London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I very much welcome the fact that LOCOG listened carefully to the concerns expressed by noble Lords at Second Reading and has reacted to them. I believe that the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Coe, which was sent to noble Lords, is a very good attempt to pick up on the concerns that were expressed, including the ones that I was keen to pursue. However, we need to go a bit further than that. The concern I have at the moment is that LOCOG’s terms and conditions are now at variance with what was proposed in the letter from the noble Lord and with what noble Lords referred to earlier in the debate. I wonder whether the Minister could please deal with whether LOCOG’s terms and conditions are going to be changed in order, for example, to allow for the purchaser not to have to be present but just to have to be available by telephone. The other key issue raised at Second Reading was that, if there are a group of people—say, a group of six—but the purchaser is not able to attend, that should not debar the other five people in that group from attending. I think that the answer is that that is fine, but at the moment the terms and conditions do not state this, and I believe that they need to be changed. I point out that paragraph 2.4 of LOCOG’s terms and conditions states: "““LOCOG reserves the absolute right to change these Terms and Conditions from time to time””," so it is entirely possible that the terms and conditions can be changed to reflect the new arrangements. Finally, it is very important, as other noble Lords have said, that this is very clearly communicated to the public because there is quite a lot of misinformation out there and clarity is absolutely essential.