Clause 14 - Functions
National Lottery Bill
9:30 am
Hugo Swire (Shadow Minister (the Arts), The Family & Culture, Media & Sport; East Devon, Conservative)
As usual, in his customary way, my hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. Mr. Cook will not allow me to stray too much into the meaning of subsection (4), because we will come to that later. All I will say is that my hon. Friend is right about the fact that the Secretary of State effectively appoints the Big Lottery Fund board. The board then selects sub-boards to cover the regions. If we were to draw up a chart, we would see that, in effect, all the powers ultimately flow to and from the Secretary of State. That is perfectly clear—unless the Minister wishes to intervene to tell me that I have misread the Bill and misunderstood what the Government are trying to achieve.
Amendment No. 46 would improve the wording of the Bill by leaving out
“comply with any direction given to it”
and inserting
“have regard to any guidance made”.
We are also deleting “direction” and inserting “guidance”, deleting “specify” and inserting “suggest” in subsequent provisions. The amendments remove the ability of the Secretary of State to force the Big Lottery Fund to comply with any directions that she makes. As it stands, the Bill forces the Big Lottery Fund to “comply with any direction” the Secretary of State gives it. Under the powers in the clause, the Secretary of State can tell the Big Lottery Fund exactly who to make grants to and exactly how much money to give.
Section 26(1) of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993, which falls under the heading “Control by the Secretary of State” on page 8—I repeat my thanks to the Minister and his officials for providing the document, which makes it easy to find this information—states:
“A body shall comply with any directions given to it by the Secretary of State as to the matters to be taken into account”
when making grants. That set up the broad framework within which grants were to be made. The new powers bind the Big Lottery Fund hand and foot to the prerogative of the Secretary of State.
Given the reaction to our suggestions that the hold of the Secretary of State should be weakened, I do not expect much movement from the Minister. I shall be grateful if we get any.