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Lord Clement-Jones: By speaking at the tail end of this debate I have a major advantage in that I can agree with almost everything that noble Lords on both sides of the argument have said. I very much support the spirit of the amendment. It would be highly desirable to have a definition of additionality in the Bill, but it is a holy grail—in both 1993 and 1998 attempts were made to try to formulate an appropriate definition.
Mr Caborn, as the noble Viscount pointed out, did himself no favours when he responded on the additionality argument. He made a series of different blusters. I would never accuse a Minister of that kind of language. It would be a "lawyer's paradise"; it would result in bureaucracy—there was a series of unconvincing reasons. The reason that appeared not to have been given was the difficulty of definition, which I would have thought should have been the first argument to be made.
The strange thing about the issue is that at the higher level, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, pointed out, we all agree that additionality was one of the founding principles of the National Lottery and if we left matters there, we would probably all be in wild agreement on that principle. But when you reach the second tier, the NCVO, for example, defines additionality as funding which is additional to that which is properly funded by government and not a substitute for it and that it should not be used to fund essential services or government-inspired programmes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, pointed out that you can shift, and that the voluntary sector often paves the way for government funding, which creates its own set of difficulties. The Minister made a valiant attempt on Second Reading to define it in a broad way. He said:
"There is a very big difference between agreeing priorities and outcomes that align with government priorities and using lottery funding to substitute for government expenditure. We are not doing the latter".
"Lottery money is not just for spending in areas where no government spending would ever take place. That would be an impossible situation. We expect the lottery to spend on top of things which government would normally fund".—[Official Report, 6/2/06; col. 498.]
We probably agree with the first half of what the Minister said. In the second half he almost reaches the point of saying, "If it isn't in the budget for this year for a particular government department, then it is additional". Such matters require careful teasing out, which illustrates the difficulties and why the amendment that we shall consider later might be preferable.
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It is extraordinary that even after 13 years we still do not have a working definition that is agreed by all parties—government, opposition and the voluntary sector. It is high time that we had some sort of definition and I very much hope that the distributors, by inserting in their annual reports what they believe to have been additional, will help to define matters—because each will need to consult with the others on how they describe it. The 60 per cent to 70 per cent rule mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, will be helpful in that regard and we may, in time, arrive at a working definition.
For the moment, I would say "Yes, in spirit", but I am not sure that we are quite there.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: I recall 1993 Bill and the debates that we had on additionality in the Commons, including the Opposition's attacks mounted by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, as he is now and who has temporarily left his place. The Opposition's pressure was considerable and totally proper. One of the outcomes was that after the Bill become law there was major emphasis on capital projects by the various distributors, because no one could have suggested that they were not additional, given that they had not previously existed.
There was an example of British genius, particularly the genius of Lord Rothschild, the then chairman of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. It occurred to him that as Secretary of State I was also the chairman of the Millennium Commission, which was one of the distributors. He asked me quietly, "Would it be helpful if I gave a dinner for the chairmen of all the distributors, to which you would come in your capacity as chairman of the Millennium Commission, so that we could have an informal discussion on the kind of directions and guidance it would be helpful for the Secretary of State to give all of us, including me?". That occurred, and—this is a totally egotistical remark—my appreciation of Lord Rothschild in that regard was that it enabled us, in the directions and guidance, to emphasise architecture as something the distributors should emphasise in decisions relating to the various applicants. That was an example of British genius, for the coincidence of resources with the reputation of British architecture in that era meant that we could reinforce a category of artists who, while not pre-eminent in the world, were widely spread throughout the world.
Regarding the problem of prescription, which occupied us earlier and which underlies this issue, I remind the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Finsbury, who led the Department for Culture, Media and Sport during the evolution of the Labour Government's policies on these matters, of a magical moment when he was due to make a Statement on the future of the National Lottery later that afternoon. By coincidence, perhaps by convenient coincidence, DCMS Questions were being asked at 2.30 pm. I took the liberty of asking his Minister of State, Mr Tom Clarke, to remind the House of the Government's current definition of additionality. Mr Clarke fell back on saying that if I did not know, the Secretary of State
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would be letting us know later in the afternoon. But it suggested that his mastery of the policy at that moment was not absolutely overwhelming.
This is an immensely worthwhile debate and I am looking forward to the Minister's reply. I am conscious of the dinner hour and shall sit down shortly, but I will ask again the paving question that I asked on Amendment No. 2. When, particularly in the context of the Big Lottery Fund, it is determined whether additionality is being practised or offended against, does the primary responsibility lie with the Secretary of State in the prescriptions that he gives or with the chairman of the distributor body in carrying out its part of the equation?
7.30 pm
Lord Davies of Oldham: This has been a fascinating debate and, like the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, the Government agree with the spirit. That is the nature of the problem, but we are dealing with legislation. At Second Reading, I challenged the Opposition to come forward with an amendment that would work in legislation. We all subscribe to the principle—that was enjoined in the early days of the development of the National Lottery. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, expressed just how categorical one could be about certain areas where one could say, "We'll support capital projects". There was a clear definition, because those projects were not undertaken by the government of the day and they were clearly additional. But we all know that the lottery has moved on considerably in recent years and there is a whole range of expenditure where matters are by no means so clear. I was enormously grateful to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley, who has vast experience of these matters, for identifying just how difficult this issue is. She defined the problem with accuracy and was supported by my noble friend Lord Smith, who has also had enormous experience in this area.
Of course, we all support the spirit. I make no bones about it: we are not going to resile in any way, shape or form from the spirit of additionality. We challenged the Opposition to produce an amendment that would translate this issue into effective law, because, with our combined resources through two Administrations over more than a decade, we have not been able to do so in a satisfactory way. That is the nature of our problem.
I heard the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, castigating my right honourable friend Mr Caborn. As I understand it, my right honourable friend Mr Caborn was merely saying, "I have a department whose core funding is quite clear. It spends a great deal on the arts; it spends a great deal on sport; and it spends a great deal on other worthwhile projects. I don't know where it ends and the National Lottery begins easily in these terms". I imagine that the Minister of State, replying to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who was then in the Commons, was wrestling with the same problem. We all do, as do the
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Opposition in putting forward this amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, indicated, it is not a satisfactory position. I give way to the noble Lord.
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