Lord Grade of Yarmouth
Main Page: Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Lord Addington
My Lords, I thought I would hear nothing new about the Olympics during this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, has surprised me with the idea of flame-grilled breakfasts not complying with the rules. However, I remember when we first discussed the use of the Olympic symbol in this House—it was a good few years ago and I think the noble Lord was part of the Government of the time. Protection of the Olympic symbol is very entrenched in the Olympic movement. I will say no more because the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is in the Chamber. We have possibly the greatest expert on this subject on the government Back Benches—or at least a far greater expert than me. Defending the Olympic symbol and gaining the best revenue from it is an interesting subject and there has been a great deal of movement on it.
When we look back at preparations for the Olympics we have to look back at the process we have gone through. Nobody expected us to get the Games or at least nobody admitted that they expected us to get them. When we did we were surprised. I thought we had done something very good in preparing the bid as it made us address planning and structural changes and to look seriously at them. It came on the back of a successful Commonwealth Games and unsuccessful bids. It was the first soft legacy from the unsuccessful bids. The real question is how we carry on the things we gained from this, especially the soft legacy and the planning.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, will undoubtedly be able to tell us more about the bricks-and-mortar approach. However, the thing of great interest we can take away from the Games and which will give a long-lasting legacy is the cultural change about how we use big events and learn from them for the smaller events that follow, which are still of world significance. For instance, the Cultural Olympiad, the Olympic festival, will provide months of entertainment and value—how do we learn to piggyback events successfully to get the best out of them? How do we learn to use advertising over and over again to reinforce a message? We must take this into account.
We have been greatly successful in making sure that everybody has bought into the idea that this is an important event—even if you hate it. Even if you cannot stand the idea of the Olympics it will change your life in certain ways. Everybody expects to gain some positives—that is the real thing that has come out of it. As for the process of the bid itself, apparently the noble Lord, Lord Coe, congratulated me on coming out with the most unusual compliment he had ever heard when I said, “Thank you for making the Olympic project dull”. Nothing has gone very badly wrong. The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, has an expression on her face, in which case problems have been kept quiet. We gone through the process of making sure the Games have been delivered on time and on budget. Whatever bumps and bangs there have been, that is how you will ultimately be judged. If we have done that, what else can we do?
We have annoyed a lot of journalists who had doom and gloom stories on budgets ready to be printed or sent to various people, but what else are we going to get out of this in the long term? One of the real benefits we have already taken, and it is very appropriate we raise it today because we are only 100 days away from the start of the Paralympic Games, is that the Paralympics have come to be seen as a partner on even terms, or at least close to it. That is something I did not expect to see in my lifetime. The “Does he take sugar?” attitude towards the Paralympics was certainly there at first. The attitude of, “Isn’t it jolly good we are doing something we are quite good at?” and “You mean people in wheelchairs can do that?”. People now appreciate that these are athletes trained to the peak of their capacity striving on even terms with people from all around the world to achieve something extraordinary. That is taken as read in other forms of sporting activity at the elite level. It has transformed our perception and process. If we can take that and go on, we will have done something very good.
On the subject of sponsors, I spoke to people from Sainsbury’s the other day at a reception and asked them what they get out of this—not what they give. After a little bit of nagging, I got a very honest answer: “Yes, it helps in marketing. Yes, it helps to make people in our stores feel better about themselves, which makes them better employees. Ultimately it is about something that is bigger than us, that makes us part of the community—that is what we get out of it. And it improves sales”. I may get told off by one or two people but I think that is worth a few tickets to the event, so I say thank you to the sponsors and everybody who has been involved throughout the process. They have done something which has benefited us.
Probably the only real grumble about the Olympic process has been about tickets. If you are struggling to make a story out of this, it shows how well things have gone. There was a problem with the ticket allocation because it was not designed for a total sell-out within seconds of it opening: too high a demand crashing systems; the fact that people like myself who thought we had registered in time and would get the tickets we wanted have not got them—I am available for any returns. Now the Olympics organisers are saying if you have not got them or you have only a few in the sports that probably were not your first choice, you are not eligible for the next round. They are spreading it out. There is something good coming from this. Are we going to learn how to manage demand better in future? Maybe there will be never be another demand like the Olympics but learning to manage expectation of demand is something else that has come from this.
The Olympics are now a real thing. The torch relay has started. The planning has stopped; we are now in the delivery phase. The important thing about the Olympics now is that we relax and enjoy it but also remember that we are going to take on these lessons that we have learnt and prove that, over two successive Governments of different political persuasions, as a nation we can carry something through. That is probably the biggest legacy going—that we have that capacity as a nation.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth
I declare an interest: I was in Singapore as part of the bid team. One of the most important lessons that I learnt from that was in conversation with a senior Minister who was part of the bid team. I asked him how he had managed to persuade the Treasury to give its consent to the bid and he said, “We managed to persuade Gordon that we could not possibly win”.
Lord Addington
My Lords, the management of politicians, particularly those in the Treasury, is an art form that everybody else in government tries to embrace. I think that emphasises my point rather than takes away from it.
I look forward to seeing how we learn and carry on with this. Are we going to manage to keep the initiative going? Are we going to keep the interest in sport and sporting activity going? Can the Government give us examples of how they plan to take this on board? How can people who are not in government at the moment guarantee to support this progress? How can we guarantee that we all talk to each other about what we do next? We came together around a good project; we did not think we would but we were going to have a go at it. Can we guarantee to do something else with it? That is the next big challenge.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I hear what the noble Lord says. It is important to the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic family that they should be very protective of the branding of Olympic and Paralympic goods and services. Part of the contract that businesses signed set out in some detail where they could refer to their involvement in the Olympics. However, one of the other aspects is that officials in BIS and businesspeople throughout the country will use the Olympics as a showcase for British business. Therefore, even if they cannot stick an Olympic brand on their goods, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to meet the international community and build their businesses. We will certainly look for results from that.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan referred to doping, which I have already mentioned. We all agree with him about how tough it is to compete. The figures that he gave about the microscopic differences between those who won gold and silver medals just shows us all how intense the competition is for the athletes.
When the noble Lord, Lord Graham, spoke, I could not help thinking that if the trial for Newcastle boys had only gone differently, we might not have had the benefit of his wisdom in this House over the years. Perhaps we should grateful for some things.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth
The preparation has clearly gone better than anyone could have expected, bit in the round of very well earned bouquets that have been dished out because of what we hope will be an enormous success, there is a slight omission. Through the National Lottery, Camelot has contributed more than £2 billion to the Games—and I declare an interest as a former chairman of Camelot. Even more importantly, the revenue that it has created, which has sustained many British sports men and women between the Games, has been transformational for the medal tables since it came on-stream. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Camelot?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am most grateful to my noble friend for that jog. I have no hesitation in joining him in thanking Camelot for its enormous contribution to the athletes and the Games. My noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint was hoping to speak. Family circumstances meant that she was unable to be here for the opening speeches. Conscious of the rules and courtesies of the House, she took her name from the list. We appreciate her compliance in this matter. Her contributions are always most welcome and we look forward to hearing her speak on future occasions.
I was delighted to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, say what a cause for celebration the Games were and I warmly applaud the positive aspects of her speech. She mentioned her disappointment at the change in school sports policy when the coalition Government came in. I can only assure her that we have been working closely with schools to reverse the decline in sports participation. Under the new sports strategy, as I set out in my opening speech, there will be a particular focus on 14 to 25 year-olds. We are very aware that the interest and participation in sport of most young people severely declines when they leave school. We are working with clubs and schools to ensure continuity when young people move from school to adulthood. A great deal of effort is going on to talk to all parties to ensure that we have sport in all schools and not, as she said, just in independent schools, which would be of grave concern to us.
The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, also mentioned sustainability. We are committed to setting new standards for sustainability in terms of the building and the staging of these events. The London Games are going further than most major events have ever gone in the commitment to reducing carbon emissions. We are confident that we will be able to deliver on an ambition of sustainability for these Games in modern times.
There are fewer than 70 days until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. London is on track for a great Games. The project is on time and on budget. Test events and readiness exercises are taking place. Our wonderful world-ranking athletes are in training and I think that we would all wish to pay tribute to the hours of dedication to their sport which they demonstrate. We may see just the final moments but behind that their effort is truly inspirational. Like my noble friend Lord Addington, the other day I was at a Sainsbury’s reception and I have been at other receptions meeting Paralympic athletes. If we think that our Olympic athletes are inspirational, we have to have the same view of our Paralympic athletes. They are quite unbelievable in their dedication and efforts to achieve world-ranking standards in their sports.
I make no apology for repeating the remark from Jacques Rogge and the IOC at their final inspection in March, already quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, which hailed London 2012 as “a legacy blueprint” for future host cities. This is a fantastic achievement of which we can rightly be proud. I also pay tribute to all those who have contributed. In your Lordships’ House, we have the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, and my noble friends Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan, who have been very instrumental, and others who have had an enormous impact on the building and delivery of the Games. We owe them all an enormous debt of gratitude.
The official broadcasters will be the BBC for the Olympic Games and Channel 4 for the Paralympic Games. I do not doubt that those of us who cannot be there will be glued to our sets. These Games are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to showcase the UK to a massive international audience. Along with Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, this summer will show the world what we as a nation can do. The overriding message from what we have heard today is that we can all look forward to a tremendous summer of sport and celebration, and to a wonderful, lasting legacy for London and the rest of the UK. We all wish our athletes every possible success.