London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

My Lords, this has been a most stimulating debate. The undercurrent in all the speeches is support for the Bill. I would have been shocked had anyone expressed any other view except support for the broad principles. At the same time a wide range of reservations about aspects of the Bill, and uncertainties about it, have been expressed. That is what the Committee stage is for. I recognise that we will have a lively Committee stage and that we have a number of issues to discuss within that framework. I do however hope that we will not allow too many of the related but extraneous matters to intrude. I understand the view expressed by the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Luke, and others, that we need to look at the question of funding, for instance with regard to elite athletes. How could we consider success with regard to the Games if British participation was not a success in itself? We need to address that. Yet within the framework of this Bill, it would be odd if we thought that we had a clause which actually identified how that funding was to be mobilised. That is a matter for other funding authorities and arrangements. I hope we will not be side-tracked too widely down extraneous matters of that kind, important though they are. The majority of speeches concentrated on what is in the Bill and the issues which remain to be defined with greater clarity. As all other Members have done, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, on her maiden speech. It was a tour de force on her part. It is normal when one hears a speech of such excellence to express the hope that we will hear from the noble Baroness again soon. The great danger in expressing that view from this Dispatch Box is that it means a contribution in the Committee, which puts the Minister back on the hook. She will forgive me if I say that I hope to hear her again soon but that that is not an automatic invitation to participate in Committee—although she would be welcome. She demonstrated today that her expertise well fits her to play a constructive role in that respect, if she decides to do so. On the more general issues, we all recognise the enormous opportunities that the Olympic Games provide for this country and the significance of the success of the bid on 6 July. I reiterate my opening remarks: the International Olympic Committee is pleased with our progress and the introduction of this Bill so early after the successful bid, because it lays the framework on which we prepare for the Games. That leaves us open to one or two challenges which I intend to respond to in a moment, not least the one that we now have a context of restrictions as regards advertising. This was voiced by the noble Lords, Lords Glentoran and Lord Clement-Jones. The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, drew my attention to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee—of which he is a distinguished member—which also drew attention to this issue, as did the noble Lord, Lord Higgins. Confronted by those challenges, I was already withering in my seat before the blast from immediately behind me from my noble friend—I put the emphasis on ““friend””—Lord Borrie, who told me exactly what a monstrosity I had erected in the Bill for the advertising industry. Let me assure him and the whole House that we want to act early because we have obligations to the International Olympic Committee on necessary restrictions on what is the useful phrase of ““ambush marketing”” and the use of Olympic symbols. We want to act early, but we want to act judiciously. Of course we have no intention of being censorious and prescriptive to that degree. My noble friend Lord Borrie gave vent to some fears that even the word ““summer”” might be subject to a ban if used within certain forms of advertising. Of course we intend to act carefully. A light touch will be applied in the early years, but we need to safeguard the interests of sponsors of the Games and consequent funding. We have obligations to prohibit and restrict ambush marketing, but we recognise the point made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and other noble Lords who contributed to the debate, that we need to consult. I recognise that that obligation is enjoined on us and we intend to ensure that we have the framework for it. I cannot go into a great deal of detail at this late hour without producing a speech of inordinate length, but I recognise the force and legitimacy of the challenges that have been articulated this evening and I give earnest of intent that we have both thought through the issues and intend to reply to them during the Bill’s passage. That will guarantee that advertising is a fruitful and important area of discussion in Committee. Likewise, on costs and financing of the Games, I hear what noble Lords say about council tax and, in particular, the siren voice, which came first from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, but he was not the only one, that the Bill should contain a cap on council tax obligations. The problem is obvious. Once we place a cap on any one area of expenditure, we leave the others open to greater exploitation. We then do not create a due regard for costs. If one contributor can reach a limit and cease to make contributions, we lose the essential partnership of scrutiny and control of costs for those contributions in which we want all contributors to be part. I will of course listen to representations in Committee, which I imagine will be presented with some force, but we take the issue as a matter of principle, so I shall be very resistant on that point. I am not negligent about the force of the arguments that can be presented—not least, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, reminded me, that we are approaching elections when precepts, costs and local taxation generally become the stuff of public debate. Questions will be asked. I do not live in a false world in which I think that I am likely to escape close challenge in Committee on these matters. I merely indicate that the Government have thought through the issue of costs and we will need a great deal of persuading to change our mind on how we approach the issue. I cannot give a date for the report on the analysis of KPMG and the work it is going to do. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would not expect me to be definitive about when the report will be given. We are commissioning the report against a background where we know at an early stage that we want the most accurate and broadest picture we can get of the business plan, if you like, with regard to the Games for the future, if that is not too grandiose a term. This work is part of the arming of Ministers, the wider public—because we will in due course make such work public—and all those with authority for dealing with the Games and the plans for the Games to enable us to work towards intelligent budgeting. I have no doubt at all that the interest with regard to costs will run throughout the whole of the period, up to and including the period when the Games are being delivered. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, questioned me on a number of other aspects which I know he is going to pursue in Committee—for instance, the powers of the Mayor and the relationship between the various bodies. I understand that there are areas that we need to probe and discuss which will be properly located in Committee, but I am grateful to the noble Lord for using his Second Reading speech to indicate the areas of real concern. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, concentrated overwhelmingly on the main issues of costs and advertising. I make the obvious point with regard to the advertising run: that comparisons with Sydney are merely comparisons with the fact that Sydney got under way rather more slowly than we are doing. To say, therefore, that we should put a self-denying ordinance on ourselves to not look at these issues until four years immediately before the Games and let everything run in an untrammelled way up until then would not be politic or appropriate conduct on the part of the Government. I recognise that we have to make sure that we are fair to the bodies concerned and we are under an injunction from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to consult. I give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box that, whereas we will be increasingly rigorous as we approach the Games with regard to advertising constraints, there will be a relatively loose rein in the next two and a half years. We recognise that we are some distance from the objective and, in any case, nothing could be more unfair than for people to fall foul of constraints of which they were not aware when they were doing their long-run planning for advertising, a matter to which several noble Lords referred during the debate. From his considerable experience of these matters, my noble friend Lord Pendry raised an issue that I should have anticipated. We are obliged to address ourselves to the question of the touting of tickets. I agree entirely that this is an iniquitous form of exploitation of the genuine sporting fan and of a whole range of leisure opportunities. We are obliged under the agreement to deal with this matter in regard to the Olympic Games, but when are we going to deal with the broader issue? My noble friend will forgive me on this occasion if I express my total understanding of his position, which he has articulated in the past, and my great sympathy with his objectives, but he will recognise that it would not be appropriate within this Bill to address the general issue of touting, difficult as that issue may be. What I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate is that dealing with this issue within this more limited framework gives us inside guide and experience as to how we might address ourselves to the more general issue, which I know he feels very keenly about. I think the noble Lord has support from other parts of the House for that. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, addressed himself, as I expected, to the crucial issues of costs and advertising. I would hope that I have already covered these by this stage, but he did raise, for the first time among contributors to the debate, the issue of transport. He chilled my blood once again by indicating just how vulnerable transport systems can be in the congested capital in which we live. I take that on board entirely. It is the case that we are giving powers and expect carefully thought-out plans for how transport arrangements will work. My noble friend Lord Berkeley reinforced this point from his particular perspective. Let me say this: we would not have won this bid if we had not been able to convince the Olympic Committee that the bid was the best, technically, that they had seen. That revolved around the difficult issue of transport. I say ““difficult issue of transport”” because London is a difficult city in which to transport very large numbers of people. It is a very congested city with a very large number of inhabitants. Of course, we have plans in place for these transport issues; I have no doubt that we will discuss them further in Committee. If the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is in Committee, there is no doubt about that. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, has a faithful acolyte when it comes to representation on transport. Suffice to say that we regard the issue of successful transport, and how we conduct ourselves over those crucial weeks when not only the athletes, but even more crucially, the very large number of visitors we expect to be at the Games, need to be transported effectively to the venues, as an absolutely crucial dimension. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was kind enough to indicate that he and I had joint experience of disabled matters and legislation before this House. If I was in a position to reassure him on every conceivable point about the disabled and transport, and that he would not need to table any amendments at all, I would have produced a Bill unparalleled in the history of this House. The noble Lord will always have issues he wants to explore regarding the needs of the disabled. Let me give the noble Lord this reassurance: by 2012 certain aspects of transport will have passed through the framework of our recent improvements to the original Disability Discrimination Act. Certain of those consequent reforms will have worked through the system by then. I can, for instance, give him considerable assurances with regard to rail. We will have proper accommodation for the disabled, including the issue he raised about signs on trains. We will, to a certain extent, have those by 2012, though not necessarily on every train in the United Kingdom. He will know how far we have made progress in that respect. I expect him in Committee to take every opportunity to push me further on these points. Certainly, it is inconceivable that we would dare to mount the Olympic and—let me emphasise—the Paralympic Games, and yet fail in our duty to disabled attendees and participants. My noble friend Lady Billingham brought to my attention the advantages we could get from looking at the strategies pursued by places like Corby in terms of the development of sites and the necessary planning and co-ordinating activities. This Olympic venture requires us to obtain co-operation on a very high level. We will need all the experience we can get, although I take heart from the fact that the London boroughs are coming together well. But there is no doubt that we have a great deal to do. As well as emphasising the issue of advertising, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, dwelt on the sustainable aspect of the Games, particularly on the sustainable environment in relation to the Lea Valley. That is a very important point. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, reminded us, the Mayor cannot call these the green Games if what we leave behind is very different from greenness and there is no environmental sustainability. That is an important dimension; we will need to reassure ourselves that it is in place, and we will have the opportunity to explore it in Committee. I have said that my noble friend Lord Borrie concentrated on the area he knows best—so well, indeed, that I would not dare cross swords with him on the matter. I merely take on board the challenges that he has presented and shall seek to reassure him in Committee. My noble friend Lady Thornton also emphasised the regeneration of the Lea Valley. It is long overdue, as she knows only too well. It is depressing that we do not have too many great river systems in London apart from the Thames. However, the Lea Valley is a considerable river system; in the upper reaches very considerable work has been done by the Lea Valley Regional Park Authority to improve it, much less in the area where the Olympic Games site is to be located. We must seize this opportunity to make sure that this inner-city part of the Lea is also part of that regenerative process and gives new enjoyment to the people who live there. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said that we would be exploring the role of the Assembly in this respect. I have no doubt that a great deal of our Committee work will be about the inter-relationship between various institutions and their responsibilities. I look upon that debate with the greatest enthusiasm, if only because I will not give way to the noble Baroness if she tests my enthusiasm at this point. We will need to explore these points. The inter-relationship between the authorities is a very important part of the success of the venture. The noble Lord, Lord Luke, mentioned security, which had been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Higgins. The Bill does not spell out the security arrangements in great detail, but if we needed any reminder of how important security would be to the significance and success of the Games, we had it the very next day after the bid had proved successful. None of us can dwell upon the success of 6 July without recalling the horror of 7 July, so of course security will be a very important dimension of the Games. We are seeking in the Bill to identify how relationships with the police will work. There are limits to the extent to which we can be explicit, but I give the assurance that this is a very important consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Luke, also asked me to make sure that every plant in every building came from the United Kingdom. I might be stretched to do that. Given the extraordinary achievements of British architecture in recent years, I would be shocked if significant pieces of architecture required for the Olympic Games were not produced by British architects. Of course, the noble Lord would chastise me if I suggested that there should not be an open contest with the most successful and attractive bid succeeding; I am not about to produce a closed environment for British architects. The Olympic Games provide an opportunity for all aspects of British life to benefit. Architects ought to be able to show just what a high level of architecture we have in the United Kingdom. I hope that that will be demonstrated in the Olympic venues. We have had a most interesting debate. It started a little later than many noble Lords would have wished and it has finished a little later than your Lordships would wish. Therefore, I apologise for my extra contribution. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Grand Committee.