National Lottery Bill

moved Amendment No. 17:"Page 19, line 8, leave out ““12”” and insert ““20””" The noble Lord said: I referred on Second Reading to the whole business of an English regional dimension. I have the document entitled Our Mission and Values, published by the Big Lottery Fund. It says,"““the Big Lottery Fund is a new and different organisation, although we wish to build on the experience and best practice of the two lottery distributors, the Community Fund and the New Opportunities Fund, that were merged to create us””." The document refers to fairness, accessibility, strategic focus, involving people, innovation and enabling an addition to government. It states that the Big Lottery Fund will build on experience, but this Bill does exactly the opposite. Whereas the Community Fund had a splendidly devolved structure, with regional committees throughout England—for example, in Yorkshire and Humberside, the North West, the South West and so on—this is not the plan for the Big Lottery Fund. Amendments Nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20 would put back the regional dimension. As one sits here patiently, waiting for an amendment to come up, other thoughts come to mind. Even a few moments ago, the Minister referred to ““the people’s lottery””. I am very happy with that phrase. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, is not in her place—few folk are in their places—but she referred to ““12 worthy people””, who were ““agonising””. Twelve agonisers are not enough; there need to be more agonisers. If we are talking about a people’s lottery, 12 people in charge of £630 million is too few. The amendments suggest that the number of people at the centre should be 20 so that somebody from each of the regions would be available to serve on the national body. They also propose regional committees. That would mean more people being involved. That there should be only 12 people on a national board for England in charge of this huge sum of money is a de minimis position. This Bill centralises the dispensation of lottery funds. We had a devolved arrangement previously. I have yet to hear anyone say that the people in the devolved structure got anything wrong, were useless or anything of that nature. Indeed, I have heard the opposite. I know well that people in Yorkshire were very pleased with the Yorkshire committee and some of the innovative work that it was able to do. The Minister sent a letter to those of us who expressed an interest in this Bill. He stated that, since the lottery was founded 11 years ago, 229,000 awards, totalling £16.8 billion, have been made. These are huge sums of money. The letter referred to the lottery as a whole, but for that part of the lottery which will represent half of lottery funds, far more people need to be involved. The Bill provides for a committee for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. I suspect that, by Channel Islands, the Bill means one committee for Guernsey and one for Jersey. It is interesting that one of the few aspects of the legislation that we have not debated today—I do not wish to detract from it—is whether there should be a separate body in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. We let that go and I am happy for that to be the case, but it seems strange that the Isle of Man, with a population of 75,000, will have its own body dispensing lottery money, yet the Yorkshire and Humberside region, with its huge population, will look to what is described as the ““English”” region for this purpose. Regional accountability is important. It has existed from the formation of the lottery until very recently. If it is good enough for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, it is good enough for the English regions. I had a meeting with the people who are promoting the Big Lottery Fund. Of course, they said that they would have offices and administrative devolution there but that they would not have local committees. On the basis that there should be genuine devolution of decision-making in the Big Lottery Fund, I beg to move.