Lotteries: Limits on Prize Values

Ben Lake Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) for securing this important debate. I intend to keep my contribution quite brief, which I am sure hon. Members will be glad to hear, but I will emphasise the important work that funding from society lotteries has been able to support, and reiterate the point that raising the turnover and prize draw limits could enable them to do even more.

Players of society lotteries raise over £250 million a year for thousands of charities and good causes across the United Kingdom. The Gambling Commission’s latest round of statistics highlighted that the money that society lotteries gave to good causes rose to 43.6% from 43% last year. In the constituency I serve, Ceredigion, the People’s Postcode lottery, one of the biggest charity lotteries, has supported several diverse local projects and charities that have been of great benefit to communities across the county. Last year, £9,750 of funding from People’s Postcode lottery players supported Age Cymru Ceredigion’s “Silver Steps” project—a great initiative that supports the building of safe walking trails to promote activity among older people. At the other end of the spectrum, a further £1,429 grant from the People’s Postcode lottery funded improvements to Rhydlewis village hall. Many of those smaller projects do not, or often cannot, access the grants available via the national lottery, and therein lies the real value of society lotteries: they are uniquely positioned to offer funding opportunities to those smaller projects. They can support the causes that the national lottery is unable to help. The hon. Gentleman stated, far more eloquently than I can, a point that is worth reiterating: there need not be any competition between the national lottery and society lotteries—in fact, they complement each other’s good work.

How society lotteries should be regulated is a question that has been exercising Parliament, the Gambling Commission, Government and others for nearly five years, which I am sure hon. Members from all parties agree is far too long. The charities supported by society lotteries would like the issue to be resolved as swiftly as possible. On behalf of Plaid Cymru, I urge the United Kingdom Government to take the necessary action to enable society lotteries to raise more money for good causes as soon as possible.

The Minister may well be aware of my party’s support for the Lotteries Council’s proposals, which the hon. Gentleman also mentioned: to increase the annual turnover limit from £10 million to £100 million and the draw limit from £4 million to £10 million. The existing turnover and draw limits are resulting in increased administration costs. Effectively, they are capping the funds that can go to the good causes that each charity lottery supports; indeed, for some charity lotteries, the limits are having the unintended effect of reducing the amount that they can provide to good causes to begin with.

In the light of the numerous studies and reports that have considered the issue, not least the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s 2014-15 inquiry, I am confident that changes to the limits would preserve the distinctiveness of the national lottery. I conclude by asking the Minister whether she recognises the crucial role that society lotteries play, and when we can expect a response to the call for evidence on lotteries that was launched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in December 2014. Diolch, Sir Edward.