Attack on plan to 'rob' Lottery for Olympics

Government plans to help fund the London Olympics with National Lottery ticket sales were attacked as a "straight forward raid" today by MPs.

The Olympics were in danger of draining funds from all the other good causes supported by the Lottery, said the powerful all-party Commons Culture Committee.

Ministers had earmarked £1.5billion as the Lottery contribution to the cost of staging the 2012 games if the London bid wins. But the committee said this undermined the founding principle of the Lottery - that its revenues would not replace government spending.

The contribution would include £750million from a new Olympics Lottery game, distributed by a new body set up by the Government. The committee said a new Lottery distributor would be "wasteful".

The report criticised Gordon Brown for taxing Lottery revenue, called for more competition for the licence when it comes up again in 2009, and urged a cheaper bidding system - Camelot's only challenger in 2000 was Sir Richard Branson's People's Lottery which spent £15 million.