Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 57, in

clause 21, page 12, line 14, at end insert

'and this lottery shall commence to coincide with the beginning of the Athens Olympics in 2004'.

We come to part 3, which deals with the proposed Olympic lottery. Before turning to the specifics of the amendment, I want to make it clear at the outset that the Conservatives fully support the bid for the 2012 Olympics to come to London. As members of the Committee and you will know, Mr. Illsley, I am a particularly passionate supporter of the London bid, because I am a lifelong sports fan. I am delighted to have the honour of being the shadow sports spokesman in the Commons when such crucial matters are being debated.

My noble Friend Lord Moynihan, the distinguished Olympian and former Conservative Minister for Sport when he sat in the Commons, and I genuinely want to improve the Bill if we can. Working not only with my hon. Friends who sit as members of the Committee, but with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) and the others members of the shadow team, I want to raise three major issues relating to improving the Bill, which were foreshadowed on Second Reading, and a number of more minor but nevertheless important issues.

I was delighted to be at the successful launch of the London 2012 bid document at the Royal Opera House last Friday. All who were there, from all parties, would, I am sure, want to wish the London 2012 bid team every success. A number of us are wearing our London 2012 bid badges, which we were given last Friday.

The detail of the amendment covers one of the big issues and I make no apology for spending a bit of time setting out the background to it, because this is all connected with when the Olympic lottery game should start. To some extent, the issue is also linked to amendment No. 23, which is in the next group, although that relates to the next clause. If we have a significant debate now, the debates on the next group, and some others, may be a little shorter. I will also seek a very short stand part debate to cover an issue unrelated to the amendment. I make that clear even though I anticipate a fairly extensive discussion on the specifics of the timing of the lottery.

On Second Reading, we made it clear that to ensure the success of the new Olympic lottery game in the UK it ought to start at a time of maximum public interest in sporting and, in particular, Olympic matters. There are excellent reasons why the new lottery should commence at the time of the Olympics and Paralympics in Athens this summer.

We are aware that one likely objection that the Minister might have, as advised by his officials, is that

to start the new lottery game before London is, as we all hope, declared the bid winner in 2005 might be to contravene International Olympic Committee rules. We are not at all convinced that enough thought or effort has gone into trying to ensure that the game could be launched to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics. It may not be that the idea of starting the game early has been tried and found wanting. Rather, it may be that it was found to be difficult and therefore not tried.

I make no secret of my fervent desire to get as much money from all sources—private and public—into all kinds of sport in this country. That was one point that I made strongly in my winding-up speech on Second Reading. The need to obtain more money for sport was one of my motivations for becoming a Member of the House—it had not received enough political attention or support over the previous 30 or more years.

The feeling that we must do more for sport is shared by Members on both sides of the House, not least the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed), with whom I have been glad to work cross-party on the all-party sports group of which I have been the Conservative vice-chairman for many years. He is also the Lords and Commons rugby team's answer to Jonny Wilkinson at fly half.

I say to the Minister and to the Government, in what I hope will be regarded as a constructive spirit, that we might be able to revise our view if he will during consideration of the Bill in the House, but not necessarily today, provide the Opposition with his chapter and verse considerations, as well as those of his officials, and copies of all internal DCMS discussion papers to show that launching the Olympic lottery game to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics has been fully explored. We will wait and see what he says today, however.

Before I move on to the next part of the issue, it is important to consider what has happened to lottery sales in recent years, and especially the effect of declining sales and the reduction in money provided for sport. Many people who have held senior roles in sport—not least the former chairman of Sport England, Trevor Brooking, who is now, I am happy to say, in a very senior position in English football—have felt that sport's legitimate expectations in the early years of the lottery have been disappointed. To some extent, we regard the disappointment, as do others, as resulting from the Government's changes in lottery policy.

To understand why the UK Olympic lottery game must have the best possible start, one must consider how the money that previously went to sport as one of the original good causes when John Major's Conservative Government established the lottery has diminished. We suggest that the most likely way to avoid breaking IOC rules, while recognising that it is important to keep strictly within them, is to launch a new lottery game in which all the money—I will come to the tax take later—goes to help elite sportsmen and

women who are probably future Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

If the Olympic lottery were to start in 2004 to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics, it could be relaunched in 2005, which might further boost ticket sales. In so far as I have followed the history of lotteries in other countries and looked at the various papers that Camelot has produced, lottery operators say that every so often they have to launch a new game, relaunch or rebrand old ones, or bring out fresh advertising to boost ticket sales. Therefore, a launch this summer and a relaunch when, as we hope, the UK wins the Olympic bid in 2005 would help.

It so happened that I was in Sydney, Australia, on the day many years ago when it was announced that Sydney had won its Olympic bid. On that day and for some days and weeks afterwards, there was the same enthusiasm that we all saw when the games themselves took place and, later, when Australia hosted the rugby World cup—of course, Australia was a very successful host, but we won it.

I do not wish to rehash all the arguments that other shadow Ministers and I have made on various occasions about how the Government have detracted from the lottery's appeal to many ordinary voters and players. As recently as Monday this week in a debate in this very Room on a statutory instrument relating to the New Opportunities Fund, I had the chance to put some of our arguments on the lottery to the Minister's colleague, the Minister for the Arts. We feel strongly that sport has lost out because of the Government's breach of what has come to be known as the principle of no substitution or additionality, which many Labour Back Benchers were keen to stress in Opposition.

That principle says that lottery funds should not be substituted for normal taxpayer funding in respect of expenditures such as health and education. In the delegated legislation Committee on Monday, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) said that he had not supported the lottery at the time and had not changed his view. He added that he had been one of the Labour Back Benchers who considered the original lottery legislation who said that no Government, whether Labour or Conservative, should ever use lottery money for things such as health and education, which ought to be paid for through taxpayer funding. The one point on which he and I agreed was that that had subsequently happened.

The Government's regulatory impact assessment and the Library's excellent briefing cover, to some extent, the reasons for the decline in lottery ticket sales. The briefing states on page 36:

''Some have linked the fall in sales to some controversial lottery decisions in recent years. For example, in 1998 and 2002, the Community Fund made grants to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, an organisation which provides help and advice to people appealing against deportation. This received hostile media coverage and was criticised in a report by the National Audit Office in April 2003.''

One reason that I have a particular recollection of that NAO report and the subsequent media coverage is that, as one of the shadow Ministers, I was interviewed by the media fairly extensively at the

time. There was criticism from Opposition Front Benchers and, strikingly, from no less a person than the Home Secretary himself, who said that lottery money should not go to such people.

I was also involved in media coverage of another controversial lottery grant to an organisation that was campaigning to prevent any child, however badly they behaved, from ever being excluded from school. On that occasion, I was supported by Ministers in the Department for Education and Skills, who said that that was a wrong use of lottery money. Not only Opposition shadow Ministers, but Ministers themselves, have made such points.

Mr Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour/Co-operative)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the rot started with the controversy over the Churchill papers a number of years ago, which impacted on people's perception of the lottery? In particular, will he acknowledge on the record that there are thousands of very good projects around the country and that it has taken the lottery operators, organisers and distributors some time to put across that positive message?

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman's second point. As he knows, I have worked hard with a number of lottery bids for sport, as he has done in his constituency. That is something that we all care about passionately. Unlike the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton, to whom I referred earlier, I have always been a supporter of the lottery. My concern has been that the legitimate expectations of sport, which were fulfilled in the early years of the lottery, have been reduced.

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman's first point. The Library highlights the same issues that I would highlight about when lottery sales started to decline. That was linked to some of the recent controversial decisions that have been criticised by both the Government and the Opposition.

Mr Brian White (North East Milton Keynes, Labour)

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that local distributors should never award a lottery grant to a controversial project? Is he saying that there should be political input to those decisions, as he implies that the Home Secretary and those on the Opposition Front Bench would like?

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I am saying that because of the sensitivity that members of the public and those who pay to play the lottery—I am one of them; millions of people play the lottery every week—will have about the way in which lottery money is spent, the distributory bodies need to bear in mind what lottery players will think about how the money is used. Those bodies have made some mistakes in the past. Where Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's loyal Opposition agree—a rare event, as the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge—that such a mistake has been made, it suggests that the lottery distributing body might not have thought the issue through enough.

No lottery distributory body would be wise to make a grant to any organisation whose remit is specifically to put itself in the way of Government policy. That was the case both in terms of what the Home Secretary said about the anti-deportation group and what the gentleman who was benefiting from lottery funding said about it being his raison d'être to stop any child being excluded from any school, however badly they had behaved. It is not sensible for a distributory body to be giving money to such causes.

I want to come back to the amendment, because you, Mr. Illsley, will otherwise rule me out of order. By virtue of amendment No. 57, the Government have an opportunity to do something about the damage that has been caused to the lottery in the past. Even though I am not putting my hand on my heart, I hope the Minister will accept that I am entirely sincere in asking whether we can please try to work on a cross-party and all-party basis to try to find a way in which we can start the Olympic lottery earlier without breaking the IOC rules.

Whatever the Minister may stand up and say, he must recognise in his heart of hearts that a good way of giving a new Olympic lottery game a flying start would be to establish it to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics, as the amendment seeks to do. That is the time when millions of people in this country will be watching the TV coverage, listening to the radio and reading the papers—and it will all be about the Olympics. That will be the big sporting event of the coming summer. I hope that he will understand that we want to contribute, and that the amendment is a genuine attempt to improve the Bill.

My final point is about the way in which we hope that the change can happen and the risks that will arise if it does not. As all our constituents and the media frequently remind us, whichever party we represent, people in this country are very law abiding. We have a habit of handicapping ourselves by trying to observe every dot and comma of every rule and regulation, whether it comes from the European Union, the European Commission or any other international body, while many other countries that are our partners in international organisations do not do so. One thinks of examples such as when our fishermen were handicapped because fishing inspectors were in every port insisting that every dot and comma of fishing regulations was observed. At one time, Spain had six fisheries inspectors, and they were all based in Madrid; none of them was supervising the Spanish trawlermen at all. That situation did enormous damage to the way in which our partnership within the EU was perceived, particularly by those in the fishing communities.

In many other countries, people say ''What is good for our country must come first''. We have to find a way of steering around the regulations and turning a blind eye to a breach of those regulations for the sake of our country. I do not know the details concerning lotteries in New York or America in general, Paris or France in general or Rio de Janeiro or Brazil in general, but I point out that there will be huge concern in sport and among sports fans in this country if Her Majesty's Government tell us that they cannot

contemplate launching a sports lottery to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics this summer. We might then find that Paris, New York or Rio de Janeiro have found a way of launching a sports lottery to coincide with the Olympics and Paralympics. Will the Minister at least consider that issue? It would do damage if we did not launch such a lottery because we were observing every dot and comma of the regulations, while one of our rival bidding countries did so.

Mr Brian White (North East Milton Keynes, Labour)

Is not the hon. Gentleman advocating the kind of sentiment that led Salt Lake City—a number of Olympic bidding cities in the past have done the same thing—to take the view that it came first and to bend every rule to get the games, which has caused major problems for the Olympic movement?

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I think that the hon. Gentleman is slightly misunderstanding the point. I am not suggesting that we bend the rules.

Mr Brian White (North East Milton Keynes, Labour)

That is what you said.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

No, that is not what I said, as the record will show. I said that other countries had tended in the past to bend regulations for their purposes. I want the Minister to keep an open mind and enter into all-party discussions to see whether there is a way of sticking within the rules and yet launching a bid this summer when interest in the Olympics is at its height. The reason why I want him to do so is my worry that there will otherwise be huge concern in sport and in the country in general, particularly if somebody else does indeed find a way to proceed along those lines.

I hope that the Minister will bear my warning in mind when he responds to the debate. I hope that he will recognise that the amendment is a genuine attempt to improve the Bill, and that we think that it could boost funds for sport and for the Olympics by ensuring that the new game is launched at the earliest sensible moment to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics.

Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)

Like the hon. Gentleman, I wish to make it absolutely clear at the outset that we fully support the Olympic bid, and we are keen to ensure that the current all-party consensus on the issue continues. The Committee will be aware that, on Second Reading, I expressed a number of concerns about the introduction of a special Olympic lottery game. First, there was concern that it represented further Government interference in determining how lottery money was used. Secondly, I referred to the impact that it would have on other good causes. I went on to say, however, that we need to make exceptions to a rule from time to time. Winning the Olympic bid is of significant importance to this country. I made it clear that, as the Olympic lottery game would be part of the package that would demonstrate to the IOC that we had robust finances in place to fund the bid, we were prepared to make an exception to our more general concerns about the lottery.

We, too, wondered whether there was merit in starting an Olympic lottery earlier, and we will certainly be interested to know what discussions the Government have had on that issue. We are well aware that the IOC has said that it would not sanction such an operation; indeed, it has gone further and said that we certainly would not be able to use the Olympic logo in respect of any such lottery activity. It is not the Minister whom we would have to persuade, but the IOC, which has already made it clear that it is not going to support that proposal. I hope that it will make that equally clear to all the rival bidders as well, so that there will be a level playing field.

The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) was right to ask the Minister to tell us what consideration the Government have given to the matter. I, too, am somewhat confused about their position. My confusion is based on a report that appeared in The Independent on 10 December last year. It stated:

''A special Olympic lottery game which would help fund a 2012 Games in London will not be launched until it is known whether the bid is successful. The original plan was to launch Olympic Lottery games next spring but following a ruling by the International Olympic Committee, these will now only take place if London is declared the host city in July 2005.''

This is the cause of my confusion:

''A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport confirmed yesterday that bid organisers had initially planned an earlier launch but that it was now accepted that they would have to wait until a decision is made. '' 'It has always been our intention to launch the games off the back of winning the bid,' he said.''

While the organisers were looking at the possibility of adopting the proposal made in the amendment, that comment seems to indicate that the Government have never intended to do so, regardless of the IOC ruling. I should be grateful for clarification.

I say to the hon. Gentleman that, although there has been a fair degree of agreement on the Opposition side of the Committee on most issues—in fact, there has been agreement on both sides—I must disappoint him on this one. Having considered the possibility before us, we do not believe that it is a sensible way forward. I have already pointed out one reason: it is not that we would have to persuade the Government, but that we would have to persuade the IOC, which has already made its view clear. We would be banging our heads against a brick wall by going down that track.

Even if that were not the case, there are a number of other reasons why we cannot support the proposal. First, the presumed intention of having an earlier game is that it would help to fund the bid preparation work, but the reality is that there is no possibility of the Bill receiving Royal Assent until July, when we shall be halfway into the bid process. The final decision will be made one year after that. The bid work would be well under way and the measure would come too late in the day to be helpful.

We are also conscious that a sound structure is already in place for funding the bid process. We know that the Department and the London Development Agency will make a contribution and that there will be private and commercial support in cash or in kind.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

Surely the hon. Gentleman recognises that, if we want to give the Olympic lottery game the best possible start, there will be advantages in conducting a launch when the public's mind is focused on the Olympics. I realise that I shall not persuade him about the IOC, but if he acknowledges that position and accepts the fact that whenever the Bill receives Royal Assent the money could go not just to the bid, but to sport—a whole group of our amendments would achieve that aim—can he not see the benefit?

Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)

I can see some benefit, and the Minister has told us that we should consider the totality and make a judgment. There are arguments in favour of what the hon. Gentleman says, but my point is that the disadvantages outweigh those arguments. I shall come to his point about funding for sport shortly. We are concerned that the measure would come too late to help the bid process. We have an alternative robust funding mechanism for the money to prepare the bid and I see little point in attempting to alienate the IOC now. We are all conscious that, sadly, the Prime Minister upset it with his early remarks at the Commonwealth summit.

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

That is totally untrue. We were reported to the IOC. The IOC received that report and nothing has happened. Hon. Members must realise that what we read in the newspapers is what people write who report my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. He told the Commonwealth conference how good the Commonwealth games in Manchester were and he used that as a springboard to say to many people in the Commonwealth ''We have run the biggest multi-sporting event in the last two or three years. We are very capable of running the Olympics.'' That should be welcomed, rather than criticised. I want to put the record straight: we have not been reprimanded by anybody. We were reported, but nothing happened.

Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)

I am delighted to hear that and delighted that the Minister had the opportunity to place firmly on the record his comments about our successful running of those games. I am also delighted that we have not upset anybody, if that is the case. Let us not upset anybody. If we have not done so so far, let us keep a clean sheet for as long as we can.

My other concern is the one that I raised at the start. I am conscious that Olympic lottery games will have an impact on the other good causes. The document to which we all refer, but which appears to be so difficult for hon. Members to get hold of—the regulatory impact assessment—is honest about that. Nobody disputes that there will be a knock-on effect on the other good causes. It will be appropriate to accept that knock-on effect after we have won the bid, if we do, but launching the Olympic lottery early in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath would not have much popular support.

According to the regulatory impact assessment, the arts, sport and heritage are each expected to lose £11 million a year, so significant losses would occur. I am as keen as the hon. Gentleman is to see as much

money as possible going into sport, but in the seven years during which we hope to raise the £750 million for the Olympics from the new lottery games, about £1.4 billion will go separately into sport from the remaining sports element of the lottery. Therefore, there will continue to be significant funding for sport.

I believe that the case has not been made. Commencing the lottery early would damage our bid because of the problems that that would create with the IOC, and in any case the IOC has said that we cannot do it. Even if we could persuade the IOC, it would be too late, because of the date of Royal Assent. Finally, it will damage other good causes. The public might accept such damage once we have been successful in getting the bid, but not before.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that if it were possible to raise a significant extra amount for sport by launching a game this summer to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics, which became the full Olympic lottery when, as we hope, the UK wins the bid, the shortfalls to which the regulatory impact assessment refers might not occur? We might find that the sports lottery fund did not have to be raided, and the arts might benefit. That is the kind of extra benefit that might arise from running the game for an extra year.

Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)

The hon. Gentleman's argument is that refreshing the lottery by whatever means from time to time is a good thing, and I hope that Camelot will take that on board. Indeed, it seems to have introduced so many new games of late that I am totally confused when I go into a lottery distributor as to what is a national lottery activity and what is not. However, others who are more expert in these matters tell me that I am one of very few, that everybody else fully understands the lottery and that it is a jolly good thing. If that is right, so be it; I am prepared to be the odd one out. I understand the hon. Gentleman's argument, but he would acknowledge that putting it into practice would mean an earlier loss to some of the other good causes. I think that the public would understand, once we had won the bid, but there would be a lot of resistance if we did that earlier. As I have said, there are other good reasons why we should not.

In conclusion, I am absolutely delighted about the Government's clear commitment to ensure that the new lottery distribution body dealing with the Olympic bid will be a lean organisation, significantly reducing the bureaucratic costs, and I welcome that very much. For the reasons that I have given, we shall be unable on this rare occasion to support the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

Mr Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour/Co-operative)

I apologise to the Minister: I shall be very brief. The amendment looks seductive. As a member of the all-party Olympic committee I note that when we first met Barbara Cassani and her support team, the idea of launching the Olympic lottery on the back of the Olympics 2004 seemed a good one. Those of us who are passionate about sport recognise that mega television events generate a great deal of interest, and one has only to look at the success of the rugby World cup to see that. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath for giving me an opportunity to talk the Minister through the try I scored last weekend, as I did

in the debate on grass-roots sport in Westminster Hall. Unfortunately, I did not score this weekend so we shall leave that subject.

We do have a golden opportunity, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that we have had a great deal of briefing from the British Olympic Association and the bid team on the need—this is where I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster)—to ensure that we are playing within the rules of the game. Because of all the difficulties that my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) mentioned concerning past bids, the IOC needs to be seen to be whiter than white in the bid process. Anything that we did to step out of the boundaries of the rules may jeopardise the entire bid. It is one that we all want to see succeed. I passionately want to see it succeed, and I do not want anything to be put in its way. I am interested to see what the Minister has to say, because if there is a glimmer of an opportunity to do something on the back of the Athens Olympics that is totally within the IOC rules, I would like to know if we could follow that through.

I share some of the concerns of other hon. Members who are interested in grass-roots sports that there might be some siphoning off of sports moneys during this period. If we could start a year earlier and get to the £750 million mark by generating an extra year's worth of funding, that would be attractive, but it would have to take place totally within the IOC rules.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

As the hon. Gentleman knows, and as I made clear in my initial remarks, I share his views on many of the issues. We have worked together on the all-party sports group and the all-party Olympics group. I am glad to have his qualified support, subject to what the Minister has to say. Would he agree that both of us, in our respective roles in all-party groups, have received many submissions from small grass-roots organisations expressing concern that the money that there was for sport in the early years of the lottery has not been there of late? There is particular concern about that, and we are trying to recognise that concern.

Mr Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour/Co-operative)

It goes without saying that from a high point of £250 million a year, the lottery funding of sport now stands at about £170 million. There are questions about how we spent money during period. We spent £1.6 billion on sport, but participation rates have risen by only 0.3 per cent. It is not just a matter of the total amount, but how it is spent.

I am delighted that there has been a shift in emphasis, and we are going to spend money on driving up participation rates in grass-roots sport because that is where it will make an enormous difference. I partially agree that there has been a decline, and people will clearly be worried about that. I totally support the Olympic bid, and the idea of an Olympic lottery, but with the caveat that we have to watch carefully the impact on sport in general.

However, we have to be really positive and recognise that the impact of the London Olympic bid will be nationwide. Even though Loughborough will

not be one of the major Olympic sites, I hope that it will benefit by hosting one of the major teams at its excellent facilities—the £35 million elite sports facilities that have been funded by the lottery at Loughborough university.

Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr, Labour)

Alexandra athletics stadium is in my constituency, and I am sure that it is one site that will be considered by the British Olympic Association.

Mr Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour/Co-operative)

I fear that I may have started something, but I must give way to the hon. Member for Bath.

Mr Don Foster (Bath, Liberal Democrat)

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that the similarly costing facilities in Bath would make an excellent venue?

Mr Andy Reed (Loughborough, Labour/Co-operative)

I feared that I had started something. I have visited the facilities at Bath. A friend of mine has a house that backs on to the university, and one Sunday afternoon, before Loughborough's 50 m swimming pool had been built, I went to see Bath's pool. It is a shame that it is now the second best pool in the UK, but that is always the benefit of having the newest facilities.

Right across the country, places such as Bath, Loughborough and Birmingham will benefit from the Olympics because major teams will be based in our areas in the same way that the British team based itself on the Gold coast in Australia, which, it is estimated, generated £1 million or £2 million worth of local business income. We will all benefit, so I hope that we will not see a reduction in sport funding and that we will consider the matter very carefully. I look forward to the Minister's response.

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

I know that the matter relates to amendment No. 57, and I will return to it; however, we seem to be having a general debate on clause 21 and clause 22.

I do not disagree with putting more money into sport. By that I mean sport in its totality; not only one section, but all. Funding comes not only from the lottery and the sport section; the New Opportunities Fund has contributed £750 million to sports facilities through local education authorities. When we announced the UK bid, the fund contributed another £100 million to sports facilities, which has now been carried through by the new regional sports boards. They are looking for partnerships in the public or private sector and from universities such as Bath and Loughborough.

We have announced a mandatory relief on rates that have been required for the past 30 years. I am a little disappointed that despite all the publicity given to the reasons why we should provide the relief—I argued very forcibly in Whitehall for it—only 550 out of 110,000 clubs had applied for it by 31 December 2003.

We have also introduced community amateur sports clubs. In the past two and a half years, the amount of lottery and Exchequer money that has gone into sport from the grass roots all the way through has been significant. Some £60 million of capital modernisation funds is being put into clubs and schools—a very important factor in the development of sport. We have given that money to the four main

governing bodies of rugby, tennis, cricket and football, with £9.3 million to each over the next three years, alongside £40 million to athletics. So if anybody thinks that the Government do not believe that investment in sport is important, they have missed the facts.

I know that we are just discussing the lottery, but much bigger funding streams are being put in place within the lottery and outside of it.

Mr Brian White (North East Milton Keynes, Labour)

On the very welcome resources going into sport, one perception is that women's sport always loses out to men's. Will my right hon. Friend assure us that it is Government policy to ensure that women's sport—particularly as it is currently so successful in athletics—receives its fair share of the money?

Mr Eric Illsley (Barnsley Central, Labour)

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman answers that, I should say that, in deference to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, I agreed without saying so to a wide-ranging debate on amendments Nos. 21 and 22 on the timing and licensing of the lottery game, but we are in danger of spreading the discussion too widely and debating sport in general. I will allow some leeway because we are making good progress with the Bill, but I do not want to stray too far from the legislation and its amendments.

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

I hear what you are saying, Mr. Illsley, and you are probably right to bring us back to order, but I just wanted to put on the record what is being funded.

To return to the core of the discussion, the IOC has made it clear to all the countries that are bidding that lottery money cannot be used for staging the Olympics until the city in question is the host. That is clear in the rules of the IOC. We believe that it would be wrong to start the lottery earlier. Why do we believe that? The IOC would permit an earlier lottery for other Olympic causes—Team GB, the British Olympic Association or the British Paralympic Association, for example. No one would doubt that those are worthy causes, but can we justify the hypothecation of lottery money to a small section of sport such as Team GB or the Paralympics? That would be hard.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the Government's understanding of the IOC rules. He has confirmed what the Conservatives thought, which is that there would be a way of doing what we want. I would be grateful if he commented on my personal feeling that it would strengthen our bid prospects if it were seen that Her Majesty's Government had launched a lottery that was committed to helping Team GB and the Paralympics, and if that money were coming in for a whole year before the bid process was decided. Does he not recognise that that is a possible way of interpreting what would be allowed within the rules?

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

I do not think that that would be the case. I am talking about displacement from other good causes. If the proposal were taken to its logical conclusion, we could well find that the reduction in the take from the lottery for other good causes would mean a reduction in the sports lottery element. The

grass-roots part of that could well be used to finance the British Olympic and Paralympic teams. Many people involved in sports at grass-roots level would not welcome that. They would say that the investment was yet again going to the elite element of sports.

When lottery money is divided, there must be a balance between elite and grass-roots sports. We must consider that balance and keep revisiting it. The proposals would mean funding a special group of people through legislation. Money displaced from sport and other good causes would go directly to Team GB.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

Is it possible for the Government and Camelot, working in tandem, to at least carry out an assessment? I recognise the importance of the Minister's point about displacement, but, as we have already seen, some studies on displacement have been carried out. The regulatory impact assessment and the House of Commons research paper refer to that.

I think we all agree that, in terms of public interest, it would be good to launch the game at the time of the Athens Olympics and Paralympics. Before the Government finally close their mind to that, will they at least contemplate carrying out a study to see whether the displacement that the Minister is worried about—I understand all the good reasons for worrying about it—would happen? We might find that we were making the whole cake bigger, rather than taking one slice away. If the study showed that the whole cake was bigger, that could benefit sport and other lottery causes. Is that not worth looking into?

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

In a sense we have already done that, with Camelot and the National Lottery Commission. They say that more than half the new Olympic lottery sales might represent sales diverted from existing games. In layman's terms, that would equate to a loss of income of approximately 5 per cent. in relation to each of the other good causes—£64 million on average per year. That is what the professionals tell us. Using that model, they say that that would be the displacement factor.

We are talking about a judgment, and it obviously depends on what is fed into the model. There are those on the optimistic side, who say that the proposal would not just revive things in relation to the Olympic games, but could give a boost to the lottery per se. There is an argument about people getting into the habit of doing a lottery—that is true. Refreshing lotteries is always a problem, and the interest has to be kept. Once there is that interest, people may continue to play the other lottery games as well. There is a judgment involved here, but the advice I am given is that there will be the displacement I have referred to.

Let me say clearly that we have been commended for how we have approached the business plan of the games both up to the bid and beyond it to deliver the games. We have taken it very seriously indeed. As I think hon. Members know, the Secretary of State and I have gone round and considered the problems of staging the games—not just the run-up to the bidding, but their operation and what the exit strategies and legacies will be. We have learned a lot from that, and

we were commended by the president of the IOC for our approach.

The financial structure that we have put in place, which is very robust indeed, contains slightly more than £1 billion of contingencies, which nobody else had put in. We were advised, particularly by Sydney, to do so. Based on my experience in Manchester, I believe that we presented a financial structure that is robust and that will withstand any scrutiny or examination.

However, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath is asking the Government to consider starting the lottery earlier—I remind the Committee that there is a possibility that we might not get the Olympics—which would have a displacement factor. That could affect the grass roots of sport at the expense of the elite and, specifically, Team GB. There may be an argument that Team GB is great and incredibly well run. Nevertheless, the Government would see that as patently unfair. Therefore, I do not believe that it would withstand examination.

The other point that the hon. Gentleman made—about the time of launch—is interesting. He said that he was in Sydney when it won the bid and described the euphoria that was around. We should try to cast our minds forward: yes, there will be, I hope, a fantastic Olympics in Athens and there will be a European championships, but just imagine the run-up to 6 July in Singapore. We and somebody else will be head to head over who gets the Olympics. What more excitement could we want than coming back here the day after winning it, with all the bells ringing? We could say, ''Right, we are straight into the Olympic draw.'' The stage is set to launch that Olympic bid on the day we get the nod from the IOC—out of Singapore and away we go. It is important that we get the timing right here, and I think that when we get the nod from the IOC in July 2005 will be the time to do it.

The hon. Member for Bath obviously reads The Independent—a very good newspaper. An article dated 10 December 2003 says that the bid organisers—the hon. Gentleman could have included Camelot as well—wanted to run. They wanted to run for obvious reasons, but they are not the Government and they are not making a judgment about other good causes, or about what is fair. They have a job to do. They are bid companies and they are there to win the bid. They will do anything that would be advantageous. Camelot wants to refresh the lottery, and the Olympics would do that.

So, it is understandable that, according to The Independent on 10 December 2003, both the bid company and Camelot wanted to start the draw earlier than we propose. That is evident and obvious. There is no contradiction there, but we have made it clear from the outset that we want to start it immediately after we get the nod from the IOC, which, I hope, will be on 6 or 7 July.

I ask the hon. Member for Surrey Heath to withdraw the amendment, because it would restrict

Camelot from starting several lottery games. Camelot may want to run not one but a sequence of games for the Olympics and stagger their timing. The amendment would restrict its flexibility to maximise the Olympic draw in the manner it sees fit.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister, who has been generous not only in giving way, but in responding in detail to my questions. However, he has not covered one point. Can the research studies that he and his officials have done, as well as those from other sources to which he has had access, be made available to the other parties in the House? It would be helpful, as the debate goes on, if we could read those documents.

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

The answer is yes. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we meet regularly and receive information regularly. I shall ensure that an item is put on the agenda of the next meeting of Ministers and Opposition spokespersons, and we will go through that.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

We have had a good debate and I am glad that several Back-Bench Labour Members participated, along with the Minister, the hon. Member for Bath and me, because that has enabled us to go through some wider lottery issues. Having had this lengthy debate, we should be able to take some subsequent groups more quickly.

I shall not press the matter to a Division today , but that is not from lack of faith in the arguments. It is because, according to the rules under which we operate, it would be better not to divide the Committee to leave scope for revisiting the issue. However, the Minister has been tremendously helpful in confirming that there would be a way, as Conservative Members had hoped, to launch a game without breaching the IOC rules.

Like my noble Friend Lord Moynihan, who has much longer experience than I of the Olympics and dealing with the IOC, I remain of the view that such a game would increase the size of the cake. The Minister has been very frank and helpful in saying that that is a judgment call. He and the Government made a judgment, but we would make a different one. We believe that an Olympic lottery game launched to coincide with the Athens Olympics and Paralympics would bring in money for sport. Then, if necessary, it could be relaunched with extra games or modifications when, as we hope, the UK wins the bid. That would increase the size of the cake, and grass-roots sport would benefit.

It is a mistake to think that grass-roots sport does not benefit from what helps the elite sportsmen and sportswomen and Paralympic athletes. One reason that young people in particular get involved in sports is that they are inspired by their sporting heroes. I did a great deal of competitive swimming when I was younger and I was much inspired by the fact that the captain of my swimming club, Brian Brinkley, led the British Olympic swimming team at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Three members of my club were also in that squad. I was not good enough to get into the Great Britain squad, but I did swim against Scotland and Wales.

Young people in every new generation need such inspiration. An Olympic lottery game that coincides with the Olympics would inspire many people. Many more would play a specific, dedicated Olympic lottery game. Whenever it starts—whether this summer to coincide with the 2004 games, as we hope, or in 2005—we will be able to see the figures. Until then, the studies that the Minister will kindly share with us remain only informed guesswork, or assessments. As he put it, they are judgment calls.

We shall return to the matter on Report and in another place, where my noble Friend Lord Moynihan will, no doubt, deploy further arguments. However, at this stage, we look forward to studying the papers that the Minister will give us, as they will inform future debate. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I promised that I had only a small point to raise on the clause stand part debate, as you, Mr. Illsley, generously allowed a wide-ranging debate on amendment No. 57.

I want to probe the Government's intentions in relation to subsection (4)(a) and (b). The Bill says:

''(a) the Commission shall, after consulting the licensee, vary the licence so as to introduce provision of a kind specified in subsection (2)(a) or (b) above, and

(b) the variation shall take effect at such time as the commission shall specify''.

I shall understand if the Minister tells us that it is too early to say what the variations and timing might be, but I wanted to flag up the matter now. Otherwise, we would allow the provision to be introduced on the nod without even exploring that point. I was slightly puzzled by the phraseology about variation. If he can help us on that small point today, I should be grateful.

Mr Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport and Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)

In the time-honoured way, I suppose that in Yorkshire I could bullshit my way through this, but I shall not do that. I am sorry, I should not have said that—it was unparliamentary language. This is an important question and I shall give the hon. Gentleman a considered answer later in our proceedings.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Minister for indicating that he will write to me and other members of the Committee when he has a detailed answer. I am sorry to have put him on the spot, but I wanted to flag the matter up, as I was slightly puzzled.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Mr Eric Illsley (Barnsley Central, Labour)

Order. Before we come to clause 22, I should say that we have made inquiries of the Deliverer of the Vote, who advises me that Departments are not obliged to lay regulatory impact assessments in the Vote Office. Indeed, many Departments do not do so; it would appear that it is a decision for the individual Department. I shall refer the matter to the Chairman of Ways and Means to see

whether it would be possible to have uniformity, because the present procedure is clearly unsatisfactory.

Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)

On a point of order, Mr. Illsley. I am grateful to you for that message. Only five minutes ago, my pager went off to say that the Vote Office had, at 3.25 pm, managed to get a copy of the regulatory impact assessment. I have been helped by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire, whose copy I have been borrowing. Since the Committee rose earlier it has taken three or four hours for the Vote Office to get a copy. As the Clerk to the Vote Office said, many Departments supply the documents , but the DCMS and one or two others do not do so, so it would be helpful to all hon. Members if there were uniformity. I am grateful to you, Mr. Illsley, for saying that you will take the matter further.Clause 22 Timing