Payments into the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund etc. Order 2007

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for the way in which he introduced his amendment. I appreciated the generosity of his tribute to the outgoing Secretary of State from the DCMS, who succeeded in producing resources from the Treasury which safeguard a great deal of expenditure in areas in need of resources given the changes in the lottery. As he indicated, the new Secretary of State was the Chief Secretary who helped to furnish this arrangement, so that is the best possible augury I can offer. The House has expressed its anxieties about the good causes. I hope to be able to allay those in a few moments. Whether I am able to be quite so precise in detail as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, enjoins me to be, I am not sure, but I will certainly do my very best to answer his questions. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we intend to follow what the amendment recommends as the cap on expenditure. It will be at £750 million. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about the speed with which the money was being raised. He indicated a third by Beijing and two-thirds afterwards. We are hoping broadly to follow that pattern, and we have some assistance. He will recognise the advantages that the National Lottery Commission has identified in its new licence, which should yield an extra £60 million to £100 million for good causes and will help in this situation. Therefore, the impact of the £700 million transfer will potentially be reduced by the advantages of growth in that area. As I indicated in my opening statement, the transfer of the money will, and can, take place on a regular basis. However, I assure noble Lords that the resources will be transferred only as they are needed. As my noble friend Lord Howarth said, would that we had been more secretive about the contingency funds, because they leave themselves open to exploitation. The only plea that I have ever heard in this House, and probably in the other place, has been for some restraint about publicity. The demand that everyone concerned with the Games always has to face, particularly with regard to funding, is for openness and transparency. That is why we are having this debate today, and of course the Government believe that they must be transparent. As my noble friend indicated, there is that cost involved in the contingency fund, but I am afraid that that is the price we pay for the way in which we conduct business. I emphasise to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that of course we will be as open as possible. The noble Lord asked me specifically whether I can give a date for the review of the gross profits tax. I cannot do that but I hope he will accept in the best possible faith that the Government have indicated that the issue is to be looked at again with a serious review of the case. That follows considerable reluctance on the part of the Treasury in previous years to consider the matter. I hope he will take that in the spirit in which it is intended. It is a clear indication that this may be a fruitful area in which assistance can be given to the project. Of course, the Treasury would not be the institution that it is if it did not subject such potential changes and revenue loss to close scrutiny, and it will do so. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, also commented on the grey area of pseudo-lottery games. We want to see what we can do about that but it is not an easy issue to tackle. We all share his objective, because this is a form of riding on the back of a major institution and is very close to cheating so far as the public are concerned, although that is probably the wrong expression. We all know that the advantages of the lottery and its power to appeal to people are being used by those who have no intention at all of fulfilling the broad objectives of the lottery, with the gains to good causes. That is an intensely unfair position to adopt. It is not easy for us to tackle it in legislation but we would certainly want to control it if we could. The Memorandum of Understanding with the mayor is not legally binding. It is not a contract but an agreement between two highly significant public bodies, which are expected to honour the undertakings that they accept—particularly this one. No Memorandum of Understanding has reached the prominence that this one has and it will be subject to scrutiny year after year. Long after the Games are over, it will still form the basis of judgment with regard to land sales, which is a very difficult area. There is therefore no question but that the Memorandum of Understanding means a great deal to the parties who subscribe to it. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, emphasised transparency. He is right to do so, and I am glad that he appreciates the arrangements which the Minister for the Olympic Games is making to ensure that the fullest possible information is given to all sides of the House on the issues. On publicity, we are all still holding our breath to see the extent to which we succeed in selling the Olympic message to the nation, but let me say that we do not have to hold our breath for very long. The biggest single impulse towards the nation’s consciousness of the Olympic Games will take place the moment Beijing becomes a reality. Then, of course, the Olympic movement will mean an enormous amount to the people of this country. With regard to audience participation, when you see the television-viewing figures for the Olympic Games in all advanced countries, particularly among the sports-loving British, we do not have the slightest doubt that there could be no greater opportunity to increase awareness. Moreover, as noble Lords will recognise, the Olympic Games closes with Beijing handing over the responsibility to London. I do not have the slightest doubt that that is when this country will very obviously engage fully with the opportunities that the Olympics will provide. I do not, however, underestimate the solid work that has been done right across the country. There has been enormous preparation for what the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and other noble Lords from other sides of the House have rightly emphasised are London Olympics for the nation’s good, and the nation as a whole needs to benefit from them. Enormous groundwork has been done, but it will take time. It will be once the Beijing Olympics are over that the nation will really engage with the London Olympics. As I said in my opening contribution, the fact that London is hosting the Games enjoys the approval of more than three-quarters of the population at this stage. We will do a lot better than that once the torch has been handed to us. My noble friend Lord Howarth took the opportunity to extend the debate to the causes which he holds dear. I hope he will recognise that my job this evening is to get this order through and to try to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to withdraw his amendment. I therefore cannot enter into debate with my noble friend on all the interests that he particularly has at heart, but I entirely accept his basic premise that if we are to present the Olympics as a cultural event for the nation, we had better take good care to enhance the cultural legacy that we already have for the benefit of the nation. I particularly appreciated his concept of the investment in skills in the preservation of our heritage. That is an important dimension. The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, challenged me directly. Let me say that the contingency fund is generous and significant, as he will recognise, although we do not want to use it at all—only at the absolute margins, if we can manage. If we did not have a proper contingency fund, we would be faced with anxiety about the Games and constant crisis every time the resources ran short. That is sound and good provision, but of course the objective of all those concerned with the Games is to deliver them without that contingency fund being utilised. On the resources, the noble Earl knows a great deal more about land sales than I do. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said that he cannot guess London land values too accurately. I certainly cannot, but I make this obvious point; it will take considerable time before the land sales are realised after the Games. We are not talking about an immediate realisation of resources. It is not a question of interest being paid back to the lottery, as the lottery has not given a loan. Resources have been diverted from the lottery to this great project, and in doing so we are fulfilling one absolutely prime reason for conceiving the lottery; that it is there to fund great national occasions. That is part of its remit, and what is greater than the Olympics? They were unforeseen and unpremeditated, until we succeeded with the bid. When the big demands on resources come in, the lottery is exactly the vehicle for dealing with them. However, as I have indicated, the percentage of resources devoted to the Olympics has increased more from the Government side than from the lottery side. Therefore, it is not a question of interest being paid on a loan but of an agreement whereby, as land sales take place, a proper percentage of those resources goes to the lottery in order to repay the money that has been taken. Also, if the land sales greatly exceed the figure involved, the lottery will get more back than what has been transferred from it. However, that is bound to be conjecture; I am in no position to form a prospectus on how those issues should occur. I may not have answered the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, with quite as much precision as he would have liked, but I hope that that will do for now. I want to emphasise that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has been as assiduous as ever in his concern regarding the Olympic Games and their consequences for the broader issues of lottery good causes. I hope that I have reassured him that the Government have thought carefully about these issues; we are concerned to minimise the impact upon good causes, and to indemnify them and advance their interests after the Games are over. At the same time, we will be directing all of our energies to ensuring that the Olympic Games to be held in London in 2012 will be the greatest ever.