---

National Lottery Bill

My amendment sought to remove the statutory sector only to focus my part of the discussion on the voluntary and community sector. In principle, I have no objection to other sources of statutory funding putting their money through the Big Lottery; that seems to me to be a matter for the department and the Big Lottery Fund itself. I was looking for partnership between grant-giving trusts with their own delivery mechanisms and the Big Lottery Fund, in some of which the Big Lottery Fund would accept that it was playing a secondary role. It informs an organisation about what is going on in the outside world if, from time to time, it takes a lead from somebody else and does not always want to lead itself. As to the Carnegie Trust, I think I am right in saying that it is very much a research trust, broadly on the lines of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation or one of the other famous research trusts. It does not introduce the issues of delivery and evaluation I had in mind when I looked for a way for the Minister to move towards genuine partnerships between grant-giving trusts—which work in some of the same areas as the Big Lottery Fund—and the Big Lottery Fund, so that they work together. Instead of there being, as I would perceive it, an increasing degree of stand-off between the lottery and the grant-making charities, the two operators within the field would be brought closer together. That is what I was looking for, in order that they could genuinely work together. I do not think this provision achieves that objective, but if the Government do not wish to achieve it my whole argument falls to the ground.