London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

moved Amendment No. 70:"Page 48, line 18, after ““instrument,”” insert—" ““(   )   may be made only after consultation, for a period of no less than six weeks, with persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent the interests of persons within the advertising business and those who have a relevant responsibility for regulating the advertising industry,”” The noble Lord said: I shall be extremely apologetic by the time we reach Amendment No. 75, the final amendment to which I am speaking this afternoon. I shall try and shorten what I have to say. Amendment No. 70 introduces a new sub-paragraph to Schedule 4. It would impose a duty on the Government to consult with the advertising industry and its regulators were the Secretary of State to seek to vary the list of protected words, expressions, symbols, and so on, between the coming into force of the schedule and 31 December 2012. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, were extremely interesting because, again, if paragraph 3 of the schedule were not there, we would be home and dry and there would not be as much concern in the industry on this matter. The amendment proposes that the period of consultation should be a minimum of six weeks, in addition to the affirmative order approval process. The Minister, Mr Caborn, provided an assurance on Report in the other place that the advertising industry and its regulators would be consulted by the Government prior to any variation being made to the list of protected words, expressions, symbols and so on in Schedule 4(3). However, the Government appear to see no need to put that in the Bill, even though a similar duty to consult is included in the Communications Act and Gambling Act. The advertising industry believes that it is essential for there to be a duty to consult on the face of the Bill, given that the lead times for producing advertisements, particularly for television, are much longer than the time it takes for an affirmative order to be approved in Parliament. We on these Benches support deterrence for ambush marketing, and that is common ground shared by all noble Lords, but why should legitimate investment in advertisements be jeopardised by rapid changes in the law? There are two possible drivers to a change in the list of protected words, expressions and symbols and so on in sub-paragraphs 3(3) and 3(4) of Schedule 4. The Government could act on their own initiative to prevent a perceived new association that was arising or at the behest of the International Olympic Committee as a consequence of any changes that the latter might make to its technical manual No. 3, to which I have referred. The DCMS summary of the IOC’s requirements on brand protection and ticket touting states that,"““it is not the intention of the IOC to over-reach and/or prevent use of marks, imagery or designations that have nothing to do with the Olympic Games. Rather, the objective of the IOC is to . . . prevent third parties from leading other people to believe that they have a connection with the London Olympic Games when this is not the case””." That is admirable and correct. We endorse the objective of combating ambush marketing, but it is instructive to examine the basis on which the current words in Schedule 4 are included. The DCMS summary continues:"““Legislation should provide for the protection of the Olympic permanent marks (the Olympic Symbol, ‘OLYMPIC’, ‘OLYMPIAD, etc.) as well as for the ‘CITY+YEAR’ identification of the Games, the Official Emblem of the Games, the ‘VENUE NAME/VENUE CITY+YEAR’ identification and possibly some others””." We have little problem with that statement and the Olympic Symbols etc. (Protection) Act 1995 already provides many of those safeguards, but the words,"““and possibly some others””," are included in that statement. The summary document goes on to state that specific legislation is required to,"““protect Olympic intellectual property and to prohibit use of confusingly similar words, symbols, terminology and graphic design as well as unauthorised use of Olympic intellectual properties””." Based on those extracts, it would appear that the IOC does not require such words as ““gold””, ““silver””, ““bronze””, ““summer”” or ““medals”” to be protected. I am certainly not sure that it could be argued that such words were ““confusingly similar”” to words deriving from the root word ““Olympic””. That was just an example. Amendments were tabled in the other place which we have not tabled here regarding those words and we are content to leave them on the face of the Bill, despite the sensible comments of the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. But it illustrates that it is quite possible that other arbitrary words could be added to the list by the Government: ““winner””, ““champion””, or other such words. I believe that the IOC has some 22 technical manuals and, I suppose, that in any of them there might be a requirement to add something further to the Bill in due course. So it is extremely important that a right of consultation is enshrined in the Bill. It emerged in Committee in the other place that it is possible for the IOC to change any of its technical manuals, including that relating to brand protection, at any time between now and the end of 2012, and the Government would be obliged to try to put those changes into UK law. It is not unreasonable, given that there will be an impact upon the sector, that there should be a statutory right to consultation included in the legislation, particularly in view of the investment in advertising campaigns that could be jeopardised as a result. I beg to move.