Clause 9 - Investment income
National Lottery Bill
3:15 pm
Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)
It beggars belief. The whole predication is on the back of the Heritage Lottery Fund. I am going to Leicester tonight to open one of the Millennium Commission’s biggest projects. It is not only the Heritage Lottery Fund that runs big schemes. No one runs bigger schemes than the Millennium Commission. The Opposition’s whole defence seems to be the briefing notes of the Heritage Lottery Fund. If the hon. Gentleman reads Hansard he will see how many times the Heritage Lottery Fund has been mentioned during this debate when we are discussing good governance and good financing, and ensuring that the lottery is used in a way that benefits good causes.
I said clearly that in 1997 all the lottery distributors came together and agreed that the balances should be about £1.5 billion by the end of 2004. At the end of 2004 the balances were well in excess of £2 billion. The NAO and PAC are saying that, broadly, £1.5 billion to £1.8 billion is a reasonable reserve. I think that that is reasonable and if the balances continue to come down, we will not have to use the power in clause 8. The provision in clause 9 will be an incentive to get balances down.