London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

It is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, on any matter regarding sport because of his great expertise in these matters. I shall pick up some of the points he has made that I think require further consideration. The House should be grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her opening remarks, which clarify a number of points. As she rightly points out, it is a technical Bill, really a tidying-up exercise, which reflects how effectively the original legislation had been introduced and how little change is really needed—in contrast, I understand, with the situation in Australia with the Sydney Olympics where they had to have no fewer than four amending Bills to the original legislation. I also think it is rather difficult for my noble friend, on a ministerial brief, to show the kind of passion which I believe she and all of us feel at the considerable progress that has been made in the construction of the Olympic site and the way in which matters there are progressing. It is very impressive indeed. This Bill is very much in contrast with 1948, because in 1948 there was no legislation. Of course, that reflects both the commercialisation of the Games and indeed the professionalism of sport. But it is very necessary that we should have this legislation. It is even more important that we should get it right, otherwise an air of gloom would be cast over what I believe will be the overall success of the Games. I am often critical of the way in which legislation in the other place is programmed and comes to us with lots of it not having been debated at all. I do not make that criticism now, although programming legislation is such a knee-jerk reaction now in the other place that even this legislation was programmed. I cannot imagine why that was felt necessary. However, I pay tribute to the debates in the other place, which were extremely good, as has been the relationship between the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, and his predecessor, Tessa Jowell. It is very welcome that we have adopted such an all-party approach to the whole question of the Olympics, which we are completely united in wishing to see an enormous success. I was rather surprised—I had not kept completely up to date—that the Committee stage in the other place took evidence, which certainly never happened in my 33 years in the other place. It was very helpful for the constituency Members surrounding the Olympic area and its venues to be able to express their views, and to question the officials and others concerned head to head. To what extent that was reflected in the amendments which followed was not entirely clear. None the less, it was very effective, although some of the discussions which took place gave reason for concern on some matters that we have to consider. I shall talk about three of them—transport, tickets and legacy. On transport, we must hope that the arrangements for the Olympic route network work successfully. At the moment, I am not clear exactly what the position is on taxis. An enormous statistical sample of one this morning suggested that taxi drivers are not entirely clear what will happen. There is a tendency to react by saying, ““We shall all go on holiday for the entire period””, which would not be helpful for transport. I welcome very much the proposed ban on roadworks—for however short a period it may be. But I hope that we will distinguish between a ban on roadworks where, in fact, no work would be going on—that would be scarcely any change at all from the present situation—and where barriers and so on would still be there. Perhaps we might pursue this point in Committee. There was also some concern expressed in the other place about how long the traffic restrictions would continue. There were fears that they would go on for 100 days. As I understand it, the Minister was clear that it would be for a short period before the Olympic Games, followed by a gap before the Paralympic Games. The entire period will not be for all that long and will be kept to a minimum, which is important. On tickets, I welcome the increase in the penalty proposed. The police seem to be quite clear that we may be dealing with an organised crime arrangement, which certainly I understand occurred in Beijing and is likely to be a danger here. The increase to £20,000 is entirely reasonable. I think that the noble Lord on the opposition Front Bench said that tickets were going to be £20,000, which I am sure was a slip of the tongue. That is the penalty to be imposed. I am concerned, as was expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, about the position as regards the resale of tickets. The Minister, after our meeting which she kindly arranged, wrote to us about the details. She wrote that, "““a person who gives a ticket to a friend, colleague or family member or who sells it … at face value does not commit an offence””." She continued: "““LOCOG has confirmed that it is one of its requirements that the lead ticketholder (being the person who ordered the tickets) must attend and use one of their allocation of tickets. The others can be given to friends and family, as in the case with any major sporting event. However, if the lead ticketholder can no longer attend, they can submit their tickets for sale through LOCOG’s resale platform””." That does not seem to be a very realistic approach, because it may well be that the person who purchased the tickets is not able to attend at the last minute and will not have the time to resell them. The tickets will then go to waste and we will end up with empty seats, which we do not want. There is another point about which I am not clear, since I have not seen a ticket. Does it say on the face of a ticket who the main purchaser is? If it does not, I do not see how one can possibly carry out this operation anyway. We need to look at that again in Committee. The arrangement as it is now put forward does not seem practical as far as the use of tickets is concerned. There are real problems with identification, particularly because the name of some family members may be quite different from that of the person who happened to have bought the ticket in question. I agree with the point made passionately by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, who stressed the importance of getting a genuine, grass-roots sporting legacy from the Olympics. It is clear that this is to some extent in conflict with the proposals that the Government are making with regard to planning law. It is quite wrong that planning law should not take into account the importance of sport. If a particular planning application is likely to have an adverse effect on sporting facilities, which is not uncommonly the case, it should be granted only if equal or even better sporting facilities are put in place by the person asking for the planning permission. I have a further, more specific point on legacy. I was not terribly keen about the equine facilities being in Greenwich; I have serious concerns about the transport arrangements and the effect on the park. I have recently received a letter from the British Equestrian Federation advocating a plan for an extension of equine facilities in Greenwich after the Games. I have not come across this before; I should perhaps declare an interest since my daughter has just finished her term as president of the British Equine Veterinary Association, but she has no connection with what I am discussing. On the face of it, this proposal seems to provide a degree of legacy to the equine situation which it is clear would otherwise be non-existent once Greenwich Park is returned to its normal state. I do not imagine that my noble friend the Minister is able to reply to the point at this stage, but I hope that she can let me know whether it is a sound proposition which we can enthusiastically support, since legacy is very important. We can pursue some of these matters further in Committee. I wish the Bill well. It is important that we get these matters right and I am sure that we are doing all that we can to ensure that the Games succeed in their objectives.