National Lottery (Hansard, 18 December 2000)

§ The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith)
I beg to move, That the draft Apportionment of Money in the National Lottery Distribution Fund Order 2000, which was laid before this House on 23rd November, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.
The previous order extended the funding of the Millennium Commission until 20 August 2001, after which it will receive no more proceeds from the lottery. This order takes up the story from that point, by determining what happens to the commission's share of lottery funding thereafter.
It has been long-standing Government policy that once the commission's share of lottery income ceases, it should be transferred to the new opportunities fund. The order gives effect to that policy. It provides that immediately after the commission stops receiving new income from lottery proceeds, the new opportunities fund's share of lottery income increases from its present 13⅓ per cent. to 33⅓ per cent. In other words, from 21 August 2001 the new opportunities fund will receive £1 out of every £3 paid into the national lottery distribution fund.
The creation of the new opportunities fund as a new UK-wide lottery distributor focusing on health, education and the environment reflected the Government's intention to target lottery funding more directly on key areas of social inclusion and disadvantage. The fund has established itself as a major grant maker and developed innovative grant-making practices. It has enabled much needed educational, environmental and health-related initiatives, which would not otherwise be funded, to go ahead. Barely two years on from its creation, the fund is already having an impact on the nation's quality of life. From a healthy living centre for the elderly in Devon to new child care provision where none previously existed in County Tyrone, new opportunities fund money is flowing into projects of great benefit to people and communities.
A recent survey has confirmed that the public support the targeting of lottery funding on those areas—health, education and the environment—in which the fund distributes grant. When asked to identify the two or three most important areas for lottery funding out of a list of 10, 69 per cent. of respondents identified health, 55 per cent. education and 26 per cent. the environment. More than 2,000 grants have been awarded, many involving large numbers of individual projects. More than —614 million has been allocated to projects. The impact of those grants already includes: child care schemes that will create more than 110,000 new child care places; training in the use of information and communication technologies for more than 160,000 teachers; new cancer equipment in hospitals, and new preventive health services for deprived communities.
The new opportunities fund's increased income will allow it to target more areas where a real step-change in the quality of people's lives can be achieved. On 6 November, the Government launched the consultation paper "New Opportunities from the Lottery" which proposed a number of new initiatives for the new opportunities fund to fund. 164 In summary, those proposals are —750 million for additional sports facilities for schools and wider community use; —50 million for outdoor adventure and other activities for young people; —300 million to boost the fight against heart disease and stroke, to provide extra money for the fund's existing initiative to combat cancer, and to provide palliative care for adults and children with life-threatening and chronic illness; —200 million for the provision of child care places for children aged up to three, with further support for the over-threes, especially in deprived areas; —150 million for a programme of environmental renewal and community regeneration, which would support community regeneration, promote recycling and develop renewable energy sources; and an amount to be provided as small grants for community groups to support local health, education and environment projects.
The order also fulfils a second purpose. In the event that the Millennium Commission gets more than —2,286.5 million in the period up to 20 August 2001, the order ensures that any additional amount is transferred to the new opportunities fund. In other words, the order acts as a cap on the Millennium Commission's income. I commend it to the House.

§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey)
As the Secretary of State says, the effect of the order is to hand over to the Government's new opportunities fund one third of all the national lottery distribution fund from 20 August next year. Although I shall voice concern about the order, I should state at the outset that the Conservatives do not begrudge any of the beneficiaries of the new opportunities fund the money that they have received. Indeed, if after-school projects in my constituency had received the —92,000 that the new opportunities fund has bestowed in Islington, South and Finsbury, instead of nothing, I should be the first to congratulate them. If good causes can be ranked, there is no doubt that most people would rank cancer research above bailing out the dome.
We are not against funding cancer research, out-of-school activities or environmental projects, and we applaud the fact that the original lottery distributors have already done much in each of these areas. However, we have deep reservations about the new opportunities fund, and we cannot support awarding the fund a third of all the national lottery money. I emphasise again that that is not because we do not care about the projects that the new opportunities fund supports. It is because we do not believe that it is right that the Government should take so direct a hand in the award of lottery money.

§ Mr. Chris Smith
I am intrigued as to where the argument is leading the hon. Gentleman. He says that he supports the beneficiaries of new opportunities fund money, but he does not will the means to provide that money to them. Does he support new opportunities fund money going to good causes in health, education and the environment, or not?

§ Mr. Ainsworth
If the Secretary of State is patient, he will find out.
165 It has been said that the lottery should not be seen as providing … money for the Government to distribute—[Official Report, 16 December 1994; Vol. 251, c. 1333.] Those were the words of the Minister for Sport, who happens also to have responsibilities for the lottery. It is always pleasant to see the Minister for Tourism, Film and Broadcasting in the Chamber, and perhaps she will explain why the responsible Minister is not present for this important debate about the future of the national lottery. The Minister for Sport said that the lottery was not to be used by the Government to provide extra funding.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), to whom we owe the existence of the national lottery, recently wrote: The Government must not get its sticky paws on any more lottery money … It's not the Government's lottery, it's our national lottery. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of his introduction of the lottery, many thousands of good causes have benefited. The lottery has been an enormous success and immensely popular. It was established to provide additional funding to areas of life—sport, charities, the historic environment and the arts—that have always tended to be, and probably will always tend to be, at the back of the queue for Exchequer funding.
The creation of the new opportunities fund has already taken money away from the original good causes, the original lottery beneficiaries, which are under growing pressure to meet demand. As the joint lottery distributors made clear in a recent submission to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, they are already receiving far more applications for lottery funding than they can possibly support. For example, the National Lottery Charities Board can provide only £1 for every £6 requested.
Since the general election, the Arts Council of England and Sport England have each found themselves with respectively £97 million and £96 million less lottery money to distribute. That is in part a direct consequence of the creation of the new opportunities fund. A similar reduction has taken place at the National Lottery Charities Board and the heritage lottery fund. We know also—it has been recognised on both sides of the House—that charities especially have suffered an impact from the national lottery, and it seems particularly unfair that they should not receive the share of the lottery distribution fund which was originally envisaged for them.
The new opportunities fund is robbing Peter to pay Paul, where Peter is independent of government and Paul is an agent of government. We believe that if lottery money is to be truly additional to core government spending, it should be independently administered. The order will expand the role of government and extend patronage where we believe that it should be reduced. The introduction of the new opportunities fund has added new bureaucracy to the administration of lottery funds and further needless complications.
There is considerable overlap between the activities of the new opportunities fund and the activities of other lottery distributors. That is perhaps most visible in sport, but it also applies to the charities and heritage funds which have supported worthwhile schemes in health care, the environment and out-of-school activities. When the Government reviewed their policy on the lottery, it would 166 have been possible to expand support for those causes without creating a new Government machine to control the process.
The establishment of the new opportunities fund had less to do with the causes that it supports than with the Government's desire to expand and to exercise control. We do not approve of that in principle and, given the record of the Secretary of State on the dome, Wembley and the national lottery licence award, we do not approve of it in practice, either.
The order effectively extends the hand of the Treasury into one third of the lottery. It reduces independence in the distribution of lottery funds and it expands the role of the state. I therefore ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in opposing it.

§ Mr. Chris Smith
Will the hon. Gentleman now answer the question that I posed earlier and which he singularly failed to answer in the course of his remarks? Would he scrap the new opportunities fund and thereby deprive its beneficiaries of the funds that they receive, if he got into government?

§ Mr. Ainsworth
The right hon. Gentleman clearly has not been listening carefully enough to my remarks; nor have I quite concluded them.
When I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to join me in opposing the measure, I anticipate that the Government's spin doctors will, as usual, be hard at work saying that that is an example of heartless Tories being cruel to sick children. Nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing could be more despicable than using the case of vulnerable children for party political advantage. Nothing that I have said tonight can justify such a view. Still less would it justify the cynical exploitation of the vulnerable.
A Conservative Government would honour all the new opportunities fund's existing commitments and reform the way in which the lottery works to make is less bureaucratic, more independent of Government and more responsive to the aspirations of communities and the needs of vulnerable people throughout the country. The order is symptomatic of a Government who are greedy for the public's money and paranoid about trusting anyone or anything that they cannot control.

§ Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)
I take as my text tonight the words of the Prime Minister, who stated: We don't believe it would be right to use Lottery money to pay for things which are the Government's responsibilities. Those words have been quoted by the Government on a number of occasions, but seem wholly inconsistent with the intention set out in the order.
The Secretary of State is aware that my right hon. and hon. Friends and I do not believe that the new opportunities fund should have been established in the way it was, or that it should be re-financed as the Government propose. We do not believe that it should have a third of the total lottery funds.

§ Mr. Ainsworth
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Is it not the case that had he had his way, there would have been no national lottery at all?

§ Mr. Maclennan
That is true, and I have repeated it a number of times on the Floor of the House. I am conscious of the regressive nature of the lottery, and I observe that some of the poorest people in the country contribute to it, often evidently unable to afford it and with little prospect of any direct return.
The lottery was established by the previous Government and supported by the present Government, and is clearly here to stay. I am not about to spit in the wind on that issue of principle, but I do not regard the new opportunities fund as an appropriate use of the resources. If the Secretary of State starts to invoke arguments about where public opinion lies, that suggests that even the money that is retained for the four original causes will be at risk. I doubt whether those people who have been consulted in the manner that he described will have a different view about what is being spent on the arts or sport.

§ Mr. Chris Smith
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we have given a guarantee to the four existing distributors for the arts, sport, heritage and charities that, at the very least, they will continue to receive their current share of the lottery for the duration of its next franchise.

§ Mr. Maclennan
Yes, I am aware of that. However, I do not think that the Secretary of State can do that and, at the same time, pray in aid public opinion, as that runs against the evidence that he cited in his opening remarks to our short debate. To be candid, the point of the lottery was to find money for meritorious projects that did not enjoy enough public support for taxpayers' money to be proposed for them by Government or voted for by Parliament. That distortion of the lottery's purpose is unfortunate and it contradicts the Government's intention, as stated by the Prime Minister.
Before I am asked, I shall answer directly the question, "Do you not approve of the objects that will receive money from the new opportunities fund?" Of course, I approve of them, as they all seem to be meritorious projects. Those that have already benefited from expenditure in the fields of health, education and the environment are all justifiable as objects of taxpayers' expenditure. If they had been put to the taxpayer in the kind of questionnaire that the Minister cited, they would undoubtedly have enjoyed support. Without question, many of them seem to be the direct responsibility of Government. Why, for example, should computer training for teachers be dependent on the largesse of the lottery, as it seems to be at the core of teacher training in the new millennium?
There are many other examples, such as healthy living centres. Public health and preventive medicine are among the most important central functions of Government and should not be dependent, as they have been, on expenditure from the new opportunities fund. I face squarely the issue of cancer funding. The Government have not shouldered that burden, but I personally attach a great deal of importance to cancer. Perhaps I have an interest to declare, although not a financial one, as I am a member of the council of the Cancer Research Campaign, which had spent £60 million at the last annual count. 168 No one could use me of not caring about cancer. That head of expenditure could clearly be described as one that should attract Government responsibility, not simply the vagaries of a lottery.
Those are not new points for me, or any Liberal Democrat Member, to make, and they reflect our consistent view. I welcome the fact—and this is a modest point—that several proposals emanating from the new opportunities fund appear to have been within the programmes of existing lottery spenders.
For example, let us consider the £750 million for sports facilities for communities and schools. The redistribution of that money to one of the existing lottery distributors could have been justified as being within the terms of the original lottery pitch. However, that is not true of some of the other sums. I regret that. I do not believe that the body should have been established and I shall encourage my hon. Friends to express our view in the Lobby on Wednesday.

§ Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster)
In opening the debate, the Secretary of State referred to the Government's long-standing policy on the new opportunities fund and the allocation of resources. Perhaps it is worth outlining the previous Government's intention, which brought the lottery into being.
The House will recall that the original distribution of percentages in the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 was: arts—20 per cent; heritage—20 per cent; sport—20 per cent; charities—20 per cent; and the Millennium Commission—20 per cent. That distribution was not amended during the measure's passage and it emerged unscathed. The previous Government used those percentages throughout their time in office.
There was unease during the initial debate on the Bill that introduced the lottery about charities and the lottery's potential effect on their receipts from other sources. The only direct paradigm was the Republic of Ireland, and its experience produced a somewhat variable note. Some charities had no complaints, while others had clearly suffered. No amendment was tabled, but there was pressure to return to the question of how much money charities received when we had more experience of the way in which the lottery worked.
We included in the Bill the ability of the House to review the five 20 per cent. figures at least once a Parliament. The then Government gave a commitment to effect in secondary legislation the House's preference as expressed in a day-long debate. In the context of the problem of the charities, it was said that the 20 per cent. for the Millennium Commission was available as a reserve that could be diverted to charities. It was therefore conceivable that the charities figure could have increased to 40 per cent.

§ Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale)
My right hon. Friend is introducing an element to the debate that I find difficult to understand. Is he saying that much of the pressure for support for charities came from the Labour party, which was then the loyal Opposition? If so, is it not incongruous 169 that their first act in government in respect of the lottery was to reduce the amount for charities? The Government have made no effort to restore the amount tonight.

§ Mr. Brooke
I recall that I gave way approximately 30 times during my speech, which lasted about an hour, on Second Reading. The question of charities was raised during the debate, and continued to be raised in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading. I would be surprised if the question did not reassert itself in another place, given its natural sympathy for charities.
The Government chose a different course, and their initial trawl of ideas bypassed the House. The Secretary of State has described that course. Consultation, to which the Secretary of State referred, has taken place. It is not surprising that alternative producer interests preferred other uses of lottery money to those that had been enjoyed previously. I personally regret the paring of the allocations of other lottery distributors at an earlier stage to create the initial tranche for the new opportunities fund. That happened prior to tabling the order that we are discussing.

§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth
I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way —and delighted to see him here. It is only proper that I recognise the important role that he played in establishing the national lottery.
My right hon. Friend will recall that, as with charities, so with the arts. When the original legislation was passed, there was a great deal of pressure from the arts in particular for lottery money to be additional to, and administered separately from, Government spending. What do the arts make of the establishment of the new opportunities fund and the fact that from August next year, 30 per cent. of all lottery money will be taken by the Government?

§ Mr. Brooke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind remarks about the early stags of the lottery's gestation. I have said before in the House that a decent-sized architectural practice could be staffed by those who claim to be the architect of the national lottery. I made no claim other than that I was the master mason, but that was a pleasurable role to fulfil.
My hon. Friend is right that pleas were made by those supporting others of the distributors to increase the amount, though my judgment that the fivefold 20 per cent. figure would survive turned out to be right, because those who might have amended that figure to make it larger realised that someone else might amend it to make it smaller. He is also right about that concern; indeed, the issue of additionality was fundamental to the original decision that the money should go on capital schemes until we knew how matters would work out, perhaps for the better.
The consequence of the order is that the new opportunities fund will receive, if my arithmetic is correct, twice as much as any of the other distributors. Additionality is believed in by the Secretary of State, and I pay ready tribute to him for that, though he will recall a particular moment in the House when his then deputy—the right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) —had no little difficulty in explaining what additionality was, and said that the Secretary of State would tell us an hour or so later.
170 I, too, acknowledge the fact that the new opportunities fund is supposed to be in charge of the money that it distributes and to be an arm's-length distributor in the same way as the others, but the then Secretary of State for Health wrote to tell me the specific beneficiaries for cancer treatment in my constituency before the new opportunities fund had written to me on the same subject, which suggested that the Government were using a longish spoon in the distribution of those particular prizes.
The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) mentioned information and communications technologies training for school teachers. Capita, which, as I understand it, is bestowing the training in this part of the country, has written to ask me whether I would like to observe it. I have politely responded that I would rather it started to deliver housing benefit to my constituents promptly and accurately before asking me to observe anything else that it seeks to do.
I have put to the National Lottery Charities Board the question whether the new opportunities fund's concentration on health, education and the environment means that the board will no longer be expected to make grants to charities concerned with health, education and the environment. If that is so—the Minister might care to comment—it will not solve the original problem of the charities almost certainly losing out as a result of the lottery, but it will make a small contribution to doing so. However, it will not take away the support that I offer to my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) and the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross in terms of the inappropriateness of that fund's diverting money, which was clearly being used by the then distributors responsibly and additionally to Government expenditure, to the uses to which it is now put.

§ Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale)
The order constitutes the most telling evidence yet of the scale of the Labour party's change of attitude to the national lottery between being in opposition and being in government.
When the lottery was created, Labour spokesmen—then shadow spokesmen—made great play of the need to ensure that the principles of arm's length and additionality were an integral part of the decision-making on the basis of which good causes should be supported. Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Ainsworth) said, one current Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—the Minister for Sport—strongly supported the additionality principle.
Actually, that applies to two Ministers. Back in 1993 the Minister for the Arts, the right hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), expressed strong support for additionality. And—as the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) reminded us—even on gaining office, the Prime Minister himself reiterated Labour's commitment to additionality, saying that this money should not be spent on matters that were the responsibility of Government.
The Government increasingly interfere in decisions on lottery funding, demanding that more and more money be ring-fenced for specific projects. More important is the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major)—who I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster 171 (Mr. Brooke) would acknowledge was the architect of the lottery, if he was the master mason—said in The Mail on Sunday on 29 October: since Labour came to power, they have eyed the lottery pot of gold with avarice. Slice by slice it has sought to control it. It set up NOF —the new opportunities fund— under the specific direction of the Government and cut the share of funds to the other good causes.
The order takes us even further down the road of Government control over lottery spending, by awarding to the new opportunities fund all the current 20 per cent. of lottery funding paid to the Millennium Commission in order to fund projects that have been determined by Ministers. The debate is not about whether the causes that will be supported are worthy—[Interruption.] It is not. It is about whether it is right for at least a third of lottery proceeds to be spent under Government direction, and with the clear involvement of Government Departments.

§ Mr. Chris Smith
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Greenway
Just a moment.
When we debated sport the other day, I asked the Minister for Sport how the £750 million for sport in schools would be spent. We are told that a forum will be established, including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Education and Employment, but not local authorities. There will not even be a bidding process. In other words, Government Departments will determine where the money is spent.

§ Mr. Smith
The debate is about whether, after the flow of funds to the Millennium Commission has finished, lottery money should be spent on health, education and the environment. That is the issue, and it would appear that that is what the Opposition are opposing.

§ Mr. Greenway
The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. It is about the mechanism, the architecture, of the lottery, not about which individual good causes will be supported.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster explained the original percentages that were awarded to the then five good causes. He expressed regret that the funds paid to those original good causes had been cut, and, in particular, that charities were losing out. My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey made it clear that we would honour all the commitments made by NOF to the various projects for which funds had been announced. For example, I have already made it clear that we will honour the £750 million for school sports promised by the Prime Minister.
In his article, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon reminded us that sport in schools would be a major beneficiary of the redistribution of Millennium Commission funds. However, the decision about the distribution of such funds should be the decision of Sport England and the three other home country sports councils. They have the necessary expertise. The Government should trust them. As it is, it will be the Government who decide whether that money is spent.
I come to the Secretary of State's criticism. Arguably, more money for charities, including health charities, could be distributed at arm's length by the National Lottery 172 Charities Board, the very body that, as every hon. Member knows, is under greatest pressure from applications for good causes—more applications have been turned down for lack of funding. Is it not interesting that the very body that Labour, when in opposition, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster confirmed, wanted to see as an important fifth good cause—charities—should have been short changed by Labour in office? If the order is passed, it will be short changed not temporarily on the creation of the sixth good cause, but permanently.
In awarding the entire Millennium Commission funding to NOF, the Government have disregarded the effects of their cut in the funding of the other lottery distribution bodies. The cut in income to the sports lottery fund has already led to many worthy projects being turned down. More to the point, as the vice-chairman of Sport England pointed out in March, applications are being actively discouraged for lack of funds. Projects that would have been rubber stamped two and three years ago will now not be funded.
It is astonishing that Ministers could ever think that they know best where lottery money should be spent, when their track record in respect of the projects in which they have been involved has been spectacularly unsuccessful. We have already debated the abysmal mismanagement of the dome, the continuing uncertainty over the Wembley project and the likely venue for the World athletics championships in 2005. All those projects share the common curse of ministerial interference.
The Government came to power promising to create a people's lottery, but they are creating a "Government's lottery". The debate provides a timely opportunity for Parliament to make a stand on the re-establishment of the arm's length and additionality principles. I warn the House that failure to do so will project us further down the slippery slope, leading to a lottery where all the money is spent by Government diktat. Nothing would be more likely to destroy the public's enthusiasm for the national lottery. Decisions on funding should be the preserve of genuinely independent lottery funding bodies, not Ministers. For that reason, we shall oppose the order.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Janet Anderson)
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has explained, the order provides that, after the extension period, all the lottery income that previously went to the Millennium Commission will instead be allocated to the new opportunities fund. He has outlined the many valuable and popular programmes that NOF is carrying out, or has planned. We want that good work to continue; hence the order.
NOF's increased income will allow it to make a real change in the quality of people's lives. I make no apology for that. Indeed, in the light of some of the comments by those on the Opposition Front Bench, it is important to remind the House what the new NOF initiatives are. There is £750 million for additional sports facilities for schools and wider community use. The hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) has said that the Conservative party, should it ever come to power again—heaven forbid that that should happen—would honour that commitment. However, he has not given us any commitment on the 173 other projects, such as £50 million for outdoor adventure and other activities for young people. Would Conservative Members support those projects?
Would Conservative Members support the use of £300 million to boost the fight against heart disease and stroke, to provide extra money for the fund's current initiative to combat cancer and to provide palliative care for adults and children with life-threatening and chronic illness? What would Conservative Members do about that?

§ Mr. Paul Tyler (North Cornwall)
I am very confused by the Minister's comments. Is she saying that those very worthy objectives which surely should be central to all Government programmes would not be funded if there were not a new opportunities fund? That is the logic of what she is saying. Why is she now advancing a case for lottery funding that was not thought to be relevant or appropriate when the lottery was first established?

§ Janet Anderson
I shall deal with the hon. Gentleman's point on additionality in the course of my closing remarks. However, I remind him that all the projects that I am outlining are additional to the extra money that the Government have already put into health and education. Would Opposition Members support the NOF provision of £200 million for child care?

§ Mr. Brooke
Is there not a difference between the way in which the lottery was established initially, when distributors were allowed to choose what they spent the money on—admittedly, at the behest of the then Opposition, with a concentration on capital projects—and the way in which, under the current Government, decisions on where money should be spent on health, education or the environment are being taken by the Government as their central focus, so that the new opportunities fund has to decide only how it should spend the money? However, I have to assume from the letter that I received from the Secretary of State for Health that the fund is taking Government advice on that matter, too.

§ Janet Anderson
I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It was stated very clearly in legislation that was passed by a majority of the House that more money would be put into health and education through the new opportunities fund. However, that money is additional to that which the Government are spending already. I shall deal with that point later in my speech

§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth
The hon. Lady has asked a load of fatuous questions to which I have already given the answers. She has the misfortune of coming to the House with a prepared speech. Having failed to the listen to the debate, she is now stuck with her speech and asking questions that I have already answered. I have already told the House today that a Conservative Government would honour the existing commitments of the new opportunities fund. Although I am not going to set out in minute detail what Conservative policy might be, I said that we would review the operation of the national lottery. I have also indicated to the House that absolutely nothing has 174 prevented the National Lottery Charities Board, for example, from funding exactly the type of projects that we all applaud and support.

§ Janet Anderson
If I may, I shall deal with the point about charities later, after I have made some progress. I shall also attempt to answer the hon. Gentleman's questions. However, he has still not told us what Conservative Members, were they ever in a position to take the decision, would do with the new opportunities fund. We have to conclude from some of their statements today that they would scrap it.

§ Mr. Ainsworth
The hon. Lady is working herself up into a complete lather about this. She should form no such conclusion. We have, however, said that we would review it. Why on earth does she not listen?

§ Janet Anderson
Whatever the hon. Gentleman might decide to do—should he ever be in a position to make a decision, which I think is extremely unlikely—it could probably be aptly described as the no opportunities fund.
It has been suggested that arts and sports have lost out because of establishment of the new opportunities fund. However, both arts and sports good causes will have received significantly more by the end of the current licence period than was originally projected. That is a fact and it is important to put it on the record.
As for additionality, although the Government established the new opportunities fund's broad initiatives, NOF reaches its funding decisions independently. Although we have given each initiative a clear focus, enabling the new opportunities fund to provide added value and complement Government and other lottery programmes, NOF is not taking over core responsibilities. It funds specific time-limited initiatives additional to core taxpayer-funded programmes.

§ Mr. Ainsworth
Will the Minister give way?

§ Janet Anderson
No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman wants his questions answered; perhaps he would be patient and give me an opportunity to do so.
On healthy living centres, the Government remain committed to the principle of additionality. The new opportunities fund, like the other good causes, should only support initiatives which add to, and do not substitute for, existing Government-funded programmes. Healthy living centres help people to improve their health and well-being. The aim of the centres is to provide advice, information and activities, focusing on health promotion. Healthy living centres do not do things which are properly the responsibility of the national health service and do not undermine existing provision from other sectors.
The right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) referred to IT training for teachers. The task of training all serving teachers in information and communications technology to bring them up the same standard had never been undertaken before. This is, therefore, a one-off initiative to give existing teachers the necessary skills and ability to operate in the 21st century.

§ Mr. Maclennan
Is the Minister really saying that because expenditure had not been embraced by 175 the Conservative Government, the Labour Government therefore regard it as not core expenditure? That seems to be carrying imitation of the Conservatives a stage too far.

§ Janet Anderson
The right hon. Gentleman must remember that this funding is in addition to all the money that the Government are putting into education. This has never been done before; it is a one-off initiative.

§ Mr. Ainsworth
Does the Minister regard cancer screening as a core Government commitment?

§ Janet Anderson
I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been, but I have repeatedly referred to the extra money that the Government are putting into health and education—millions more than the Conservative party did. These initiatives are in addition to that.
Lottery-funded IT training for teachers does not support the basics of operating the technology, but focuses on helping teachers to use the technology in the classroom to enrich teaching and learning and raise standards. Our commitment to improving initial teacher training, funded from tax revenues, will ensure that new entrants have the necessary skills from the start.
Comments have been made about charities allegedly losing out as a result of the establishment of the new opportunities fund. The evidence is mixed; some are perhaps losing, but some are gaining. However, I remind the House that the changes introduced on charitable giving by the Chancellor in his Budget will have a more marked effect on income to charities than anything else.

§ Mr. Brooke
Does the Minister recall the Finance Bill and Act 1997, which took away from charities a massive amount of money in terms of advance corporation tax—for which I acknowledge the Government are, a long time after, finding some means of making amends?

§ Janet Anderson
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has welcomed the changes that the Chancellor has introduced in terms of charitable giving to charities. I thank him for his support.
We have had a very good debate. I am sad that Opposition Members do not feel able to support the order tonight and I am sure that people outside the Chamber will take a message from that. I commend the order to the House.
Question put—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord)
I think the Ayes have it.

Hon. Members
No.