Clause 10 - Distributing bodies: consultation
National Lottery Bill
3:15 pm
Jo Swinson (Shadow Minister, Culture, Media & Sport; East Dunbartonshire, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 12, in clause 10, page 5, line 36, leave out from ‘body’ to end of line 39 and insert—
‘(a)must consult—
(i)the Secretary of State,
(ii)bodies (other than public or local authorities) whose activities are carried on not for profit,
(iii)the National Assembly for Wales in relation to Welsh devolved expenditure,
(iv)the Scottish Ministers in relation to Scottish devolved expenditure, and
(v)the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in relation to Northern Ireland devolved expenditure;
(b)may consult any other person;
(c)may take account of opinions expressed to it or information submitted to it.’.
I welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Gale. The amendment would include in the clause a requirement for distributing bodies to consult in determining how to distribute the money. The Bill enables them to consult, but it does not require them to do so. That distinction is important. The bodies that I believe should be consulted include the Secretary of State, voluntary organisations and the relevant devolved bodies.
It is important that there should be a requirement to consult partly because the record on consultation so far has been far from good. The report in 2004 from the NCVO’s compact advocacy programme concluded that the DCMS had a consultation credibility deficit. It also found that there tended not to be enough time for responses to consultation, decisions were sometimes issued during consultation periods and that responses to consultations had not always been published.
It is not just the NCVO that thinks consultation could and should be improved. Committee members will have received a briefing from the National Campaign for the Arts, which has also called for better consultation of the not-for-profit sector regarding lottery distribution. Why is consultation important? The issue of Peruvian guinea pig farmers has already been mentioned and I remember the other media headlines, which had an unfortunate effect on the reputation of the lottery. It is important for distributing bodies to ensure that they consult when determining priorities for spending. An important aspect of that is making sure that they consult the public, and there are definitely helpful moves in that direction. It is also important that consultant bodies with specialist knowledge feed into the process.
Project funding can often be complex by its very nature. We should ensure that the relevant expertise is available so that the public consultation is informed. For example, consider the Manchester Victoria baths, which won the BBC’s “Restoration” series in 2003. The baths are still way off completion and last year it emerged that the project had been seriously undercosted. The baths will need an extra £2.5 million—over and beyond the £3.5 million initially bid for—if the project is to be completed. That shows the importance of having proper consultation with bodies that can bring expertise to decision making.
In its briefing statement, the NCVO stated:
“We support greater public involvement in the Lottery, but this should not be in lieu of appropriate consultation, including with the voluntary and community sector.”
As well as increasing public participation, we need to ensure that relevant bodies in the devolved Administrations and the voluntary sector and the Secretary of State are consulted. That is not to say that public consultation is not important. In fact, Big Lottery Fund research has found that nine out of 10 lottery players think that it is important that the general public be involved in deciding where lottery funding goes. Earlier this week, the hon. Member for East Devon and I had the good fortune to be at the conference of the Museums Association. Its representative, Judy Aitken, put it very well in the Museums Journal of August 2005:
“The killer fact is that lottery money is not public or government money. It belongs to those who play the lottery and they should be more involved in decision making and more aware of how money is spent.”
Unfortunately, public awareness of how lottery money is spent is low. Last year, a poll for ICM suggested that the public believed that the same amount of lottery money went to help asylum seekers as to support disabled people. In fact, funding for disabled people from the lottery is nearly 10 times greater than funding for asylum seekers. That illustrates the problem with public perception, which, as we are all aware, can be led by unhelpful headlines and scaremongering. Public participation should be about making informed decisions.
I am keen that the Minister should give an assurance that distributing bodies will be required to ensure that the people involved in the consultations are informed about the decisions that they are asked to make. [Interruption.] I hope that the Minister will respond to that point, even if he is having his own deliberations over there at the moment.
With public participation, it is important to ensure that it is not only popular projects that receive money. Smaller projects and organisations that might cater for specific needs—[Interruption.]