Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made a comparative estimate of the (a) contribution of Camelot to the North and (b) amount spent by people in the North on lottery sales.

The operation of the National Lottery and the distribution of good cause income are two separate processes. Camelot, as the current operator of the National Lottery, has no involvement with or responsibility for the distribution of good cause income raised by the National Lottery.

Good cause income is distributed at arm’s length of the government by 12 Lottery Distributing Bodies, to fund projects in the arts, sport and heritage sectors and to support communities and charities across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Since 1994, the National Lottery has raised over £45 billion for good causes. Over 660,000 individual grants have been awarded since the National Lottery started - the equivalent of more than 235 lottery grants in every UK postcode district. More detailed information about National Lottery grants can be found at the National Lottery grants database website. Due to technical limitations, this database does not incorporate more recent National Lottery grant data. We hope to have this resolved in the Spring.

Camelot publishes aggregated National Lottery sales data two months in arrears on their website. More granular data, for example analysed by region, not published due to commercial sensitivities.