National Lottery Bill

This amendment would have several undesirable effects. I hope that the noble Viscount will withdraw it after I have explained our intention. It is unnecessary, as the Secretary of State already has powers to issue both policy and financial directions to distributing bodies. Indeed, it would significantly add to bureaucracy both for the Government and for distributors—and would be unnecessary bureaucracy at that. The nature of the direction-giving function proposed would represent unjustified micromanagement of distributors. Existing policy and financial directions are framed in much more general terms, which I sought to defend in our discussions earlier this evening. It is unnecessary to write such a precise requirement into directions, and inappropriate to write it into the Bill. Distributors already have policy directions which require them to take various matters into account when deciding to whom to distribute lottery proceeds, and for what purpose. It is an important principle that, within those parameters, distributors should decide independently which applications for lottery grant to accept or reject, and a distributor should be free to support a large-scale project if it believes there will be public benefit from it. The noble Viscount may have one or more public projects that he would deem less than successful for the public, but, within that framework, if his amendment were carried, developments such as the Eden Project, the Tate Modern or the Millennium Stadium might not have taken place because distributors would have been prevented or discouraged from taking such calculated risks. There is always the risk that a big project might go wrong, but the lottery’s record is good. For example, of the 223 grants made to capital projects by the Millennium Commission, only three have gone into liquidation—a pretty good record. The Government would be the first to agree that the lottery is not just about large projects. I understand that the noble Viscount is concerned that there should be due recognition of small being beautiful. From the late 1990s we have encouraged greater emphasis on smaller, community-based projects. That has been reflected in changes to the policy direction issued to distributing bodies. However, this amendment would fetter distributors’ discretion—there is no track record to show that it is necessary—and introduce an increased bureaucratic level of interference. It is not justified in being on the record, and I hope that the noble Viscount will feel reassured by that response.