National Lottery

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for a wonderful personal introduction to the debate and for allowing us to indulge our enthusiasms and perspectives on the achievements of the National Lottery. This is really a very fitting pre-Christmas festive celebration of an extraordinary achievement—a national achievement, I would say. I very much agree with the noble Lord in his tributes to Sir John Major, and many noble Lords have paid tribute also to the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, for her contribution to the creation of the National Lottery.

I would also like to congratulate our maiden speakers today. It is not often that I welcome a Duke, let alone the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, who seems to share some of the attack of his distinguished predecessor. I am sure that he will be a great addition to our debates in this House, especially about education, the arts and heritage. I am also delighted to welcome my noble friend Lord Beith, an extremely distinguished member of my party who may be interested to know—he may even be horrified to know—that his by-election in 1973 was the reason I joined the Liberal party way back when. I very much welcome him to our debates, especially as part of what will now be, united in a single House, an even more formidable husband and wife team.

The figures quoted for the National Lottery by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and many others are, by themselves, extraordinary and bear repeating: 450,000 grants awarded in the last 21 years and £34 billion raised for good causes. As my noble friend Lord Addington said, indeed the National Lottery has changed our lives.

In the course of this, we should not forget that the operator has had a huge part to play. I pay tribute not only to the generosity of the National Lottery players but also to Dame Dianne Thompson, who headed Camelot for 15 of those 21 years. The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, mentioned the former distributors such as the Millennium Commission, which need to take credit for the projects that they undertook. However, I want to recognise and acknowledge the role of the current lottery distributors, which have had the difficult job of making some of those funding decisions: Arts Council England and other national arts distributors; the BFI, which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, paid tribute to; the Big Lottery Fund; the Heritage Lottery Fund; Sport England and the other national sports distributors; UK Sport, and so on. Many of those organisations have been mentioned by noble Lords today.

As so many noble Lords have pointed out, it is the individual projects funded in so many different sectors and regions of this country that stick in the mind and are the real cause of celebration. I want to mention some of the passions and enthusiasms that have been brought up during the course of the debate. The noble Lord, Lord True, oversees cultural assets, and there does seem to be a hole in the system there. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, covered carers and community projects. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, talked about the film industry with great passion. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, talked about historic churches and cathedrals and, in particular, the role of match funding. The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, of course talked about Hull, the City of Culture. That is an extremely important project for which I share her enthusiasm.

Sports should have their own section. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, elicited a brace of Paralympians, including himself, to take part in this debate, and the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, is never far away in talking about the sporting projects that she supports. Of course, the National Lottery contributed £2.2 billion towards the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympic Games infrastructure—a huge achievement—let alone its support for all the athletes. My only regret is that noble Lords did not mention rugby in the course of the debate. Over the last 20 years, the National Lottery’s £202 million of support for grass-roots rugby, with the RFU, has been quite extraordinary.

As an inveterate Londoner I have my own favourites. I am an inhabitant of the Great Wen, as the noble Lord, Lord Lea, put it, and I am going to be a little parochial in my enthusiasms. In the past 21 years we have seen our London museums and galleries—which, to me, symbolise the huge improvement in the quality of our lives in this city—develop dramatically. Projects have included the spectacular Great Court of the British Museum, which many noble Lords have mentioned, the new World Conservation and Exhibition Centre, the Ondaatje Wing of the National Portrait Gallery and the Cutty Sark. Anyone who has been underneath the Cutty Sark will have seen its amazing new copper hull. Also included are the brilliant British Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum which have allowed many more people to enjoy its collection. So it goes on, with new projects at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the Science Museum and the South Bank Centre, all planned with National Lottery money.

There are also, of course, inspiring community and arts projects. As a trustee of the Barbican I am particularly interested in the CREATE London programme, run by the Barbican. I cannot omit to mention the bandstand on my local Clapham Common—no project is too small to have the attention of the National Lottery—which is one of the hundreds of parks and open spaces in Britain which have been revitalised using National Lottery money.

The Big Lottery Fund deserves a mention of its own. I admit to some scepticism and concern on its formation but it is now a vital source of funding for some of the UK’s most disadvantaged groups and communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, was particularly eloquent on that subject. As president of Ambitious about Autism, I appreciate many of the projects for the benefit of autistic children that have been funded by the National Lottery. I was interested to hear the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, mention a project in Hampshire. TreeHouse—now Ambitious about Autism—benefited from the “People’s Millions” in 2007. There are new projects such as Autism Ambassadors in Enfield and Speaking Up Together run by Advocacy for All—all of which are directed for the benefit of autistic children and their parents. It is extremely important that we maintain those projects.

Such is the normally uncontroversial nature of the National Lottery that I think I last spoke in the House on this subject nearly 10 years ago when the National Lottery Bill, which created the Big Lottery Fund, was before the House. At the time the NCVO said that there should be three tests of any new lottery distributor: a guaranteed percentage of funding for voluntary organisations; independence from government; and grant making to remain additional to existing public spending. That was agreed by Ministers and their noble friends at the time we debated the Bill. I believe that all three tests have been observed by the National Lottery, but does the Minister believe that the principle of additionality still applies to all distributors, and that it is being observed by them and by government, in particular in relation to arts funding?

There are concerns about the future. We have to remember who is paying the piper: it is the public. In 2013 Camelot raised the price of a Lotto ticket from £1 to £2 and it was controversial. This October, Camelot said that a new millionaire raffle would guarantee at least one millionaire per draw and that the chances would be better of winning at least £1 million. But contradicting Camelot, statisticians suggest that the chances of winning the jackpot have actually moved from one in 14 million to one in 45 million, so there is much unhappiness. Do we know what the impact on sales has been? Is the National Lottery subject to the law of diminishing returns? After all, sales were at a peak in the 1990s.

Since its foundation, the Health Lottery has been cited as a possible threat, and it was mentioned in this debate. What is the approach of the Government to the National Lottery? Will they cannibalise it, as some noble Lords have said? Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, promised increased transparency for the distributors. What progress is being made on that?