London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

The short answer is no. I am entirely aware of the controversy that the right hon. Gentleman mentions. I believe the Indian Olympic committee is meeting this week and plans to make a decision. I am told that it is not planning a boycott or anything like it, but clearly that is a matter for the Indian Government and their Olympic committee. It is recommended that the Bill be amended to provide that the affirmative resolution procedure must be used unless the Minister considers it necessary, by reason of urgency, to use the negative procedure. As I made clear when clause 2 was debated in this House, it was always my intention that the negative resolution procedure would be used only when there was an urgent need to do so. As such, the Government were happy to accept the Committee's recommendation and to provide the additional clarification, and tabled amendments in Committee in the other place accordingly. The effect of these amendments is that advertising and trading regulations will be made via the negative procedure only if the Minister considers that that is necessary by reason of urgency. In such a case, the regulations will confirm, on their face, that this is the Minister's view. They also provide for the corresponding procedure in the Scottish Parliament, for advertising and trading regulations made by Scottish Ministers. What we mean by ““urgency”” is that, for reasons of time, it would be impractical to use the affirmative procedure and necessary instead to use the negative procedure. This is likely to be because the amending regulations have to take effect quickly, before the earliest date that affirmative regulations could practicably be made. In essence, then, the amendments simply provide further assurance that the negative procedure would be used only when there is an urgent need to do so, and as a result provides extra assurance to Parliament. That was always the intention.