APPENDICES TO THE MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
SUBMISSION 1
Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from the Chairman of the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
CAMELOT'S OBJECTION TO SIR ALAN BUDD'S RECOMMENDATIONS
As Chairman of the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation
I wish to raise with you a major concern, which could threaten
the future of our organisation.
Despite the very reasonable recommendations
of Sir Alan Budd's eminent committee, Camelot are protesting that
it will seriously threaten their ability to achieve its projected
lottery turnover of £4.57 billion, during the period of its
licence.
This is quite preposterous. These figures are
of an immensity which is utterly bewildering to anyone in the
charity lottery business. Society lotteries barely register a
single digit percentage when compared to those at Camelot.
We applaud what the National Lottery has done
for the country, but protest strongly at Camelot's intention to
resist the Budd recommendations on relaxation of charity lottery
regulations.
Our view is that the consumer must be free to
choose either to subscribe to the National Lottery, or contribute
to a named charity lottery with the proceeds going to the charity
of their choice.
I strongly urge you to support the Budd report
and not deny or disadvantage this choice which could make it impossible
for charities like us to operate.
We have established, almost entirely out of
public donations and support from key sponsors such as Littlewoods
Leisure, a Lung Cancer Foundation which has achieved international
recognition for the quality and importance of its work.
Tessa Jowell visited our Centre during her time
as Public Health Minister and was very supportive of our work.
Frank Dobson toured the Centre when he was Secretary of State
for Health, as has Dr Liam Fox earlier this year.
We regularly have local MPs coming to see our
facilities and to discuss our work. As importantly, our Foundation
has the widespread support of the people of Liverpool. We have
built an International Centre for Lung Cancer Research which only
recently won national recognition with an industry award as the
Best Laboratory in the UK.
The Foundation grants nearly £2 million
per year to fund a team of scientists employed by Liverpool University
and provide a range of patient care programmes, such as lung cancer
support nurses at various cancer centres in the UK to help patients
and their families through the most distressing and difficult
period of their lives. In addition we have an active smoking cessation
programme and conduct imaginative smoking prevention activities
with children and young people.
You will be aware of the devastation lung cancer
causes. While tremendous progress has been achieved in recent
years with other cancers, the chances of surviving lung cancer
remains the same as when King George VI died of the disease in
1952. It is the biggest cancer killer with only 55 of the 40,000
people diagnosed with the disease in this country every year surviving
longer than five years. In Liverpool and Glasgow men face a lifetime
risk of one in seven chance of developing lung cancer.
The Roy Castle Foundation is making a massive
contribution to help find a cure for this devastating disease,
which kills over a million people worldwide every year.
We have never received one penny of government
funding for our research programme nor have we received any funds
from the National Lottery. That is why it is so important that
you do not deny us the opportunity of bringing in legitimate funding
through a society lottery.
I ask for your support, and that of your colleagues,
in accepting Sir Alan Budd's review and in resisting Camelot's
absurd exaggerations on the effect we have on their turnover.
3 January 2002
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