Lord Addington
Main Page: Lord Addington (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I very much hope that there will not be a decline in lottery receipts generally and that people will play the National Lottery. I believe that there are many good causes. Clearly, if that happened, we would have to look at these matters across the piece.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, although the problems we had were solved by developing the lottery for the Olympics, we must go on and look at the funding of team games to give ourselves a broader base to encourage participation?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, my noble friend raises the issue of team sports and clearly we want all sports to have as many opportunities as possible—my noble friend may be thinking of basketball in particular. That has enormous potential to reach young people and we want it to grow in the country. That is why Sport England in particular is investing a great deal of money. Over the funding cycle about £10 million will go into basketball. We want teams to succeed but they need to be in a position to win Olympic medals, which basketball is not at the moment. While it is not in a position to win medals it is not in the Rio funding scheme.