National Lottery

No, I know that time is limited and I want to wind up. In the original funding package, the lottery made up 44 per cent of the total. The new funding package provides an extra £5 billion from the Exchequer. The lottery will contribute an extra £675 million, and its share of the total will therefore fall to 23 per cent. I can also finally report that the National Lottery Commission has informed me that under the third licence recently awarded to Camelot, which will run from 2009, returns to good causes are likely to increase by between £600 million and £1 billion over the 10-year period of the licence, based on constant levels of sales at £5 billion per annum. I am depositing in the Libraries of both Houses today a letter from the chair of the commission to set that out. The order is intended to secure the best Olympics ever for this country and to inspire a generation of young people to aim to be the best they can be. Our task is to deliver the political consensus to make that a reality.