National Lottery Reform

Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I had not planned to speak today—if Hansard asks for my notes it might not be able to make head nor tail of them—but I felt compelled to speak after intervening on the right hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Alun Michael). I do not always attend debates to make a speech; I often come to listen, but I enjoyed today’s debate so much that I feel I have to join in.

I welcome the lottery. It is John Major’s greatest legacy. He may claim that his greatest legacy is the golden economic legacy he bequeathed to new Labour, but I believe that the national lottery is his best and will be his most enduring legacy.

I do not speak for the Government, of course, but for the people of Suffolk Coastal. It is for that reason that I am here. I should perhaps declare an interest: I was recently given lunch by Camelot, but I have no intention of talking about that side of the national lottery today. I believe that all Members were recently invited to surgeries by the lottery distributors. I was surprised to learn how little funding had been received by projects in Suffolk. Billions of pounds have been generated for good causes in the past 15 or 16 years, but Suffolk—especially Suffolk Coastal—seems not to have received much, particularly not Big Lottery funding. I asked the lottery distributors why they thought that was so, and they came clean, saying that the funding formula was biased towards certain aspects and indices and that Suffolk, being average, loses out. That is unfair.

One of the things that I have discovered as one of the Suffolk MPs is that the county’s statistics seem always to be average, but we all know that there are great pockets of deprivation as well as wealth. The poorer areas definitely lose out when such indices are applied across such a large area. Many of the indices and formulae used for health funding, police funding, education funding and so on, including the basic support grant for our councils, have been consistently skewed away from rural areas, especially in rural England, in favour of other parts of the country.

Opposition Members have spoken of their concern about certain aspects of the lottery in Scotland and Wales. I have an idea for the Minister. He spoke of having arm’s length bodies, but I think that it would be fair for the Government to give guidance to distributors, and perhaps there should be a rule to restrict lottery grants to the United Kingdom. My constituents would be surprised to hear that Big Lottery Fund money goes to overseas projects.

An encouraging aspect for people playing the national lottery is that they believe that they are helping their own communities, just as when they give money to Children in Need they are conscious that the money stays in the United Kingdom and does not go abroad. Many of my constituents would be surprised to hear that El Salvador has received funding in connection with setting up trade unions, that in Nicaragua there are projects on certain aspects of the millennium development goals, and that there are other projects elsewhere around the world. One of the reforms I suggest to the Minister is that that the funding generated by the national lottery should be used in the UK.

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that that is wholly at odds with the spirit of the Government’s intention to protect (1) the budget (2) of the Department of International Development. The Government should be utterly comfortable with that, as should her constituents, because poverty and deprivation in other parts of the world have an impact on this country.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention—we call each other “hon. Friend” because we are friends outside the Chamber, although as a political convention we do not always use that term. I understand what she says. Funnily enough, if the money given in grants by the Big Lottery Fund was part of the 0.7% of gross national income aid target to which we are committed, I could see some logic in it, but lottery funds are about additionality rather than substitution for Government funding, so I do not necessarily agree with her on that point.

I welcome the move in the allocations back to the original percentages of 40, 20, 20, 20 and away from the 50% split. Again, some of my constituents might be surprised that some of the big society funding—I mean Big Lottery funding; I apologise—is used to fund credit unions. That is a great idea. Many of us recognise the extent of the personal debt crisis in this country; rather than having people going into the arms of loan sharks, Members on both sides of the House are trying to encourage credit unions. However, I think my constituents will be more surprised to hear that some Big Lottery Fund money is going to trade unions—for trade union learning or for particular projects such as “The Union Makes Us Strong: TUC History Online”. I do not think that that is appropriate use of the Big Lottery Fund.

I understand that the lottery is growing. I appreciate that we are going back to the principle of additionality and getting rid of redirection towards Government policy. With appropriate marketing, that might encourage more players to resume, as there has been a drop in the number of people playing. This is not necessarily an interest, but I used to play regularly through a syndicate at work. I was determined that the people who worked for me who could retire if they won that magic figure were not going not leave me behind, so I too contributed. I may even get a syndicate going in the House. It is not that we feel poor because of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, but we would all like to enjoy the prosperity of a win on the lottery. Indeed, it could be any one of us. However—to continue this personal anecdote—when the funding formula started to change and when I thought that the Government were starting to redirect money, I decided not to play as regularly, because I thought that the money was not necessarily going to causes in my community. For me, that was an important motivation.

An interesting point was raised about efficiency in the distribution of funds. I hope that the Government can find a way of benchmarking the different funds and distributors. When it comes to the Big Lottery Fund, I would like the Government to consider having a wider range of distributors. I pay tribute to the Community Foundation Network, which I think was set up by the previous Government. Community foundations are either county based or much more local. I pay particular tribute to the Suffolk community foundation; it really has its finger on the pulse and is much better than the big regional offices that we see. We should do all we can to help them.