London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

I am not only particularly grateful to you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I am particularly pleased to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who represents one of the Olympic boroughs and, as such, has rightly adopted a critical friend approach. What she could not disguise was her enthusiasm for and excitement about the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, which my party shares. Liberal Democrat Members were delighted to be supporters of London’s bid and we were highly pleased with its success. We continue to be full supporters of the work that is going on and we are absolutely confident that not only are we going to have a brilliant sporting and cultural extravaganza in London and elsewhere in 2012, but that it will bring a lasting legacy to all parts of the United Kingdom. I am also pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), who was right to say that we owe a debt of gratitude to all the staff who have worked in the Olympic Delivery Authority and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. They have done fantastically well to ensure not only that the games look almost certain to be on budget and on time, but that they deliver the sporting and cultural extravaganza that we are looking forward to seeing. It would be remiss of this House if it did not also thank her for the work that she has done during the major part of the period leading up to the bid and since. Although she was successful in achieving many things, two stand out in my mind: the setting up of an organisation that is delivering so well and, in particular, the work she was able to initiate to ensure that we are using these Olympics to inspire young people, not only in this country but all over the world, about sport; and the remarkable but undersung achievement of obtaining, for the first time ever, permission from the IOC for another type of branding—the Inspire mark. It has inspired many people to undertake activities linked to the 2012 games that might otherwise not have happened, and she deserves full praise for that. The right hon. Lady was right to say that there is cross-party support for the games and it would be wrong of me not to illustrate that by saying how delighted I am that this Minister has responsibility for the 2012 games. He not only provides a very safe pair of hands and is extremely knowledgeable but, as he rightly says, he has been round the block on this issue for as long as many of us have. This excitement is not confined to us in this Chamber, but it is shared all the way around the United Kingdom. That is demonstrated by not only the fantastic success of the ticket sales, which I shall discuss further in a moment, but the very large number of people, which is far in excess of the number we need, who have applied to be volunteers—games makers—for the Olympics and Paralympics. That illustrates people’s real enthusiasm. In retrospect, we got one thing wrong: I am referring to the fact that at the moment many people do not know whether or not they have been chosen to be games makers and, thus, whether or not they should have applied for tickets. I know that a number of these people would have preferred the games makers to be appointed ahead of the ticket application process, but I say that with the benefit of hindsight. We are proud supporters of the Olympics and the Paralympics and we support the measures in the Bill. We are all huge fans of the wonderful and brilliant briefings that we get from the House of Commons Library. The one on this Bill is no exception. In its opening sentence, it makes it very clear that this is not a major Bill but merely one that"““makes a small number of technical amendments to the advertising and trading, ticket touting, and traffic management provisions of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.””" You have been very generous, Mr Deputy Speaker, in allowing people to range on much broader subjects than this not very major Bill, which deals with a few technical amendments. Those amendments are important, none the less, but before I deal with them, let me say that I am particularly delighted that the Bill’s title includes the word ““Paralympics””. As the former Secretary of State and Minister with responsibility for these matters, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, will know, during the passage of the 2006 Act, on which many of us spent many happy hours, it was necessary for me to table an amendment to ensure that the word ““Paralympics”” was included in the title and got the same prominence as the Olympics. My zeal for the Paralympics at that time has paid off more recently because the British Paralympic Association has agreed that it will base its pre-games training camp in the wonderful city of Bath and the fantastic facilities of Bath university’s sports training village. To follow the tradition established by the hon. Member for West Ham, I can reveal that that news was announced in my wonderful local newspaper, The Bath Chronicle. The measures in the Bill—to stick to your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker—deal with advertising and trading provisions, as the Minister has rightly said. The 2006 Act sought to ensure that we have measures in place that meet the IOC requirements and that, crucially, protect the important sponsors for the games from things such as ambush marketing. Any Member who has seen the draft version of the relevant regulations, which, as we have heard, are out for consultation, will be pleased, I am sure, that the proposals offers a light-touch approach while meeting our obligations. It is sufficient to deter illegal activity while avoiding the heavy-handed approach that has marred some previous games. I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State confirm in answer to a question earlier today that the measures will be used ““sensitively”” whereas the Minister, using a different phrase, has said in this debate that they will be used ““proportionately””. I think we would all agree that whether the approach is light touch, sensitive or proportionate, that is what we want it to be—we want all three. It was probably not sensible for the 2006 Act to suggest that the police, with their myriad other concerns, should be responsible for dealing with goods confiscated from illegal street trading, so it makes sense for that responsibility to be transferred to the ODA. Notwithstanding the large number of interventions that the Minister had to deal with about who the ODA officials would be—I suspect that largely they will be trading standards officers from local councils—the Bill deals only with who will look after the confiscated goods and the rules for handing them back. Another reason it makes more sense to move that responsibility to the ODA is that the rules used by the police for handing back such goods are incredibly bizarre and come from a Victorian era. The rules that these measures are based on—the ones used by trading standards officers—are much clearer and much simpler and will therefore be easier to follow. It is right that we should have clear rules about when goods—even vehicles—must be handed back and the Bill provides them for us. It also makes sense to have measures in place to ensure that we can deal with changes made at short notice to games venues or the timing of events so that we can continue to meet our obligations to the IOC and our sponsors. Given that Parliament has already agreed to such procedures for the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, I see no reason why we should not be doing exactly the same for London 2012. The need for contingencies for last-minute changes to venues or event timing applies equally to transport and the Olympic route network. That is what these small technical measures deal with. It makes sense to address traffic regulation orders, traffic regulation notices and special events notices to ensure that everything that can be done is done to keep London moving during the Olympic and Paralympic games. As other Members have said, particularly the hon. Member for West Ham, we must be ever vigilant to ensure that everybody in London is aware of the implications of the imposition of the Olympic route network. The last thing we want is a lot of bad publicity from people claiming that they were not given notice that their regular car parking space would disappear for a few weeks during the Olympics and Paralympics, or from a corner shop that finds that trade drops remarkably because people cannot stop outside it. The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said that Londoners are well aware of the need for such measures, and although that may be true, every single person needs to be given plenty of notice not only of why these changes are important but of what the impact on them will be. Incidentally, I also welcome the huge amount of work that the ODA is doing on traffic demand management, which is rarely talked about in these debates. It is all very well to put in place all the measures to find routes, but we have to remember that businesses in London must continue to operate. It is crucial that we work with those businesses and try, for instance, to persuade them to move the operation of their business to different times so that they are not moving around at a time when we need the route network and other roads in the vicinity to get people to and from the games. As we have heard, the final measure in the Bill concerns ticket touting. The games provide a wonderful opportunity for many people to see a wide range of both Olympic and Paralympic sports performed by the best athletes in the world. For many games goers, this will be a real opportunity to engage with sports that they might not necessarily know much about. Having seen a demonstration of one Paralympic sport from the British Paralympic team, training in Bath, I am convinced that it will be the new hit sport in the United Kingdom. If any right hon. or hon. Member has not yet come across goalball, I strongly recommend that they go and find out about it. It is an amazing event with three people in a team who simply have to get a ball into the net of the opposing side. The only twist is that all the participants are totally blind and judge how to play entirely by hearing the sound of a bell inside the ball. It is fast, furious and exciting, and given that Channel 4 has the rights to film the Paralympics, I hope it will focus on that sport and that it will become a national winner. As so many people are going to be excited by the games and are going to want to apply for tickets, not just in the recent round but in subsequent rounds—1.8 million people have applied, the statistics show that many of the sports are sold out, 20 million applications have been made for just 6.6 million tickets and more than 50% of the 650 sessions have been oversubscribed—pickings will be ripe for ticket touts unless we take appropriate action. Given the experience of previous games, for example the allegations in Beijing in 2008 that meant that not only outsiders but Olympic officials and the families of competitors were caught up in ticketing scams, it is absolutely right that we should do everything we can in that regard. I referred in an intervention to the excellent work of Operation Podium, which has already closed down a large number of illegal sites and will no doubt continue to do so. It was interesting that people working on that project said categorically that the £5,000 fine was insufficient to deter the ticket touts. More recently, the Minister has said that we need to do more about this issue, as has the Home Secretary. I think it is absolutely right that we are increasing the fine from £5,000 to £20,000. I am told that in a top-flight football match it is possible for ticket touts to get away with about £100,000, so a £5,000 fine will be seen merely as a business expense whereas a £20,000 fine will make it much more likely that touts will stop and think. I think that what is proposed in the Bill is absolutely right and that the level is right, but I say gently to the Minister that if we are doing this for the Olympics, why are we not beginning to do something about all the other sporting events? The Lawn Tennis Association is already asking us why, if we can do this for the Olympics, we are not applying it to Wimbledon. I know that there are complications because we desperately want to get the legitimate, secondary ticket exchange market operating more effectively. I know it is not easy, but the House has to spend a bit more time discussing what we are going to do about ticket touting. It is absolutely critical that for the Olympic and Paralympic games we have a robust, efficient, speedy and effective ticket exchange scheme. Many people who bid for tickets in what was meant to be a marathon not a sprint, but which ended up being a marathon with a sprint ending, have overbid because they did not think they would get the full amount. A lot of people are going to be worried about having a lot of tickets on their hands and will not want to use ticket touts but to do things legally, and we have to assure them that a system is in place. It is regrettable that details of the official ticket exchange scheme have not yet been made fully public and it is important that that is done at the earliest opportunity.