London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

I thank the Minister for that response, and I thank the noble Lords, Lord Borrie and Lord Glentoran, for supporting the amendment in the cogent way that they did. The Minister was very resounding in drawing on judgments and the experience of the games in 2000. He said that he wanted to give LOGOC the best negotiating position, which had not been the position in the past. He said that delayed commencement could jeopardise this important work. In the course of the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, produced evidence of situations in which there had been absolutely no problem at all. Then, coming right down to it, the Minister at the end of his peroration produced the names Ansett and Qantas. I should be extremely interested to see that case study, as I have my doubts about how the case came about and how it worked. I should be interested to hear chapter and verse on the Qantas campaign: exactly when it took place, what the market research conducted was, and when it happened. If someone started to mount a campaign with an Olympic association in the next six months or year or so, that would terminate with a wallop, at the end of 2007 under our amendments and at the end of 2006 under those of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. Then the legitimate sponsor would have four and a half years and would have a run at it. I would be extremely surprised in those circumstances if there was any question of a Qantas or Ansett situation arising—but I should very much like to see the case study. While the Minister was talking, I thought, ““Where is the evidence—where is the beef?”” Lo and behold, we come to the case involving Ansett and Qantas, which I do not necessarily think is on all fours with what we are discussing. Where is the evidence arising from other games—from Greece and Atlanta and from some of the winter Olympics, and prospectively from Vancouver and Turin and so on? I am afraid that the Minister drew the case of Ansett and Qantas out of a hat.