National Lottery

Lord Smith of Hindhead Excerpts

Wednesday 14th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I am happy to take the right reverend Prelate’s point back to colleagues in the department, but I hope that he will recognise the value of the work that the National Lottery Heritage Fund does.

[Lord Smith of Hindhead (Con)]

My Lords, with reference to my interests as set out in the register, if a person plays the six draw-based National Lottery games each week, excluding scratch cards and online games, they spend £21. With the current fuss being made about affordability in gambling, is it right that the state-franchised lottery is encouraging people to “dream big” and gamble over £1,000 a year?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure that I would agree with my noble friend and call affordability a fuss—I think that for once I may have a number of your Lordships on my side. Affordability is important but, as my noble friend knows, we see the lowest level of problem gambling in the lottery games. As I said in response to the earlier question, the primary purpose of the lottery is to provide money for good causes and 30% of the revenue raised has done that since its inception.