Commonwealth Games 2014

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for bringing forward this debate. It is fitting that the Commonwealth Games are in this great cycle of sporting events that we have had. The run of events that we have experienced over the past few years, and are going to experience, started with the Manchester Commonwealth Games where we British proved to ourselves, much to our surprise, that we could do it. My mother’s home town is a very fitting place to make sure there is investment in the people and the structure behind a successful festival of sport, which is what the Games are, unlike a championship, no matter how glorious. Games are where you bring everything together. The most wonderful thing about sport is the fact that it brings people together on common ground where they have common interests and communication. No other subject can do that.

Games present a greater opportunity than even bigger sporting championships. Thus we must cash in on this to invest in our future. I agree with my noble friend Lord Moynihan about the fact that we have to invest in people at grassroots level. We are on depressingly familiar territory here because we usually agree on this. London 2012’s great legacy is the idea. We were never going to get it right first time. Glasgow gives us the opportunity to build on that—not just for Britain but internationally since the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games are the two great international movements—to learn about how to create enthusiasm and to take it into other sports. The Rugby League World Cup has worked on this and the Rugby Union World Cup will, I hope, go on and do more with it. But this is the great legacy that will come from the Games. I am glad that emphasis has been put on participation and involvement. I hope that we will build successfully on the information and practice that have gone before. That is the true legacy of this. Buildings are great but ideas can last for ever.