London Olympics Bill

I endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson) and agree with what he is trying to achieve through the new clause. Many of us who are sports lovers in London have faced the difficulty of the half-hearted and perhaps lukewarm support for the Olympic bid. I was delighted to see the scenes on 6 July, but I have expressed concerns over many years about the costs of the Olympic games. I have always felt that the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, is likely to issue a blank cheque. I put that proposition to the Secretary of State a year or two ago, and it was pooh-poohed, but I fear that that will be the reality. Overall expenditure is supposed to be £2.375 billion. A robust case was made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that there will not necessarily be an overrun. He is right to say that we should not start in a negative frame of mind, but experience shows that there have been significant overruns. Clearly, we hope that there will be great commercial gains, which will ensure that quite a lot of money comes into central coffers, but we should recall that Sydney’s cost overrun increased almost threefold from £1 billion to £2.8 billion. That must be of great concern to us all—Londoners and everyone else in the United Kingdom—because it is in all our interests not to have an overrun. The big issue is that, in essence, London council tax payers will be subject to a massive multiplier effect. The overall costings of £2.375 billion presume £1.5 billion of lottery funding. I entirely understand what the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said but I do not necessarily share his reluctance to see the cap lifted. At present, it is suggested that £250 million could come from the London Development Agency and £625 million from the London council tax payer. If the overall cost is not £2.375 billion and is, let us say, £3 billion, that will in essence be equivalent to a 100 per cent. multiplier effect on the London council tax payer. That is how the additional £625 million will be raised. It is to be hoped that we will not have a Sydney-type situation where there is a massive cost overrun of perhaps £2 billion, because that additional £2 billion would fall on London council tax payers to pay. That would be entirely unacceptable. London council tax payers would effectively be paying for the blank cheque to which I referred in the House only about 18 months ago.