London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

moved Amendment No. 9:"Page 5, line 19, at beginning insert ““Where appropriate,””" The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Minister will recall a somewhat scrappy group of amendments in Grand Committee dealing with Clause 7, among which was a probing amendment of mine to explore the limits of the obligations imposed by the clause. Unfortunately, it was not an amendment that proposed a solution to my—and, in the end, the Minister’s—dilemma. The Bill says:"““The Olympic Delivery Authority may arrange with an authority responsible for cleaning or lighting a highway or other area to which this section applies for cleaning or lighting to be carried out in a specified manner or to a specified standard during all or part of the London Olympics period””." Subsection (5) says:"““This section applies to any highway or other area to which the public have access and which the Authority reasonably expect to be used . . . (c) by persons travelling to a London Olympic event””." My problem was, and, indeed, still is, that that could be used to describe any road in the country. It is a completely open-ended potential liability. In Committee, I suggested to the Minister that, if we were to put the words ““where appropriate”” at the beginning of this clause, that would enable the Olympic Delivery Authority to have discretion in the matter, so that it could make decisions to undertake this action where it thought it proper to do so. My mythical Scot from John O’Groats, who felt aggrieved because he could not get a new street light as he was marching to the Olympics, would disappear into the mists where he deserves to remain. I remind the Minister of his reply:"““I shall look at the point raised by the noble Lord. Those words are not before the Committee at present, but I shall look at the end to see whether we can meet the anxieties expressed today by some alteration to the clause””.—[Official Report, 2/2/06; col. GC192.]" We still have the clause as it is; we do not have a government amendment. I thought that it was worth tabling my amendment again. It seems to me that the amendment would give the Olympic Delivery Authority a reasonable discretion, which it should have, rather than the open-ended commitment implied by the Bill. I beg to move.