Lotteries: Good Causes

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that lottery providers who operate on a national basis, other than the National Lottery, spend a minimum of 25 per cent of their profits on the funding of good causes, which are currently funded by the National Lottery.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Ashton of Hyde) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s response to the consultation on society lottery reform was published two days ago, on 16 July. As set out in the Gambling Act 2005, all society lotteries must return a minimum of 20% to good causes; the average is 44%. We expect that lotteries will use the administrative costs saved as a result of higher sales limits announced earlier this week to return a higher share to good causes.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. Does he accept that when we speak about lotteries, we speak about “the” National Lottery? Indeed, in a Statement on Tuesday, he repeatedly referred to its “unique position”. We have two synthetic national lotteries operating and funding from the National Lottery has guaranteed long-term support which has turned us from a third-rate sporting nation to a first-rate one. Can the players in this field guarantee this long-term support? If they are not prepared to do this, can they be restricted to operating as the other society lotteries do?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord is right: we stressed in the reforms that we would preserve the unique status of the National Lottery. That is why we did not raise the annual sales limit by as much as was suggested in the consultation, and by as much as some of the larger society lotteries wanted. We said that the Gambling Commission would take specific evidence and look at the evidence for raising the annual sales limit to £50 million to make sure that it did not impact on the National Lottery. As far as sport is concerned, the Gambling Commission has found no evidence that society lotteries have impacted on the National Lottery in any way. Indeed, they are complementary; in both sectors, lotteries have increased in recent years. I know that sport is of interest to the noble Lord, but there is no reason to think that funding for sport will reduce. Indeed, for next year’s Olympics the amount of money has been underwritten by the Treasury.