Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Addington

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I shall say one or two words on the principle of what is going on here. This is a good thing. At every Games, there are little rows about which sports take part. When the Games were on the Gold Coast, we had basketball but not judo. Australia likes its basketball; we are good at judo, so we made sure we had it. These deals and negotiations are always going on. You are always going to exclude a group of athletes, for many of whom this is the biggest thing they will ever do. This major international sporting event may be at the end of their career, so there is a good principle behind this.

I have a question for the Minister, the answer to which might make my later amendment unnecessary: how are we going to set a precedent for how this is done in future? Every good idea comes with baggage: how do we make sure we know what this means for the organisation? In principle it is a good idea and has good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with those, I am afraid. What are we doing to get this right? There has always been sporting politics over which events are in. There are lovely books about bitchy back-room deals and people fighting to get their event in. This may be a way of reducing that and making sure that more athletes and fans get the experience. It is a good thing; can we have a bit more guidance on how it will be looked on in future? If the noble Baroness cannot give the Committee the answers, it would be helpful if she could point it at someone who could.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to this group of amendments, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. He has a distinguished record both as an athlete and as a Minister. Support for his previous careers is shared by both sides of this Committee. I share his appreciation of the fact that this compromise has been arrived at. There was considerable tension between the athletes of our two countries before the participation of Chandigarh was confirmed. I am sure I speak for all from Birmingham and the surrounding area when I say how pleased I am that that tension can now be eased, and co-operation is going to take place.

Like the noble Lord, I am a bit confused by these arrangements, but my understanding is slightly different from his. I understand that there will be two separate medal tables. As the events are being held some time apart, I presume that the Chandigarh medals will be published first, although the noble Lord appears to think that might not be the case. Perhaps the Minister can clarify when the medal table for the events that take place overseas will be published. I understand that, contrary to the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, the medal tables for the events are to be kept separate, regardless of the fact that Chandigarh is being seen as part of the Commonwealth Games. I am not sure why that is, but I am sure that the Minister will tell the Committee when she comes to reply.

On a personal note, relating to the noble Baroness, I was looking through a list of Ministers and their remuneration in the Times over the weekend and found, to my astonishment, that the noble Baroness is one of the few Ministers who is working for nothing. She does not get a salary at all. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has put a series of challenging questions to her, and she should be adequately recompensed if she finds the answers. Speaking for both sides of the House—I hope I can get the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, on board—we should start a crowdfunding appeal on her behalf. I am not sure whether her exclusion from the salaried ranks constitutes some sort of sex discrimination. I am sure it would not be tolerated in most other industries. On this side of the Committee—I speak personally, but I am sure I take my noble friends with me—we would be delighted to assist and do anything to combat the apparent injustice.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Addington

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I do not object to the idea of a hotel room tax, providing it is done correctly, but I do not think that the Bill is the right place to do it. The bid was won on certain terms and references, and this was not in there. Also, I would not complain too loudly, because an Answer from the Government that somebody found for me states:

“The government’s other commitments to the Games, including the underwrite of the organisation and delivery of the Games and a number of guarantees, will remain in place until the end of the 2022/23 financial year”.


That is a pretty good deal. Changing the deal you have at the last minute will be a danger. We should discuss the idea further at another time; I do not think that this is the right time.

Also, the Birmingham city plan—let us face it, we are talking about Birmingham City Council—does not mention this at all. I suggest that there will be another time when we can go into this properly, but making sure that this tax stays local is important, if we are going to do it at all. Now is not the time or place. We have a pretty good deal that has been agreed by the people involved. We should stick to it.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend in these two amendments. I shall try not to repeat anything that I said in Committee, but I want to express my disappointment with the ministerial reply on that occasion, which I thought, for the Minister, was unusually unhelpful on this proposal. I remind noble Lords on both sides that this is not the imposition of a new tax; it is merely a look at whether such a tax is feasible—no more, no less.

I listened to the noble Baroness opposite, who is a former Business Minister, I recollect, plead on behalf of business that there should not be another imposition. I remind her—having said that I would not repeat anything that I said in Committee, I will break what I said pretty early on, but I know that she was not present in Committee—that, coincidentally, I used the example of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Birmingham and how its nightly rate varied in the course of a week. If I recollect rightly— she will correct me if I am wrong—the Crowne Plaza hotel is part of the International Hotel Group to which she referred.

Again, I must say gently to her that if the price of one of its hotel rooms can vary by £130 in the course of a week, those small businessmen, the franchisees on behalf of whom she was making her plaintive cry, will not really go bust if we put another pound or two on our hotel rooms, as do many other cities throughout the world.

I express particular disappointment at the contribution from the Liberal Benches. I understand through the usual channels that this amendment would have been pressed to a Division had the Liberal Democrats indicated any support. They are always telling us how radical they are: here is a chance not to be particularly radical but merely to support a proposal for an inquiry into a tax that would assist something as worthy as the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham—yet without even hearing the sound of guns, before the guns had been loaded, they have fled the battlefield and said that they do not wish to be involved.

[Lord Addington]

When you have an underwriting from government in a deal like this, do you want to change the rules after it comes out? I actually think that the Government have done well on this. That is why I first joined these Benches: I am not afraid to agree with people who I normally disagree with. If the noble Lord cannot handle that, well, there we go.

[Lord Snape]

I think that I can handle most things that the noble Baroness throws at me in this place. Of course, it is not the first time that the noble Lord has defended the Government; indeed, the Liberal Democrats spent some years in alliance with them from 2010—and much good it did them, I might add on the subject of elections. Neither the noble Lord nor the noble Baroness mentioned the fact—I hope that the Minister will—that there is, it is said, a £40 million gap, which must be closed before the Commonwealth Games go ahead. If the gap cannot be closed in this way, how will it be closed?

Perhaps the noble Lord who speaks on behalf of the Liberal party should not knock an idea that seems enormously attractive to me. I fought three elections as a local councillor, only one of which was successful. If I were still a member of my local authority—that would be difficult because it was abolished some years ago—the thought of a tax that did not penalise my voters would be enormously appealing. That is the sort of self-interest that one normally hears from Liberal councillors—although it normally depends, of course, on which end of the village they are and the group of people that they are addressing at the time.

I go back to the question of yield management, as I think it is called—as a former Business Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, will know that. If it is good enough for hotel chains to vary the prices of their rooms on a nightly basis, surely it is permissible to look at the possibility—no more, no less—of a tax with which, I repeat, we are familiar with across the world and which, to give the city credit, Edinburgh hopes to introduce in the near future.

I will repeat one more phrase from my speech in Committee: we all know that the objections are based on the Treasury, because it hates the word “hypothecation” and hates the idea of anybody else applying taxes because that takes away some of its power. Again, I remind the Minister that the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands—I did not vote for him; I accept that he won against the odds and will have to fight for re-election in 2020—has publicly announced his support for the scheme. Looking at his former partners on the Liberal Benches, it comes to something when a Conservative mayor is more radical in his views on taxation than his former colleagues in the Liberal Democrat party.

So I hope to get a more sympathetic hearing from the Minister on this occasion. Surely we could look at something like this; it is not revolutionary or Marxist or anything like that. Surely it would benefit the city, the region and, most importantly, the funding of the Commonwealth Games.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Addington

Tuesday 9th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

My noble friend asks if I pay. Well, I would not normally stay at the Crowne Plaza unless there was a pretty severe domestic dispute chez Snape—which has not yet happened, but one never knows.

The Crowne Plaza tonight will charge £122.04 for a standard room. I am not sure how the 4p comes about, but it does. On 10 July, in two days, it will charge £209 for a standard room. That is an enormous fluctuation, so I do not see how the hotel would miss a £1 or £2 charge. My noble friend Lord Brookman looks suitably shocked at these hotel prices. He might be relieved to know that, if he is around in Birmingham on Saturday, he can have the same room for £78. Presumably, business people do not visit Birmingham so much on a Saturday night, so only tourists and visitors looking for pleasure will have to pay that sort of price.

I hope that the Minister will listen to this, stand up to the bully boys of the Treasury—they exist whichever Government are in power—and insist that the funding gap to which I have referred is closed so far as the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham are concerned. Given the widespread fluctuation in the cost of hotel rooms, this would be a comparatively painless way to close that gap.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, before the Minister launches off to fight with his own Treasury bat, I just want to say that amendments such as this are very attractive, especially for a party that looks to local government being slightly more independent and having more power. The question here would be about the limitation of the charge. Have the Government done any research on this, or anything that would tell us what it would cost to get it? What would the benefit be at a given rate? This is a genuine argument and there are examples of doing this in the UK. If it can be done and set at a rate that makes a real benefit but does not affect the actual uptake of rooms, there is a very good argument for it.