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

No, I must make progress.

We want to ensure that decision making on lottery funds is pushed down nearer to the grassroots. All that has been welcomed by the distributors, but another element, which is not in the Bill, is equally important if we are to ensure that people have confidence that lottery money is going where it counts.

Under the 1993 Act, I can direct distributors on various matters that they must take into account in distributing lottery money. The policy directions that were introduced by the previous Government set a framework that is no longer appropriate. They restrict much of lottery funding to capital projects; they fail to tackle the social and geographical inequities in the system of distribution, which are apparent to us all; and they place too great an emphasis on the need for partnership funding.

I am, therefore, pleased to announce that I have written today to the Arts and Sports Councils, the National Lottery Charities Board and the Heritage Lottery Fund, to open formal consultation on a new package of policy directions that will reflect new priorities. I am publishing those letters and the draft directions today—copies will be available in the Libraries of both Houses. My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland will be writing in parallel to their arts and sports distributors with draft directions.

The new directions establish a completely different framework for lottery funding. They shift the focus from the capital revenue debate and concentrate instead on ensuring that lottery money addresses the real needs of communities and that projects will make a real difference over a specific period. They encourage the distributors to lend support to people and to activities, not only to bricks and mortar. They highlight the importance of promoting access to the arts, sport and heritage for people from all sections of society, wherever they live. They acknowledge, in particular, the need to focus on children and young people. They are intended to ensure a fairer geographical spread across the country.

The directions remove the requirement for significant levels of partnership funding in every case, emphasising instead the importance of assessing each application on its merits and on the scope for in-kind contributions—for example, by involving volunteers. The directions will, for the first time, require distributors to consider how their strategies will contribute to sustainable development, and encourage them to look at what contribution they can make, through the good causes, to reducing economic and social deprivation. I am confident that the distributors will respond positively to those opportunities.

The new framework, which I hope will be in place before the end of May, will open up the lottery for the benefit of everyone. That will mean more projects focusing on people, rather than on buildings, such as the Sports Council's support for amateur coaches or the Heritage Lottery Fund's £7 million for museums access, which is complemented by the Government-funded £2 million challenge fund to secure free admission to our great non-charging national collections.

Part II of the Bill creates NESTA—the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The creativity of the British people is second to none, but we do not encourage, develop or exploit it as well as we should. Too often, the talented are unable to win through, or have to go abroad to do so. NESTA will help to put that right. Following debate on the Bill in another place, we have tightened up NESTA's remit. Its aims are simple: to support and promote talent, innovation and creativity in science, technology and the arts.

To do that, NESTA will be able to help talented individuals or groups of individuals to realise their potential and to turn good ideas into good businesses. It will also help to make everyone aware of the essential roles that science, technology and the arts play in our lives, and it will, I hope, help to break down those artificial barriers that have existed for too long between the arts and sciences. Those were false barriers in C.P. Snow's time, and in a multi-media world they are now even more irrelevant.

We are giving NESTA a kick start with an initial endowment of £200 million from the lottery, which will immediately place it among the top 10 grant-giving endowments in the UK. NESTA will also raise funds from elsewhere and share the profits earned by individuals and projects that it has supported. The Bill allows it various tax exemptions—hard won from the Treasury—in recognition of its unique funding structure and its similarity in purpose to a charity. As with the New Opportunities Fund, we have already advertised for a chairman and members, and received an overwhelming response. Although I have often said that NESTA is a project for the 21st century, its foundation is being firmly laid in the 20th.

Our vision for the lottery's future shows a clear difference in our politics from those of the Conservative party. It also shows how we are meeting change. The Conservatives presided over a back-to-front lottery distribution process, which too often favoured big projects proposed by well-connected people with highly paid consultants. They did nothing to end the imbalance of lottery funding across the country. They were and are thoroughly hypocritical about additionality, especially given that most people in this country want their lottery money spent on projects related to health and education. Moreover, they are being insincere about their support for arts, sport and heritage, given that the Tories cut arts spending by £14 million in real terms over the past three years.

By allocating an additional £5 million to the performing arts two weeks ago, I have been proud to be able to increase the arts budget for the first time in years. Today, I set out our programme for reforming the lottery to ensure that it benefits every community in the UK. Our framework will inspire confidence in the way the lottery is run and regulated, and in how the money is used. I am sure that Opposition Members will do their best to rubbish the Bill, because it is full of good ideas they wish they had thought of, and because they cannot accept that there is any room for improvement in the flawed model that they launched in 1994. There is, and I have shown exactly how we intend to go about improving it.

Our proposals have already won wide support throughout the country. The Bill passed virtually unchanged through another place, and I hope that it can pass quickly onto the statute book so that we can get on with the job. I commend it to the House.