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National Lottery Bill

moved Amendment No. 4:"Page 7, line 4, leave out ““National Lottery in general.”””” and insert ““distribution of money under this Act.””””" The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Government are bringing forward this amendment to meet concerns expressed by some noble Lords that new Section 25E(c), which is inserted by Clause 11, as it was previously drafted,"““encouraging participation in activities relating to the National Lottery in general””," might be taken to be giving lottery distributors powers to encourage people to play the lottery. As I pointed out during previous stages of the Bill, there was no such intention on the Government’s part. Our reason for including this provision was because we needed to make clear that lottery distributors have the power to encourage participation in activities related to promotion of the lottery good-causes funding, such as National Lottery Day and the National Lottery Awards. We think that is important. Such activities have more success in getting across the message about how lottery money has been used if more people get involved. That was the intention of the Government: to demonstrate the purpose of the National Lottery to people and to encourage appreciation of it among people who contribute so much to the National Lottery. That is different from merely publishing information about how the good-cause money is spent, although still related entirely to the good-cause funding. As I mentioned on Report, the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, had written to me thanking me for explaining the reason for the new subsection and saying that he was content with the Government’s proposals. But I appreciated that there was evidence on Report that other noble Lords still had concerns. Therefore, I am pleased to table this amendment, which makes quite clear that the encouragement activity is restricted to,"““distribution of money under this Act””—" that is, to the good-cause funding. I trust that noble Lords will accept that that was always the Government’s intention. We have now made it clearer and more explicit and I hope that the House will support the amendment. I beg to move.