National Lottery Bill

We are dealing with different areas of Big Lottery Fund expenditure. Where the lottery is giving resources to specific projects, we need the minimum. We are not dictating to the Big Lottery Fund how to spend its money, but we need to make sure that a minimum amount will be spent on the Awards for All scheme. That is where the minimum applies. To guarantee the minimum, it is right that we should seek to put a maximum on the big area of expenditure—the transformational grants expenditure. If not, we cannot offer the guarantee for the Awards for All scheme, which is the more limited aspect of the lottery operation but is, nevertheless, one that we need. I tried to emphasise to the noble Lord that we are seeking the powers against the background that the Big Lottery Fund itself is content with them and wants to ensure the maximum and minimum, so that we have a maximum for the transformational grants that carry on the Millennium Commission’s work on funding large capital projects. The noble Viscount will recognise that there are areas where these big transformational grants and capital projects have brought undoubted benefit to the community. However, I have no doubt that he is likely to cite an instance, perhaps more than one if he is particularly fertile, where a transformational grant—a major grant—has not been wholly successful and was open to criticism. We need the Secretary of State to be able to impose a maximum limit on such grants, otherwise there could be a danger—I think it an unlikely occurrence which is why I expect these powers to be used infrequently—that the glamour of the big projects take a much higher proportion of Big Lottery Fund distribution than is wise. We are seeking to safeguard both areas of lottery expenditure.