National Lottery (Hansard, 18 April 1990)

§ Mr. Ken Hargreaves (Hyndburn)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a national lottery to be held for the benefit of the arts, sport and the environment in the United Kingdom.

I wish to place on record my thanks for the help and support I have received in seeking to promote a national lottery from Europrint, for whom I was previously a consultant, from Lord Birkett, and particularly from the international conductor, Dennis Vaughan, without whose dedication and hard work, public support for a lottery would not be at its current high level.

It will not have escaped the notice of hon. Members that not all forms of new taxes are universally popular, and the words of Thomas Jefferson in 1826 are as accurate now as they were then: Lotteries are the perfect tax, paid only by the willing.

Lotteries have existed for centuries. The Romans participated in them as a form of entertainment, and by the early 1700s, European Governments had begun to recognise the revenue potential of lotteries and started to license their operation. Revenues were used to finance the construction of roads, schools and churches. Unfortunately, by the mid-1800s, even Government-controlled lotteries were falling prey to abuses and fraud, and lotteries fell into disrepute. The advent of computer technology and improved communications has changed all that and made safe, honest lotteries once more a practical proposition.

Today, 116 countries throughout the world have lotteries. They have been used to finance the building of Sydney opera house, to fund the Olympic games in Moscow and Mexico and to build the great American universities of Yale and Harvard. Although Britain has benefited in the past from national lotteries—the British museum was built using funds from them, for instance —Britain and Albania are now the only two countries in Europe that do not have a national lottery.

Dennis Vaughan said in a recent article: Everyone agrees about the necessity of funding for health, education, pollution, children, old age and the like, so they should come out of common taxation. There will never be agreement about the various merits of arts, sport and the visual aspects of the environment, so the only fair way is to pay for them by voluntary taxation … a lottery. I share that view and I believe that the arts, sport and the environment deserve increased resources because they contribute significantly to the quality of life.

Many of the problems that we face underline the need for greater provision. Claudio Abbado, the great conductor, pointed out that, whenever youngsters participate actively in classical music, there is no drug problem; yet young people who live in the west and east of England have to rely on visits from London orchestras to be able to listen to first-class musicians, and the Welsh national opera has no home.

Those who practise sport regularly find that it is the best antidote to misery, despair and indolence, which are often cited as causes of the tendency to drug taking. Participation in sport also helps people to rid themselves of untold frustrations which often lead to violence.

There is an urgent need for extra sports facilities for our young people. A letter that I have received from the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain makes the point that swimming and sport in general in our 1440 country are being left behind their counterparts in the countries with which we compete. Facilities here are poor compared with those in other west European countries. A similar story can be told about most other sports. Much of the time freely given by thousands of volunteers to help young people participate in sport is spent in fund raising. The tremendous support for the idea of a national lottery from environmental groups underlines the necessity for a major new injection of funds into many areas of their work.

We have the need for extra resources; we have the desire to take part in a national lottery with a prize of £1 million or more. In a recent opinion poll, 44 per cent. of people said that they would buy a ticket each week, 71 per cent. said that they were fairly likely to buy a ticket and only 6 per cent. said that they were certain not to buy one.

I referred earlier to a new injection of funding. I have no doubt that the introduction of a British national lottery will result in a significant increase in resources for sports, the arts and the environment. Projected sales of lottery tickets, arrived at by taking the per capita spend on lotteries in EC countries, produces a figure of £3.1 billion. If 45 per cent. of the proceeds are returned in prize money and another 20 per cent. allocated to expenses, we are left with 35 per cent. to distribute to the various causes. That would allow £1 billion more to be spent on sports, the arts and the environment each year.

That sum could fully fund a symphony orchestra in each regional centre, retain famous works of art in this country and increase support for young talent throughout Great Britain. It could also provide a new national stadium built to the highest Olympic standards, a fully funded research centre for sports medicine and scholarships for aspiring young athletes, in addition to extra facilities nationwide. It could also improve the environment by helping the conservation of land and waterways and the preservation of wildlife.

All this could be done with just one year's revenue from a British national lottery, and it would be extra money. It is my intention that the amount raised for sport, the arts and the environment should be in addition to current levels of Government spending, not a substitute for them.

It is clear that many people in Britain want to buy lottery tickets. Many are already doing so, not least for the West German lottery. It is unfortunate that the money that they are spending is being used to improve German roads, hospitals and facilities, whereas it should be used to benefit people in Great Britain. Unless we act, we shall continue to ensure that the money that we lose ends up in Cologne, Bonn or Hamburg instead of Colchester, Birmingham or Hyndburn.

To the extent that many people are already buying tickets, many of the arguments against a British national lottery are now irrelevant. In the past, fears have been expressed that a national lottery could damage charity and sports club lotteries and the football pools, and could encourage compulsive gambling. I believe that such fears are groundless. Evidence collected in the United States shows that, contrary to charities' first expectations, their ticket sales actually increased.

Ireland satisfied the concerns of the charity lotteries by including a clause in its legislation to compensate them for any loss of income incurred as a result of the introduction of a national lottery. In over two years since the launch of the lottery, no claim has been received. In an interdepartmental working party report on lotteries in 1441 1975, the pools companies stated that a vigorous pools industry and large lotteries were compatible. I believe that a national lottery based on a "rub-off" ticket would have little effect on the pools.

I reject, too, the fears about compulsive gambling, which flourishes in enclosed environments, such as casinos, slot machine arcades and betting shops where the risks are high, the action fast, the results determined quickly and where gamblers can use their perceived skill to beat the system. Lotteries have none of those elements, so they do not lead to compulsive gambling.

I welcome the support that the Bill has received from hon. Members of all parties. I have described evidence of the need for a lottery, of support for a lottery and of the desire of the majority of people to take part in a lottery. We in this House should be the last people to oppose a lottery. We have to enter a lottery every day to ask a question, and every year to introduce a private Member's Bill. If we are committed to extending consumer freedom and promoting voluntary action, we should give this Bill our full support.