Clause 4 - Length of licence
National Lottery Bill
12:30 pm
Richard Caborn (Minister of State (Sport), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; Sheffield Central, Labour)
No, it was only a joke.
Clause 4 will amend existing legislation to place a limit of 15 years on the length of licences issued by the National Lottery Commission to run the national lottery and to promote individual lottery games. I make it absolutely clear that the commission will remain free to decide the precise length of each licence, subject to that maximum limit. I emphasise “maximum limit”, as the debate has focused on an automatic length of 15 years.
Amendment No. 21 would reduce the limit to 10 years, and amendment No. 74 would make a consequential change. We do not believe that it should be possible to issue a licence for an indefinite period without further competition. We consider competition healthy and necessary to maximise operator innovation, investment and motivation to benefit good causes. It is therefore right that a maximum term is specified.
There is no precise science in selecting the maximum period, but we consider that 15 years gives the National Lottery Commission the greatest flexibility to fulfil its statutory duty of maximising returns to good causes. It provides sufficient time to incentivise bidders to propose the necessary investment and for the selected operator to gain a return on such investment. The previous licences to run the National Lottery were for seven years. The 15-year period was chosen on the basis of experience worldwide and in the UK, with a view to allowing room for extensions in certain circumstances.
Moving on to licence extensions, I want the hon. Member for East Devon to listen carefully to what I am about to say. He might be shocked by it. As the Government’s policy is that the new power to extend the licence must be subject to a maximum total licence length of 15 years, there will never be more than 15 years between competitions. For instance, if the NLC chose to grant a 10 year licence, the maximum extension possible would be five years. We believe that the Bill as drafted provides for that but that amendment No. 22 would allow a licence to be extended by up to 15 years. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman’s intention is the same as ours. Subject to his confirmation of that, I am happy to assure him that we will double-check that the Bill achieves what we both want, and, if it does not, to table an amendment on Report to remove any doubt about the intention. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.