§ Mr. AmessTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what directions he has given to the National Lottery Charities Board on how it is to consider applications for grants and how lottery money should be spent. [38348]
§ Mr. HowardI have issued directions to the National Lottery Charities Board under the terms of sections 26 and 39 of the National Lottery etc. Act 1993 in respect of various policy and financial matters. The policy directions are meant to ensure, inter alia, that the board achieves over time the distribution of money to a reasonably wide spread of recipients, including small organisations and those operating purely at a local level, and across a reasonably wide range of charitable—whether or not charitable in law—benevolent and philanthropic activity.
The directions also require the board:
to have regard from the outset to: to the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole; the interests of the different parts of the United Kingdom; and the relative population sizes of, and appropriate socio-economic factors applicable to, the different parts of the United Kingdom;to consider the interests of organisations with a base in the United Kingdom and working overseas;to distribute grants in the light of these considerations.The financial directions regulate the payment of grants and put in place safeguards to ensure that grants are used for the purposes for which they were given.
I have today placed in the Library copies of the policy and financial directions.