National Lottery Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, has no cause to be anxious about the number of times he supports the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. If he counts the number of times that he opposed me in 1993, he will find that he has a considerable credit balance against which this modest debit balance can be calculated. The noble Lord referred to the original National Lottery Bill. Down the years—it is now 13—I thank him for the manner in which he persuaded the opposition Front Bench to support the Bill at Third Reading. I know the difficulties that he had. That there was no controversy between the two Front Benches when that Bill was enacted made a great deal of difference to the future of the lottery. I support the spirit, if not exactly the letter, of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. In the debate on volunteering last Thursday, I gave a trailer of Clause 11, because of the importance of making sure that sufficient knowledge exists about those lottery achievements which are positive and popular to offset the periodic unpopularity of certain decisions. The figures which the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, quoted about the amounts spent on disabled people and those associated with immigration made the point vividly. If the NCO figure is right, in terms of the degree of public ignorance regarding the amount being spent on really good causes, you could get a distorted view if an unpopular cause arose. The point that I made on Thursday was that the degree of prescription and direction, which we have already debated, increases to some extent the possibility that critics of the Government will use an unpopular decision to beat the Government, as well as the particular lottery distributor, over the head. So the more knowledge there is in the public domain, the better. Although I do not necessarily support the precise letter of the amendment, I hope that the Government can encourage us that the more information disseminated about the lottery’s achievements at serial level—not just in large global figures—the better.