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

I do not know how the hon. Lady draws that conclusion. My point is about who is responsible; if she does not detect the deep inconsistency and danger in the proposals for those who look to the lottery to fund additional activities, she should look more carefully at the fine print of White Papers and Government announcements.

Information technology training for teachers and for librarians is another so-called extra that is to be funded by the New Opportunities Fund. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) made the point that it is already funded by the taxpayer, but the Secretary of State tried to wriggle out of that when he wrote to me last year. He said: The Lottery-funded training will not support the basics of operating the technology, but will focus on helping teachers to use the technology in the classroom". That is not true. Only a month later, the Minister for School Standards admitted that the Government spend £50 million on exactly that.

On Second Reading in the other place, the deputy Chief Whip in the House of Lords announced that the scope of the initiatives would be expanded to pay for digitisation of educational and learning materials for schools and libraries. It is to be used not only for paying for training teachers and librarians, but for the materials they use in classrooms and libraries. Exactly as we predicted, every step taken by the Government takes lottery money further into their own responsibilities.