London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

moved Amendment No. 61:"Page 15, line 15, at end insert—" ““(   )   shall consult persons appearing to him to represent the interests of persons within the advertising business,”” The noble Lord said: We now come to the issue of a statutory duty to consult. This amendment introduces a new paragraph in Clause 20 and imposes a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult the advertising industry prior to any secondary legislation relating to the physical location of advertising being issued under Clause 19. In Committee and on Report in the other place, Mr Caborn made a commitment that the advertising industry would be consulted prior to regulations being issued under Clause 19, but no changes were made to the Bill. On Report, the Government claimed that under Clause 23 the ODA had a duty to consult parties affected by Clause 19. I am not sure where that comes from since the word ““consult”” does not appear in that clause and, even if it did, when we are talking about an important clause such as this, the right to be consulted by the ODA, rather than the Secretary of State, would not be adequate. Any regulations issued under Clause 19 will directly affect the advertising industry. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that it should enjoy an explicit statutory right to be consulted by the Government alongside other pertinent bodies, such as the ODA and LOGOC, which already enjoy that right under the clause. I shall not go into that discussion further because I am sure that other noble Lords—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, who was a Member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that had a lot to say on this subject when it wrote its report—will go further into the issue. During debate in the other place, the Government accepted in principle that the advertising industry should be consulted in order to smooth the implementation of any regulations issued under Clause 19. Why not simply reflect that in the legislation by adopting the amendment? This amendment is included in other legislation, for example, in Sections 23 and 24 of the Gambling Act 2005 and Section 324 of Communications Act 2003, in which the principle of a statutory right to consultation for those affected by the legislation is accepted and contained in the legislation. The Government ought to include that in the Bill. That is what the advertising industry would like to see. There are other aspects which the Government need to make clearer, for example, the likely length of any consultation, statutory or not, that the DCMS may conduct and the issue of technical manuals. Technical manuals form an integral part of the host city contract and the Bill is intended to give legislative effect, as the Minister was implying, to the contractual obligations entered into by the Government. But when the IOC makes further changes to the technical manual, the regulations require further amendment and further consultation would be required on those regulations. The issue of the right of consultation on the initial regulations, changes to the regulations and so on needs to be looked at, rather than simply relying on debate in this House or the other place on an affirmative motion for the regulations. The industry should be in on the ground floor in any initial regulations or change of regulations. I beg to move.