Orders of the Day — National Lottery Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:45 pm on 7 April 1998.

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Photo of Mr Chris Smith Mr Chris Smith Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media & Sport, The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 3:45, 7 April 1998

The hon. Gentleman clearly is unaware of the fact that the Arts Council receives £190 million from the Exchequer each year and, in addition, receives about £250 million each year from the lottery. Yes, of course, there are organisations that receive money from the Exchequer and some additional money from the lottery, and there is no difficulty in determining which money comes from which stream.

If the Bill is passed—as I hope and expect it will be—each of the good causes will be guaranteed at least £1.8 billion from the lottery over the lifetime of Camelot's licence; exactly what they originally expected. The extra £1 billion that we now forecast will be allocated to the new good cause and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. In the interests of good planning, the distributors therefore agreed to run shadow accounts which show what money will be available to them if the Bill is passed. If the Bill is not passed, the shadow accounts will be ripped up.

Money is flowing in accordance with the law as it stands, and will then flow in accordance with the changed legislation. There is no problem. However, for the Tories, there is a problem. They say that we are somehow acting unlawfully, and that the retrospective nature of the provision is entirely reprehensible. That is rich of Conservative Members. Several times in the past 18 years, the previous Government adopted an identical approach.

Perhaps the clearest example relates to the Stamp Duty (Temporary Provisions) Act 1992. The Minister proposing that Bill told the House:

It is not retrospective in a substantive sense in that it does not have an effect on matters which took place before the announcement was made; so everyone who has made a transaction since we made the announcement has done so in the full knowledge of what we propose and what the consequences of his actions will be."— [Official Report, 15 January 1992; Vol. 201, c. 1074.] The Minister who piloted that Bill through the House, and who said that to the House, was none other than the present right hon. Member for Horsham.

On 1 October 1997, I announced our intentions. Shadow accounts were put in place from 14 October 1997. All the key players were aware of what we were doing. Parliament was informed. The distributors agreed. Lottery players knew where there their money would be going.