National Lottery Bill

It was clear what I was seeking to indicate with regard to my right honourable friend’s answers. The department is involved in expenditure in areas where, particularly with regard to the Heritage Lottery Fund but also with regard to the distribution of sports funding, it is difficult to draw the dividing line in the way that my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley indicated. Scanners were provided by public subscription and contribution, by charitable donations and by the goodwill of communities. As my noble friend rightly said, it tended to be the communities with the greatest resources that first produced scanners. However, I am proud of the fact that the Royal Oldham Hospital, through hard-earned public subscription, had a scanner at the very early stages of development of this medical aid. That did not alter the fact that, through the lottery, additional resources were made available to contribute to the cost of the scanners and equalise the position across the country. That clearly came outside core funding. The Department of Health had no programme for such scanners and they would not have been delivered under the Department of Health as quickly as they were, but they were delivered because of National Lottery funding. Today, the revenue costs of scanners are now core funding in the Department of Health, so these things change over time, as they are bound to do. That is why the problem of additionality has defeated the noble Lord. He indicated his intentions at Second Reading and I admire him for his effort. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, quoted what I said at Second Reading and I am grateful that he did. I tend to agree with his comments about what I said at Second Reading—it was extremely meritorious and well worth repeating. But he may recall that at that time I did not say that I would be putting this into legislation—I had a Bill before me in which I was absolutely clear that we could not do so. I said at Second Reading that this was our concept of additionality. This was the spirit—the noble Lord’s word—within which we would work to promote additionality. But I do not think that it can be achieved in legislation, as I believe this debate has proved. I give way to the noble Lord.