London Olympics Bill

The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) is right to draw attention to the UK-wide tourist opportunities that the Olympics provide. I echo that. I am delighted that the Olympics are coming to east London. I repeat my congratulations to all involved in the successful bid, including the ministerial team, who did extremely well. Waltham Forest is one of the four local authorities that are in the Olympic park, and Leyton in my constituency will house the velodrome for the cycling and, I believe, the BMX sports. Waltham Forest contains Chingford. For a long time its MP was Norman—now Lord—Tebbit. He once made a famous statement about getting ““on yer bike”” to find work. All these years later, I am pleased to say it is a case of getting ““on yer bike”” for the Olympic cycling in Waltham Forest. The 2012 Olympics promise to be the greatest event on earth. The world’s eyes will be upon us and it is in the national interest that we make a success of it. It brings many opportunities, especially for the regeneration of an environmentally and financially poor part of east London. Lots of jobs will flow from the construction work and services, and we need to ensure that the local population, including local youth, is trained up with the skills necessary to benefit fully from that employment. Extra resources must be put into that skills training. There are health advantages to be had as the population is inspired to get fitter, taking part in sport using existing facilities and, after 2012, the legacy facilities. It is important that schoolchildren are given the chance and encouraged to get fitter, too. In recent years there have been attempts at free access schemes—for example, to swimming pools. Those schemes must be expanded to offer schoolchildren free access to pools and tracks. Arts for the Olympics should not be neglected, and we should utilise the talents of those who are more artistic than sporty. I echo the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) about utilising art. Many Londoners are worried about the cost of the Olympics and especially about a rise in council tax. The Olympic precept on the council tax as an element of the funding package to meet the games’ costs is due to commence in 2006–07 and last for 10 years. In a press release in May 2003, the Mayor stated that the maximum addition to council tax to fund the Olympics would be £20 a year on average on a band D property. That strikes me as a reasonable precept. It would raise £625 million. If there were a cost overrun, that would require £650 million from the precept and the council tax charge would be for 12 years rather than 10. The agreed funding package for specific Olympic capital costs is £2.375 billion, but if the costs go beyond that, although the Government are the ultimate guarantor of Olympic funding, they would expect to agree a sharing arrangement with the Mayor of London. So cost overruns still have the potential to cause damage to council taxpayers and they must be avoided. The costs must be kept under control. It is important to keep construction costs from spiralling, as happened with the Dome, the Jubilee line, the Scottish Parliament and several other projects. We do not have a good record of controlling costs, but we must do so for the Olympic facilities. That means letting the tenders and getting the work done early. The later it is, the more the contractors have the taxpayer over a barrel, and that must not happen. There is a lot to do with the transport improvements and the infrastructure work, but the Government are also committed to many other building projects. Building schools for the future was an election pledge that I strongly supported, so that every school that needs such building work will get it over the next 15 years. There is the work on major new hospitals and the modernisation of older ones, such as Whipps Cross University hospital in my constituency. That will be the second nearest hospital to the main Olympic facilities and the nearest to the velodrome, should there be a cycling accident, which I hope there will not be, so that must be modernised, and I am keeping up the pressure for that. There is also much building associated with regeneration, including the Thames gateway and Stratford city, and the Government have also set the decent homes target, which is a strong target to build and improve many homes. Therefore, we must really get a grip on the construction and get on with it. The Government should relax the requirement that they have had up to now to build primarily via the public finance initiative, and instead use all appropriate means to finance construction, depending on what offers the best value and what gets the job done quickly. Quality work is also important, a point that I made in an intervention during the Tuesday’s debate on the Crossrail Bill. It is important to work in partnership with the trade unions representing construction workers. I admit that I have a vested interest because I am on the parliamentary team for the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, but I draw attention to early-day motion 591 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham), which points out that safe systems of work and dignified terms and conditions, often with a directly employed labour force, is the route to world-class projects being built safely and delivered on time, and the Heathrow project is given as an example. I agree with the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) that there must not be planning hold-ups. We need a proper and fair planning process, but a prompt one. In some cases, the national interest of facilitating the Olympics may need to be invoked, but that should not be left until the last minute. I have a letter from Carlo Laurenzi, OBE, chief executive of the London Wildlife Trust, who is concerned about the environmental quality of the games as shown in the Bill. He says:"““To ensure the Government’s loudly proclaimed aim of delivering the greenest games ever we’re seeking your help to strengthen the bill for environmental and social gains. The All Party London Olympics Bill Research Paper [05/55] includes a whole section on regeneration and planning but this is missing from the Olympic Bill””." He concludes:"““The 2012 bid was built upon a foundation of sustainability but the London Olympics Bill fails to uphold this. We appeal to you to raise this as a mater of urgency.””" Well, I have done, and I hope that as the Bill goes through Parliament the Minister will take that on board and we will get the greenest games ever.