Extract from oral answer (Lords) on the National Lottery - July 14
Thursday, 15 July 2021 07:12
Lord Flight (Con): My Lords, while I accept the good intentions of
the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I cannot agree with his proposal. I
support the National Lottery’s existing remit to raise funds for
community, arts, heritage and sports projects. Recently, 40% of
lottery funding was for health, education, environmental and
charitable causes. I estimate that more than £1 billion was awarded
over two years to respond to Covid-19—the largest contribution made
to pandemic relief beyond that...Request free trial
(Con): My Lords, while I accept the good intentions of
the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I cannot agree with his proposal. I
support the National Lottery’s existing remit to raise funds for
community, arts, heritage and sports projects. Recently, 40% of
lottery funding was for health, education, environmental and
charitable causes. I estimate that more than £1 billion was awarded
over two years to respond to Covid-19—the largest contribution made
to pandemic relief beyond that made by government. This seems to
illustrate the scope for substantial National Lottery expenditure
on health. What is the average annual expenditure on health by the
lottery in normal times and what percentage of total lottery
spending is accountable for health?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital,
Culture, Media and Sport () (Con): I echo
my noble friend’s reflection that the lottery distributors played
an important part in responding to the pandemic and getting funding
to organisations all around the country. There is no specific
figure on health, but he is right that the National Lottery
Community Fund has that as one of its four key objectives. More
broadly, the work of all the lottery distributors could certainly
be argued to be making a difference to the nation’s mental health
and, particularly in the case of Sport England to our physical health as
well.
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