Olympic Legacy (East London)

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Friday 8th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

This is the first time I have served under your speakership, Madam Deputy Speaker. We are all novices, but you are doing a fantastic job.

I am delighted to respond to the debate introduced by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), and I thank the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) for her contribution, and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), who made an intervention.

I am delighted that the House has the opportunity to debate the Olympic legacy. I echo the words of the hon. Ladies that there is a lot of good news, but it is incredibly important that we keep a close eye on progress. I recognise where the project is going well, but we should always ask, “Can we do better?” I want to suggest constructive ways in which we might do so, and I take the speeches made in that spirit.

If I may, I shall talk a bit about the wider legacy in east London, and in particular about what has happened to some of the venues. I echo what the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: I, too, thoroughly enjoyed the Olympics and Paralympics. I am not sure that we will ever grow tired of saying that they were possibly the best Olympics and Paralympics the world has ever seen, and the nation as a whole was immensely proud.

It is also worth emphasising that this was a cross-party triumph. The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) persuaded the then Government to bid for the Olympics. They were won by the previous Government and executed by this Government, and two different Mayors were also involved. The hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington also spoke about transport, the sporting legacy, housing, and employment and jobs, all of which are very relevant.

Since last autumn, the Government and the Mayor of London have been working together to ensure that we deliver a single and joined-up legacy from the games. Our priority is to ensure that, as well as investing in infrastructure, we secure an economic and social legacy for people living in east London. We want to provide access to education, training and jobs, as well as greater opportunities to take part in sport, physical activity and, of course, volunteering, which was a huge aspect of the games that people perhaps had not expected. We are determined to ensure that the levels of community engagement and civic pride experienced during the summer of 2012 can be sustained.

As I am sure hon. Members know, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is the lead Minister responsible for the overall co-ordination and delivery of the legacy. She is deputy chair of the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Cabinet Committee, which is chaired by the Prime Minister. Its meetings are also attended by Lord Coe, in his role as the Prime Minister’s legacy ambassador, and the Mayor of London, who has lead responsibility for east London regeneration.

In April 2012, responsibility for legacy in east London was devolved from the Department for Communities and Local Government to the Mayor. The London Legacy Development Corporation was established as the first ever mayoral development corporation and, in September 2012, the Mayor became chairman of the legacy corporation. There are therefore well-established governance structures in place to provide a robust framework for effective legacy implementation in east London.

As a demonstration of progress towards a lasting legacy, I want to give the House an update. We have secured the future of all eight venues on the Olympic park—the stadium, the Copper Box, the aquatics centre, the press and broadcast centre, the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the east village, the Lee Valley hockey and tennis centre and the Lee Valley velo park. That is a significant achievement. I shall not single out any previous Olympics, but I cannot think of many other Olympic host cities that have achieved such a turnaround in such a short space of time.

To give credit where it is due, one of the key aspects of the Olympics was that legacy was at the forefront of people’s thinking from the moment the games were won. Operators are now in place to oversee the transition and management of all the park venues in legacy, and this is the first time that has been achieved by a host city within one year of the games.

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic park started to re-open in summer 2013 with major events at the Copper Box. The Copper Box is now open to the general public, including the east London community, with individual gym sessions available from £3. The re-opening of the park venues will continue in spring 2014 with the velo park and hockey and tennis centres, operated by the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority, and with the aquatics centre and the ArcelorMittal Orbit.

We have also secured major events that should provide employment opportunities, such as the rugby world cup in 2015, the European hockey and swimming championships in 2016 and the world athletics championships in 2017, and iCITY has been confirmed as occupiers of the press and broadcast centre, with tenants including BT Sport, Loughborough university and Infinity.

As the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington mentioned, housing and infrastructure is coming on stream fast. We are going to build up to 11,000 homes in and around the five neighbourhoods and the park, including 3,000 new homes in the east village, which we hope will form the bedrock of a fantastic new and vibrant community in east London. It will be a huge part of the legacy of London 2012. In fact, the first residents are expected to move into their new homes in the east village later this month. Furthermore, the ODA has converted almost 3,000 of the athletes’ homes to create a new neighbourhood for London, including almost 1,500 affordable apartments and almost 1,500 apartments at market rents, as well as a new school, a health centre, parklands and roads. I therefore think we are making significant progress on housing.

The hon. Lady rightly talked about jobs. Plans for the park will create capacity for 10,000 new jobs, of which 4,500 will be at iCITY in the press and broadcast centre. iCITY has told us that it wants to recruit new staff from the local community. I understand that it is working closely with Hackney community college to support local people into new jobs as they become available. Furthermore, the park transformation programme has created 2,500 construction jobs in east London. I heard what she said about Westfield and whether people from her local community were getting the jobs, but nevertheless that development has created 10,000 new jobs, with the capacity for another 25,000 in the international quarter on the park.

On Hackney community college, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch mentioned the Ways into Work programme, which is working at the heart of Hackney. The London Legacy Development Corporation is also working closely with borough partners to ensure that training and job brokerage programmes help local people into work. The corporation has exceeded its target of recruiting 25% of the work force from the local area, and the proportion for construction jobs is now more than one third.

As a result of the games, investor interest in east London is huge, and the Government are working with the Mayor and London Legacy Development Corporation to secure private investment for the park. We are determined to ensure that the people of east London benefit from new events, visitor attractions and the new international profile of the area. In addition, the Government continue to invest nationally in a range of priority areas, committing more than £1 billion of funding over four years to youth and community sport, and ring-fencing £150 million of funding each year for school sports over the next two years. Join In has been established as the charity to support games makers and others inspired by the games to continue volunteering in their local communities. In addition, more than £9 billion of international trade and investment was won on the back of the games, and tourist numbers to the UK have increased, with visitors now spending more than £19 billion a year.

We can safely say that we are making excellent progress with the legacy overall. As I said, we have managed to transfer all the venues and find new uses for them. Jobs have been created on a significant scale and new housing is now coming on stream. The Government continue to work closely with the Mayor and the London Legacy Development Corporation to deliver a sustainable legacy that will benefit the communities of east London, and we are committed to securing the future of the park as a national asset.

I will take away the points made by hon. Members. In particular, I will ask the Sports Minister to consider the auditing of employers, although London is obviously a place where people move around quite frequently, so sometimes it will be difficult to establish these things, and clearly employers will be employing people who are new to the borough. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch used the very strong word “scam”, and I will certain ask the Minister to respond to that. If the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington wants to set forth a proposal for minimum targets, I am sure that we could look at that, too.

Finally, on behalf of the Government, I can say that we welcome the scrutiny of hon. Members. They are the ones who so effectively represent their constituents in their constituencies and boroughs, and they are the ones on the ground who can keep the Government informed if they think the legacy programme is not working as effectively as it should.

Question put and agreed to.