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8.53 pm
Mr. Michael Connarty (Falkirk, East): I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser), because it gives me the chance to take on some of the big mythologies that Opposition Members have peddled tonight. They suggest that redistributing lottery money to the people and getting it down to smaller organisations that do not have the necessary resources at present to back up their applications by matching funding will benefit only the Government and not the people.
I do not understand how Conservative Members can continually peddle that logic; perhaps they hope that if they say it often enough, it will stick. The people know
that when we redistribute the lottery money in accordance with the Bill, we shall allow access to people who were denied it before.
The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole made great play about our heritage crumbling away. For 18 years, his party was responsible for our heritage and allowed it to crumble away. The previous Government used the lottery to do things that they were unable to do through their own policies because they had made such a mess of the economy.
The right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) spoke well. He spoke about the five original causes that were listed and that he thought were correct, but the Secretary of State informed us that, before the general election, the right hon. Gentleman himself talked about the possibility of using lottery money to bring teachers back into schools to teach sports. That was clearly an intention to move.
Why do we have to get into this ridiculous posturing, when we want simply to move sensibly from where we are to where we want to be? The three matters that are outlined to be added to the lottery's five functions--access, excellence and education--should be applauded. There is nothing wrong with trying to move in the right direction.
The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole suggests that we can give people absolutely more than they thought they would get, simply because there is more money in the coffers, but that it is somehow wrong to have another cause. When any funding or fundraising agency creates more money, we should not simply keep going on in the same way, giving more to the original ideas, when there are some new ideas to which the money can be applied.
If we are to get an estimated £10 billion up until the time when Camelot goes--or its licence is renewed--we should use it in a different way, and that is what we intend to do. The Bill and the White Paper set that out. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole should have read the document: it tells us what healthy living centres are. They are new and important, and were not provided for in expenditure by the previous Government.
Mr. Lansley:
In the same breath, the hon. Gentleman talks about the possibility of £10 billion being obtained for good causes from the lottery and speculates about Camelot losing its licence. What contribution does he think Camelot has made to the fact that we will get not the £8.8 billion that it forecast, but perhaps £10 billion or more? Perhaps he would like to give a bit of credit where it is due.
Mr. Connarty:
The hon. Gentleman should have listened and responded to what I actually said. I corrected myself when I talked about when the Camelot licence runs out, and added that it might be renewed. If he looks at Hansard, he will see that I said, "or it is renewed". The licence may well be renewed. I do not want to be involved in a competition between Camelot and any other provider.
We will work on the basis set down in the White Paper and try to get the maximum amount for good causes, with efficiency, and Camelot could be the organisation to do that. I have no axe to grind with any organisation that
may run the lottery, but I applaud the fact that Camelot has bought out GTech and taken away some of the smell that surrounded its operation.
Mr. Fraser:
You made reference to what I said about healthy living centres. If you were listening to my comments so carefully, perhaps you would like to stand up--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
rose--
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Gentleman must sit down if I am on my feet. He should remember that he is addressing the Chair when he says "you".
Mr. Fraser:
If the hon. Member for Falkirk, East (Mr. Connarty) was listening so intently to my comments earlier--which I doubt--perhaps he would like to give a direct response to a couple of questions about the healthy living centres.
Mr. Connarty:
I refer the hon. Gentleman to pages 14 and 15 of the White Paper and suggest that he reads it for himself.
It is important to see the new good cause for what it is: something additional that people want. They want what is being offered in health, education and the environment. They want the New Opportunities Fund, which has been applauded. To slight the 400 organisations that took the trouble to write in and may gain something for the people whom they represent or work with is to do down many good voluntary organisations that will benefit from the new use of the fund.
It is right to take the new direction that is on offer: to people and not to bricks and mortar. I want to put a couple of examples on the record, because it is worth letting people know. Many people think not that the lottery is doing anything wrong, but simply that it needs to do some other things.
I certainly applaud the Millennium Commission's decision to give £32 million to the canal link project, which will link the Forth and Clyde canals and open up the waterway once again from Grangemouth on the Forth in my constituency right across to Glasgow and the Clyde. It will also link the Union canal through an imaginative large wheel that will lift boats and barges into the Forth and Clyde canal. It will link Edinburgh to Glasgow. There is potential for 4,000 jobs in the long term, particularly in tourism and hospitality.
Mr. Lansley:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Connarty:
I will not give way because I know that other hon. Members want to speak.
Such projects are imaginative and important for the economy. They are to be applauded. It is not a matter of saying that what is done, when it is done, is not being done well; it is that other things can be done. A good example is YOGI, the Youth of Grangemouth Initiative. It is a SOBAR--a soft drinks only bar, which was given lottery funding. It was thought up by young people, and is run by young people for the benefit of the young in Grangemouth, the main port in my constituency.
There is also Laurieston senior citizens' welfare hall, which has applied three times for lottery funding to do something with the hall. It is run by volunteers, purely on subscriptions and charity, for the older people in the village, who have not been able to get access to funding. It is important that the New Opportunities Fund gives such small organisations a chance of access.
Mr. Swayne:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Connarty:
No, other hon. Members want to speak and I do not want to take up too much time.
It is important that such people get access. It is clear that the way in which the Government are looking at the lottery in the Bill, which we will debate in detail in Committee, will allow access and open up opportunities. There were many criticisms of the lottery, not necessarily for what it did, but for the structures that surrounded it. We are going to deal with regulation. The pressure on one Oflot regulator will be spread over a commission. That is to be applauded because it is what the people want. People are happy to see GTech leave Camelot. Perhaps people will reassess how Camelot works. The main thing is to give access to the money to the many places in Britain, many of which were mentioned today, that have not yet had access in proportion to their need or to what would be justified. Other important causes have taken much more of the money than people feel happy with.
Mr. Damian Green (Ashford):
The Secretary of State said one unarguably right thing in his opening speech: the Bill symbolises the Government and all their works. I whole-heartedly endorse that because, apart from a few welcome touches around the edges, the salient facts about the Bill are that it is a centralising measure which takes power away from individuals and gives it to the Government; it is designed by and for the Treasury, not the people; and it relies on a huge gap between rhetoric and reality to try to make the political points that the Government seek to make by introducing it.
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