National Lottery

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To move that this House takes note, on the occasion of its 21st birthday, of the contribution made by the National Lottery to sport, culture, charities and national heritage throughout the United Kingdom.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this debate on the National Lottery’s 21st anniversary. It is a story of transformation of our arts, culture, sport and heritage right across the country. I start by thanking noble Lords who will be speaking in this debate for the expertise and wisdom that they will bring, not least my noble friends Lord True and Lady Bottomley: the former ensconced at the very heart of Downing Street at the time that the National Lottery came about; the latter one of the first Secretaries of State for Culture Media and Sport, seeing fundamentally and at first hand the positive impact that the lottery had on culture, sport and the arts in those early years.

I am also very much looking forward to the two maiden speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and my noble friend the Duke of Wellington. In the noble Lord, we have someone whom we can congratulate on his 42nd year in Parliament, although it looked a little tricky when he began. In his first year as an MP, he had to fight his seat no fewer than three times. My noble friend the Duke of Wellington is well known as a patron of the arts, and his commitment to education is shown in no better way than the family’s connection to Kings College London. Having done some research, I found that he has not only a title as prestigious as the Duke of Wellington but another title, which I think any Brit would hold close to their heart: that of Prince of Waterloo. It is clear that in our two maiden speakers we will experience a very interesting Beith Wellington.

I could have picked almost any element of the lottery story and it would have been a tale of transformation, be it the £34 billion to good causes, the 450,000 grants up and down the country, or the line of beauty in all those buildings transformed through lottery grants. There is the Great Court of the British Museum and the marvel that is Tate Modern. Outside London, there is the Eden Project, and over in Margate, the Turner Contemporary, a fabulous new space, has had 1.8 million visitors, bringing £41 million to transform Margate’s local economy. I could highlight the more than 700 playing fields that have been saved or the £750 million that has been invested in renewing our parks and gardens. Each story is a local story which has a national connection to this greatness that is the National Lottery.

However, I want to focus on my lottery story as a recipient, a distributor, an administrator and, amazingly, on a midweek in May in 2006, I actually got to press the button to start the Wednesday evening draw. I did not win. When I was on the Great Britain swimming team, the lottery came in about halfway through my career, so I could see fundamentally at first hand the before and after impact on sport. Before the lottery, success in sport was largely in spite of rather than because of any funding. The SportsAid Foundation did a great job, but it could do only so much. We desperately needed a model if we were to stand on the world stage. If it could be made any clearer, in 1996 a sporting nation as great as Britain came back from the Olympic Games 36th in the medal table.

When lottery funding began, for understandable reasons it largely went into capital projects, both in sport and the arts. There was great nervousness about putting money into revenue or individuals, but we desperately needed it in sport if we were going to change that approach. When the athlete personal awards came in, they enabled sportsmen and women to wrap around them all the services and support that they needed to compete on the world stage, be that physiotherapy, dietetics, podiatry or video analysis—everything to enable that individual to give the best performance possible. That is what we needed; the transformation could hardly be clearer. In Atlanta, the Olympic team was 36th; in London it was third, and the Paralympic team was also third—impossible to imagine or achieve without that lottery funding.

New athletes coming on to the team now take lottery funding for granted, and so they should; they can concentrate 100% on giving the best performance of their lives. There could not be a clearer testament of the transformation of the landscape. The sport strategy launched this morning by our fantastic Minister for Sport will also add to this success. Clearly, the Minister understands the need for world-class performance and grass-roots funding; as the strategy sets out, it is about our sporting futures. Similarly, on Sunday we will have the “Sports Personality of the Year”; on that list of 10 who we get to choose to vote from, how different might the list look were it not for the National Lottery.

When I finished competing, I became a lottery distributor on the board of UK Sport, where we funded the athletes who were preparing for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London 2012. Governing bodies run sport and athletes win the medals; our role was to put in place as efficient a funding stream and pipeline as we could to get the funds to the sports and athletes who could deliver on that world stage. At that time, UK Sport was the leanest and most cost-effective lottery distributor in the game, and it was fantastic to be part of it.

When I started at London 2012, again I became a lottery administrator. If noble Lords cast their thoughts east to the park, the stadia, the aquatic centre and the velodrome, none of it would have been possible without the Olympic Lottery Distributor. Nothing could have transformed east London like an Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the lottery was right at the heart of that. Similarly, it was a game changer for the Paralympic Games, with a huge grant from the OLD enabling the Paralympics Games for the first time ever to sell all the seats for all the sessions and to do a fantastic broadcast deal with Channel 4, which had 500 hours of coverage. There was complete commitment from Channel 4, broadcasting across Britain and rippling out around the world to make the Paralympic Games for the first time a world sporting phenomenon. The National Lottery was right at the centre of that project.

It was not just about sport. I was lucky enough to launch the unlimited art programme alongside the Arts Council England, with £6 million going into disabled arts programmes, funding artists such as the amazing Rachel Gadsden, who has also done a number of projects in Parliament recently. We launched at the Festival Hall with the noble Lord, Lord Hall, and as part of his overextensive biography read out by the organisers, they said that a long time ago he had written a book about coal. As the audience was quite young at this event, I felt it only right when I stood out to speak to point out that the book that the noble Lord had written was about the energy source rather than the “X Factor” judge.

Sport, art, culture and heritage are supported, transformed and enabled as a result as the National Lottery—stuff that would not have happened had it not come into play in 1994. But that is the upside. What about some of the clear and present dangers? There are plenty. The so-called “society lotteries” which have parked their tanks on this space, if not going against the letter of the law, certainly question the spirit of the law. The plan to increase the prizes that can be offered through those sources, potentially from £400,000 to £5 million, can only have a detrimental effect on the National Lottery. Where does it go in terms of the intent of Parliament? Parliament’s intent was to have one National Lottery, a focus for the nation’s heads and hearts, to get the maximum public interest, the maximum prize pot and the maximum funds to good causes with minimum cost, minimum red tape and minimum fraud. What do society lotteries contribute in this space? Let us look at the prize pots. The Health Lottery offers the minimum 20% and the People’s Postcode Lottery offers 27% while the National Lottery offers 41%. What about the flip side in terms of cost? The People’s Postcode Lottery’s costs are 35%, and the Health Lottery’s costs are an amazing 50%, which can be set against the National Lottery’s 5%.

Similarly, there has been a terrible blurring, a polluting, of the clear blue water which should exist between gambling and the lottery. It seems extraordinary that rather than simply playing the lottery with a chance of a big prize and knowing that your money is contributing to good causes, people choose to bet on the outcome of the lottery. This has been a problem since 1994, largely through betting shops, but the internet has enabled it to get to an industrial level, getting round, and in many cases, close to, the letter of the law and frustrating Section 95 of the Act. If we look at what is happening with EuroMillions, people are using a loophole to be able to bet on EuroMillions, and this is promoted outside the UK even though essentially it is one lottery across the whole European area. This has to be addressed if we are not going to see a cannibalisation of the National Lottery and the funds for good causes.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. What is the Government’s view on maintaining the current cap on lotteries other than the National Lottery and on putting a cap on the expenses that they can charge? What is the Government’s position on prohibiting all betting on lotteries? If they do not accept that, what view do the Government take about how and where such alternatives promote their betting products? We see a product such as Lottoland promoted heavily in the UK although it is based in Gibraltar. What does it contribute to good causes? What does it contribute to the United Kingdom? It heavily piggybacks on the language and the words “lotto” and “lottery jackpot”. Should this be allowed? What is the Government’s view on Lottoland and other agencies betting on the National Lottery? Finally, if there is no prohibition, would the Government consider using Section 14(7) of the Act to bring in regulations to ensure that betting on lotteries is seen as a pure lottery so that a licence would be required? Through that there would be much more control of this element of the market and, not least, a minimum return to good causes.

In conclusion, I turn to the father—the daddy—of the lottery, Sir John Major. What courage, what boldness to bring this into play. It shows the difference that one person can make if they have a vision, if they have a belief that something can be brought about in the face of opposition from all sides and all elements of society from Whitehall all across the piece. He believed it could be brought about, and so it was. A number of years later, I was talking to Sir John, and he said that on the day of the launch he went through Victoria station and bought a lottery ticket. He spent the rest of that week in a cold sweat thinking about what would happen if he had the winning ticket. How would he tell Norma and the family that he would not be able to claim the prize?

With £34 billion to good causes, an Olympic team lifted from 36th position in the medal table to third, and 450,000 grants to arts, culture, heritage and charities—grants that are transforming our communities, our cities and our country for the better for ever—that is a prime ministerial legacy and a very happy 21st birthday. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

My Lords, it has been an excellent debate. I thank all noble Lords for their wit, wisdom and erudition, not least the two marvellous maiden speakers, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and my noble friend the Duke of Wellington. I have one piece of advice for my noble friend the Minister: when she is showing French visitors around the Royal Gallery and is in front of that painting, perhaps she could say, sotto voce, “Quel dommage”.

The National Lottery is a national treasure. What a gift it is from Sir John Major, but we have to be constantly alert to the threat from those who would plunder and purloin that treasure. It has delivered across art, culture, sport, heritage and charities for 21 years. It should carry on flying high for decades to come if we keep that focus and attention, and ensure that we keep it in people’s heads and people’s hearts.

Motion agreed.