I intend to address that specific point, because it is one area in relation to the grant-giving bodies that worries me, as it does the hon. Gentleman.

There is no firm, foolproof solution to the dangers, but if I may offer advice to those who are on the Front Bench after the election, when I shall have left the House, I would strongly counsel my right hon. Friend, who I very much hope will be in her post as Secretary of State for National Heritage, to agree a firm budget with the Treasury for a full five-year period, covering museums, galleries, the national heritage memorial fund, the Sports Council and the Arts Council, and to announce publicly the amount of Treasury funding. The Treasury should be tied to those figures. Then, if lottery money goes into an area where there is an overlap with grant in aid, such as tuition fees and training for students, that will not be able to reduce the Treasury element of funding, because the Treasury will be committed to firm figures that were publicly announced.

It is worth remembering that a 12 per cent. tax on the total lottery turnover goes to the Treasury—£600 million per year on a turnover of £5 billion. It is a voluntary tax, so if the lottery became unpopular for any reason, or were seen as a substitute for public expenditure which people properly expect the Government to provide, sales could fall off and that £600 million might disappear overnight.

My other advice is to the grant-giving bodies. They should form themselves into a consortium or an informal council at chairman and chief executive level, so as to work together and develop a common approach to the sponsoring Minister and to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, which would prevent their being picked off one by one by the Treasury in tight public expenditure rounds.

I agree with the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) that the position of charities should be reconsidered. Although the work of the Charities Aid Foundation shows that the income of the 500 largest charities continues to grow, albeit at a much slower pace than before, it is clear that smaller, community charities are suffering. They depend not on planned giving and covenants, but on raffles and on rattling boxes outside supermarkets on Saturday mornings.

Figures given to me by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations suggest that the total loss to charities was about £350 million in 1995, which is rather more than the £300 million that they received from the lottery. One possibility is that, as the millennium fund expires, some of that share of the lottery should be diverted to the National Lottery Charities Board. I am sure that the Minister will agree that that aspect requires further thought.

I am opposed to the mid-week draw, because it detracts from the Saturday draw. I regret the position of some newsagents and tobacconists. There may be two of them in a village, one with a national lottery machine and the other without. The one that does not have a machine can stand his turnover falling by 20 per cent. on Friday or Saturday because of the lottery, but if it were also to fall by 20 per cent. on Tuesday or Wednesday, he would be driven out of business. I have raised such cases with Camelot, which says that it has sufficient outlets and does not require any more. That is one of the dangers of the second lottery draw. There is also the danger of Camelot appearing too greedy, and it should be wary of that.

There is talk of keno—a sort of electronic perpetual bingo—being introduced. I played it at the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City and it is horribly addictive: all the dollars in my wallet were removed very quickly. I hope that Camelot will not introduce it in the United Kingdom.

On the other side of the coin is the 49s, which is being introduced by bookies and betting shops. At fixed odds, one can bet on three up, five up or the bonus ball. It presents a serious threat to the lottery as the bookies do not pay anything to good causes and do not give anything to charities. There is talk of £1 billion being knocked off the national lottery turnover if the 49s is not examined and perhaps stopped. The legislation needs clarification. No skill is required to play the 49s: it is clearly a lottery and seems to fall foul of the gaming legislation. I hope that the confusion between lottery and gaming legislation will be clarified.

Finally, I come appropriately to the millennium, which is now just over 1,000 days away. It should be a time for celebration, change and a new start. It is easy to carp about it and to ask why money is being spent on redoing the Greenwich peninsula, but that is the wrong approach. It is much more important for us and our constituents to have a positive attitude with a view to participating in local planning and enjoying the national celebrations.

I salute my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for her work in this area. In a recent lecture, she referred to the 11th century monk who wrote that the period immediately after the year 1000 saw the world clothing itself in a mantle of white churches. What a lovely epigram. What a lovely thought. I hope that out of the millennium celebrations Britain will clothe itself in a mantle of new and exciting buildings that will reflect this century and, like the museums at South Kensington, will be admired and used throughout the next century. If that happens, all of us who have been involved in the lottery—as I have been since I was Minister responsible for the arts—may remember with some justification Sir Christopher Wren's epitaph in St. Paul's cathedral: "If you seek his monument, look around you."