Payments into the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund etc. Order 2007

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for moving the amendment and support the entire thrust behind it. It is important to put on record that the shopping list that the Minister read out in his introduction to the Statutory Instrument is arrived at entirely as a result of strong, co-ordinated opposition work both in another place and in the Corridors. Having said that, I thank the Ministers Tessa Jowell and James Purnell for listening to us, and for giving us their time. We had a longish session in the Corridors of your Lordships’ House a week or two ago, out of which we gained a great deal, much of which we have heard today from the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. It is worth looking at the shambles that the lottery had become under Labour in recent years. When they came to power they totally changed the raison d’être of John Major’s initial vision—that it should be responsive to the electorate and to people in the nation who had projects and ideas that they wanted to follow through—to make it almost a slush fund for government Ministers who had a good idea. When we come to power in a year or so we shall certainly drive to change that back.