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National Lottery Bill

My Lords, I beg tomove that the House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reasons 1A and 2A; do not insist on its Amendment No. 7, and do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 7A in lieu. The issue of prescribed expenditure has been debated fully during the passage of this Bill. For the reasons that we have previously explained in detail, we believe that the powers set out in Clause 7 are necessary. They serve an important purpose, given the exceptionally wide scope and large size of the Big Lottery Fund good cause. Covering as it doeshealth, education, the environment and charitable expenditure, the Big Lottery Fund good cause will be very different from the existing, much narrower arts, sport and heritage good causes. We therefore need to be able to set out at thevery highest level—I emphasise this—the types of expenditure on which the Big Lottery Fund should focus. We are talking about broad areas of expenditure—not projects or programmes, not the split between the four parts of the good cause, not the split between the four countries of the UK, and certainly not specific grants. We feel very strongly that this should be done in a transparent and accountable way, and that there should be proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is why we are clear that it should be done by secondary legislation, subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. We have made available an illustrative order, demonstrating how the power to prescribe expenditure will be used in practice. The ability to prescribe devolved expenditure is also central to achieving the greater devolution of decision-making to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is the aim of this Bill. Amendment Nos. 1 and 2 would mean that the devolution arrangements in the Bill would not work. They would retain power for the Secretary of State where the Government’s intention is to devolve it. For that reason, we cannot accept Amendment Nos. 1 and 2 and I urge the House not to insist on them. On Amendment No.7, I acknowledged at Third Reading that concerns about the perceived level of government control over the Big Lottery Fund were strongly and genuinely felt—both Front Benchers made these points substantially in debate. I did not accept that these concerns were entirely justified, but I undertook that the Government would amend the Bill to address them. That is what Amendment No. 7A does. We proposed our own amendment because Lords Amendment No. 7 would have put the Big Lottery Fund on a very different footing from that of all the other lottery distributors. It would have required the fund to ““take into account”” rather than ““comply with”” the important financial directions that we issue to all lottery distributors to ensure the proper use of public money. Amendment No. 7A brings the Big Lottery Fund into line with the other distributors in respect of both policy and financial directions. I recognise that there has been some concern that our amendment maintains the power in new Section 36E(1) for the Secretary of State to issue any direction, which must be complied with. I emphasise that this is just not the case. The power to issue directions set out in new Section 36E(1) must beread together with the rest of that section, inparticular subsection (2). That subsection, under our amendment, provides that, where the Secretary of State intends to give directions under subsection (1) in relation to policy matters, her power to do so is restricted to giving directions specifying the matters to be taken into account by the Big Lottery Fund. The effect of new Section 36E is the same in relation to policy directions, despite the differences in drafting, as the effect of Section 26(1) of the National Lottery Act etc. 1993, which currently obtains. The Big Lottery Fund will be in the same position as all the other lottery distributors, a point on which we lay great emphasis. I hope that the House will recognise that we have listened carefully to the views expressed during the passage of this Bill, and have been prepared to make changes where we believe that they are necessary. I therefore urge the House not to insist on their Amendment No. 7 but to agree with AmendmentNo. 7A. Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reasons 1A and 2A; do not insist on its Amendment No. 7, and do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 7A in lieu.—(Lord Davies of Oldham.)