London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, on her maiden speech. One of the advantages of having an appointed as well as an elected Chamber in Parliament is that we can get expertise such as hers to play an important role in our business. I am particularly glad that this debate is taking place this evening since, after the delay before Christmas, I wondered whether the more stringent rule of ““two false starts and you’re out”” now applied. I am absolutely delighted that the London bid for the Olympics in 2012 was successful. I am particularly glad that the effort of the noble Lord, Lord Coe, in this respect was recognised, among other ways, in the New Year honours list. The team put in a quite remarkable sprint towards the end, and I hope that the country, London and sporting community will gain from the fact that we are to hold the Olympics in 2012 in London. It is rather worrying in a way that it is well over half a century since I marched round in the opening ceremony of the 1948 Olympics at Wembley, together, I believe, with the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham. As was shown by a recent film which appeared on television entitled ““A Very British Olympics””, those Games were a great success and conducted under very difficult conditions as the Minister pointed out. Food was still rationed. To avoid complaints, the American team received unlimited supplies of steak and probably consumed more in a week than the annual meat ration at the time. I was doing my national service in the Air Force and I got an extra pint of milk a week—the main advantage of which was that it enabled me to go to the front of the queue in the cookhouse. We have a very important occasion in front of us, and I join my noble friend and all noble Lords who have spoken in supporting the Bill. None the less, we will need to scrutinise it carefully. The Olympic Games are now an enormous event—in some ways perhaps too large. Despite the noble Baroness who just waved to me across the Chamber, I am not at all sure that it is a good idea to have tennis included. I have a strong feeling that if one were to inquire whether a tennis player would rather win Wimbledon or Olympic tennis, the choice would be in favour of Wimbledon. The scale of the Games is enormous and attention has rightly been drawn to the question of costs. We need to scrutinise them very carefully. No doubt we will wish to do so in Committee. Concern has also been expressed about advertising, and I have also received representations about the environmental effect on some parts of east London. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has raised a question that had not been raised so far and the Minister may like to respond to it. It points out that Clause 20(4) disapplies the hybrid instrument procedures from the regulations, and the House may wish to question why, in the light of disapplication, organisations representing those affected by the regulations have not been included among those required to be consulted on their content. It seems appropriate that they are consulted in the preparation of such orders. Following the tragedy in Munich and subsequent terrorist attacks, I share the concern of my noble friend that security seems to have been dealt with very briefly. There is no more than a passing mention in the Bill. Perhaps we should consider to what extent any special provisions may be necessary. In my remaining remarks I shall concentrate on transport. It seemed to me that one of the main reasons why we might not win the bid was that London transport is so bad; and that the main case for getting transport in London improved was to win the Olympic bid. We can already see some improvements coming through as a result of the bid, in particular in the Jubilee line. I am more doubtful about the Docklands Light Railway. The carriages are very short and there are far too many stops. On the other hand it is probably difficult to get a train to go straight from the City to the Olympic venue if normal traffic is operating at the same time. Another thing that worries me is that we will need to have contingency plans. A few weeks ago, a bus caught fire in a tunnel in Docklands on a Sunday. It was, I think, more than a week before the tunnel was put right and meanwhile traffic in south London was in chaos. It took me more than two hours to go seven miles from Blackheath—and then I had to pay the congestion charge at the end of it. Had that minor accident—just one bus catching fire in the tunnel—happened in the middle of the Olympics, it would have totally disrupted the transport arrangements. That is something that we will need to cater for in our preparations. The other thing that worries me is the role of the Mayor and the relationship of his role to the delivery authority and the Secretary of State. I recall that when the IOC was initially visiting London to look at the arrangements that might be made here, action by the Mayor jeopardised or was in danger of jeopardising the case we were trying to put forward. As far as transport is concerned, other than reducing two-lane roads in London to single lanes and the constant introduction of more traffic lights and bendy buses—which themselves have had problems—it seems to me that he is not the ideal person, to put it no more strongly than that, to be responsible for improving transport in the context of the Olympic Games. So I think that we will need to look in Committee at the extent to which the Mayor has powers. He is inevitably involved in the contract, but at the same time he appears to have a veto—and a veto as far as the Secretary of State is concerned—with regard to some of the issues that are obviously important if the matters with which we are concerned in the Bill are to be carried through successfully. An event such as an Olympics in any particular country has a tremendous influence on raising enthusiasm for sports generally. Fortunately we have got away from the politically correct view some years ago that competitive sport was a bad and dangerous thing. But there is a problem as a result of the professionalism now. Alas, the old amateur concept of the Olympics has long since disappeared and we concentrate more and more on elite athletes. The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, referred to the finance for athletes’ training. There is now a gap, certainly as far as athletics is concerned, between the progress from school to club and then to international competition. In fact, the standard, allowing for the improvement in tracks and so on, is not greatly better at club level than it used to be 50 years ago. At times they are somewhat better but they are not enormously better at that level. People therefore have to make a huge jump from being a good club athlete to joining the international elite. That is something we will need to consider carefully if we are, as I hope we will, not only stage a very successful Olympic Games but also as a country produce athletes who will have a good result competing in those games.