Orders of the Day — National Lottery Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 8:53 pm on 7 April 1998.

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Photo of Michael Connarty Michael Connarty Labour, Falkirk East 8:53, 7 April 1998

I refer the hon. Gentleman to pages 14 and 15 of the White Paper and suggest that he reads it for himself.

It is important to see the new good cause for what it is: something additional that people want. They want what is being offered in health, education and the environment. They want the New Opportunities Fund, which has been applauded. To slight the 400 organisations that took the trouble to write in and may gain something for the people whom they represent or work with is to do down many good voluntary organisations that will benefit from the new use of the fund.

It is right to take the new direction that is on offer: to people and not to bricks and mortar. I want to put a couple of examples on the record, because it is worth letting people know. Many people think not that the lottery is doing anything wrong, but simply that it needs to do some other things.

I certainly applaud the Millennium Commission's decision to give £32 million to the canal link project, which will link the Forth and Clyde canals and open up the waterway once again from Grangemouth on the Forth in my constituency right across to Glasgow and the Clyde. It will also link the Union canal through an imaginative large wheel that will lift boats and barges into the Forth and Clyde canal. It will link Edinburgh to Glasgow. There is potential for 4,000 jobs in the long term, particularly in tourism and hospitality.