London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I believe that it is really important to keep track of the positive impact of the Games. Looking at these amendments, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about subsection (c) and the Olympic park legacy which maybe fits into another area. I am really delighted that finally the world of sport is starting to recognise that legacy is a responsibility of everyone in sport—except LOCOG—and from my experience the talk of legacy is something quite new. One of the challenges we have is that it means something different to everyone. Following on from the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, I strongly support the decision for the athletics stadium. I declare an interest as a board member of UK Athletics. This is a very personal view: I believe that it is a very good decision for the sport of athletics. On Amendment 12, as regards Paralympic sport and development for disabled people, one of the amazing things that has happened with the London 2012 Games is not just the increased interest in Paralympic sports from an athlete’s point of view but also the interest in terms of sponsors and media coverage of the Games. While there has been a lot of strong investment in sport on the elite side, there has also been increased investment on the development side. Sport England recently announced a £10 million fund to develop programmes for disabled people. We need to keep track of those changes and make sure that we get the improvements that we want. Once the fabulous Games are over, we need to make sure that we have harnessed all those different opportunities. What is really difficult in disability sport is that it is much harder to get involved in sport and physical activity, and even harder to stay there. On graduating from university, my first job was as a sports development officer running a programme to encourage disabled people to do athletics. Short of driving around the country and picking up people in buses, which I was tempted to do at some points, it was really difficult. It is important that we maximise the couple of weeks of the Games with really strong programmes afterwards and that we are also able to measure those programmes. There are quite a lot of strong reporting mechanisms, whether they are under Sport England, UK Sport or DCMS, and it would be useful to determine the best way to find those levels of reporting. As regards paragraph (c) and the Olympic park legacy, I tabled an amendment in Committee of the Localism Bill around the make-up of the board. Once the Games are over, that will transfer to the Mayoral Development Corporation. Perhaps reporting to Parliament is not the best way for the legacy to be measured but that reporting should be through the mayor.