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National Lottery Bill

I have listened carefully to my noble friend Lord Astor, the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the Minister. I support the proposition that the Secretary of State takes advice from the National Audit Office; indeed, there could be circumstances in which the auditing accountant would find it difficult to sign off the accounts if he or she felt that political pressure was being brought in a way that put the lottery fund at unreasonable risk. I feel strongly that this is a technical area. I have been the chief executive of the Commonwealth Development Corporation—a body that had commitments. We always had to argue fully to our auditing accountants that we were holding the right balances of cash in order to meet those commitments. Everything that I have read on this subject so far seems to have been overly political and not statements of recommended practice, which is what this balance question needs to follow.