Olympic Legacy (East London)

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Diane Abbott

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I am glad to have the opportunity to come to this House and talk about the Olympic legacy in London. I will talk in particular about the Olympic legacy that was promised and what has actually happened, with particular reference to east London.

From the time when it was announced that London had got the 2012 Olympics, I made a point of talking to and chasing up Ministers and stakeholders on the question of jobs and employment in the east end. I met the then Mayor on a number of occasions to discuss that subject. I met the London Development Agency. I met the then Olympics Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell).

I concede to no one in my pleasure and excitement at the summer of 2012. For those of us who are born and bred Londoners, the summer of 2012 was one of the most magical summers in London. As a Member of Parliament for one of the east end boroughs, I was privileged to tour the Olympic park, which was a wonderful piece of landscaping. It was a complete regeneration of what had been a very sad part of Stratford. I was even fortunate enough to have a ticket for the 100 metres final. I will refrain from confessing to the House who I shouted for, but I certainly saw the sporting excellence that was on display.

For me, one of the most magical aspects of the Olympics in 2012 was the Olympic volunteers. They were a group of people, young and old, who really looked like London and who brought their enthusiasm and pleasure to the process. Many people who were fortunate enough to visit the Olympic park remember those volunteers above all else.

Even though 2012 was a golden summer, I have not forgotten the promises that were made in the run-up to the Olympics. I remind the House that the five Olympic host boroughs—Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Waltham Forest and Hackney—are among the poorest areas in the country. All five host boroughs are in the 15% most deprived areas in the country and Hackney is in the bottom 5%. Only 55% of people of working age in Hackney are in employment, despite the fact that the population is comparatively young. Few places in the country are in greater need of regeneration and a long-term economic boost. I truly believed that the 2012 Olympics were the perfect departure point for that boost and that regeneration. Although I know that the Olympic legacy process is still in train, it seems to me appropriate, fully 12 months after the Olympics ended, to return to the important issues of jobs, employment and regeneration.

From the time when work began on the Olympic park, I voiced my concerns about the low number of local people who were working on the site. Figures released by the Olympic Delivery Authority in October 2010 revealed that of the 6,423 workers on the Olympic park, just 130 came from Hackney—the lowest figure among the five boroughs—and that only seven of the apprentices on the site lived in Hackney. There have been great outcomes of the Olympics, but unless we are watchful, we will fall far short of expectations on some of the promises for the Olympic legacy.

The promise to London, particularly east London, was that the Olympics would be transforming. We were told that a well planned, well managed environment would be created, which would attract business investment and promote recreational and cultural use in years to come; that communities would be transformed, with 9,000 new homes being built, a large proportion of which would be affordable; and that new sport, leisure, education and health facilities would be provided to meet the needs of residents, businesses and élite sport. Above all, we were told that the Olympics would transform prospects, help 20,000 workless Londoners from the five host boroughs into permanent employment by 2012 and create 12,000 job opportunities in the area of the park post-games.

In the case of transport, an improved and expanded London underground is certainly one of the successes of the games. The London Overground has also benefited, and Stratford must be one of the best-connected sporting venues in the world. I will return to the matter of transport in the months to come, but I wish to say now that prices on London transport remain too high, and that Londoners cannot understand why an underground system that was able to run almost flawlessly during the Olympic games does not seem to be able to do so on a day-to-day basis.

Although we all thrilled at the élite sportspeople— Mo Farah and the rest—the sports legacy of the Olympics is not as good as we would like. Over the past year, there has been a decline in the number of children across all age groups involved in sport. A survey of 2,000 children carried out earlier this year found that a quarter of girls between five and 10 said that they had not taken part in any sport over the past month, up from 17% five years ago. One in seven boys said that they had not. Even walking appears to have declined in popularity. That can come as no surprise given the Government’s school sport reforms, including the abolition of the school sport partnerships scheme. We know that work is being done—in particular, I draw the House’s attention to the Hard Rock Café east London rugby league project—but it is concerning that in a difficult and constrained time of austerity, ordinary people’s level of sporting participation seems to be going down.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

It is brilliant that my hon. Friend has secured the debate. Does she accept that a substantial amount of money has been put into small facilities, particularly in her borough of Hackney? The mobile swimming pool has brought a lot of new people into swimming. Does she also agree that it is important to have a genuine partnership among all the London local authorities, city hall and the Mayor? There is ring-fenced money now, in small amounts but enough to be a catalyst. It is important that people work together; otherwise, in 10 years’ time we will look back and say that there has not been a legacy.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Small amounts of money have been provided, and there are some excellent specific projects, such as the rugby league one to which I referred. The problem is that the overall number of young people participating in sport is drifting downwards. She is right that there has to be a big push to make the money that is available a catalyst for levels of sporting activity to remain constant and then rise. Of course, sporting activity is not just for fun. As someone who has taken an interest in public health in recent times, I know that activity is important for our young people’s health and well-being.

Housing is the area in which we have been disappointed, given the expectations that we had. Assurances were given that thousands of homes would be allocated for social housing. Of the 11,000 homes scheduled to be built over the next 15 to 20 years, the promise was that 35% would be affordable and social housing. However, with the Government’s changed policy on social housing, their refusal to cap rents and their austerity-based economics, it seems that many local people will not be able to afford that so-called affordable housing. Of the 2,818 homes in the Olympic legacy programme, Newham will receive 350 and Tower Hamlets just 27. Just 100 homes will be divided between Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge, Waltham Forest and Hackney—an average of 13 homes per borough. What kind of housing legacy is that?

As to the notion of affordable, in the context of the Government’s social housing policy, which means that subsidised properties can be rented at up to 80% of market rates, those homes will be affordable only for people earning £30,000 or more, which is above the average wage in the east end of London. Shelter calculates that the median monthly rent for a two-bedroom house in Newham is £953. That means that a two-bedroom property in the new development could be classified as affordable if advertised to let at £762—beyond the reach of many of the people I represent.

As we know, the Olympic village was sold to the Qatari ruling family’s property company, and the UK property developer Delancey Estates. That deal left the UK taxpayer £275 million out of pocket, and also means that there will be economic and commercial pressure to increase the buy-to-let proportion of those properties. I believe the sum effect will be to drive those properties out of the reach of ordinary Londoners.

I touched on employment at the start of my remarks, as I take a particular interest in that. At the beginning there was a commitment to ensure that 20,000 Olympics jobs went to residents of the games’ host boroughs, but in the end, only 9,700 did—fewer than half. That was a poor start, and things have not necessarily got any better. Given that the 5 Borough Employment and Skills project and the 2012 Employment Legacy programme started after the Olympics, once the big bulge of job opportunities had gone, it is no surprise that both projects have apparently underspent. Given that unemployment remains a serious issue in the east end, we should question how those projects can realistically support sustained employment when they struggled to find local people in the first place.

The Olympics were certainly important for industries such as construction, but when I asked about the number of local people employed on the site in the first place, we found that in 2010, only 20% of workers on the Olympic site were from one of the five host boroughs. It is not evident that local construction companies benefited from the various contracts.

A number of local ventures surrounding the Olympics—notably Westfield shopping centre in Stratford—were meant to benefit locals directly. At that shopping centre, however, of 10,500 permanent jobs created by Westfield, just 2,000 are filled by local people. Those jobs do not require some fantastically high level of qualification and skill; they are jobs in the retail and service industries, yet only 2,000—less than 20%—are filled by local people. Of course the summer of 2012 was magical, and we have seen improvements in transport infrastructure. However, when we consider the billions of pounds invested in the Olympics, and the numbers of people uprooted, we have yet to see what was promised to Londoners.

We know that regeneration will take place over the next 15 to 20 years. The issues are evident now, and it is not too late to make the necessary changes to meet as many of the original commitments of the Olympic legacy as possible. For instance, although the current organisations managing the Olympic legacy have set employment targets, they refuse to set minimum employment targets. If we are to meet our promise to the people of London, and particularly the Olympic boroughs, we must think about setting minimum targets.

Wonderful though some of 2012 was, in my view it was disappointing that so few local people got jobs—as opposed to volunteer opportunities—at the Olympic park. It was disappointing that so few local businesses got business opportunities, and I call on the Minister and the House to ensure that the promises of the Olympic games—increased levels of sporting activity among ordinary people, particularly children, and employment, business, cultural and sporting regeneration—are kept. The people involved in managing the Olympic legacy should not believe that London MPs, particularly MPs for the Olympic boroughs, are not watching what they are doing. The process will take 10 to 15 years. We will watch them every step of the way.