Minister condemns 'vile campaign of racist hatred'

Culture Secretary backs the Community Fund, while groups supporting minorities defend the worth of their causes

Tessa Jowell condemned the "vile campaign of racist hatred" against the National Lottery Community Fund and publicly backed its chairwoman yesterday.

The Culture Secretary, speaking in a Commons debate called by the Conservatives to examine the Government's management of the lottery, said she was appalled by the abuse meted out to the Fund.

The organisation has been bombarded with abusive and threatening letters since the Daily Mail attacked its grants in print. The newspaper urged its readers to vent their "justified anger" to the organisation in writing, and published the name of the fund's chairwoman, Lady Diana Brittan, and the address of its London headquarters.

In the Commons, Ms Jowell said the debate gave MPs from all sides of the House the "chance to condemn the vile campaign of racist hatred and abuse against the chair and staff of the community fund".

"Human excrement and needles sent through the post, threats of violence, all in all the disgusting face of racial thuggery masquerading as concern for the lottery," she said.

Ms Jowell defended the right of the Community Fund to make its own decisions about lottery funding without political interference and said she backed grants to vulnerable or marginalised groups.

She welcomed the fund's decision to attach conditions to its controversial £340,000 lottery grant made to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, which has waged political campaigns against the Government's asylum and immigration policies.

Ms Jowell said she was pleased that the fund had invited the National Audit Office to review its procedures and had invited Simon Weston, the Falklands veteran, to meet board members to discuss poten- tial grants to war veterans' groups.

The Culture Secretary said that it was right for the lottery to make grants to small organisations, adding that the lottery must "adapt or die a slow death".

"I will not ask the Fund to end their support for the most marginalised and vulnerable groups in society and their five per cent of total allocation to drug addicts, people with Aids, asylum-seekers and to migrants," she said.

John Whittingdale, the Conservative culture spokesman, said it was "not right to place the blame on the current crisis in the lottery on Lady Brittan and the Community Fund".

He said that Lady Brittan, in allocating funds, was simply obeying orders from ministers, and he attacked the racist, anti-Semitic and violent threats directed at her. "I have absolutely no hesitation in condemning without hesitation the kind of letters sent to Lady Brittan," he said.

However, he said the Daily Mail had also condemned the letters and had received about 40,000 more after it asked its readers to stop writing to Lady Brittan and send coupons into the newspaper directly.

Mr Whittingdale urged the Secretary of State to "act now to restore the public trust" in the draw lottery.

Bob Russell MP, for the Liberal Democrats, said the Tories were in danger of pandering to "the racist tendencies of the Daily Mail".