London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the young noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. I am sure this House will recognise that she has spoken with great knowledge about the importance of the Games and how they will affect London. She clearly has first-class qualifications to speak in this debate with her background in both the Central London Partnership and, indeed, London First. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Coe, and his team will take note of what she has said tonight and that they will benefit from her wise words, as I am sure we all will in future debates. Before embarking on my speech, I want to add my words to the tributes that have already been paid to the late Lord Stratford, who died last week. I had known him for many years in the other place, and his love of sport and animal welfare were legend. Of course, for a brief period he was Minister for Sport. It is somewhat ironic that I was at Stamford Bridge on Saturday at his beloved Chelsea, where I was hoping to see him, when the dreadful news came through of his stroke in Florida. Lord Stratford, or Tony Banks as he was better known, came to this House with a reputation for being with my noble friend Lord Snape the wittiest pair to come from the other place in many a long year. He would, I am sure, have made an inspiring speech today in the debate, which, as he told me before the Recess, as he did the Minister, he was eagerly awaiting, especially as the 2012 Olympics would have done much in the area of Stratford. I simply repeat what others have said: he will be greatly missed. We are privileged indeed to have the opportunity to debate this important piece of legislation. Were it not for the heroic work of the London 2012 bid team, to whom I pay tribute, the legislation would not have seen the light of day. We all recognise the great efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Coe, on behalf of the country to ensure that this most prestigious of events will be staged in the UK again. I certainly congratulate him, as others have done, on the Sports Personality award that he won and, since then, on the honour that he received in the New Year Honours List as well. I am sure that there are many more accolades to come. However, perhaps the best award that he could hope to receive is a London Olympics, which is every bit as magical as the proposals which won over the IOC delegates in July. As noble Lords will be aware, I chair the All-Party Sports Group, and we are of course a cross-party group. As I have said before, in my view, many issues in sport are best addressed across the parties, and this bid was a good example of all sides pulling together. We must continue to do so to ensure that this country delivers an Olympics of which we can all be proud. We will certainly have the world-class venues to accommodate the Games. I have spoken previously in this Chamber to exalt the virtues of these venues, including Wembley—when it is finally finished—Wimbledon, Lord’s, the Dome and the ExCel Centre, and we can add to those the Olympic Park Stadium and others. Therefore, we will be in a position not only to deliver a superb Olympics but also to regenerate east London and leave a legacy of quality facilities for our future athletes in years to come. I will now touch on some specific issues relating to this Bill, perhaps returning to them in Committee. The first is that of betting on the Olympics, especially when the games are staged in London. The IOC is of course concerned to protect the Games from any risk to their integrity from betting. I raised this issue in March when the Gambling Bill was passing through this place and sought to table an amendment which would have given sport more of a chance to control the betting on it. At that time I received a letter from Hein Verbruggen, who was then the acting president of the General Association of International Sports Federations. He said:"““The impact of increasing betting activity is a very important issue to my organisation and to sport in general. I would like to express my support for your amendment and for your efforts to ensure that sport is able to protect its rights and means to ensure the integrity of sporting events””." I understand that the IOC has required, in its agreement with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, that all steps will be taken to control betting on the Olympic Games. Surely the Government—who have committed to support the commitments made by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games by introducing legislation—should address this issue in the Bill. How has this been taken forward? Is this issue to be addressed in the Bill itself? Will any betting business looking to offer a bet on the London Games have to enter into an agreement with LOCOG under the Olympic Association right? This would seem to be the right approach. I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me on this issue, and perhaps place a copy of the commitment that has been made to the IOC in the Library. Clause 31 proposes measures to tackle the sale of tickets, which has been referred to already, for any London Olympics event by anyone other than the officially authorised vendor. This measure is specifically required by the IOC and formed part of our contract when we won the bid. The proposals, which the Minister has already referred to, deal with what is commonly known as ticket touting. The proposals are welcome and cover a whole range of areas exploited by touts including the sale of tickets through Internet sites such as eBay. Your Lordships may not be aware that this is an issue which has long troubled the sporting world. It is a growing problem which is spreading to other ticketed events such as concerts, leading to ordinary consumers being forced to pay extraordinary amounts for their tickets. This has a very negative impact as it limits access to sporting events by younger people and sports fans who do not have deep pockets. The Olympics will inspire a generation to take part and watch sport, but we must ensure that they can actually afford to go to events. Touting is an activity which frequently operates outside the law, contravening rules and regulations set down by event organisers and public authorities. Consumer protection regulations are ignored and at times tickets are often stolen, forged or mis-sold. It also impacts on public finances, with no VAT or corporation tax being paid and additional costs as a result of increased public order offence levels outside venues. Your Lordships will remember that ticket touting was a significant concern for football and a cause of football hooliganism in the 1970s and 1980s. I supported the then Conservative government when they introduced a law to deal with touting in football and took a further step in making a commitment to tackle touting across sport as part of our 1997 manifesto for sports, Labour’s Sporting Nation. The Government have yet to deliver on this pledge. As things stand, we will be left with the curious situation in which it will be illegal for ticket touting to take place for the Olympic archery at Lord’s, but not for Ashes cricket at the same venue. I am aware that the Secretary of State has engaged with a number of event organisers and sports governing bodies, such as the ECB, the RFU and the LTA, to assess this problem. I was pleased that the Minister said that the Government were looking at the issue beyond the Olympics. Finally, I shall touch briefly on concerns, which remain despite the degree of assurance from the Government in the other place, about the extent to which the Bill will encroach on advertising and marketing around the period of the 2012 Games. I understand and agree with the need to protect the Olympic symbols. Indeed, I was instrumental in bringing in the Olympic Symbol etc. (Protection) Act some years ago. However, with copyright and trademark law, there is arguably enough legislation in place already to prevent the misuse of Olympic symbols and a belief among advertisers that any new layer of regulation would go beyond what is necessary. We must take care that these protections are set in place in a manner which does not encroach on legitimate activity of businesses in London and the UK, notably the introduction of a new intellectual property right. The London Olympics Association has said that it is necessary to keep within the spirit of the IOC agreement, and of course it is, but there is also alarm at the speed with which the Government intend to introduce these new measures. It is frightening that I sometimes have to agree with my colleagues on the other side of the House—the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, in particular—but I certainly do on this issue. I applaud the principles that lie behind these aspects of the Bill. They seek to protect and therefore to help recruit the official sponsors who will provide the financial commitment that will be so important to the success of London’s Games. However, it is important to recognise that the summer Games in Beijing in 2008, as well as the winter events that are scheduled to take place in Turin and Vancouver in 2006 and 2010 respectively, have each exceeded their targets for generating marketing income without the additional measures that the Government are proposing. So I welcome, as I am sure would the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, a government commitment to meet representatives of the advertising sector to review these issues. I hope that they will be addressed at a later stage in Committee.