Lotteries: Limits on Prize Values

Debate between Tracey Crouch and Priti Patel

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Tracey Crouch)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) for calling what has been a stimulating and wide-ranging debate on an important issue, and I thank all Members who have taken part. Many of the issues that have been raised are complex, and are exactly the ones my Department has been grappling with for a while now, so it has been timely and invaluable to hear everyone’s considered views.

I will start with some specific comments. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) asked whether I recognised the value of society lotteries. Of course I do. I certainly do. Like those of many colleagues, my constituency has benefited from society lottery funding, including for Kent search and rescue and the Luton Millennium Green community nature park. So naturally, like many people, I understand the value of both society lotteries and national lotteries.

I want to deal up front with the issue of the advice from the Gambling Commission, which has been raised by many colleagues. I have received the commission’s advice and have been considering it carefully. The commission will publish the advice in due course, and I hope to update Members soon. One particular piece of the advice, on transparency, was published just this afternoon. Many Members will know that the Gambling Commission recently consulted on introducing new licence codes to improve the transparency of society lotteries, and its proposals include requiring lotteries to publish the various proportions of their proceeds. I want first to deal with those issues—I will come back to the timetable later in my speech.

It is clear that the society lottery sector plays an important and growing role in supporting a diverse and wide range of good causes in the UK. We have seen sustained growth in the sector since 2008, when the per draw sales limit was doubled from £2 million to £4 million. Indeed, sales have increased by more than 100% in the last five years. Last year, a record £255 million was raised for good causes, which was an increase of more than 20% on the previous year. Not only are society lotteries raising more funds for good causes, they are giving a greater proportion of their sales back to good causes, with a sector average of just less than 44%.

Each year, more charities and good causes start their own lotteries to raise funds to support their important work. I recognise that, for charities, money raised through society lotteries has become an important source of funding, which allows their work to continue and grow. Colleagues will appreciate that I am the Minister with responsibility not only for gambling but for civil society so, whatever we do on the issue, I recognise the contribution the lotteries make to charities that I support in another part of my brief.

In 2015, I was a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the report of which many colleagues have cited today. We looked at society lotteries in some detail. The guiding principle then, as now, was that the regulatory regime which governs society lotteries should encourage the maximum return to good causes. The licensing regime should be light, protecting players without placing unnecessary burdens on operators. In some bizarre twist, I, in my role as the Minister responsible for lotteries, and the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who had previously been the Chairman of the Committee, agreed either to accept the report’s recommendations, or to explore them with expert advice from the Gambling Commission. The issues are important and complex, and it has been prudent to take our time over them and to consider a number of options.

My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk and other colleagues mentioned limits, which was a recommendation for review in the Select Committee report. However, before making any changes to the current rules, it is important that all options are looked at and consideration is given to the wider picture. We do not want any unintended consequences.

The key consideration in the reforms has been how to strike the right balance between society lotteries and the national lottery. The sectors grew in tandem for many years, and it is important that any reforms enable them both to flourish. I want to pause here to acknowledge the importance of the national lottery. This year marks its 23rd anniversary and, since 1994, more than £37 billion of national lottery funding has been raised—an average of more than £30 million each week—for more than half a million projects all over the UK. The national lottery has had an unparalleled impact on 21st century Britain, making a valuable contribution to funding our many Olympians and Paralympians, our historical buildings and monuments, and even our Oscar winners, one of whom I was fortunate enough to meet a fortnight ago, alongside some of our future stars who are benefiting from film clubs run with lottery funding. It is, of course, our communities who benefit most of all from the lottery. The majority of national lottery money goes straight to the heart of our communities. Last year, most of the grants made were for £10,000 or less—small amounts going to community-led projects that make a huge impact.

I was sorry to hear that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) is unaware of some of the national lottery funding in her constituency. We are working with all distributors to ensure that people are made more aware of the local as well as the national good causes that the lottery supports. Just as a headline, in my right hon. Friend’s constituency the national lottery has funded the Museum of Power—somewhere we should all visit—Tollesbury sailing club and the local rifle club. I know that Braintree District Council covers more than her constituency, but it has had more than £18 million of Sport England funding. I do not know the details of all the other national lottery distributors, but I will ensure that we write to her with them.

[Priti Patel]

I know very well the distribution of national lottery funds and support in my constituency and I thank the Minister’s officials for giving her the chance to tell the House today where the money has gone. But there is a point of principle here, which is that of competition and choice in communities—also the purpose of the debate—ensuring that society lotteries are able to compete with the national lottery and that a wider pool of funds goes to a much wider range of local charities and communities.

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s point, which—she is right—the whole debate has addressed. It is important, however, and other colleagues have made this point, that we have a strong national lottery. It has become a part of our national fabric, but that does not mean that we cannot also have strong society lotteries. The Secretary of State made that point recently.