London Olympics Bill

Strangely, a consensus is building across the Chamber. I agree with many of the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster). As he knows, in Committee I asked what the structure for the nations and regions would look like. In the east midlands, we had a chart that showed our suggestions for part of that. For the reasons that he outlined, it looked quite complicated because it included the supporting blocks, such as tourism, sport and economic regeneration. I understand the problems of Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. I was European officer for the region, so I know only too well that those counties find it hard to regard themselves as part of the east midlands. I hope that over time they will come to love the rest of the east midlands as much as we love them. I look forward to the Minister’s response, as my understanding is that—as the hon. Member for Bath suggested—all those groups should feed directly into the RDA as the sole representative, so that we have a single point of contact. But there are dangers. As I have been involved with the Bill and taken some interest in it, people from all over the region have been asking me what they should do and how to get the process started. Over the past few months, part of our remit has been to encourage people to have ideas but to slow down until the organisation is in place, so that we can co-ordinate them, through the RDA and the nations and regions sub-committee, into LOCOG. The hon. Gentleman rightly highlighted the slight contradiction in subsection (2)—that the ODA, which, I understand, is really the delivery agency for building the infrastructure, mainly in London but also in Weymouth and other Olympic venues, is a different body. I look forward to an explanation, as I am concerned to ensure that there is a single route and that we do not complicate it so much that none of us knows how to proceed, as happens in other areas of the sporting world. This is a golden opportunity to lay clearly on the line who is responsible and who has the final say, so that all the people who have great enthusiasm for the Olympics know how to co-ordinate all their fantastic ideas—such as those I have heard about from people in Leicestershire—and how to get a yes from the nations and regions group, so that we can deliver between now and 2012.