should publicise the projects but not participation. There are many other ways in which voluntary organisations will want to promote charitable giving. They do not want to be driven down a narrow channel of saying, ““Really, folks, you should be publicising participation in the National Lottery as the way of contributing to our charitable cause””. I will be interested to hear a lot more from the Minister about the thinking and motives behind the clause. What publicity would the Government like to see? What kind of publicity do they think is appropriate? Would it be purely of projects, or will distributors really be asked to encourage participation in the National Lottery? I beg to move.