Orders of the Day — National Lottery Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:27 pm on 7 April 1998.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Francis Maude Francis Maude Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 4:27, 7 April 1998

If it is at all unparliamentary, I immediately withdraw it. It was not meant to be a phrase to denote insult; it was one of sympathy for the Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State went ahead with the desire to enact the commitment, regarding it —as most people would have done—as clear. He had not been told that it was only a vehicle to extract every last ounce of cheap politics from the jibe about Camelot fat cat salaries. The Government did not mean for the commitment to be implemented. It was just their little joke.

The Secretary of State had to be put right by those worldly folk at Downing street, in a letter that appeared in The Sunday Telegraph last July. It was quite a polite letter, so it probably was not written by Alastair Campbell. It made it clear that the Downing street priority—I agree with them—was to maintain the proceeds for the good causes, and any nonsense about eradicating profit was to be very much second place to that. I think that the phrase was that the new system must retain "proper incentives" for the operator to be efficient and to raise much money for good causes. When pressed, it was quite clear that what they meant were financial incentives. So we have an interesting situation: profit is definitely out, but financial incentives are in.

The outcome of that interesting dance was a fudge so exquisite in its contradictions that it deserves to stand as a monument to new Labour's approach to government. The White Paper, when it eventually emerged, restated the manifesto pledge. It was perfectly clear, but in inverted commas, as though it was not really to be taken too seriously—as though it were a slightly decomposing relic from the past.

The text was far different. In place of "not for profit"—the phrase that Labour had used previously—there was now a commitment to

removing unnecessary profit margins". We have waited with bated breath for the Secretary of State to disclose how he plans to accomplish this astonishing goal. We have waited and waited. There is nothing in the Bill, so we assumed that there would be Government amendments, but there have been none so far. Now he tells us that there is to be nothing. The Bill will remain silent on it.

So what is the answer? They have discovered something remarkable, that there is a way to remove unnecessary profit margins: invite potential operators to put in competing bids, and select the one that offers the best proposal for the good causes, with least profit to itself. It is called a tender process. It is a process which the Act already provides.

We now wait—without much hope—for the Secretary of State to say that he is sorry; that, on reflection, the current system is fine, and he was wrong to say that the Government had changed it. What happened to the humility that was to be the hallmark of new Labour in government? Or was that just for the birds, too?