London Olympics Bill

I thank my hon. Friend. I hope that he is not smoking those fags either in this place or anywhere else; perhaps he is still entitled to do so. That is the nub of the problem. In essence, in London, the risk is that we will find ourselves with an enormous burden for many years to come. Already concerns have been expressed by hon. Friends and, I think, Labour Members about the costs that are likely to be imposed upon London taxpayers. As it is, effectively, the cost is likely to be £20, £30 or £40 a year over 20 years. It could be considerably worse given the multiplier effect to which I have referred. I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) is no longer in his place but he rightly referred to the fact that the chairman of the London Development Agency, Mary Reilly, has admitted that the costs of preparing the Olympic site could double from the planned £478 million to £1 billion. If that became a cost overrun, rather than being dealt with by the budgets that have been agreed, that would, once again, penalise council tax payers in London fairly soon. Those are great concerns. Anyone who has been to the Lower Lea valley site will have seen that it is greatly contaminated. It is difficult to estimate the likely cost of cleaning that land and ensuring that it is fit for purpose. Inevitably, there is always some optimism in putting forward a strategy and I accept that a robust financial case was made—it was not just a lot of cascading figures—but, very quickly, however robust the financial case, things can go horribly awry. It looks as though the cost of clearing up the site is likely to be significantly more than the £478 million that was mooted at the outset. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make this brief contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent has made a sensible suggestion and I hope that the House will seriously consider it. I am particularly glad that it has cross-party support; the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) supports it. It is wrong that London taxpayers should suffer from the potentially ruinous multiplier effect to which I have referred. There may be some merit in the comment of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that the £625 million should not be the cap if there were to be a massive cost overrun. I am sure that London taxpayers would be happy to pay their share, but the reality is that, with a cost overrun, they will pay 100 per cent. of every pound in excess. That would not be the right way forward.