National Lottery (Community Chest) (Hansard, 26 July 2000)

§ Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the National Lottery Act 1998 to require lottery terminals to double as internet access points and a proportion of revenue from ticket sales to be kept in a community chest. There are so many people in the Chamber; I did not appreciate how much interest there was in the Bill.

The Bill is in two parts. The first is a measure to ensure that there is a network of terminals for the lottery in every community throughout the United Kingdom. Local post offices will often be the most appropriate sites for that access, particularly in remote and rural areas, but we should also consider shops, petrol stations and village halls.

Under the original legislation there were supposed to be 35,000 lottery terminals, but there are now only 24,300 terminals in the UK. Highly populated urban centres are much better served than our more isolated rural communities. The Bill will ensure universal access to the national lottery.

In addition, all post office branches, local shops and petrol stations should have lottery terminals to access the internet for e-mail and e-commerce. Those terminals would quickly create nationwide network access for people who do not have information technology facilities at home. The Bill will help to resolve some of the digital divide—a key subject in last week's G8 talks. We should create 100,000 new terminals.

The measures outlined in my Bill provide a much-needed boost for local post offices, which already provide an array of services to the community in addition to postal services. They are crucial for the dissemination of information, and they are a focus for local people to meet. We must find more creative new roles for them, and I suggest that this is one of those.

The second part of the Bill seeks to introduce an additional cause: the community awards cause. Currently, there are six good causes: arts, charities, sport, millennium, heritage and the New Opportunities Fund. At the end of the year, the millennium cause will cease and 1112 the six will become five. The Bill seeks to create a new cause: the community chest. I know that the Sports Council for Wales already has that cause.

Research by the House of Commons Library—I commend the report to the House and urge Members to read and digest its findings—demonstrates some interesting statistics. I have taken four constituencies at random: Sedgefield; Richmond, Yorks; Ross, Skye and Inverness, West; and Sittingbourne and Sheppey.

Since 1994, Sedgefield constituents have spent £537 per head on lottery tickets, or nearly £41 million. However, they have won only £5.3 million in lottery awards. Richmond has spent £334 per head of adult population, or £36 million, but has received just under £7 million in lottery awards. Ross, Skye and Inverness, West clearly knows something. It has spent £502 per head of adult population, which means expenditure of £30 million on tickets, and has received almost £10.5 million in return. Sittingbourne and Sheppey has spent £672 per head, or expenditure of £43.5 million, but has won only £1.2 million.

My Bill seeks to change the nature of the lottery good causes. It proposes introducing a new cause, the community chest, which will receive 20 per cent. of the revenue from ticket sales after prize money and costs have been allocated in each constituency.

The community chest good cause would still be able to spend revenues only on the five existing causes. The difference would be that it would be quicker than the current bureaucratic system, more effective and—dare I say it—more popular.

I commend the Bill to the House.