London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

I may have expressed myself too negatively. I respect the arguments put but I reacted rather sharply to the ODA being conceived of in a local government model. For the very best of reasons, we do not accept that philosophy. I do not know whether this is pre-modern, modern or post modern, but we do accept openness and accountability. The ODA cannot do its job without enjoying public confidence and taking the public with it, because it is taking a role and making a commitment in which we want the public to be engaged. The ODA may have to decide to have some meetings in public.  It may be that there is parliamentary and public anxiety that the structure clearly defined here is insufficient to engage everyone fully and the Secretary of State could instruct the ODA to meet in public or to engage in other ways of keeping the public up to date about developments. That is so much in the ODA’s interest that we must leave it to that body to work out its strategy for meeting requirements. Certainly, if the Secretary of State has the anxieties that the noble Lords have foreseen, she can issue instructions for the ODA to follow a different approach. We have got arrangements for how a non-governmental public body should work and be answerable—the ODA is such a body. The problem with the amendment is that it provides a model of local government accountability. That is not appropriate for this body, certainly not if I take on board noble Lords’ weighty arguments that this is a body of national significance.