London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, for re-tabling this amendment. The Minister will see, as the noble Lord said, that others—and particularly those on these Benches—have, in the spirit of compromise, agreed to put our weight behind it. That represents a considerable movement. It represents a desire to recognise to whatever degree is possible the concerns of LOCOG that there may be some commercial detriment if the timetable was shifted as the original amendment suggested. I am also grateful to the Minister for providing a copy of the letter that he sent to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, following the Committee, clarifying the Qantas/Ansett ambush marketing example. That was extremely useful, particularly when the Minister said that some of what he said about that case may have been based on inaccurate information. I felt that that was a rabbit drawn out of a hat, perhaps somewhat hastily. The letter goes on to talk a lot about the case, but still fails to make a good argument about why the issue was raised in the first place in relation to a case concerning duration. It is not unfair to say that the letter only demonstrates the irrelevant nature of the Qantas/Ansett example. Qantas’ campaign took place after Sydney had introduced its equivalent Olympic legislation. On the other hand, the London Olympics association right under this Bill would catch any such mischief, if, for example, Virgin were to attempt a similar campaign in relation to British Airways, if the latter was an official sponsor of the London games and Virgin was not. Indeed, Ansett’s complaint against Qantas was eventually settled out of court after the former brought a civil case against the latter under existing Australian legislation governing trade practices. I do not believe that the Sydney association right was available to it. Even if that were not the case, it seems beyond belief that an ambush marketeer would invest time and money in a campaign that attempted to create some kind of association a full five and a half or six years before the opening ceremony of the London games in 2012, knowing that it would have to cease on 1 January 2007 or risk being pursued by LOCOG for breach of the London association right. At the minimum, as the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said, the industry is concerned that Schedule 4 will come into place without the draft interpretive guidance. We had quite a debate about some of the contents of the guidance. Clearly it is in early draft stage and there is still considerable work to be done. A number of grey areas need to be clarified and, indeed, the Minister had the grace to accept that there was room for improvement in the content of the draft guidance notes. All anticipate that it will take months rather than weeks for LOCOG to finish off what London 2012 has started in terms of drafting the guidance notes. As we have seen during Grand Committee and Report, the guidance notes are important. People will rely on them and it is important that they are done properly. It will be extremely unfair to commerce if the guidance notes are not available and yet the London association right bites. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, would provide the advertising industry and the relevant pre-vetting bodies with an extra eight months or so in which to prepare carefully for the onset of the association right. That is an important point that would assist in its regulation. The amendment would still provide LOCOG with a total of six years over which it could seek to enforce the association right. That is considerably longer than the protections offered to official sponsors at any previous games or, indeed, at Turin, Beijing or Vancouver. As was mentioned in Grand Committee, it is notable that the organisers of the three sets of games that will precede the London games are having little difficulty in attracting sponsorship, despite having a shorter period of association right. I can see no reason why the organisers of London 2012, which has been impressively organised so far, should not be able to imitate or surpass the success of the organising committees for those games once they have evolved into LOCOG post-Royal Assent. I believe that the Government should cede to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. It would be greatly welcomed; it would provide much greater certainty; and it would be much fairer to those who will be affected by the London association right.