London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I would like to support the words of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I apologise to him, as I took his amendment to mean non-competing athletes as opposed to athletes who will have access to their own venues at Games time. I thank him because it is really important to remember disabled people when we talk about events such as this. At previous Games I do not think that there has been an awful lot of understanding about the needs of disabled spectators. For example, when I went to the Barcelona Olympics to watch my fellow Welsh compatriot Colin Jackson compete in the 110 metres final, I had a superb seat, right on the finish line—the ticket was free and I thought that all my dreams had come together. But what they did not take into account was that as soon as the gun went off everybody stood up and I saw absolutely nothing, not even the replay on the screens. It was about three weeks later, when I got home from the Paralympics, that I got to watch it on VHS. I was involved in the bid and I have declared my work on a number of sub-committees of LOCOG. I really thought at the start that my job would be to sit there and constantly say, ““What about the Paralympics?””. I am very pleased that I have never had to do that. One committee that I sit on is the diversity and inclusion committee. It is perhaps unfortunate that some of the work that it does is unseen by the wider public in terms of the number of disabled people now employed at LOCOG and who are Games makers and will be volunteers at Games time. It is important that we see disabled people in the park act as volunteers, and that everyone else can come in and see. The noble Lord, Lord Coe, has covered most of what I wanted to say, but I wanted to say that the Changing Places toilets are incredibly important to a number of disabled people who have higher or complex needs. They have beds and hoists. There is a superb example in Lower Waiting, if any the noble Lord would like to go and have a look at it. I will not talk any more about toilets at this point, but it is something that is changing the face of how disabled people are treated in venues—and I hope that that will carry on to other sporting events, Olympics and Paralympic Games. Finally, again as a spectator, the fact that at the Games the seating is scattered around venues in different price points is fantastic, because there is nothing worse for wheelchair users all to be stuck in one box in a really bad space where you cannot see anything—but that is where ““you lot”” go. I am really pleased to say that that definitely has not happened with London 2012.