Caborn angered by Lamb comments

12 April 2012

Sports minister Richard Caborn has launched a stinging attack on critics of the Government's decision to divert more National Lottery cash to the London 2012 Olympics.

The Government announced that £675million would have to come from the lottery - leading to criticism that it would adversely affect grass-roots sports.

Caborn, whose rebuttal included a personal attack on Tim Lamb, chief executive of the Central Council for Physical Recreation (CCPR), said: "I understand the concern being voiced by the sports lottery distributors. This is not a decision we've taken lightly. But it's simply untrue to say we are choosing the Olympics over community sport."

He added: "It is frustrating to hear people like Tim Lamb of the CCPR talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul when the Government have gone out of our way to give sports clubs tax relief.

"They are benefiting to the tune of £15million since it started at the moment. But if Tim Lamb's organisation did more to encourage take up sports clubs across the country could benefit from a further £60million a year.

"If Tim Lamb put as much effort into getting clubs to sign up for this money as he did knocking the Government, community sport would be much better off."

Sport England chairman Derek Mapp claimed grass-roots sport would suffer a £55million loss over three years as a consequence of the decision.

Caborn said the Olympics would be doing much good work for grass-roots sport.

The minister said: "Sport is receiving huge and unprecedented amounts of money from the Government, as well as the National Lottery.

"And let's not forget, the Olympics will leave a tremendous legacy for grass-roots sport with facilities being built with long-term community use at the heart of the plans."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in