National Lottery Bill

The noble Lord expressed himself forcefully at Second Reading on these issues, so I have given careful consideration of the arguments that he puts forward. He raises some interesting questions about how the board is intending to work. Let me address a point that is already in the Bill as we have presented it to Parliament—namely, that four out of the 12 board members should represent the interests of part of the United Kingdom. That ensures that, although they are a minority of members, they have an important part to play, because they will chair committees that will oversee devolved expenditure in the four parts of the UK. The National Lottery itself is a reserved matter. But the areas covered by the Big Lottery Fund good cause—health, education, the environment and charities—have all been devolved. Decisions about these matters are better made in the light of the particular circumstances in each country. Our policy has been to reflect this in the Bill, and the arrangements that we have made for the committee, which is why we have created the concept of devolved expenditure and provided for the committees to oversee spending, chaired by each of the country’s representatives on the board. Devolution to the regions of England is of course a different matter. While it is often a good thing for policy reasons, as the noble Lord will recognise, because he knows how much we have enthused about aspects of regional policy in this Government, there is no statutory framework. He might regret that—but there is statutory framework with devolution to the countries of the UK. We are reflecting what is rather than what ought to be or what we might in other circumstances have desired. We believe that decisions on how best to ensure that there is an English regional dimension to its work are best made by the Big Lottery Fund itself. It is not for the Government to force a particular model upon the fund. The noble Lord proposed an enlarged committee, on which the regional representatives are there—but he also recognises that we would need expertise beyond that, and his answer is to extend the committee. We have thought seriously about the board’s size and we think that there are merits in a board of 12, which is small and focused enough to provide a strategic focus for the work. That is what its job is. Having nine English regional appointees as well as the three national interest appointees would risk creating a larger board, but also a less coherent board. I respect the noble Lord’s points, but the framework of the board as it is builds on the practice of the New Opportunities Fund, which operated very much at a strategic, national level, and the Community Fund, which had much more of a regional focus. The fund will learn from the experiences of both those bodies. It is against this background that the fund has decided it will not have general English regional committees. English programmes will be national and awarded through partner organisations in the third sector or in co-ordination with local government. However, the Big Lottery Fund will have English regional representation on the national committees for individual funding programmes when this is appropriate. For example, the Reaching Communities programme will have representatives from each of the nine English regions, because that reflects rather more the regional concept of the former Community Fund. That will allow for regional perspectives to be brought into the decision making. As the noble Lord conceded, although I do not think he did so with undue enthusiasm, it is intended that there will be a regional office in each of the English regions whose primary role will be outreach work. The offices will spend time gathering regional intelligence that will be fed into the assessment process, which operates nationally. I hope the noble Lord will recognise that we have not ignored the regional element with regard to the structure of the fund, but we think a small focused fund concerned with strategy is right. We think we should fit in with the pattern of the United Kingdom in terms of the devolved administrations, which is why we have the four representatives of the four countries of the UK. I hope, despite his undoubted enthusiasm for the regional perspective, that on reflection he will recognise in the structure that we accept part of his argument, and that he will withdraw his amendment.