London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

The Minister has tried to answer the question, ““Why not?””, posed by the noble Lords, Lord Glentoran and Lord Borrie. However, I do not think that he has made a great fist of it. He said that changes will be of great significance. They may not be of great significance; they may amount to two additional words about which people feel particularly strongly. I mentioned ““winner”” and ““champion””, for instance. It may be that the IOC takes the view that it wants to change its brand manual, and does so The pressure would then be on and the Government would have to respond. We may have a new Minister—and a new Government, no less—and changes may therefore be made in a hurry for many sensible and correct reasons. But everyone will be caught on the hop and the advertising industry will suffer as a result. The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, spoke cogently of time pressures and costs. The Minister talked about partnership and so forth. I suppose it can be argued that there is no need for statutory consultation of any kind in any Bill, but, inevitably, there will be a level of partnership between government and those who are impacted upon by a particular Bill. There is therefore always bound to be a partnership of one kind or another. The amendment proposes an important precaution and I cannot for the life of me see why the Government cannot concede it. As the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, made clear, it has been included in many previous Bills. I suspect that the Minister and the department are simply unwilling to change the Bill because it is their Bill and they are sticking with it. I do not think that that is an edifying reason for resisting the amendment. I have heard what the Minister has had to say and we may come back on this. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.