Olympic Games: Finance

(asked on 25th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has plans to underwrite the funding for the 2020 Olympic team as a result of declining returns for good causes provided by the National Lottery.


Answered by
Nigel Huddleston Portrait
Nigel Huddleston
Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
This question was answered on 3rd March 2020

Part of Team GB ’s undoubted success is the long-term planning that goes into UK Sport’s world-leading operation, and Lottery funding is crucial to UK Sport in making its funding allocations on a four year basis ahead of each Olympic Games. Should UK Sport’s expected National Lottery income fall below the level assumed at the time of the Spending Review in 2015, DCMS will underwrite additional funding for Team GB (and ParalympicsGB) to be properly supported and to allow our most talented athletes to achieve success in Tokyo.

After some decline in 2015/16, National Lottery income has now stabilised at approximately £1.6 billion per year. The latest data published in February 2020 by the Gambling Commission suggests this recovery is set to continue - in 2019, 30% of people aged over 16 reported having played a draw-based game in the last month, up from 28% from the previous year.

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