Clause 14 - Functions
National Lottery Bill
10:00 am
Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)
As I said, not the Community Fund.
I have given a very clear answer to the hon. Member for Bath. My intention and the interpretation of what I said on the Floor of the House is that we are taking no more powers than were already within one of those three—[Interruption.] I can tell the hon. Member for Bath what was in my mind, but I do not know what was in his mind.
We have brought together three funding bodies. We have looked at their powers and said that the powers in the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to achieve what we believe the British public want; 127 local authorities responded to the consultation. We are not talking about the direction of the operation; the themes will be directed by the Secretary of State. I acknowledge that that is a move from the operation by NOF. We have learned from that. The lottery is evolving and we are moving it forward in terms of its expenditure and responding to the public need—we shall come to that later—in terms of wider participation in deciding how to dispense lottery funds.
I want to make it very clear. Yes, we have brought together the powers of NOF, the Community Fund and the Millennium Commission in the Bill and given the Secretary of State the power to ensure that the themes that were emerged during the consultation can be implemented. We believe that that is exactly what the British public want.