Deregulation Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-05
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Raymond Collins (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I wish to address three areas of concern regarding the noble Lord’s proposals: the impact on the current consultations; the impact on public confidence; and the impact on the National Lottery. We exchanged views on these issues in Committee but I want to reiterate some of the concerns The current DCMS consultation closes on 4 March. At the same time, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is separately investigating society lottery regulation and should report its findings fairly shortly. We have argued for a detailed study of the proposals and their consequences I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, says, but it is not just the National Lottery that may have concerns. Smaller lotteries and other charities have raised concerns that they may be squeezed by large society lotteries, which could expand and push the smaller ones to one side. Certainly, we on this side of the House would want to discuss the implications of that in detail before we consider any changes. Changes to this sector must be proportionate and evidence-based. We must not risk negatively impacting on the perception of charities—and, in turn, on the levels of public trust and confidence It is difficult to come to any conclusion on whether to substantially increase the sizes of prizes, of the individual draw or of annual proceeds caps as there is insufficient information available on this market. Without understanding how many lotteries are hitting the prize limits, the individual draw or the annual caps, and which would therefore benefit from being able to sell more tickets with higher prizes, I do not think that we can say that there is sufficient evidence for a change in policy There is a strong case for making more information available—certainly for increasing the data available on each society lottery’s ticket breakdown. We would like to see the Gambling Commission maintain up-to-date and publicly available data tables that show the proportion each lottery divides between good causes, prizes and expenses. It is fundamental to public confidence that the people who buy tickets understand the choices that they make. What are they supporting? How much of the money that they contribute will go to a good cause? That really is important I have also raised before, in the Chamber and in Committee, concerns over lottery operators, and in particular the loophole exploited by the Health Lottery. It is supposedly made up of 51 separate companies, yet they have the same three directors, the same office and the same branding. In effect, it operates as an alternative to the National Lottery. I do not think we can disregard concerns about the National Lottery. We do not fully understand the consequences. If we deregulate this market and other people come in, we are looking at a serious potential threat to the National Lottery The National Lottery was established on a monopoly basis for a very good reason: to balance people’s desire that the money goes to a good cause with the effect of gambling. There is no doubt that people participate in a lottery because they want to win; it is not simply about giving money to a good cause. From the way the Health Lottery and other operators market themselves, we can see that if we deregulate without properly considering all the consequences, we could have new entrants to the market. The market might grow, but it could certainly be distorted. I have mentioned this before: we could have companies such as Tesco, which has the infrastructure to mount a lottery, becoming a lottery operator, and, no doubt, giving 20% of its money to good causes—but we still do not understand how that could impact on the National Lottery As we have heard in previous debates, the National Lottery is not just about great big amounts of money going to big exercises. A huge amount of money—80%—goes in small amounts to local causes, which would not otherwise have been able to raise the money themselves. It has made a huge impact on our society, and we should not risk it without fully understanding the consequences.