UK Parliament / Open data

National Lottery Bill

moved Amendment No. 9:"After Clause 11, insert the following new clause—" ““DISTRIBUTING BODIES: REPORTING After section 34(2) of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 (c. 39) (annual reports by distributing bodies other than Millennium Commission) insert— ““(2A) The report shall include statements— (a) the independence of funding decisions; (b) the principles applied to maintain the distinction between government expenditure and lottery funding; and (c) the proportion of funding that has been allocated to bodies (other than public bodies or local authorities) whose activities are carried out not for profit.”””” The noble Lord said: My Lords, at each stage of this Bill, one of the main areas of concern right across these Benches and the Conservative Benches has been the preservation of the principle of additionality and the best method by which this can be achieved. I do not intend to rehearse the arguments that have taken place both in this House and in the other place at various stages of the Bill, trying to elucidate what we mean by additionality. The Committee stage demonstrated that there is broad cross-party agreement on the need to adhere to this principle, even though, we must confess, there remains dispute over how it is best defined. Our concern on these Benches has consistently been that the Bill in its current form fails to safeguard the principle of additionality. We have been disappointed by the Government’s resistance to all attempts to do so, both in the other place and in this House. Amendment No. 9 is a neat, convenient and practical way to ensure that attention is given by lottery distributors to the principle, yet it avoids the much-debated pitfalls involved in trying precisely to define the principle. For that reason, the word ““additionality”” does not appear in the amendment. In essence, the Government have reached agreement with the lottery distributors to report annually on additionality. We welcome the commitment from the Big Lottery Fund and the other lottery distributors to determine a policy and report on how they uphold the additionality principle. In the light of that, what were the reasons given by the Minister in Committee for refusing to enshrine those commitments in legislation? First, in Committee, the Minister stated that,"““there is no need to require in the legislation that distributors report on how their decisions are independent of government. Distributors have always had that policy””." But that is as far as it goes. There is no statutory obligation to ensure continuation of such a policy. The principle of additionality is of such importance as to warrant that it is safeguarded through statute. Secondly, the Minister said that it is,"““bad regulatory practice to increase the volume of legislation on the statute book by putting into legislation something that can be achieved by other means such as, in this case, a voluntary agreement””." On these Benches, we are all in favour of avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy, but that is no answer to ensuring at least a degree of protection of future lottery funds from the politics of the day. A voluntary agreement is simply not enough. All sides agree on the central importance of the principle, which we should see enshrined in the Bill. Thirdly, in Committee the Minister stated:"““The wording, ‘the distinction between core government expenditure and lottery funding’, does not allow the flexibility for changes in ideas over time on what the Government should be funding””.—[Official Report, 13/3/06; col. 1077.]" But this amendment allows for flexibility. That is precisely the advantage of this practical approach compared with a definitional approach. As I said in Committee, this is not a straitjacket. In view of those arguments, I urge the Minister to rethink and include this vital amendment in the Bill. I beg to move.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
681 c38-40 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
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