National Lottery £38 billion pledge for good causes ‘looks fanciful’

The National Lottery operator’s pledge spend £38 billion on good causes by 2034 “looks fanciful”, a viscount has warned.

Viscount Chandos asked gambling minister Baroness Twycross to say whether the watchdog was “taken for a ride” before it awarded Allwyn a 10-year licence to run the National Lottery, which kicked in last year.

At the Lords despatch box on Monday, Baroness Twycross said the Gambling Commission is looking at the company’s technology upgrades, which she said are “needed to realise their bid commitments”.

She told peers that good cause returns from National Lottery ticket sales are expected to be £1.6 billion in the year 2024-25.

This figure is “consistent with returns last year and in line with performance over the last five years”, the minister said.

Viscount Chandos asked: “They’ve pledged at the time of the licence being awarded to give £38 billion in the next 10 years, which looks fanciful, to put it mildly.

“Now, will my noble friend the minister say what the Government will do to hold Allwyn to its pledge, or was the Gambling Commission taken for a ride?”

Baroness Twycross said the Labour peer was “correct that Allwyn is committed to increasing the amount of funding going to good causes over the course of the licence from £30 million a week to £60 million a week”.

She added: “The Gambling Commission has direct oversight of Allwyn and they’re implementation of the technology transformation needed to realise their bid commitments and to ensure that these are delivered safely and effectively.

“In addition, I have met with Allwyn on a couple of occasions including on Wednesday last week to receive additional assurance around delivery.”

Lord Sahota, a Labour peer, said: “In my previous life, I sold National Lottery tickets for years and years, and I always got the impression that the National Lottery was a tax on the poor.

“Does the noble minister agree with that?”

The minister replied that lottery players had helped fund “incredible iconic national treasures” including Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North near Newcastle upon Tyne and the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay.

She said: “I can’t agree that the National Lottery is a tax on the poor, as my noble friend suggests.

“I think that the National Lottery is an incredible national institution which was founded by Sir John Major’s government, which has great ambitions to become part of the lifeblood of DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) sectors.”

Former GambleAware chair of trustees Baroness Lampard, an independent crossbencher, described the National Lottery’s past investment into gambling harms research, education and treatment as “derisory”, including under its previous operator Camelot.

She asked whether ministers think the new operator’s “contribution is fair and adequate given the significant numbers of problem gamblers who participate in the lottery”.

Baroness Twycross replied Allwyn had agreed to pay £1.6 million annually during the current (fourth) licence, “which triples the amount that was given under the third licence”.

Tory peer Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay referred to a legal challenge against the Gambling Commission by The New Lottery Company, a subsidiary of Northern and Shell, which lost out on the National Lottery contract and is seeking damages, claiming the regulator failed to fairly run the licence bidding process.

The Guardian reported last week that the Gambling Commission watchdog had accidentally handed over more than 4,000 documents to lawyers acting for their challenger.

Lord Parkinson asked: “What conclusions she and her department have drawn about what that says about the competence of the Gambling Commission to perform the oversight functions that it has and the appropriate oversight of our regulators by her department?”

The minister replied: “I do have confidence in the Gambling Commission.

“I’m not going to go into details about media reports. It is clear that legal challenges are ongoing.”