London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

With the leave of the House, I will close the debate, which has been interesting. I am extremely grateful to hon. Members for their contributions and for debating the issues in the Bill in such a helpful and constructive manner. Let me run briefly through the questions and issues that have been raised. In an intervention, the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) asked me to confirm that the cost of enforcement officers will be reimbursed by the ODA via contracts with local authorities, and I can confirm that. May I thank, once again, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) not only for her positive contribution this afternoon, both at the start and the end, but for her contribution to this process from start to finish? I think there is wide recognition inside the Olympic movement that had it not been for her championing of this event at the very beginning we might not have been standing here debating it this afternoon. For that and so much else, we thank her. The comments that have been made today should tell her all she needs to know; her efforts on this front are genuinely appreciated across the House and in the wider world. The right hon. Lady raised a number of points, the first of which was about how the regulations are applied. I think that we are at one on this issue. Indeed, the body of opinion across the House is very clear: the regulations need to be applied sensibly and proportionately and we will look at all the ways in which we could do that. As she correctly said, communication of what is required is absolutely key to making them work. We will consider whether it will be the Secretary of State or the Mayor who has the relevant powers. In nominating the Secretary of State, we were simply following the guidance set out in the original 2006 Act. Of course, a number of the powers concern things that take place outside London, so there is that element to consider. We will certainly make sure that Transport for London and the relevant local authorities are fully consulted. On the right hon. Lady's point about the victims of 7/7, I think that all of us who were in Singapore will have that seared on our minds for ever. That point was well made. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) talked about a number of sports events in and around his borough. He will no doubt be delighted that next door we have also now secured the world canoe championships for 2015, which is yet another world-class event to look forward to. He asked about proportionality and the enforcement of regulations. I can confirm that the regulations will make express provision to exclude those who inadvertently wear logos to events. Clearly, there is a fine line to tread, because if a lot of people who ““inadvertently”” wear a logo all meet up in the middle there will be a replay of what we saw in South Africa, so the provision will require sensible application, which it will get. The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) as always made her case powerfully for her constituents. She was the first person to mention her local paper and I should think there is no better advertisement for the Newham Recorder than her. She asked about the £20,000 fine, which we will consider. Let me make it clear that the level of the fine was signposted in the original Act. With the £20,000 figure we are simply following the advice of the Metropolitan police and if that advice changes we will be prepared to alter the fine. The ODA will undertake an extensive campaign to publicise all the regulations for local businesses. There is already quite a lot more detail than there might originally have been on the London 2012 website. I hope that will help, but the hon. Lady feels there is a further issue to address, I hope she will come back to me. For the first time in the six years that we have been debating this issue I think that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster) managed to get through an entire contribution without advocating Bath university over Loughborough, which is the normal course of things. I thank him for his contribution and for his support for the project. We are also grateful for the contribution that his party is making through one of its former leaders to the promotion of the school games. He emphasised the importance of communication about the Olympic route network and he was absolutely correct. Work has already been started by TfL in London and by the ODA outside it. I am told that already 60,000 letters have been distributed on the issue and 12 drop-in sessions have been held. That communication will continue as we move forward. If the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), my favourite sparring partner on ticket touting, thought that I was a little fierce earlier, I will put her mind at rest: I have a very open mind on the matter. There are arguments on both sides, as she knows and experienced during debate on the Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill she promoted in January. The key thing is the level of threat identified by the police. After the debate in January, I asked about that again. I was told that a specific threat had been identified, but that it related to specific events, of which the Olympics is one such event, hence the need for this legislation. However, we will keep an open mind on this as we move forward. The hon. Lady asked about the timing of the Bill’s progress and of ticket re-sales. It is very difficult to give assurances on the timing. If we get it out of Committee according to the time scale currently envisaged, we hope that it will then proceed to the other place, where there is quite a legislative logjam. The plan was to try to achieve Royal Assent by the end of the year so that the preparatory work can be done to set things up, but I fear that the timings will not quite work. We will try to get the legislation through as fast as possible. I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) not only for his speech and his enthusiasm for this project from the start, but for his chairmanship of the all-party group and the sensible and helpful way in which he has supplied advice and guidance as the process has gone on. I do not know how many Members know this, but he has also personally been extraordinarily generous and helpful to potential yachtsmen and women trying to contribute in 2012 and to our rowing squads. I thank him for that as well as for his help to the British Paralympic Association. He really has been a true friend to this process. My hon. Friend asked about the Olympic route network, among a number of other things. The idea is not to have it open any longer than is absolutely necessary. We all realise that it will be disruptive to some extent or another, so it will be open only when necessary and expedient for the efficient delivery of the games. I thank him finally for his Select Committee’s report on public diplomacy. He said that he thought that 100 Heads of State might attend, but the last estimate I saw indicated that there will be more than 150, such is the popularity of London, so there will an opportunity for considerable public diplomacy. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) spoke, and I am sorry, because she is absolutely key to the delivery. Huge benefits are accruing to the east end of London through the Olympics. There are 12,500 people currently working on the site who would not otherwise be there. Next door, in Stratford, the largest shopping centre in Europe is being built. The Olympic park will be the largest new urban park developed anywhere in Europe. There are huge training and employment benefits for people in the east end. I absolutely understand why she wants to fight as hard as she can for her constituents and get as much as she can for them, but it would help the process of delivery if she was prepared to advocate more positively the benefits it will bring. We all know the current public funding position. The Government have fought very hard to deliver the Olympic games budget and keep it intact, and we have been successful in doing so. We will do exactly what we have promised to do, but local people must also play their part. I hope that the hon. Lady will step forward and be slightly more positive about this in future. As far as policing is concerned, up to £600 million is available for policing the Olympics and a further £2.38 billion is available in contingency funds, so there is, or should be, no shortage of money available. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) talked very passionately about the legacy for sport and exercise of this whole process. That was a key part of the bid in Singapore and she is absolutely right to highlight it. She made the same point that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate made about the proportionate application of the regulations, and I hope that I have given her some reassurance on that front. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned in an earlier intervention local authorities and traffic problems. We can confirm that local authorities have such powers already, which they can use if they perceive that there is a problem. I confirm that the national lottery will be repaid on receipt of the land sales. I thank him for encouraging people to attend some of the less well-known events. Indeed, the early evidence from the ticketing process is that that is exactly what has happened, so I thank him for his advocacy of it. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) made the point about the resale capacity of the website, and he is absolutely right. With the exception of the relatively small blip on Tuesday night, the website has performed extraordinarily well. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South said earlier, this is the largest ticketing exercise that this country has ever undertaken, and there was one tiny minor blip at the very last minute which was quickly corrected, so it has been a fantastic success. The resale issue is crucial—the Government are absolutely clear about that—if we are to have tough ticket-touting regulations. Finally, I turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) and the Canford Bottom roundabout. Despite some encouragement from both sides of the House, I am not going to get into that issue this afternoon. I am going to stick to the line that I gave him during the many interventions that he tried me with earlier, not least because I, like him, am not entirely across a hamburger junction. We wondered whether it might be round and where the filling might be—all the various possible permutations. The Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers) was here earlier, and the best we can offer is that we will look into the issue and get back to my hon. Friend. We are not entirely clear that the Canford Bottom roundabout alterations are directly funded through the Olympic transport budget. Local authorities are carrying out a series of projects of their own accord in order better to host events, and it may well be that the Canford Bottom roundabout improvements are one such example, but we will find out and let him know. This has been a good debate with many interesting contributions from all parts of the House. At the beginning, I said that the provisions in the Bill serve to ensure that the original intentions of the 2006 Act can be delivered. The commitments given to the International Olympic Committee on the restriction of advertising, trading, ticket touting and traffic management all play a major part in the delivery of a safe, successful and memorable games, and this Bill goes a long way to ensuring that those assurances can be effectively delivered. I think that I speak for the whole House in putting on the record our thanks and gratitude to the many people who have worked in the many organisations that are seeking to deliver this project. The Olympic Delivery Authority has worked such wonders with the construction and, as several people said, finally laid to rest the ghost that we cannot deliver major construction projects on time and below budget. The organising committee has met the various organisational challenges. Indeed, only fairly recently, one major media figure said to me, ““It’ll be ticketing. That’s the one that’ll go wrong,”” but that is yet another challenge that the games have met and—so far, as far we know—conquered. The legacy is a difficult issue, and nobody would pretend otherwise. Everybody naturally talks it up a lot at the start of a process, but it can be quantified and formed only as we reach the end of the process. We are in the middle of the process at the moment, but I think that there is a real shape to the legacy now. There is an enormous amount to be proud of in terms of what has been constructed on the park, what will be left on the park and in the surrounding area, and its effect on Olympic and Paralympic sport in this country, on people who play sport in their communities, on school children who will have the new schools Olympics, and crucially—we always tend to forget this—on 10 million young children in 20 countries throughout the world who have been touched by the really innovative and powerful international inspiration programme. So, to all the people who have been involved in the delivery of the project and, indeed, to our own civil servants and the Government Olympic executive, I put on the record our thanks. We meet at a good time in London’s Olympics: the budget has held, the construction effort has gone well and is 70% complete, the organisational challenges have thus far been met and the legacy is taking shape. The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood was absolutely right to say that it has gone well thus far, but let nobody forget for a moment that construction is at its peak and a large number of challenges are yet to be met if we are to deliver a successful Olympics. Complacency is no part of the process, and there is a great deal to do, but at this moment the London 2012 project is in great shape. I commend the Bill to the House. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time.