§ 6. Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South)What action he is taking to simplify the application process for lottery grants. [110601]
§ The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Chris Smith)My Department is working with distributors to ensure that the lottery application process is as simple and user-friendly as possible, and that forms 9 are written in plain language. The quality, efficiency and standards team, which I established last year, is looking at how the costs of making a lottery application can be reduced. Lottery distributors already have in place the awards for all scheme, which is a straightforward way for community groups to apply for grants of £500 to £5,000. One simple application form covers charities, arts, sport and heritage groups.
§ Mr. CunninghamIs my hon. Friend aware that the Conservatives have pledged to withdraw national lottery money from schools and hospitals, despite overwhelming public support for such projects?
§ Mr. SmithWe are a little unclear about what the Conservatives would do. They specifically said at their party conference that health and education projects such as those supported by the new opportunities fund were not the sort of things that they believed that lottery money should be spent on. I believe that in that they differ from the vast majority of people in this country.
§ Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath)When the Secretary of State is considering simplifying the application process for lottery grants, will he bear in mind the fact that some small clubs, particularly sports clubs, struggle with the complexity of existing forms because they do not have the necessary expertise to fill them in? Of course the overall checking of any application has to be rigorous, but perhaps the initial form could be simple and straightforward, particularly for small clubs, and the more rigorous checking could happen later in the process, once the application is being proceeded with.
§ Mr. SmithThe hon. Gentleman asks a perceptive and constructive question, as he often does. Sport England and the heritage lottery fund already have a two-stage mechanism along the lines that he has outlined. I am also pleased to say that last month all the distributors attended a presentation by the Plain English Campaign and are considering how to make the best use of its services to ensure that the initial application process is easy to understand and that applications can easily be made by community groups, which may not have professional advisers ready to hand.
§ Mr. Peter Ainsworth (East Surrey)I am getting slightly tired of the Secretary of State traducing my opinions. I hope that he will answer a straight question. However simple the lottery application forms become, do not the Government's actions mean that sport, the arts and charities stand a lesser chance of benefiting from the lottery than previously, and that the biggest lottery winner is the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
§ Mr. Chris SmithNo. By the end of the current franchise period, the sport, arts, heritage and charities strands of the lottery will have received more than £1.9 billion each. That is more than was originally anticipated, even after the new opportunities fund was established to ensure that additional funds raised from the lottery could be made available to projects related to health, education and the environment.