Legislative Reform (Epping Forest) Order 2011

My Lords, first I declare an interest as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority and the Home Office Olympic Security Board. For the past three years I have chaired the Metropolitan Police Authority Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and one of our key terms of reference is specifically to examine the security preparations for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The issue before us is one in which the committee has been heavily involved. Most of the committee’s work is done through examining all the Met’s business cases for the various elements of the Games. Committee members are very diligent as some of those business cases run to about 200 pages with lots of annexes, but despite that we spend a huge amount of time, and have done over the past three years, looking in great detail at what is proposed and challenging assumptions when necessary. On this one, members of the committee had lots of representations, as the Minister mentioned, from various groups who had some genuine concerns. Speaking personally and, I think, for most of my colleagues, I would say that many of the concerns arose because people did not fully understand the proposals. One of the difficulties is that when people talk about consultation they are not always entirely clear about the difference between consultation and public information. Like every other noble Lord I am a great believer in consultation, but there comes a time when you have to separate that from public information. Some issues must be put into the public domain to inform the public about what will happen and why and to give all the reasons, whereas others are for consultation. Sometimes the impression is given that when an announcement is made—this happens a lot with the Metropolitan Police Authority in particular because it is such a large organisation—people will be consulted with a view that if they are not happy with the consultation they will be able to get something else done, whereas in fact, as with some of the issues we are discussing here, it is a matter of, ““This is what has to be done because …””. You cannot possibly have the public saying, ““No, we don’t like site A. We think that you should move to site B””. Some of the concerns are around the fact that so much will be put on the site. I am sure that many noble Lords have had letters from people about the Metropolitan Police saying that they just need one big major briefing centre. That is not correct because plans for the site clearly show that there is more than one building. So many things will be on the site that it is just not possible not to have more than one building. We are talking about accommodating 3,500 officers every day, so it has to be large enough not just for briefings. There will be armouries because we will have to keep weapons. There will be stables, parking, secure parking, kennels, refreshments, and obviously there will have to be showers, toilet facilities and so on. It was very difficult to find a site that came anywhere near the sort of requirements needed. This site was sourced after a very extensive search. The committee considered all the proposals and the information that the Met provided—they provided everything that we asked for—and we were happy to confirm that their option was the best possible one. The committee is entirely satisfied that Wanstead Flats in Epping Forest is not just the best way forward but is probably the only area that can provide the range of facilities for the sort of secure location required. It is near enough to the park so that officers can go backwards and forwards not just to the Olympic park but to Victoria park, Westfield shopping centre, Stratford and to the ExCel centre. We were very happy with that option and I hope that noble Lords will be, too.