London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

I resist the amendment. I think it barks up the wrong tree entirely. I assure the noble Baroness that if I do not convince her of the strength of these arguments, I shall certainly be in a resistant pose throughout any consideration of the Bill. We will be involved in a conflict of perception, unless I can persuade her that the Government have got it right. Let me be absolutely clear about what we have done and what LOGOC is. It is a company, limited by guarantee. The owners of the company are three key Olympic stakeholders: the Government, the GLA and the British Olympic Association. We are not prepared to consider turning LOGOC into some form of quasi-public body, which is the burden of the noble Baroness’s intent. It is not a statutory body and we have no intention of it becoming one. It is a self-financing organisation that is a party to the host city contract and it is concerned with the organisation of the games, as is required by the International Olympic Committee. It is a commercially oriented organisation. That was why, when Members of this Committee had the chance to explore the provisions on advertising and relations with the advertising industry, which we shall discuss later, and when the chairman of LOGOC, the noble Lord, Lord Coe, came to discuss those issues with us, we did not have the slightest doubt that he was talking in business terms about serious business. LOGOC has to do that. He was seeking to establish the basis on which, effectively, he would get guarantors from commercially minded organisations to provide very substantial finance for the preparations for the games. Members of the Committee had first-hand benefit of that, but everyone will know, through the press, the extent of the work being pursued energetically by the noble Lord, Lord Coe, and his colleagues in seeking to raise the vast resources necessary for the Olympics. A body operating in those terms is different from the one that the noble Baroness conceives in her amendment. The arrangements for appointments, records, meetings and the publication of information are matters for that body to decide in conjunction with the three hugely significant stakeholders. They are not matters for this Bill. We do not support the proposal contained in the amendment that any appointment of the chair of LOGOC should be subject to the agreement of the Mayor. As with the ODA, it is right and proper that the Mayor should be consulted on appointments, but the ultimate decision-making power must rest with the Secretary of State, a key stakeholder. A large amount of public money is at stake here for the ODA, as well as the private resources that it is raising. We are making the ODA a statutory body, accountable to Ministers and to Parliament, which is customary for a large, non-departmental public body. The Bill does not, and should not, delve into the detailed arrangements for the establishment of LOGOC. The ODA has public money and public responsibility. LOGOC, of course, operates within a different framework as a private company. That is why we have to conceive of those two bodies as being quite different in their organisation, in their purpose and in their lines of accountability. I consider the amendment a good try by the noble Baroness, but we are very resistant to changing the nature of LOGOC.