Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
6 Jun 2007 : Column 107WHcontinued
The two things that I have been banging on about for the past three years as worth considering are, first, the
sale of the analogue spectrum, which Ofcom will undertake in the next two years and which will come into place in 2012. The Budget in March estimated that that would bring in £5 billion, although I think that that is a serious underestimate. So, first, there is a pot of money from the analogue spectrum, which is currently allocated to the Treasury.
Paul Holmes: I do not think that we disagree about that. Money from the sale of the analogue spectrum goes to the Treasury. Therefore, if money comes from the Treasury to pay for the real costs of the Olympics, instead of being raided yet again from the arts and heritage, the route is the same.
Derek Wyatt: I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear with me. The analogue sale is the first pot of money, mentioned in the Budget only a few months ago, although I cannot remember whether the Opposition or the Liberal Democrat arts spokesman have written to the Treasury on the matter. More importantly, last month the Treasury published a report entitled Unclaimed assets distribution mechanism: a consultation and finally, there is the lottery. So, there are six alternativesI said that there were seven, but there we are.
Let us consider the analogue spectrum. Our bid for the games was an all-party bid, and when we won it there was an all-party celebration. However, there has been some bitterness since, which I do not think is acceptable. We are either in this together or we are not. I therefore make this challenge to hon. Members in the Chamber: why do we not come together to make a representation to the Treasury on the analogue spectrum? Why do we not counsel our parties, make that representation and see whether we can secure some of the extra funding needed from the Treasury?
Let me quote from the report on unclaimed assets, which all hon. Members have received and which I am sure they have all read. Towards the end of page 7, under the heading Principles for redistribution, the report refers to
distribution to be managed efficiently, with as little resource as possible being spent on administration and running costs; and...distribution in England to focus on a diverse range of communities across the country.
There we gothat is our chance of bidding for the money. At the bottom of that page, the question asked is:
Are the principles underpinning the distribution of the available surplus assets the right ones?
For the benefit of those of us who have lost pensions or who have constituents who have lost their occupational pension schemes, I should point out that I have led the debate about unclaimed assets for four years. I happen to think that the amount of unclaimed assets is spectacularly under-represented. The Treasury, under Sir Ronald Cohen, thinks that only £350 million is unclaimed. I think he is wrong. The Irish claimed that there was £100 million, but when they introduced primary legislation they found that there was £2 billion. I think that we will find between £5 billion and £8 billion, but that is a separate issue.
I am concerned about how one applies for the money that is available, as published by the Treasury. People have until 9 August to apply. I ask the leaders of the Opposition parties and their spokespersons whether
they have applied. What have they sent in? If hon. Members think that I am completely mad, they should consider some of the questions for consultation contained in the report. On page 35, it asks:
Is the proposal to use the Big Lottery Fund as the primary UK-wide distribution vehicle for the available surplus assets the right one?
I think it is. The document goes on to ask:
What are the different approaches that the Big Lottery Fund could take to the distribution of the available assets?
Why do we not ask? Finally, the report asks:
Do you agree with the proposals for how legislation will work in relation to the distribution of these assets?
I do not. I do not want it all to follow the ideas in that report. It is up to us to make the case.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the independent Commission on Unclaimed Assets recommended that the funds should be used to set up a social investment bank to promote social entrepreneurship and social enterprise? The Treasury report seems to have abandoned that worthwhile exercise, which is another blow to the voluntary sector in addition to the raid that is the subject of todays debate.
Derek Wyatt: I was not aware that that had been said; I think that the whole social banking side has been toned down. The issue is that there is a pot of money, and it is up to us collectively to argue the cause for it. I will say again, as I did about the analogue spectrum: do we want to put an all-party group togetherI would happily lead it or be a part of itto argue to the Treasury by the closing date in August about how we would like the money to be redistributed, so that we make up for the wretched smash and grab, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield put it, on the lottery, which we all find incredibly embarrassing?
There is work to be done, and in the spirit in which all parties support the bid and the winning of the games, I hope that my suggestions will be taken seriously. The analogue spectrum and the unclaimed assets are available.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) on securing the debate and on his meticulous contribution.
I want to make three brief points, which are based on my disappointment at the performance of the office of the third sector. It is just a year ago that the office was set up to be a champion for voluntary organisations in government, after a period of many years in which they lacked a strong voice in that field. The office was set up with a new Minister as the advocate in government. The history of the Olympics episode is a testament to the disappointment that many of us feel about the intentions of the office not being delivered in practice.
In particular, on 15 March, when the Government announced their second raid on the lottery good causes to prop up the Olympics, the Parliamentary Secretary,
Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Doncaster, North (Edward Miliband), who is the Minister responsible for the third sector, assured the voluntary sector that
todays funding settlement protects both existing programmes and future resources
for the voluntary sector. That is a disgraceful statement as it ignores completely the effect on arts and heritage organisations of the raid. It is almost as if the office of the third sector disregards charities and voluntary organisations that happen to be involved in arts, heritage and sport as part of its responsibility, when they should be central to it.
The truth is that such organisations will lose £100 million because of the raid that took place. That figure came to light only in response to a parliamentary question that I tabled to ask what proportion of funding from each distributor went to voluntary organisations. The calculation of £100 million as the cost of the second raid is based on the most recent figures supplied by DCMS for Arts Council England, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Sport England. It does not include any estimate of the loss of funding from the other lottery distributors. My calculation was confirmed in a press release on 23 April from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which also put the cost at more than £100 million.
That might not be the end of it. Just today, the sectors magazine, Third Sector, carries an article that claims to bring news that the voluntary sector is under a new threat of another raid from the Big Lottery Fund, despite assurances specifically to the contrary from the Minister responsible for the third sector. According to Third Sector:
The board of the Big Lottery Fund has decided in principle to cut £120m from its programmes, including some that fund voluntary sector projects, in a bid to recoup losses from the recent raid to fund the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Sources have told Third Sector that two programmes in line for cuts are the Young Peoples Fund 2 and the Research Programme, both of which are targeted at third sector organisations.
If true, that would be a great betrayal of the trust that the sector has in its Minister, who has promised that existing programmes under the Big Lottery Fund would be protected. I would be grateful if the Minister present could reassure the House that the rumour is unsubstantiated and that those organisations can sleep easy without that further worry.
That same Minister who is responsible for the third sector said in a recent interview with The Spectator that
charities and social entrepreneurs are going to require funding from government to really make a big impact.
The way to do that is not to match that ambition with the record, which so far has been to withdraw money from charities.
Mr. Don Foster (Bath) (LD):
What a great pleasure it is for me to debate under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Bercow. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) for securing an extremely important debate on an important issue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt), too, on his great honesty in being fairly critical of what the
Government have done, describing it as bad politics to withdraw the equivalent of £1 million in lottery funding from each constituency throughout the land. He admitted that the decisions that the Government have made about using lottery money to bolster the Olympic funds are something that we all find terribly embarrassing. I suspect that any Government Member would find it terribly embarrassing, in view of the wide-scale concerns that are being expressed by many people.
We are talking about the Olympics, and we all acknowledge that the Olympics are not merely about sporting activity. They are about artistic endeavour, culture and heritage. If we look back to the first Olympic games, many millenniums ago, we see that they brought together not only the best athletes from around the world, but the best poets and artists. Medals were awarded for artistic endeavour as much as for sporting prowess. It is important that we continue that approach with the modern Olympic games by promoting not only sporting activities for able-bodied and Paralympic athletes but a cultural Olympiad. The connection between arts, culture, heritage and sporting endeavour in the Olympics is well established.
Like everyone else, I was delighted when we won the great privilege and honour of hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games in London in 2012. I had the great fortune to be out in Singapore when the announcement was made, and it is a credit to all the people who put together the bid and lobbied for it that we achieved that. I want in particular to pay tribute to the Prime Minister. He has never been fully recognised for the work that he did in the last couple of weeks before the final decision was made.
I note that the Prime Minister, in all his lobbying, continually made the point that winning the Olympics was not about winning an event that would last for a few weeks, mainly in London. It was about the lasting benefits that it would bring for the whole United Kingdomnot only London, but every part of the UK. What he expressed very strongly was the crucial importance of the games legacy in terms not only of sporting endeavour, but of artistic and cultural endeavour. It is therefore a supreme irony that the Government have chosen to fill the hole in the Olympic budget by taking money from the grassroots bodies that ensure that we have vibrant sporting activity and vibrant artistic and cultural endeavour in this country.
As to sporting endeavour, we have seen cuts of £525 million to the various lottery bodies that fund grassroots sport, which means that we will have real difficulties giving young people the opportunity to be involved in the games legacy and ensuring that more people are active and become interested and involved in sports, whether by volunteering, supporting athletes or becoming athletes themselves.
Similarly, as my hon. Friend said in his excellent contribution, there will be a significant cut in funding for arts, cultural and heritage activities. He referred to the cuts to the Arts Council of England, the Film Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Scottish Arts Council, Scottish Screen and the Arts Council of Wales. He said that, taken together, those cuts add up to more than £160 million. He referred to a
further cut of more than £160 million, which is being made to the Heritage Lottery Fund, making the total more than £320 million. As a result, £525 million has been taken from grassroots sport, while the figure in arts and culture, according to my hon. Friend, is more than £320 million.
In his excellent contribution, my hon. Friend also referred to one other aspect of the cuts, although only in passing, and I want to draw his and hon. Members attention to it. He talked about the possible loss of revenue as a result of what is known in the trade as cannibalisation. Not all the money that people use to buy an Olympic lottery game ticket will be extra money, and some would have been put into one of the other lottery games. That means that those other games and therefore the lottery distributors will lose out.
Hon. Members do not have to take my word for that, because the problem is clearly documented in the Governments own figures, which show that 59 per cent. of the £750 million to be raised from the new Olympic lottery games will come from cannibalised sales from other lottery games and that that will mean £140 million extra in cuts. My hon. Friend says that the cuts to art, culture and heritage amount to about £320 million, but we must add to that the Governments estimate of a further £140 million, which brings the total much nearer to £470 million.
That will have a huge impact in all the areas that we are talking about, and it is hardly surprising that so many organisations are deeply concerned. Indeed, they are equally concerned, as my hon. Friend said, about the outcome of the comprehensive spending review, given the mood music coming out of the Treasury and the Government. It is no wonder that Dame Liz Forgan, the chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund, recently said:
Heritage funding was already due to drop because of the Olympics and this further cut will impact on our ability to invest in the nations heritage at exactly the time it is being showcased to the world.
Peter Hewitt, the chief executive of the Arts Council of England, also expressed his concern, saying:
There is currently a view in Whitehall and Westminster that the arts sector can absorb the impact of the Olympics raid on lottery funding without visible impact. This is not true.
It is worth noting that, on hearing the recent announcement, even the former Culture Secretary, now Lord Smith of Finsbury, said:
The Government made a serious error of judgment when they took their decision on this funding.
How right he was, and he certainly should know what he is talking about.
Perhaps the Minister will give a cheery, positive response to my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who made an important contribution about the third sector and the disappointing response that we have had so far from the Minister responsible for it. It is slightly worrying, however, that when fears have been raised with the Secretary of State, they appear to have fallen on deaf ears. She referred to the additional contribution that the Arts Council will now have to make as relatively small and as
just 5 per cent. of its total income,
as if the cuts were small beer and would have no impact on anyone. As my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells said, however, the impact will be felt largely by small organisations and small events right around the country. As my hon. Friend put it, they are the lifeblood of the arts, culture and heritage, but they will lose out. That is not small beer, and I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that.
We are told not to worry because there will be a £40 million legacy fund, which will fill the black hole that has opened up in the arts, culture and heritage funding system. As my hon. Friend said, however, the vast majority of that money has already been earmarked for two eventsthe opening and closing ceremoniesso there is not a lot of money there.
That is particularly worrying given that, on 6 March, in his excellent speech on the arts at the Tate, the Prime Minister, whom I began by praising for his success in bringing the Olympics to London, said that the arts were of
fundamental importance to the country
and assured us that there would be no return to boom and bust in the arts world. However, he is the Prime Minister of a Government who are making the very cuts that I am talking about. I congratulate the Government on the increased funding that they have provided to date, as my hon. Friend did; the Minister appeared to acknowledge that from a sedentary position. However, they are now moving us away from the boom, and it appears that we will have the bust. That is our real concern.
I will not repeat what my hon. Friend said, but he explained why the arts, culture and heritage are so important to the country. Everybody recognises that they are important for their own sake and that they make a contribution to tourism and to regeneration. Indeed, he referred, for instance, to the work on canals, and there are many other examples. There is, therefore, real concern.
The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey rightly said that anybody can stand up and say, Its a disgrace that the Government are doing this and that people should say a little about what the Government should do instead. He asked whether I believed that there should be increased taxation to pay for the games. Given that he asked me a straight question, let me make it absolutely clear to him that the answer is no. He also asked whether I believed that additional money should come from the London council tax payer, and the answer is no. He therefore has a straight answer to those questions.
The hon. Gentleman then asked whether I believed that an all-party group should go to the Treasury to make representations about the sums that might be available, whether from the analogue sale or from unclaimed assets, and the answer is yes, I do. I would be happy to join him, just as I was when he suggested that there should be an all-party, cross-House Select Committee to keep an eye on the Olympic games.
Next Section | Index | Home Page |