National Lottery Bill

I am very grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, who has demolished the first amendment, if nothing else. He indicated that of course there must be some directions, which he defined as the administrative directions in new Section 36E. He will recognise that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, is against directions in his amendment. In the first group, there are financial directions, which incorporate financial controls, which apply to all non-departmental public bodies through their financial memoranda and the lottery distributors are being governed in the same way. The purpose behind such directions, which is common to all non-governmental public bodies, is straightforward. We are under an obligation to protect public money by ensuring that distributors comply with basic financial and operational good practice. The requirements placed on the Big Lottery Fund by new Section 36E(3) are exactly the same as those placed on other distributors in Section 26 of the 1993 Act. Nothing has changed—because, of course, they are compliant with the kind of regulations that we need to safeguard public money with regard to all bodies of this kind. What kind of requirements beyond that and what other directions does the Secretary of State have? The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will recognise that we are replacing the 37 pages that we had before with the shorter document of the new illustrative policy directions, which he will have read. What do those directions do? They refer, under general directions, to,"““the need to ensure that money is distributed . . . for projects which promote the public good and which are not intended primarily for private gain . . . that money is distributed . . . to . . . make real and sustainable improvements to the quality of life of local communities””." They refer to the,"““need to be innovative and to take risks in distributing money . . . balanced with the need to manage risk in a manner commensurate with type of project and applicant . . . The needs of children and young people . . . The need to further the objectives of sustainable development””." Who could possibly object to a range of directions at that level? It is exactly the level that we debated at Second Reading when I gave assurances and exactly the level that was debated in the other place in Committee and at the other stages when the Bill was discussed in the other place. We said that we were about light touch general directions and not about prescription. In asking the Big Lottery Fund to comply with these directions, we are asking it to comply with the lightest touch, save in those areas in which there is administrative compliance, which we impose on all bodies. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, was quoting to me the old directions. I emphasise to him that we have learnt from that and moved on. The old directions were given to the New Opportunities Fund and the Community Fund, but they will be revoked as soon as we have Royal Assent for this Bill. They will be replaced with these new directions, with their light touch which is definitely required in order that we can guarantee the proper use of public money. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, was good enough to emphasise that he was likely to return to these arguments when he moved to discussing Amendment No. 29. He is probably right in saying that it helps to generalise the debate at this stage to that amendment. All that I can say is that the powers of direction reflect the need to bring together the different regimes of control that existed among the Big Lottery Fund’s predecessors. The Community Fund, like other lottery distributors, had a statutory duty to comply, and that is a real legal obligation that we are translating for the Big Lottery Fund. The Community Fund had to take all the policy directions into account and could decide to ignore a matter only in exceptional circumstances. We are in great danger of narrowing this debate down to a point that does not do justice to the issues before us in the Bill. What are being sought here are broad directions—specific directions with which this distributor must comply when it comes to its responsibility for public money. That is exactly the same position as with all other non-departmental public bodies. But on the other side there is a clear realisation that the directions that have been given are of a most general kind. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, may quote my right honourable friend in another place to me in a moment. All I can say is that this is the argument that he put, which we had at Second Reading, when I emphasised that this is about light touch and broad directions. I have a document that demonstrates that fact. On the basis of that response, I hope that noble Lords may feel that they have been reassured that what we are about is necessary direction for guarantees of public money, associated with light touch with regard to general directions. I hope that that is accepted by the Committee.