London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

I would have to check the requirements of the Act. The ability to set out an Olympic route network was laid out in the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006, which the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and I were involved in passing five years ago. As the right hon. Lady has said, the power was introduced because there was complete traffic chaos at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, in which competitors missed their events and officials failed to turn up at the right time because the city became gridlocked. That has been a feature of every Olympics since. It is a requirement of the host nation contract to have an Olympic route network between all the key venues. That was given statutory effect in the 2006 Act, so the measure will almost certainly have its origin in that Act. There is a process of consultation between the Olympic Delivery Authority and the Highways Agency about how these things are to be enacted. According to the evidence before me today—the briefing that I have been given—that consultation has been done and a conclusion has been reached. I am very sorry that the two local Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke)—do not like it, but it is one of those simple situations where there is a difference of opinion between local Members of Parliament and those trying to design the scheme. Given that the roads Minister has considered all this, having had countless meetings, and come to a conclusion, I do not see much point in prolonging this further because the decision has been made. The only advice that I can give to those Members if they wish to pursue this further is to do so with the roads Minister via an Adjournment debate. On the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, let me say at the outset that I entirely appreciate that the thought process lying behind it involves trying to minimise the impact of the Olympic route network on people living and working in the areas concerned. I am very grateful for her confirmation that she supports the general principle. All of us who have been involved in this process, either at the time of the bid or subsequently, recognise why this has to happen, but none of us is enormously enthusiastic about it, because we know exactly what the impact will be. However, it is a necessary safety measure to ensure that the London games are not afflicted by the sort of scenes we saw in Atlanta, with competitors missing the start of their competitions and officials not being able to get there to oversee them. The importance of this issue was brought home to me at the weekend, when I visited the rowing squad out in Slovenia during the world rowing championships. It is very easy for us to minimise how important these events are to the athletes—the young men and women who are competing for us—but in many cases they have given up other careers and put themselves through an almost monastic existence for the four years running up to events. We owe it to them to make sure that this moment in their lives is as well-organised as possible. Before I address the four points that the right hon. Lady made, let me pick up the point that the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made about the operation of the Olympic route network. I categorically assure her, on the record, that the network will not operate for 100 days—it absolutely will not. It is expected to operate for a couple of days in the lead-up to the games and for a short period after they finish to allow for the arrival and departure of athletes. It then will not operate between the Olympics and the Paralympics, and then the same thing will happen again. The horror stories about 100 days of chaos are very wide of the mark.