London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

moved Amendment No. 6:"Page 5, line 12, at end insert—" ““(   )   the incorporation of infrastructure and facilities for such purposes in all arrangements which it makes”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 6, I will speak also to Amendment No. 8. I apologise to the House; Amendment No. 7 on this issue, which we debated in Committee, was tabled in error. I will not be referring to it. I hope that the Minister can add to the assurances given on 2 February, when we debated the matter, and in the letter he subsequently wrote to me. Everyone agrees that security at the games is an extremely important issue, but these amendments go a little further than the Bill might be read as going—I have quite deliberately put it in that way. I have generally referred in these amendments to infrastructure, facilities and the timing of considering infrastructure and facilities, to make the point clearly that these matters need to be written in throughout the preparations for the development of venues—indeed, before planning permission is granted, right at the design and thinking stage. The amendment in Committee was tabled after I had had an exchange with the Metropolitan Police Authority and the property services division of the Metropolitan Police Service. They have asked whether any further assurances can be given. The Minister told the Committee that a Cabinet-level committee would lead on security arrangements, and that the Secretary of State has powers of direction which could be used if necessary. My amendments are to ensure attention to the rather less obvious considerations, not of applying security during the games but of preparing for them so that there are places at venues where anyone whom the police have to arrest can be held and where the police’s equipment—and, my goodness, I suspect that they are going to need quite a lot for crowd control and so on—can be stored. I am thinking of all those sorts of things; I do not need to repeat the list today. These are not add-ons. They need to be thought about from the very beginning. We must all have had experiences where something thought about seriously a bit late in the day is less than satisfactory. I hope that the Minister is able to say a little more. At the very least, I will now read into the record a paragraph from his letter of 14 February, when he said:"““Security arrangements are of central importance to the successful delivery of the Games. That is why it is essential to design in security from the outset””—" I emphasise ““from the outset””—"““by working with the ODA, police and security services to design venues that minimise risks””." I add that it is not just a question of minimising risks; it is a question of planning for how you meet eventualities. Anything more that the Minister can say to reassure those who, quite properly, are already—more than six years out—concerned with this level of detail would be welcome. I beg to move.