John Major has accused the government of using lottery cash to fund projects that should be core government responsibilities.

The former Conservative prime minister, who introduced the national lottery 10 years ago, said Labour was guilty of "grand larceny".

Tony Blair's administration had changed spending rules so that up to half of the money being raised by the lottery is now spent on causes previously funded by taxpayers, he said

Major told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost programme that this breached the previous understanding that lottery cash would not replace government funding in areas like healthcare or education.

"I established the lottery 10 years ago to help with good causes, arts, sports and heritage," he said.

"All of these are important parts of people's lives, but they are never going to compete with education, defence and pensions for money.

"At the time we did that everyone agreed that this should be additional money, that it shouldn't be siphoned away by the government, it shouldn't diminish the modest sums the government gives and it certainly shouldn't be diminished away to be used by the government.

"The Labour opposition agreed with that. They demanded it, and I was happy to agree with it because I thought it was the right thing to do."

But the former Tory leader said one of Labour's first acts after taking power was to "begin to take money away from the lottery".

"You can argue how much has gone, but certainly a quarter and possibly half," he said.

"That is money that was not intended to be used for government purposes. The then Labour opposition agreed it and they backtracked and changed their minds.

"I think this is grand larceny. This is now being used as substitute government funding, that is not what it was intended for."

Major agreed that the cash is still being put to good use, but said many current causes "should be taxpayer-borne, as they always were".

However, criticisms of the government's use of lottery cash have been rejected by culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

Writing in the current issue of the Parliamentary Monitor magazine, she confirms that lottery money "is not government money".

"It belongs to the people of Britain who play the lottery. It is venture capital for their communities. They need to feel a sense of ownership of the money and see the evidence that is spent on their behalf and in their interest," she writes.

Jowell says the lottery "is a success story like no other" but adds that change was required to maintain its success.

"We needed to make a clearer connection between playing the lottery and investment in the good causes," she writes.

"We needed to widen public support for the lottery and to make it clearer where the money was going. And we needed to ask people what their priorities were and give local communities more of a say in how their money is spent.

"This was not change for change's sake. It was needed to keep the public engaged with the lottery, to keep them playing, to keep them trusting in its power for good, and to keep giving them a reason to spend their marginal income on their lottery ticket."

Blair hits back

Speaking at his monthly press conference on Monday, the prime minister hit back at his predecessor saying his accusations were without foundation.

"It's completely wrong. We made it clear we were not going to use the lottery money to fund projects the government should pay for that and that is what has happened," Tony Blair said.

"It is right that the lottery is used to fund good causes and that's how it is and has been."