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Peers to block £1bn Olympics raid on lottery cash
Nicholas Cecil, Political Correspondent23 Nov 2007
Ministers fear they could lose a crunch vote on Olympic funding, the Evening Standard can reveal.
They admit they face a struggle to get Parliament to approve the transfer of £1billion from the National Lottery Distribution Fund into the coffers for the 2012 Olympics.
With its majority in the Commons, the Government can get MPs to back the cash transaction. But in the Lords, where Labour does not have a majority, Tories and Liberal Democrats have vowed to block a parliamentary order for the £1,085 million transfer.
Many peers are keen supporters of heritage, arts and sporting groups which they fear will lose out as Lottery money is diverted to pay for the 2012 Games which currently have a budget of £9.3billion.
But Culture Secretary James Purnell has warned there is no alternative source of funding. "There is no prospect of further funding from either the Government ... or from the Mayor of London ... nor is there any prospect of raising private funding in lieu of the Lottery funding," the Department for Culture, Media and Sport told peers investigating the transfer order.
"Without this funding there will be no Games and the benefits of this huge regeneration programme will be lost." Opposition peers, though, are refusing to back down in the dispute.
They have accused the Government of failing to provide details on other funding options and branded the impact assessment - on how the £1 billion loss to the Lottery would affect heritage, art and sport projects - as "inadequate".
The Conservatives and Lib-Dems say they will vote against the order unless the Government amends it.
Shadow Olympics minister Hugh Robertson said: "The Conservative Party could not support a further raid on the Lottery at a time when the Governmentis refusing to divulge any details about the Olympic budget."
Lib-Dem peers will table an amendment to the order to trigger a vote which could be taken before Christmas.
Peers can table fatal amendments, to kill off orders, though historically they have avoided doing so, opting instead for non-fatal amendments which puts pressure on the Government to change its plans without blocking them.
But given the anger over the "raid" on Lottery funds, both the Tories and Lib-Dems signalled they are prepared to go for a fatal amendment.
Lib-Dem culture spokesman Don Foster said: "We will vote against this order going through the Lords and the Commons unless we can get agreement from the Government to adopt measures that would provide significant additional sums into the Lottery good causes."
The Culture Department played down the committee's criticisms and said they were not severe.
A spokesman added: "We provided all the material in the impact assessment we were able to. What we could not do was predict the future and say how many grant applications would be made for Lottery funding or what decisions arm's-length distributors would make."
Reader views (8)
Hurrah indeed for the Lords - it's taken this government to make me grateful for them. Tessa Jowell and co. will play the 'regeneration' card - lots of benefits for the deprived East End - but already the Olympics has simply made housing there even more unaffordable - not to mention Clay's Lane and the Manor Garden allotments.
It's a pity there isn't a 'they work for you' email contact for the Lords - they need to know the support they have in opposing the government's smash and grab. I suggest, if your MP is of the non-government variety, you write to them asking them to pass on your opinions to their friends in the Lords. Failing that, try your friendly local bishop - there are 26 of them in the House.
- Judith Martin, Winchester, UK., 30/11/2007 12:58
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Long live the Lords! I know nobody here who wanted Olympics and that extra mess here! It is way over budget and badly organised in the wrong place.
- Georgie, Islington, London, 26/11/2007 10:49
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Again I ask, where are all of the people who were calling me a miserable man when I said that this was going to be an absolute fiasco and that we should never be awarded the games? Oh, you changed your tune after the real costing came in.
- Trevor Roll, London, 26/11/2007 06:32
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Good for the House of Lords, I say. Raiding the Lottery funds for the Olympics is wrong, as it would reduce funding for arts, culture, sports and charities. The Games should have been properly costed from the very beginning, and then the British people could have made a decision, to pay from public funds, or to use the money for something else and let someone else have the Games. If the area needs regeneration, then the public money should have been allocated anyway, from taxation, and would have been justified by the economic and social benefits in the future. Why should we all lose out so that Seb Coe and government ministers can have a couple of weeks in the international spotlight?
- Christopher Fowler, London, UK, 25/11/2007 07:56
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Great points above. Looks like the arts councils could use more funding, not less...they sure could've used a couple thousand extra pounds for a better logo! There goes the revenue from T-shirt sales.
- Laryssa, Boston, 24/11/2007 23:21
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Great. I never wanted these Olympics here in London. Who would pay for the mess?
- Jacqueline, Hampstead, London, 23/11/2007 20:27
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Thank goodness for the Lords - hopefully the last bastion of common sense left in this country.
Surely this nation’s heritage, arts and grass-roots sports are more important than a two week sporting extravaganza that will quickly be forgotten and anyway, mainly features a foreign elite of whom one can never be certain don’t win medals with the aid of some form of chemical assistance. As 99% of the country, including our youth, can only view the Olympics on the box - the Games might as well be held in Timbuktu rather than London for all the difference it’d make to the general public.
- Sean Dunne, Louth, 23/11/2007 19:50
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"Without this funding there will be no Games and the benefits of this huge regeneration programme will be lost."
What benefits are these that will be lost, are they the facts that Londoners will have to pay higher council tax, and that the site will go the same way as other olympic venues and remain empty and be drain on the economy. I read during the week that the Greek olympic site needs 67 million a year to maintain.
This is just a momumental waste of money which is letting a load of money grabbers make money at the expense of everyone else. Why is the stadium costing over half a billion to build, is this because it is basically public money that they are using. If you looked at the cost of some modern developments built by private companies they cost a fraction of what is being wasted on the Olympics, look at the Gherkin for instance.
- David Kitemaker-Hall, London, UK, 23/11/2007 13:44
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