National Lottery Bill

My Lords, we on these Benches agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, that the Bill in its current form constitutes an unacceptable level of government control over funding from the Big Lottery. In Committee, the Minister talked of broad categories, high-level themes and a broad strategy, not detailed prescription. His final throw was a framework for the devolved administrations. However, we are not actually talking about the Government’s intentions in the Bill but about the Government’s powers in it and the possible exercise of those powers. That is the right way to look at the Bill. The concordance makes it absolutely clear that these are additional powers to prescribe in greater detail within the broad categories set out in Clause 22 as it would be amended. That is the big problem. Why does moving from some 33.3 per cent of the lottery proceeds to 50 per cent justify these increased powers? Nowhere, certainly not in Committee, has the Minister justified why that should be the case, so he has not explained the position properly. He has talked about the need for such powers of prescription in view of the money involved and so on. But in the previous 1993 Act, as amended, those powers do not exist for the New Opportunities Fund. I recognise that the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, who I am sorry is not in her place today, said that a light touch was in practice exercised by the Government. I do not believe that that is necessarily relevant in this case. Governments then did not have the powers they are giving to themselves in the Bill. That is essentially the concern of the voluntary sector, which is so well reflected in the amendment put before the House today.