National Lottery (Regionalisation) (Hansard, 26 February 1997)

§ Mr. Ian Pearson (Dudley, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that equitable regard shall be had to the interests and needs of the regions of England in so far as the distribution of monies, decision taking, administration and other matters affecting the National Lottery are concerned. The national lottery is the largest single lottery in the world, attracting 13 million regular players and producing average weekly ticket sales of nearly £70 million. According to the latest figures from the national lottery's web site, since the lottery was launched in November 1994, ticket sales have totalled over £8 billion, and more than £3 billion has been awarded to almost 19,000 successful applicants.

The national lottery has already made a substantial impact on Britain's public life. Notwithstanding legitimate concerns about gambling, it clearly has the potential to make a long-lasting contribution to improving the quality of our lives through the substantial sums it raises for good causes. It has virtually doubled public spending on sport, art, heritage and culture. Charities in the voluntary sector have also benefited—although, for well-publicised reasons, the impact on them has been more mixed.

It is essential that all that money raised for good causes is redistributed fairly. However, clear evidence shows that our regions are losing, and there is widespread concern that the different distributing bodies are too centralised, are poorly co-ordinated and have little sense of strategic purpose. The Bill is designed to address those failings. I am pleased that it has secured cross-party support, and support from hon. Members from almost all the English regions.

Lottery income is the people's money. People in the west midlands feel badly short-changed by some of the decisions of the distributing bodies, particularly the Millennium Commission, the national heritage memorial fund and the Arts Council. Losing to Greenwich for the right to stage the millennium festival still rankles with many in the west midlands, as does losing to Wembley for the new national football stadium. Recently, to add insult to injury, the bid of Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Glasshouses to create a millennium plantatarium has been turned down, and a highly imaginative animal conservation and regeneration project from Dudley zoo development trust has been rejected.

The strong feeling in the west midlands is that we have a lottery with a corrupt croupier. That feeling is backed by hard facts. In the recent third round allocation of millennium funding, according to the commission's figures, the west midlands has £14.2 million and Greater London has £88 million-worth of projects proceeding for detailed analysis. In the reserve list, Greater London has £72 million and the west midlands only £1.9 million.

The situation with the national heritage memorial fund is similarly unfair. The lottery's figures show that, up to the end of last year, the west midlands had received £1.50 per head—the lowest figure for any region, and a paltry sum compared with London's £21.70 per head. Every region has lost out to the capital, with 45 per cent. of heritage money going to London institutions or projects.

339 The same is true of Arts Council funding. Figures to December 1996 show that the east midlands has received just £3.20 per head and Merseyside £3.70, compared with £46.90 for London. This is not a moan or a whine. It is not about the politics of envy—it is about fairness. Every region contributes to the national lottery, and every region should expect to benefit from it.

Last week, the London Evening Standard pontificated: The greatest peril facing the lottery today is the danger that, in the name of 'fairness', far too much of its money is being given to dubious regional projects. Excuse me! Far too much money? Dubious projects? I do not want to be churlish, but we in the west midlands are being robbed. We want our fair share of lottery cash, and we are capable of deciding for ourselves what is a good or a bad project. We do not want matters to be decided for us by some bunch of London-based, London-biased, over-privileged, arrogant so-called experts with a myopic metropolitan mentality that does not extend beyond 0171 country. Nor do we need smug, supercilious editorials applauding a system that is so clearly rigged in favour of London.

The Bill will focus on four areas. First, I want greater fairness in the distribution of lottery proceeds. I do not think that many people object to the principle of funding projects of genuine national significance separately, but the current regional disparities are too wide. I would favour a system that top-sliced budgets for national projects but then had specific regional allocations for each distributing body, based on a formula related to needs and population, as is the case with the National Lottery Charities Board.

The Government issue formal policy and financial directions to the distributing bodies through the Secretary of State under section 26 of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993. The directions encourage distributing bodies to achieve a reasonable spread of expenditure across the regions. That does not go far enough. Over the past two years, those directions do not seem to have been followed. The Bill would therefore amend the Act to provide for regionalisation of the distribution of lottery proceeds.

Secondly, the lottery's decision-making structures need to be reviewed, because they are too centralised. The distributing bodies are not permitted to delegate decision making on applications—some clearly do not even want to. Some boards appoint local assessors as their local eyes and ears and receive advice from their own regional bodies. However, centralised boards cannot hope to have a proper understanding of the wider context within which those seeking funds operate. They are simply not close enough to the ground.

The Bill would not just permit delegated decision making; it would require it, by providing that decisions should be taken at a regional level. It would also consider 340 the scope for integrated decision making through regional lottery partnership boards with business and local authority representation and ring-fenced allocations for each worthy cause.

Thirdly, while I accept entirely the merits and implications of a bid-driven system, I believe that the current way in which money is allocated is insufficiently strategic. Each distributing body has its own strategy of sorts, but there is little linkage between them, and little obvious connection with the strategies of other organisations. To maximise the impact of lottery money, a strong argument can be made for linking it to the totality of resources available for regeneration in a region, including the single regeneration budget, European funds, private finance, training and enterprise council funds, and local authority resources.

The Bill would require the regionalised lottery bodies to take account of area and regional economic development strategies when making decisions on awards, thereby ensuring that money is allocated within a coherent framework.

Fourthly, the final matter that the Bill will address is what happens when the Millennium Commission is wound up. There is a compelling case for new regionalised commission structures, specifically focused on funding regional economic development measures and initiatives. They could support a wide range of projects, and the commissions would be required to work closely with the other distributing bodies to avoid duplication.

The national lottery has been a major success story in raising money for good causes. The way in which the money has been distributed, however, has created widespread concern. There is a growing feeling that the regions are losing to London and the south-east. If there is no change in the way in which the lottery operates, it runs the risk of losing the confidence of the British public, which is so vital to its future success. Greater fairness in the regional distribution of lottery cash should be a priority, and I therefore seek leave to bring in my Bill.