Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 16: 16: Clause 15, page 8, line 7, at end insert— ““( ) Subject to subsection (1), the Big Lottery Fund may distribute money to other Lottery distributors for meeting expenditure that has a social or environmental purpose.”” The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in Committee, I tabled an amendment allowing some of the proceeds from dormant accounts not only to go to the Big Lottery Fund but to the other distributing bodies. As it was on the third day of Committee, I was not able to be there, but my noble friend Lord Howard kindly moved the amendment for me, and the Minister replied. I always listen to the Minister very carefully, and in this case I read very carefully what he said on my amendment. He made an important point about the accountability of the funds. He said: "““We think that it is better, clearer, more effective and more answerable to the nation that Big should take responsibility for distribution, but with an entirely separate accounting and reporting procedure on its work with regard to these assets. That is the principle behind the Bill and we want these unclaimed assets to be entirely separate from other operations of the lottery distributors. We are insisting upon mechanisms within Big that guarantee that””.—[Official Report, 10/1/08; col. GC 376.]" I regard the Minister’s words as very important, and so I come back with another amendment today taking account of them. The amendment allows the Big Lottery Fund to distribute money to other lottery distributors for meeting expenditure on exactly the same terms, so that it has a ““social or environmental purpose”” as is written into the Bill. It gives the Big Lottery Fund that power. One of the problems with the Big Lottery Fund, as my noble friend Lord Eccles said at Second Reading, is that in effect it has become the arm of government. We can see from its annual report that it is seriously oversubscribed. Last year alone, it received applications of £8 billion for an income of £600 million. I am afraid that it has lost its way, and it is giving money all over the place. In the accounts, one can see that it gave nearly £900 million to statutory bodies, including £112,000 to Wakefield Council to spend on a traffic calming scheme, £315,000 to Blyth Valley Borough Council for the enhancement of footpaths and £27,000 to Exeter Council for a new walking route network. I am sure that those walking route networks and paths are important, but do we really think that they are a matter for lottery spending? Can they possibly be additional or anything to do with the principles of the lottery and how it was set up? They really are part of government expenditure, whether that be national or local government. The Big Lottery Fund has become huge. It has about 1,100 employees, which is about the same number of employees as the Treasury. Some 12 per cent of its budget is spent on administration, which costs £77 million a year. It has become too big and too cumbersome. The most important thing is that it is getting all this extra money when we know that, because of the Olympics, £675 million is being diverted from the lottery to the Olympics, which is mainly falling on the other distributing bodies. They are not getting any of that money and they are under pressure. My amendment does not force the Big Lottery Fund to give money to the other distributing bodies, but it allows it to do so. To come back for a moment to additionality, when the previous lottery Bill was passing through Parliament, we tabled an amendment requiring the Big Lottery Fund to report on additionality. We await that report with mounting excitement. It might win this year’s prize for fiction; or it might be honest with the facts. We wait to see. The central point is that the distributing bodies that have suffered most because of the Olympics, such as the arts and the sporting bodies that are not involved in the Olympics, are very short of funds. This is an opportunity for the Government to say to the Big Lottery Fund that they can help it to make up the deficit that those bodies have suffered. Can the Minister tell me whether the Government can do that under the Bill anyway? It may be that they have the power already. This amendment gives the Minister an opportunity to tell noble Lords whether that is the case. I beg to move.