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10.17 pm
The Minister of State, Department of National Heritage (Mr. Iain Sproat): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) for raising this important topic. As he has demonstrated so well,the national lottery has been a tremendous success and is having a positive impact on the lives of people throughout the United Kingdom. Naturally enough, my hon. Friend is most interested in the county of Suffolk, where his constituency responsibilities lie, but before turning to Suffolk I should like to put the lottery in a national context.
Parliament's decision to put the promotion of the lottery in the hands of the private sector has been vindicated by ticket sales, which have exceeded the most optimistic forecast. About 30 million people play every week; 415 jackpot prizes have been won, including 178 prizes of £1 million or more. More importantly, perhaps, more than £1.7 billion has already been generated for good causes.
We have been able to build on the experiences of many other lotteries to create one of the best run and best regulated lotteries in the world. The British public expect nothing less than absolute integrity in the way in which the lottery is run. In addition to his duty to maximise the return given to good causes, the Director General of Oflot has a duty to protect the interests of all participants and to see that the lottery is run with all due propriety.He has fulfilled that responsibility.
Camelot has justified his decision to award it the licence to run the lottery. Camelot managed to get the lottery up and running within six months of winning the licence. Its sales figures have surpassed all expectations. Because its bid included the highest return for good causes and the lowest retention of operating costs and profits--something that a number of people outside the House who choose to criticise the decision should remember--the good causes have benefited to the fullest extent from these extra sales.
We would be concerned by any report that fund raising by charities had been affected by the lottery, but the evidence is mixed. Fund raising is always subject to innovative techniques, and I am pleased that a number of charities are piggy-backing on the success of the lottery with their own scratchcards. The Royal British Legion has a Poppy day scratchcard. UK Charity Lotteries has seen a fivefold increase in its turnover. Littlewoods recently
introduced a scratchcard to raise money for Scope, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Age Concern and the Cancer Research Campaign.
The Government have a long-standing commitment to keep charitable incomes under review. The Home Office is conducting a review of charitable income, which will cover the two years before the introduction of the lottery, the launch period and two years hence. The review is being carried out in conjunction with the voluntary sector. It will focus on the realities of charities' accounts rather than what people think that they have given to charity. When the first hard evidence is available, we shall take a long hard look at it.
Monitoring is also under way on the horse race betting levy to see whether the betting industry has suffered declining income since the lottery was introduced. Proposals for changes to the regulations governing casinos and bingo are under consultation; restrictions governing the sale of snacks and drinks in licensed bookmakers have been relaxed, and the further deregulation of the pools industry is under consideration.
It has to be said that many see the national lottery as a convenient scapegoat for any business seeing a decline in profitability. I am not convinced that theatres and cinemas have seen Saturday night business fall because their usual customers are staying in to watch the lottery draw, or that habitual savers have plundered their nest-eggs to buy lottery tickets. It is inordinately difficult to tell where money that is being spent on the lottery is coming from, and it may be a number of years before we can have any clear idea of its impact in both macro and micro-economic terms.
I move from whence the money comes to where it is going. Proceeds from the national lottery are split equally among five areas: the arts, sport, heritage, caring charities and projects that celebrate 2000, and the beginning of the new millennium. Initially, lottery proceeds for the arts, sport and heritage were restricted to capital projects to enhance the nation's stock of cultural and sporting facilities. These capital projects will go a long way to meeting a need for artistic and sporting provision throughout the United Kingdom, and lottery money is being spent throughout the United Kingdom. Attention has tended to focus on the large-scale flagship projects in London that have been awarded money. Such projects benefit the whole country by enhancing our status as a centre for tourism and cultural excellence.
Flagship projects, however, are not sited only in London. The recent awards by the Millennium Commission, the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Arts Council to the Lowry centre in Salford demonstrate that as clearly as the six landmark projects already announced by the Millennium Commission.The Earth centre in Doncaster, the renaissance of Portsmouth harbour, the development of Cardiff Arms park, and the Hampden park development are all exciting flagship projects that will provide job and wealth-creation opportunities outside London.
More generally, 92 per cent. of awards so far have been made to organisations based outside London. Although some parts of the country may feel that lottery money has not been forthcoming in their region, it is important to remember that the distributors can make awards only on
the basis of the merits of the applications received. To get the message across that lottery funds are there for the taking, my right hon. Friend distributed 2 million leaflets that outlined the distribution process to voluntary groups, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and every school in the country. We are keeping an eye on the geographical spread of lottery awards, but we are confident that any early imbalances will even themselves out as more and more groups across the United Kingdom become aware of the availability of lottery help.
Partnership is central to the lottery. It allows lottery money to be spread more widely, but, more important,it provides evidence of support for the project at a local level. As far as the distributors are concerned, partnership can come from any number of local or central Government sources, from Europe and from the private and voluntary sectors. Contributions in kind--such as land donated--or voluntary support can also be counted as partnership in a project. Distributors are considering how they can be more flexible, and how the private sector can help in finding imaginative solutions.
In that context, the Sports Council has launched an initiative aimed at encouraging applications from areas of sporting and economic deprivation. That will soon be extended to rural areas, and means that the Sports Council will seek as little as 10 per cent. of project costs in partnership. Applicants from outside the designated areas are normally required to provide some 35 per cent. of partnership.
Let me now deal with the lottery's effects in west Suffolk. I know that my hon. Friend works extremely hard to ensure that his constituents' interests are always at the forefront of the House's attention, and his work in regard to the lottery is no exception. So far, Suffolk has received 45 awards worth some £3.6 million from lottery proceeds. The largest is the grant of £500,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund to develop the Palace House mansion in Newmarket, which my hon. Friend mentioned. At the other end of the scale is the £4,804 granted by the Sports Council to Stoke by Clare parish council towards the cost of resurfacing two grass tennis courts to make them available to the local community throughout the year.
My hon. Friend mentioned the marvellous project to fulfil the original promise of the cathedral. He also mentioned an unusual will. I hope that the distributing bodies will see fit to allow the legacy to be used in the way intended by the man who left it, and to ensure that the cathedral becomes as my hon. Friend wishes it to be. It is up to the distributing bodies, but my hon. Friend has done everything possible to make the project successful, and I wish him luck.
The two projects that I mentioned earlier--the redevelopment of the Palace House mansion and the resurfacing of Stoke by Clare parish council's grass tennis courts--encapsulate the principal aim of the national lottery: to encourage a greater sense of community, and to widen access to our cultural and sporting heritage.As the lottery develops, we want it to invest in people as well as buildings. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will shortly issue new directions to the lottery distributors which will allow revenue funding for schemes that encourage the development of artistic or sporting abilities and talents, particularly among young people. I am glad that my hon. Friend welcomed that development. Revenue grants under the new directions
will support the continuing capital programme, which is widening access and encouraging participation in our cultural and sporting heritage.
I envisage the new directions being used to support elite athletes, to fund talent identification schemes and for coaching and leadership initiatives in sport. In the arts, lottery money could be used to support touring arts companies, and to fund artists in residence in local communities; it could be used by schools, and for access schemes enabling organised groups to attend events at subsidised costs. Those are just some examples; how the new directions will work in practice is something for the distributors to work out over the next few months.
The undoubted success of the lottery allows no room for complacency. We are keeping all its aspects under review, and constantly looking for ways in which to hone
and improve it. The new changes are one such step, which will enhance social cohesion and extend the lottery's benefits beyond buildings and equipment. Individuals will receive a helping hand in the form of direct financial support for their achievement of artistic and sporting ambitions.
Young people are the country's future. It is crucial for the lottery to be able to create opportunities for the young and talented, and to invest in their future just as it is already investing in the future of our physical assets.
I am glad to have had the opportunity to say what I have said, and wish my hon. Friend all the best in regard to future applications in Suffolk.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.
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