Orders of the Day — National Lottery Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:02 pm on 7 April 1998.

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Photo of Damian Green Damian Green Conservative, Ashford 9:02, 7 April 1998

My hon. Friend raises a good point which I hope the Minister for Sport will address when he replies. It is a genuinely ticklish problem. We do not know what the acting director general will recommend. If he recommends that GTech should be thrown out of the lottery, clearly that will pose a severe danger to the revenue-raising capacity of the lottery. If he does not recommend that, all well and good. I want an assurance from the Minister that there will be no political interference in the decision by the acting director general.

I mentioned the Sports Council fund, and the Heritage Lottery Fund has suffered as well. There have been various sneering references to the Churchill papers, but most awards given by the Heritage Lottery Fund are small. A typical example from my constituency is the Little Chart village hall. It is situated in a conservation area and, although it is not of major heritage merit, the parish council and the Heritage Lottery Fund believed that its repair would benefit the community. It received a grant of more than £13,000, which paid for 90 per cent. of the cost of repairs. The hall now provides an important meeting place for local groups. That is exactly the type of grant which, I am sure, all of us have had in our constituencies and have welcomed.

The Secretary of State also claimed that this is a long-term programme, but this is initiative-itis. The programmes will last for two or three years and, by the end of the third year, the bids under the New Opportunities Fund programme will be building up. However, there will then be a new Secretary of State who will be told by the Treasury that he needs new initiatives, and the existing ones are likely to wither on the vine.

The long-term effect on the good causes is equally serious. Once the percentage has been cut once, it can be cut again—the Government know that. I hope that the Minister will give the commitment asked for by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), that there will be no further cut in the percentage for a considerable time.

The Secretary of State's worst claim is that there is an extra £1 billion to play with, so it does not matter that money is being taken away from the existing good causes. The reason why some of my right hon. and hon. Friends feel strongly about that is the complete reluctance of any Labour Member to pay any tribute to Camelot for running an efficient lottery for the past four years. There is £1 billion extra for Ministers to dip their hands into, because we have had an extremely well-run national lottery. The Secretary of State managed to get his lips to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), for setting up the lottery. [Interruption.] I am happy to accept the Minister's sedentary assurance that it was a genuine tribute. However, in this debate and previous discussion of the lottery in the House, it has been observable that Ministers have expressed nothing but contempt for and disparagement of Camelot.

I should be genuinely grateful if the Minister could bring himself to admit, with a genuine smile on his face, that Camelot—by and large—has done a good job, that the national lottery was not necessarily going to be a success and that one reason for its success has been the fact that it has been run by some efficient people.