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European Convention on Human Rights
34. Mr. Greenway: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what assessment he has made of the additional sums his Department will need to implement his proposals to incorporate the European convention on human rights into domestic law. [7534]
Mr. Hoon: Work is already in progress within the Lord Chancellor's Department to assess the likely practical impact of incorporation of the European convention on the work of the courts, the provision of legal aid and the need for judicial training. However, a financial assessment of the proposals has not yet been completed.
Mr. Greenway: How do the Government intend to protect judges from political interference and to protect Parliament from the judges when the convention is enshrined in United Kingdom law?
Mr. Hoon: The judges will be protected from political interference in the way that they have always been protected from such interference under our system: selection decisions will be based on choosing the most ably qualified candidate for the position. That has always been the approach in our system, and it will continue. We shall incorporate the convention, on which work is still under way, in a manner that is entirely consistent with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty.
Mr. David Heath: Will the Minister confirm that, although the Gracious Speech says that the main provisions of the European convention will be
incorporated, the Government intend to incorporate the whole convention? If there are to be exceptions, will the Minister tell us what they are and why they will exist?
Mr. Hoon: The Government intend to incorporate all the provisions of the convention. The words in the Gracious Speech refer to those protocols that have not yet come into force.
Legal Aid
36. Mr. Malins: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when he expects to announce changes in legal aid for immigration work. [7538]
Mr. Hoon: Sir Peter Middleton is reviewing all aspects of the provision of legal aid, including the procedures by which legal aid is granted. He will produce a preliminary report in September.
Mr. Malins: The Minister will be aware that legal aid costs are spiralling upwards all the time. Is he further aware that the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service is extremely cost-effective when providing legal help regarding immigration matters? Given that the service is cheaper and usually more efficient than solicitors, will the Minister ensure that the immigrants advisory service gets a fair shout when he considers legal aid for immigration cases? In that way, money could be saved and the public would probably be served better.
Mr. Hoon: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's point of view. The Government believe that there should be sufficient publicly funded services to
provide access to advice and assistance for asylum seekers and other immigrants who wish to remain in this country. In due course, the Government will make specific proposals on how that will be achieved.Magistrates Courts
37. Mr. Edwards: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if an appeal has been lodged against the proposed closure of Monmouth magistrates court. [7539]
Mr. Edwards: I thank the Minister for that answer. When he receives such an appeal, I urge him to give it serious consideration. Many people in my constituency are signing a petition to ensure that Monmouth magistrates court is kept open. Should the magistrates court in Monmouth be closed, it would cause considerable inconvenience to defendants, witnesses and victims, who would have to travel long distances to other courts.
Mr. Hoon: I shall endeavour to give my hon. Friend a fuller response. The policy of the Lord Chancellor's Department is that decisions whether to close magistrates courts remain entirely a local issue, subject to the rights of appeal prescribed in law. Magistrates courthouses are not Crown property: they are owned or leased by the paying authority on behalf of the magistrates courts committee. Under section 56 of the Justices of the Peace Act 1997, the Lord Chancellor's responsibility in relation to magistrates courts is limited to hearing appeals in a dispute between the magistrates courts committee and its paying authority over a proposed court closure.
National Lottery
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith): With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement about reforming the national lottery. I am today publishing a White Paper, "The People's Lottery." It will be available in the Vote Office when I have finished speaking.
The Government's priorities are health and education. We said that we would reflect these in our plans for reforming the national lottery, and that is what we are doing today. The White Paper takes forward the plans outlined in our election manifesto and in the details that we published in "The People's Money" on 23 April. Both received the endorsement of the British people on 1 May.
I believe that the package of proposals that we are publishing today will mark a turning point in the fortunes of our national lottery. It will make it even more popular and even more relevant to people's daily lives.
It is less than three years since the first tickets were sold, yet in that short time the lottery has become a tremendous success. Nine out of 10 adults play at least occasionally. There have been 180 million winning tickets: 360 of them for more than £1 million.
The lottery has already raised more than £3.5 billion for good causes. By the time the current licence ends, we expect that it will have raised £10 billion. Thanks to the initiative and hard work of those who have been involved in developing projects, and the lottery distribution bodies, funds have already been committed to more than 24,000 projects throughout the United Kingdom. The large multi-million pound projects may attract most attention, but I suspect that the smaller proposals will make the most difference to many people's lives--such as the grant of some £2,000, featured in the White Paper, for a summer arts festival for children predominantly from low-income families in Norfolk.
I welcome that success. The proposals in the White Paper are about building on it. We shall introduce the legislation needed to give effect to aspects of these proposals later this year.
The proposals in the White Paper fall under four headings. The lottery is paid for by the people and, as it develops, we intend that it should better reflect the people's priorities. First, we will set up a new good cause--the New Opportunities Fund. It will support specific initiatives, additional to core programmes funded through taxation, to support our priorities of health, education and the environment.
Subject to Parliament, the fund will begin its work next year with three initiatives: two helping to raise standards in schools and one promoting better health. Other initiatives will follow--for the environment, as well as for health and education.
The new fund will come on stream in 1998 and, by 2001, the fund will be supporting programmes of activity outside the school day involving at least half of all secondary schools and a quarter of all primary schools. Activities will range from extra coaching in basic literacy and numeracy to new opportunities for creative and sporting education and structured play--fun as well as learning--helping parents who work, and raising school standards. By 2001, the fund will also have trained some
half a million teachers and 10,000 public librarians to help children and adults learn throughout their lives using new technologies.
The new fund's health initiative will be a network of healthy living centres throughout the United Kingdom. They will provide a wide variety of facilities and services, in different ways and to help different groups, but all with the same fundamental aim of preventing illness and promoting good health. In designing the detail of those initiatives and delivering money to projects, the new fund will work closely with bodies expert in the relevant fields, in each part of the United Kingdom.
The financial success of the lottery will enable us to set up the new fund alongside the existing good causes. In 1994, the lottery was forecast to raise £9 billion for good causes in the period up to 2001. We now expect it to raise £1 billion on top of that. It is from that extra £1 billion that we will find initial support for the New Opportunities Fund.
We will continue to allocate the bulk of the proceeds of the lottery to the existing good causes. I pay tribute to the work that the distributing bodies have already done--some fine examples are included in the White Paper--and I want them to build on their success. That is the second main theme of the White Paper.
Excellent as the distributors' record has been, it has been limited by some aspects of the framework within which they have to operate. Those constraints are at the root of the concerns expressed about lottery distribution--the lack of a clear overall strategy, the uneven geographical allocation of grants, the failure of some activities to get enough help from the lottery, and the feeling that decisions are remote and unaccountable.
The Bill will contain measures to help us to work with the distributors to tackle the constraints. I want to encourage a debate, involving the distributors and everyone else with an interest in making a success of the lottery, about the way in which distribution will work within the new framework and the extent to which we can make progress in the same direction before the legislation comes into force. Among the main issues on which I am consulting are how the existing distributors can provide even more support for our priorities of health, education and the environment; the contribution that they can make to regeneration; how, through delegation and working together, they can meet needs better; and how they can bring decision making closer to the grass roots.
I now come to our third main proposal. It is a major part of our vision of a lottery for the people. We will use part of the £1 billion of extra lottery money to establish the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. NESTA will help to ensure that the fruits of the outstanding talents with which our nation is blessed benefit our own country rather than others. It will encourage the development of an environment that fosters creative talent and innovation, and allows them to flourish for the benefit of the country, its economy and its people. In doing so, it will support my central objective of promoting the creative industries.
NESTA will have three simple objectives: to help talented individuals to develop their full potential in the creative activities and industries and in science and technology; to help to turn creativity and ideas into products or services that are effectively exploited with rights protected; and to contribute to the advancement of
public education about--and awareness and appreciation of--the areas with which NESTA is concerned. Those objectives will be set out in the forthcoming Bill, but, once established as a trust independent of Government, NESTA will determine for itself its priorities and activities. Its first task will be to map what support and provision already exists, so that its own activities complement existing publicly and privately funded programmes.
Finally, the White Paper outlines our proposals to make the lottery itself a more efficient and transparent operation. As we have made clear, we will seek an efficient not-for-profit operator. In the White Paper, we invite proposals to meet the twin objectives of maximising the return to good causes and removing unnecessary profit. Within the framework that we set, the licence will go to the bidder who will deliver the greatest return, while running the lottery efficiently, transparently and with propriety. So that the selection of a new operator is seen to be independent and objective, we will appoint a panel to assist the director general in his choice, including people with expertise in business, lottery distribution and the views of consumers.
We want to ensure that the director general has the full range of powers necessary to ensure that the operator complies with its licence. The Bill will, therefore, contain provision for him to fine the operator where serious licence breaches occur.
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