---

Mr. Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make a small contribution to the debate. It is always nice to speak to a packed House. I am sure that hon. Members are waiting with bated breath for my words of wisdom—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] I thank hon. Members very much.
 
19 Jan 2006 : Column 1008
 

Health, education and the environment are all hugely important things and they are quite rightly the responsibility of the Government. When the people of this country voted for the Government, they thought that they were voting for a Government who would meet their health, education and environment needs. However, they were not aware that the Government were going to use the national lottery as a means of topping up spending that should be central Government expenditure. If the British public knew what was going on today, they would be a trifle concerned.

We heard from the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) about the various initiatives that have been funded by lottery money already. Some 529 pieces of cancer scanning equipment have been funded at a cost of £93 million. Of course that equipment is hugely important and much welcomed by those whose lives it saves, but should it be funded by lottery money, or through central taxation? We have set up healthy living centres at a cost of £300 million and information and communications technology training for teachers and school librarians at a cost of £231 million. Out-of-school learning hours have been funded at a cost of £180 million. Those are vast sums of money. The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), who is no longer in the Chamber, suggested that we were talking about trifles and mere pennies, but we are not—we are talking about upwards of £1 billion. The Treasury already takes 12 per cent. of all money spent on the national lottery.

Mr. Don Foster: The hon. Gentleman adds to my list of examples. Does he accept that the ultimate example of funding by the lottery that clearly should have been provided by the Exchequer was the use of £111,000 for a heart failure nurse specialist at one of our hospitals?

Mr. Walker: I accept the hon. Gentleman's excellent intervention. It is a good intervention because it is the first that I have ever taken. In a sense, he has broken my virginity, and I thank him for that. Very pleasurable it was, too—he was very gentle.

Mr. Don Foster: I was delighted to have had the opportunity to do that, and I am delighted now that I have been able to do it twice.

Mr. Walker: It was as pleasurable the second time.

Things that should have been funded by central Government have, in fact, been funded by the lottery. All those things are hugely important, but the lottery was established to fund the additional things in life: sport, the arts and heritage—those little extras that make life worth living both nationally and as part of communities. I hope that the Minister takes our concerns on board. They were put to him in Committee. I hope that he has heard them again and will reconsider his position.

Mr. Caborn: I welcome the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) to his new position on the Front Bench team of the Department for Culture, Media and Sports. I hope that we have some good debates.
 
19 Jan 2006 : Column 1009
 

Additionality is an important part of the lottery. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) has been helpful and he reflected what was said in Committee. However, I again want to put things in context. Before we introduced the Bill, there was wide consultation between 2004 and 2005 to discover what the public wanted. Hon. Members know, because it was brought up in Committee and is on the record, that only 6 per cent. of those who responded to the questionnaires as part of the consultation mentioned additionality. Of the themes that we put forward for consultation, nearly 60 per cent. of respondents acknowledged the three themes that the Big Lottery Fund would adopt. They thought that those were in tune with the things on which the lottery moneys should be spent. It is not without some major consultation that we introduced the Bill.

Mr. Don Foster: Will the Minister acknowledge that there is a huge difference between what he is referring to, which is the Big Lottery Fund engaging in wide-scale public consultation on how the money should be spent, and what happened when the Labour Government introduced the New Opportunities Fund and specified precisely what the money should be spent on? That is the big distinction.

Mr. Caborn: Against that background of the New Opportunities Fund, all I can say is that those were the general opinions of the public. They were reflected in their answers to the consultation. As I said, the themes that emerged from that are in tune with their opinions. They are now embodied in the Bill and the directions, at a high level, to the Big Lottery Fund. We have the evidence.

I must say that that research is far better than the research carried out by the Centre for Policy Studies. Ruth Lea astounds me sometimes. I do not know how, as an economist, she adds the figures up. She should go back to basic arithmetic from time to time. Its research is supposed to be embargoed until tomorrow, but everyone seems to have a copy, including the Daily Mail, and it is on the website. It cannot even get the embargo date right. The research is like a comic opera. Some of the figures do not add up. She just tosses in the odd £6 billion, which is the revenue taken by taxation. Others will make their judgments on that.

New clause 1 seeks to require each lottery distributing body to make an annual report to the Secretary of State on the way in which it makes funding decisions during the year. Although it does not seek to compel distributing bodies to include any particular item, it is clearly expected that they would report on the way in which their decisions were made independent of Government and how, indeed, they have followed the principle of additionality. Where appropriate, they would report on the proportion of funds given to the voluntary and community sector. As I said, they would do so where appropriate, and I assume that the new clause is referring to the undertaking by the Big Lottery Fund that 60 to 70 per cent. of funding will go to voluntary and community sector organisations. The fund will produce an annual report on the way in which the principle of additionality has been followed, and the hon. Member for Bath welcomed that provision.
 
19 Jan 2006 : Column 1010
 

The Government nevertheless agree with much of what lies behind new clause 1. We agree that the lottery funding decision should be made by distributing bodies independent of Government, although within an overall framework of high-level Government control through policy directions—I do not think that there is any disagreement about that. That is the proposition that we have submitted to the public in our consultation, to which I referred a little earlier, on the future of lottery funding for the good causes of the arts, film, heritage and sport. May I reiterate that we agree with the principle of additionality? We continue to follow the principle that lottery funding should not be allowed to become a substitute for funding that would usually fall to mainstream Government expenditure. When discussing additionality, it is important to clarify the nature of the Government expenditure that we are talking about. Some people call it core Government expenditure, others mainstream Government expenditure, but there is a great deal of Government expenditure, which I shall come on to, that falls outside such expenditure.

That does not mean that the lottery cannot support things that receive strong public support or that lottery grants cannot add to public expenditure. That, too, is the proposition that we are putting to the public in our consultation. As I have noted, the Big Lottery Fund has agreed to produce an annual report to show how the principle has been adhered to. All distributing bodies already produce an annual report, which is placed in the Libraries of both Houses. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bath for drafting his provision in a way that tries to take account of some of my comments in Committee. In particular, we should not attempt to define additionality, as that would leave every funding decision open to legal challenge, thus preventing many good causes and projects from being funded in future. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his helpful approach, and I am sympathetic to the notion that the other distributing bodies may follow the lead of the Big Lottery Fund and explain how their grants have been made and, indeed, how they have met the principle of additionality.

This morning, I discussed the issue with the chief executives of the distributors who, by chance, had a meeting at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. In his new clause, the hon. Member for Bath has tried to reflect our debate and discussions, including sentiments expressed in Committee. Indeed, his provision builds on the fact that Stephen Dunmore, the chief executive of the Big Lottery Fund, told the voluntary sector that in his annual report he would report on additionality and the spend of 60 to 70 per cent. I wish to make it clear that the Big Lottery Fund has made a commitment to report on such matters in its annual report, but this morning, the other lottery distributors agreed that they would each determine a policy on additionality and make it publicly available, probably through the annual report. However, they will develop other ways of making that policy available. That goes a long way towards satisfying the demands, which I think are genuine, for the executives of the lottery distributors to be held to account in a way that does not finish up as a lawyers' paradise. If that can be included in the annual report of the distributors and placed in the Library of both Houses, that will allow Members the opportunity for further debate through Select Committees or Adjournment debates or on the Floor of the House. That debate will be informed by the
 
19 Jan 2006 : Column 1011
 
way in which lottery distributors have defined additionality and how they dispense the lottery money. Additionality in an area such as heritage may be defined differently from the way that it is defined by the Big Lottery Fund. It can be applied in a different way, although the objective is the same.

2.45 pm

I welcome the undertaking by the chief executives of the lottery distributors this morning to try to ensure through their annual reports that the Members of both Houses have that information and can use it for informed debates. However, we must be conscious of the need to avoid additional bureaucracy, which would go against the important principle in the Bill that more lottery money should go more quickly to good causes.

I am sure that my parliamentary colleague the Under-Secretary of State for the Cabinet Office, not to mention the Prime Minister, would be less than pleased if I considered new clause 1 without acknowledging the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. That was introduced earlier this month, supported by a number of stakeholders in the public and private sector. Members on the Opposition Front Benches would acknowledge that they have been at the forefront of the argument against red tape and additional bureaucracy. The Better Regulation Executive has made great efforts to tackle unnecessary or overcomplicated regulation and disproportionate bureaucratic requirements.

---