London Olympics Bill

For reasons that I entirely understand, the Minister missed the Westminster Hall debate last week, in which we touched on a number of these issues. I went to visit some of the businesses involved on 17 November. I tried to approach the meeting with an entirely open mind, but I came away feeling considerable sympathy for much of what they said. I shall try to encapsulate for the Minister what appeared to be the three problems involved. First, I do not want to party political, but there were issues surrounding the conduct of the LDA. I suspect that the LDA did not expect us to win the bid in Singapore, and thus might not have done all the necessary work—for reasons that we can all understand—to identify and secure alternative sites. There were countless stories of unreturned phone calls, unanswered letters and messages left hanging in thin air, which clearly did not help one iota. Secondly, some surveying firms were acting both as compulsory purchase valuers and as agents for prospective new sites, which is a serious issue. The Minister will know perfectly well that that is a straightforward conflict of interest and should never happen. Finally, the very fact that the Olympic site is such a large industrial site has, for obvious reasons, made replacement properties difficult to identify. Furthermore, post the bid, the supply of similar land is considerably scarcer, thus pushing up values. Any settlement must therefore be based on post-bid land values, not on the values existing prior to the Singapore decision. It was clear from my meeting that a realistic settlement could be reached on the basis of the cost of the replacement site, plus the necessary construction cost, plus an element of dislocation. We do not intend to press the amendment to a vote tonight, but the Minister should be in no doubt about the scale of the problem. The suggestion of an independent arbitrator is helpful, and some such initiative would prevent positions becoming entrenched. If they do become entrenched, without Government intervention, I fear that a solution will be hard to find.