London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Lord Barwell and Hugh Robertson

Thursday 8th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. He speaks from a powerful position, not only as a London Member of Parliament, but as a former journalist. As he is aware, responsibility for the accreditation of local media outlets lies with the BOA. In the short time between now and his raising this with me in the Lobby during the previous vote, I have checked the current position. I suspected that accreditation is massively over-subscribed, which is what he indicated to me. That said, I understand the logic of giving as many passes as possible to the international media and national news outlets, but he is right that it has to be balanced with local media outlets, many of which have been extraordinarily supportive of the games and on whose doorstep they are taking place. There is a possible second channel for non-accredited media, and considerable provision is being made for those who cannot get formally accredited. The Mayor of London has done an enormous amount to help that take place. The best thing that I can do now is to give my hon. Friend a promise to write to the BOA about the matter. I will particularly investigate the position regarding London media, because this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. I will come back to him with an answer.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I want to second the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson). The BOA seems to assume that local journalists granted accreditation will attend every event. Obviously, there is a limit on overall capacity, but clearly our local papers just want to cover the events in which athletes from our boroughs are competing. It ought to be possible to arrive at a flexible arrangement that enables our local London papers to do that. I would be grateful if the Minister were to take that point on board.

[Hugh Robertson]

Suffice to say that the point has been well made. I can only say to my hon. Friend that I will give him the same undertaking that I have given to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson)—that I will write to the BOA to take that precise point up and see what I can do. The only minor caveat is that because this is a London games, the demand for media accreditation spots is vast. There will be a level of public interest that I do not think we have remotely started to get our minds around. Spots will be tight, but I will absolutely do all that I can.

London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Lord Barwell and Hugh Robertson

Thursday 28th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

There is no sense at all that the requirements of the London Olympics are any more draconian than has been the case in immediately preceding games. The starting point for that train of events was the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, which were an advertising free-for-all. One sponsor paid a huge amount to the organising committee to be a tier 1 sponsor, or whatever the equivalent of that was, and then its immediate commercial competitor took one of the teams out for a press conference and emblazoned it with the company’s logos. Those Olympics, with all the ambush marketing around them, led to some of the regulations that now exist.

I am personally very comfortable with the regulations, because the great success of the London Olympics has been in raising more than £700 million from commercial sponsors. That is a remarkable effort in the teeth of the type of recession that we are hopefully just coming out of. To get that amount of money from big multinationals, we have to give them some confidence that their brand is being protected. That is why they have invested the money.

Such regulations are not a particularly Olympic phenomenon. Exactly the same things happen at almost every other major sports event, including a host of events that we are trying to attract to this country. They happen at cricket world cups, and I am pretty sure that they happen even at highly commercial events such as the Indian premier league. Exactly the same regulations apply at football World cups. They are standard, and they are in place to protect the vast amounts of sponsorship income for such events.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field), the Minister referred to the ability that the games give us to showcase British success stories. He mentioned in particular the remarkable achievements of the construction projects, particularly on the Olympic park site. Does he agree that it is a shame that visitors to that site will not be able to see the names of the British companies that have constructed the venues and done such a fantastic job? The regulations prevent advertising of the companies that have completed the venues.

[Hugh Robertson]

That is an interesting one. I think it is pretty much a fact of public record who has built the various stadiums. The construction company responsible for the Olympic stadium, for example, has done a fantastic job, as anyone who has been down there will say. I would be very surprised if that company thought it was getting squeezed out of the action, because everybody will know who it is. There may well be a stone somewhere or other that records who built the thing—I do not know—but my hon. Friend is right that the company cannot emblazon the outside of the stadium with advertising logos. If it had wanted to do that, it could have applied to be a tier 1 sponsor, and it has not done so. I guess that is because it thinks the building speaks for itself, and having watched it appear from start to finish, I have to say that it does.

Any more takers for interventions? Then I will get back to the 2006 Act and the Bill. This amendment Bill addresses three main matters: advertising and trading, ticket touting and the enforcement of traffic management regulations. Regulating advertising and trading near Olympic and Paralympic games venues is a requirement of hosting the games in the host nation contract. Parliament recognised during the passage of the 2006 Act that tailored provision was needed for the games, both to act as a stronger deterrent to ambush marketing and illegal trading and because existing powers alone were not adequate for such a major event.

The 2006 Act set out the broad framework for regulations that would provide the details. We need those regulations not only to fulfil the guarantees given to the IOC as part of the bid but to protect public space, so that spectators can access venues and we can maintain a celebratory atmosphere around the games. Following the ODA’s general notice about the regulations in June 2009 under the previous Administration, my Department launched a consultation on the proposed draft regulations on 7 March. The regulations will be reconsidered in light of the responses to the consultation before being laid in Parliament in draft and subject to the affirmative procedure later this year.

However, the 2006 Act provides the ODA and the police with powers to enforce the regulations, including the power to seize articles that are used to contravene them. We want to amend the Act to provide that any article seized by either ODA enforcement officers or the police is dealt with by the ODA instead of the police. The effect of that change will be that during the games, police time will not be spent filing and dealing with seized property. I hope that everybody can see the sense of that—the police will have better things to do. Instead, officers designated by the ODA, who are likely to be enforcement officers from local authorities who are familiar with dealing with street trading and advertising offences under existing law, will deal with breaches of advertising and trading regulations and handle any articles that are seized. Protection, and I hope a sense of proportionality, will be assured by the fact that the ODA is a statutory corporation established by the 2006 Act and, crucially, is subject to the direction of the Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Robertson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for the initial work he did on this issue. I can give him that absolute assurance. In the early days of the Committee on the original Bill there was a lot of talk about Zil lanes for plutocrats and other such things. The message has now got through that this is a necessary measure to ensure that we can deliver athletes and officials to events on time so that they can take part in the games. I am about to come to the necessary enforcement measures, which were due to be in traffic legislation that never made it on to the statute book. We thought that this would happen in 2006, but it did not and it is now being tightened up as part of this Bill.

As with the Bill’s other provisions, since 2006 further detailed planning has been undertaken and further information has become available, leading to a number of technical amendments that are needed to ensure that the intentions of the 2006 Act can be properly implemented. The first of these, in clause 4, will expand the power conferred on the ODA and traffic authorities by the 2006 Act to make temporary traffic regulation orders at short notice for Olympic purposes, as set out in the 2006 Act, by removing the usual requirement to make such orders for immediate changes to traffic, especially for Olympic purposes. On the point made by the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse, clause 5 will allow for civil enforcement in relation to contraventions of those notices, and will clarify the provisions allowing the ODA to set the levels of charges, including penalty charges, for the enforcement of orders made for Olympic purposes both within Greater London and outside.

[Gavin Barwell]

Can my hon. Friend give the House an idea of the level of those penalty charge notices? Has the ODA reached a view on that?