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Mr. Banks: I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who knows a great deal about the 1993 Act. He can explain why no guarantee was given in that Act that there would be no changes in the good cause percentages, and why a 5 per cent. minimum was put in. That meant effectively that, for the five good causes, the amount could have been reduced to 5 per cent. and that could have been done by order in the House, if the present Opposition had been in government. Seventy-five per cent. could have gone somewhere else. We are giving far more of a guarantee to the existing good causes than the previous Government ever gave during their period in office.
8.45 pm
Mr. Brooke: I was seeking to intervene to make a point that flows out of the exchange between us. Given that the original intention was that we should ideally have a debate in each Parliament, with the ability to change the percentages by order thereafter, having listened to the opinions of the House, would the Minister, when the time comes, be prepared to recommend to the business managers the possibility of having just such a debate at that stage, so that the House can contribute to the discussion of the allocation?
Mr. Banks: The chief business manager--my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip--is sitting next to me whispering sweet nothings in my ear. I am sure that he heard what the right hon. Gentleman said and will be seized of the good sense of his suggestion.
Let me finish on the commitment to the existing good causes. This is very important and it is where the trust element must come in. Time and again throughout the passage of the Bill, here and in another place, the Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Minister for Arts and my noble Friend the Deputy Chief Whip in the other place have made our position on future changes on allocations abundantly clear and I am happy to repeat them.
First, barring the extremely unlikely circumstances in which lottery income for good causes is less than £10 billion in total, we will ensure that each of the existing good causes receives by 2001, when the present licence expires, the £1.8 billion expected at the time that the lottery started. Secondly, the Government have taken no decision on how any returns beyond £10 billion might be allocated--there is no assumption that they automatically fall to the new good cause or any other. Thirdly, the Government have no plans beyond those that they have announced already--the reduction in the millennium share to 13 per cent. and the increase in the new good cause to 20 per cent. in autumn 1999--to alter the funding of the existing good causes. That applies both to 2001 and beyond. That is fairly clear; one cannot be more explicit about that.
There is no way that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is setting out to ensure that culture and sport do not receive money beyond 2001. I cannot make it any clearer than that and I hope that the hon. Member for West Suffolk will accept that point. I reject both the amendments.
Mr. Spring:
With the leave of the House. The reassurances that the Minister has sought to give are wholly unsatisfactory because, as he knows, the new opportunities fund is a creation which involves a massive centralisation of power in the hands of a Secretary of State, which makes this completely different from the other good causes. Therefore, to protect the good causes, we seek to ensure that the minima are changed. As Lord McIntosh accepted, this is a radically different situation. Therefore, we will concentrate on amendment No. 1 to put down a clear marker to those who are concerned--the recipients of the lottery and those in the distributing bodies. We want to ensure as best we can that the smash-and-grab raid on the lottery does not continue and worsen.
Question put and negatived.
Question put, That the amendment be made:--
Mr. Spring:
I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 17, line 36, leave out from 'potential' to 'and' in line 40.
Amendment proposed: No. 1, in page 7, line 43, at end insert--
'(6A) In section 28 of the 1993 Act (power to amend section 22) in subsection (2)(a) for "5 per cent." there shall be substituted "13 1/3 per cent".'.--[Mr. Peter Ainsworth.]
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