London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. We will hear many interesting and compelling speeches in this debate today. One voice we shall miss, however—which would have been heard but for his untimely death—was that of Tony Banks, Lord Stratford. He spoke to me before Christmas of his relief that this debate had been postponed so that he could express his very great enthusiasm for the Bill and his pride that his area of London would be the major site for the Games. He would not only have spoken well in this debate but would have brought to our forthcoming work the real experience he gained when fronting our bid for the football World Cup several years ago. That experience would have been invaluable, communicated by his capacity for directness, his wit and his intelligence. As a former Sports Minister he had so much to offer in this work. But also, of course, he had an interest in the arts and in the general work of the House, which I know in his short time here he had grown to respect. London won the Olympic bid because we promised the International Olympic Committee that we were able to deliver. Since July, we have made good on that promise. A huge amount of progress has already been made towards 2012. Compulsory purchase orders have been issued to acquire the land needed in east London; the first contracts have been let to get power lines underground in the area that will become the Olympic Park; an interim Olympic Delivery Authority has been created and the top management team appointed; and the London organising committee for the games has been formally established under the able leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Coe. The IOC visited London last November and professed itself extremely happy with the progress we were making. In its view, we are currently two years ahead of the schedule of any previous host city. It was particularly impressed that we had already made such good progress with this Bill. We could not have made that progress without the help of the Opposition parties. Their support, both for the bid and the work that we have done since, has been unremitting and I thank them for that. I am confident that it will continue—I certainly hope that it will continue—as the Bill goes through the House. It is vital that we get this legislation to Royal Assent as quickly as possible, to put the ODA on an operational footing and to begin the hard work that will be needed to get everything built on time and on budget. The Bill does three things, all of which are essential to our success. It establishes the ODA and gives it the powers it needs to get London ready to stage the Games; it provides the powers needed to meet IOC requirements about the way in which the Games and the Olympic environment are managed; and it tailors the powers of other bodies, including the Greater London Authority and regional development agencies, where they have a role in the Olympic project. We are also concerned, and were concerned in the other place, to give reassurance about some crucial difficulties surrounding the Bill. We wanted to give clarity and reassurance on how restrictions on ambush marketing will work and who will or will not be caught by these rules. We think we have clarified these matters through the amendments passed in the other place, but we will have time, during Committee, to examine more thoroughly what I recognise to be an interesting and challenging area. The first half of the Bill deals with the ODA. Clauses 3 to 7 establish the ODA and give it the powers, functions and duties it needs to get London ready for the Games. They include a duty to have regard for the legacy of the Games in everything that is done, and a duty to contribute to sustainable development. It is important not to lose sight of the unique selling point of London’s bid, namely the legacy that the Games will bring to the United Kingdom in terms of sporting facilities and participation, and in the complete regeneration of one of the most deprived areas of London. Clause 5 allows the ODA to be appointed as the local planning authority for the Olympic Park, on the same model as an urban development corporation. That should ensure a co-ordinated approach to the development of the park and reduce the risk of unnecessary delays to the project. The precise boundaries of the ODA’s planning powers will be determined by order and of course there will be consultation on that order early this year. Clause 6 requires the ODA to have regard to security in exercising its functions; all noble Lords will recognise how important this dimension is to the successful prosecution of the Games. Clauses 10 to 18 deal with transport and establish the ODA as co-ordinating authority for the Olympic transport plan. Existing transport authorities will have a duty to co-operate with the ODA in order to implement this plan and to deliver Olympic transport services. The Bill provides for the creation of an Olympic route network, and the ODA will be able to issue traffic regulation orders on that network. The ODA’s role will, of course, evolve over time. It has the important job of constructing the venues and planning transport in the run-up to 2012. It will then co-ordinate transport systems during the Games, and will manage the environment around venues, so that the streets are clean and the Games are not commercially exploited. After the Games, the ODA will take a role in reconfiguring the venues, but that is its final responsibility. It will essentially be a time-limited body, focused on delivering the London Games. Clause 9 therefore provides for the Secretary of State, having consulted the Mayor, to lay an order to dissolve the ODA. The second half of the Bill deals mainly with the measures needed to meet the IOC’s requirements for what it terms brand protection. We signed up to meet those requirements when in bidding for the Games. We are therefore bound, under the host city contract, by the IOC’s technical manual on brand protection. We have put a summary of the relevant sections of that manual in the Library. Clauses 19 to 30 allow for regulations to be made controlling outdoor advertising and street trading in the area around Olympic venues. I recognise that this is an issue we will wish to explore in greater detail in Committee. Clause 31 outlaws ticket touting in connection with the Olympics. Again, this provision is brought in because the IOC requires that ticket touting be prevented. In bidding, London accepted the nature of those requirements. Of course, I am aware that other sporting bodies argue that there should be a wider ban on ticket touting. We in the department are currently working with all sectors, including sport, the arts, the creative industries and other stakeholders to gather evidence about touting practices across a wide range of areas. However, the IOC makes the Olympics a special case and we are under an obligation to meet that. Clauses 32 and 33 and Schedules 3 and 4 provide for the protection of Olympic intellectual property. They stop businesses unfairly cashing in on the Olympic or Paralympic Games by wrongly implying that they have some form of commercial or contractual association with the Games. These restrictions are designed to protect the public image of the Games, but they also protect the public purse by maximising sponsorship income. Existing legislation already prevents any unofficial commercial use of the word ““Olympic”” and the Olympic rings, and the main aim of Schedule 3 is to provide equivalent rights to the Paralympics. Schedule 4 extends protection to other, more imaginative forms of association and ambush marketing. But, contrary to some press reports, it will not place a blanket ban on using words such as ““summer”” and ““games””. Factual references to London and to the Olympics will still be perfectly legal. So will explanations of the purpose or characteristics of any goods or services. So will editorial use in media coverage. In its final clauses, the Bill provides new Olympic-specific powers for the Greater London Authority and the RDAs to ensure that they can make the contribution that we require of them. Clauses 34 and 35 give the GLA a specific power to prepare for the Olympics because it was the Mayor of London, along with the British Olympic Association, who signed the host city contract with the IOC. So to provide absolute clarity that the Mayor is able to honour his commitments, the Bill makes it clear that he and the GLA have the power to comply with his obligations under the contract and to prepare for and manage aspects of the London Olympics. There should be no need for this power after the Games, and Clause 35 therefore provides for it to be switched off by the Secretary of State. A similar power is given to RDAs in Clause 36. The Olympics present us with a wealth of opportunities. We need to make the most of them. In 1948, with the world still recovering from war, London put together a memorable Olympic Games when no one else was able to. For 2012, expectations will be much higher. And no one has higher expectations than the residents of east London. That was clear in their enthusiastic reaction to our victory on 6 July. We must make every effort to make the Olympic dream comes true for those people and for the whole of the United Kingdom. The Bill is the first step towards success. I commend it to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—[Lord Davies of Oldham.]