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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the equity of regional and national trends in the award of National Lottery grants over the last three years.

National Lottery good cause money is allocated by expert bodies at arm's length from Government, taking account of their own priorities and the need for equitable distribution.

Policy directions are set by DCMS or the devolved administrations as relevant. The Big Lottery Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council England, Sport England and British Film Institute are all required to take equality of access into account in developing programmes and considering grant allocations. This requirement does not apply to UK Sport's as their funding targets elite athletes.

Each distributor takes account of a variety of considerations including geographical spread of funding, deprivation data and participation rates when determining priorities and allocating budget. Distributors run specific programmes designed to encourage applications from less well-represented areas.

Information on projects in receipt of a Lottery award can be found on the National Lottery Grants Database at the following link: http://www.lottery.culture.gov.uk and from Lottery Distributors' own websites. The grants database can be sorted on a national, regional, local authority and constituency level.