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Popular support...?
BTW, some people can't access the BBC News website.
As a matter of courtesy can we quote the offending article when we post a link in future?
Spod. -
OK
Lottery shake-up plan criticised
Ministers tried to introduce the changes in the last Parliament
Planned changes to the National Lottery will see cash diverted from areas like sport and the arts to "cover up gaps" in education and health, Tories say.
Culture Minister Richard Caborn said the plans enjoy popular support, ahead of a Commons debate on the proposals.
Mr Caborn says 70% of cash raised will go to voluntary and community sectors.
Theresa May, for the Conservatives, accused the government of "sticking its hands in the pocket of the lottery" to pay for things taxes should fund.
Independent?
"Frankly, what I think is happening is the government is moving away from the original aims of the Lottery to give money to good causes, heritage, arts and sport," she said.
Mrs May added that the "whole aim" of the lottery was for it to be independent of government but that was, she claimed, changing by stealth with ministers exerting more and more influence over how cash should be spent.
Stephen Bubb, who heads an umbrella group for chief executives of voluntary organisations, said increasing proportions of lottery cash in recent years had gone on health and education programmes and improving school meals following a campaign by TV chef Jamie Oliver.
"Good cause money mustn't be there to plug gaps in departmental budgets at the expense of charities," said Mr Bubb.
Public support?
Mr Caborn was asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme who decided £45m would come out of lottery funds to pay for school dinners to which he conceded a "major direction" had come from government.
But he insisted that under the proposed changes such decisions would be made by the Big Lottery Fund.
"We are responding exactly to what the public wants," he said adding that people wanted cash to go on priorities like health and education.
The Big Lottery Fund is being created by merging the Community Fund, New Opportunities Fund and the Millennium Commission and Mr Caborn said efficiencies would boost cash to good causes.
"Streamlining will mean more going to frontline services and organisations that there would have been," he said.Comment
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If the departments for health and education want lottery money they should buy a fookin ticket like everyone else.Comment
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The lottery was intended to pay for things which the government wouldn't. It wasn't a method of voluntary taxation. Improving school meals should not come from Lottery funds. It should come from general taxation. I am only suprised that it took Brown so long to start milking this cash cow thoughComment
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Now, now, it's only "fair".Comment
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What worries me is that we are stuck with all these new stealth taxes. Imagine trying to reverse this in a few years' time - "removing funding for decent school dinners".
New Labour have made tax-and-spend so complicated, it is now a rats nest of dependencies, rules and money-shuffling that no-one understands but everyone has to abide by, and which will always need a lot of maintenance.
Will anyone ever be able to unravel it, simplify it, and put it above board?Comment
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UFb
"Mr Caborn says 70% of cash raised will go to voluntary and community sectors."
So the ethnics will now get state subsidy to practice witchcraft / flying planes into buildings /avoiding deportation etcComment
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Oh yes. you only have to look at the hysteria generated by the Tory's pre-election proposal to increases spending by 1% less than Labour's plan to see that - "Swingeing cuts in public services", "All nurses to be sacked", "Charging for operations", etc., etc.What worries me is that we are stuck with all these new stealth taxes
The minds behind NL's tax and spend plans are many things, but stupid is not one of them.Comment
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Well they do say the NHS is a lottery and now it really is.Comment
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