London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

The right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) rightly praises the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), who praised the Minister, and I would like to praise them both for the excellent work they are doing. It is interesting that we are debating two minor technical amendments to a Bill we debated not long ago. On Second Reading I pointed out that the explanatory notes stated that the Bill"““makes a small number of technical amendments to the advertising and trading, ticket touting, and traffic management provisions of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006.””" We are now debating minor amendments to a Bill that itself made minor amendments to another Bill, but they are none the less important, because they reflect the spirit of what the Minister said when we debated the Bill. In relation to the advertising regulations contained therein, I think that we were all encouraged to hear that he is keen to introduce those as sensibly as possible. Indeed, on Second Reading he said that the advertising regulations would be treated with a ““light-touch approach””. He later said that they would be handled ““sensitively””, and on another occasion he said that they would be dealt with ““proportionately””. We are grateful for all three assurances. We are also grateful for the assurance that if, for example, the venue or timing of an event need to be altered, we have the ability to debate the matter in Parliament if those necessary changes relate to advertising. We all recognise that if, for example, a major burst water main causes a change in venue or timing at short notice, it is important, as others have suggested, that we have the power to ensure that we can continue to do what the Act is for: protecting the main sponsors of the event so that people do not leap on to a sudden change in order to introduce ambush marketing, for example. They are small amendments, but they are sensible and important and we certainly support them. Lords amendment 1 agreed to. Lords amendments 2 and 3 agreed to.