Baroness Garden of Frognal
Main Page: Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Rosser
My Lords, the purpose of Amendments 1 and 2 is to seek to explore the role of the Olympic Delivery Authority enforcement officers, and to explore a little bit further the provision in the Bill for any articles seized to be dealt with by the Olympic Delivery Authority enforcement officers rather than the police. No doubt this move has been prompted in part by the reduction in police numbers, which has led to police forces being severely stretched, as well as by the explanation that the Government have given for this move.
What exactly is it envisaged that the enforcement officers, many or most of whom will apparently be local authority trading standards officers, will be required to do inside and outside an Olympic venue if, for example, they are faced with ambush advertising of, say, a body of people displaying on their T-shirts a logo or an advertisement for a rival to one of the major sponsors? Is it the role of the enforcement officers to deal with those people either inside or outside the venue by seizing the offending T-shirts, or will the enforcement officers direct stewards to carry out this function, or will there in reality have to be some police involvement? What training, and how much, will be given to the enforcement officers, since surely activity on this scale in a high-profile situation, which could easily get out of hand, with seizure in the circumstances being involved, will not be something that the officers would encounter in the normal course of their duties?
How many enforcement officers is it envisaged that there will need to be to cover the Olympic and Paralympic Games, first, in London and, secondly, in the centres outside London? For what period of time will they be needed? Will they be needed just during the Games themselves, or will they be needed for a period prior to the Games as well?
If the intention is to draft in trading standards officers to the Olympic venues and their immediate vicinity from local authorities inside and outside London, what will happen to trading standards work in those local authorities during the period when their staff have been seconded to Olympic Games and Paralympic Games activity? Will that work still be undertaken, or will it be a good time for the makers and sellers of dodgy and dangerous goods and services, and others involved in illegal trading, to operate in those localities? If the work will still be undertaken, who will pay for it at a time when local authority budgets are constrained? Who will do the work? Will they be appropriately qualified staff and, if so, where will they come from?
Will the Minister also say something about the anticipated costs of the ODA enforcement officer force, including any additional costs of providing cover for trading standards seconded from the local authorities both within London and outside London? Who will pay those costs?
I return to the issue of exactly what role the enforcement officers will play in the seizure of goods. Clearly, the Government and the Olympic Delivery Authority attach considerable importance to protecting the interests of the sponsors of the Games and to protecting the use of the Olympic logo and brand. Indeed, doing this was presumably a condition of the acceptance of our bid for the Games.
If this is to be done effectively, it requires decisive and immediate action by enforcement officers since the Games will take place only for a relatively short period of time and happen in the gaze of the world’s media, where any incidents that lead to difficulties are likely to receive considerable publicity. There will probably not be the same amount of time for the pretty thorough and extensive investigations that trading standards officers normally make before taking action. Therefore, I want to ask again for a fairly full response to my question as to what exactly the ODA enforcement officers will be expected to do, including in connection with dealing with seized goods in the light of the change in the arrangements affecting the police that the Government are making.
On that latter point and on the role of the enforcement officers, what exactly is it that they will now be doing which originally it had been thought would require a police officer to undertake? Is it purely paperwork and administration, or does this change increase the risk or likelihood of enforcement officers being involved in confrontations with people carrying out illegal activities that have to be stopped, and stopped quickly?
In evidence to the Committee considering this Bill in the other place, the representative of the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers said that:
“Enforcement will be difficult logistically and numbers are an issue, as is funding”.—[Official Report, Commons, London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill Committee, 17/5/11; col. 23.]
The chair of the London Trading Standards Association was asked if he had any concern about not having a police presence when it needed to take action. He replied, “Yes”, and went on to say that those concerns already existed in its day-to-day role. I suggest that if they currently exist in that role, they are even more likely to arise for enforcement officers at the Olympics where, for the reasons I have mentioned, there will certainly be pressure for speedy and quick action. I hope that the Minister will be able to provide some answers to the points that I have raised.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for tabling this amendment and allowing us to debate further the issues in these provisions. The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 provides for Ministers to make regulations about advertising and trading in the vicinity of the 2012 Games. Under the Act, those regulations are enforceable by the police and by ODA-designated enforcement officers. Both are empowered to seize articles for specified purposes connected with a contravention of the regulations, such as to stop goods being sold in a regulated area or to enable goods to be used as evidence in a criminal case. Nothing in the Bill changes that.
Under the Act, any article seized by the ODA must be delivered to a constable, with the effect that all seized articles are dealt with by the police. This imposes an unnecessary administrative burden on the police when they will have many other calls on their time. Indeed, it was at the request of the police that Clause 1 was included in the Bill. In its current form, Clause 1 would change this for England and Wales. It would provide for articles seized in England and Wales to be held by the ODA, rather than the police. In dealing with seized articles, the ODA would be required to comply with detailed rules inserted into the 2006 Act by the Bill. This change would mean that during the 2012 Games police time is not spent filing and dealing with seized property. Other police powers of enforcement are not affected.
However, at the request of the Scottish Government the position there will be slightly different because of the different legal systems and because the pressure on police time will not be as great as in England, where most Games events will occur. In Scotland, the police and ODA will agree among themselves who will deal with seized articles but where it is agreed that the ODA will deal with articles, it will be required to comply with similar handling rules as apply in England and Wales.
The effect of Amendments 1 and 2 would be to maintain the position under the Act whereby police are required to deal with all seized articles. As I have said, this would impose an administrative burden on them at a time when there will be many competing—and, arguably, higher priority—demands on their resources. In particular, in England and Wales, where most Games events will take place, police will be busy ensuring the safety and security of competitors and the hundreds of thousands of spectators. Given that context, I hope noble Lords will agree that it is preferable that the ODA, rather than the police, is tasked with undertaking a second-order administrative role.
However, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has expressed concerns about the extent of that role and it is not to say that police support would not be provided to ODA officers. The police will retain their general enforcement powers under the Act and police assistance will be provided to ODA officers, as is currently the case with trading standards officers, if there is an actual or threatened breach of the peace or where there is a risk to the safety of officers or the public. The ODA has met with the police regularly and is currently consulting the police about ODA’s enforcement capability.
I am happy, too, to provide assurances that the ODA will take care of seized articles properly. It is a public authority and is subject to the direction of the Secretary of State. Moreover, the ODA is under a statutory obligation to submit its implementation strategy to the Secretary of State for approval. In addition, as I have said, it will have to comply with detailed rules inserted into the 2006 Act by the Bill. Those rules are based on existing legislation applying to local authority trading standards officers when they seize goods. Because it is intended that the ODA will designate local authority officers to act for it at Games time, the effect is that experienced officers will manage infringing items in a similar manner as they do at present. Those officers whose job it is to enforce existing street trading legislation are used to dealing with illegal traders and, where necessary, seizing counterfeit and other goods. If they apprehend that their or the public’s safety is threatened, they will be able to call on the police to assist.
The noble Lord asked about specific training of ODA officers. That has already begun and will continue up until Games time. Officers have, for example, taken part in mock enforcement trials at London 2012 test events. He also asked how many enforcement officers it is anticipated will be needed and for how many weeks. The ODA is currently negotiating with local authorities on securing officers, so estimated numbers are still subject to those discussions. However, they are looking to have up to 250 officers covering 28 venues and events for a maximum of five weeks—not consecutive weeks. That will take account of shift patterns.
I should make it clear that, for the Games regulations, the ODA will reimburse local authorities for any personnel they provide or services they perform. As such, local authorities will, where necessary, be able to back-fill posts by extending overtime and managing annual leave patterns. The ODA’s costs for dealing with seized goods are estimated to be in the region of £22,000, with a concomitant saving to police budgets on account of them no longer having to deal with articles. The transfer of responsibilities for handling of seized articles from the police to ODA amounts to an estimate of £55,000 saving to the public purse. The overall enforcement budget is £760,000, which includes a package of enforcement provisions including storage, which the local authority would provide as part of the funding agreement. The £55,000 would have been to pay for police assistance to handle seized goods, plus an additional saving that was not estimated for the police to charge for storing. Consequently, this clause will produce a direct and substantial saving.
In essence, the detailed handling rules set out in the Bill require the ODA to return seized articles when retention is no longer justified. Fundamentally, the rules seek to protect owners’ rights while ensuring that the regulations can be enforced in a reasonable and proportionate manner.
I note that Amendments 1 and 2 would have another, possibly unintended, effect. They would remove from the Bill clarifying provisions that make it clear that animals may be seized as infringing articles. These provisions are important because, as we have seen in previous events, animals have been used to display advertisements. For example, at the Ryder Cup in 2010 a betting company trained birds of prey to swoop past golfers carrying messages of support on banners featuring their logo. In removing these provisions, the amendments could potentially create a loophole that could undermine the advertising and trading provisions in the Act.
The main purpose of Clause 1 is to ease the pressure on police resources at what will be a very busy time. The police will, of course, remain responsible for ensuring that breaches of the peace do not occur and that safety and security is maintained. What Clause 1 does is remove from them an administrative task that can properly be undertaken by the ODA. In the light of the explanation and assurances that I have given today, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rosser
I thank the Minister for that response, and for responding to the questions that I raised. I am not quite sure what I was meant to glean from the response in relation to the position of local authorities whose trading standards officers are seconded for Olympic activity. I think that the reply was that the cost of the officers would be reimbursed, so I take it from that that if a local authority deems it necessary to get other staff in to carry out work—if it is able to do so, because it may not be possible—the cost of doing that will be paid for out of other funds than its own. I rather took it that that was the response I was being given.
Lord Rosser
That is very helpful indeed. Once again, I thank the Minister for her response and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
“(2A) But if, in relation to regulations under section 19 other than the first regulations, the Secretary of State considers that by reason of urgency it is necessary that they be made without being approved in draft—
(a) subsection (2)(b) does not apply to the regulations, and(b) the regulations are instead subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.””
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, in moving Amendment 3, I will also speak to Amendments 4 and 5 in this group. The amendments address a concern raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The 2006 Act provides for the making of advertising and trading regulations. Under the Act, all such regulations, including amending regulations, are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
The Bill amends the 2006 Act to provide that advertising and trading regulations other than the first set may instead be made via the negative resolution procedure. This is intended to enable the making of amending regulations if unforeseen events crop up late in the day, such as if it is necessary to move a Games event from one venue to another shortly before the event is due to take place. If the need to amend the regulations arose at this point, such as if a water main serving a venue burst a few days before that venue was scheduled to be used, it would be impracticable to amend the regulations via the lengthy affirmative resolution procedure.
Because the regulations are very detailed and specify precisely the places where, and periods during which, they will apply, it may be necessary to amend them if a venue or the Games schedule has to change. It is not possible, in the abstract, to describe all the incidents that might necessitate such a change, but I emphasise that we are not planning any such amendments. A lot of work has gone into identifying and preparing venues and the event schedule for the Games, and we intend the venues, the schedule, and the regulations that have already been published to remain as they are. A change will be necessary only if unforeseen circumstances such as the burst water main I mentioned occur.
The Delegated Powers Committee accepts the need to amend the 2006 Act to facilitate the amendment of the regulations in such circumstances. However, it is concerned that the extent of the procedural relaxation in the Bill goes further than is necessary. Accordingly, it has recommended that the Bill is amended to provide that the affirmative resolution procedure must be used unless the Minister considers that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary instead to use the negative procedure. As it was always the intention that the negative resolution procedure would be used only where there was an urgent need to do so, the Government are happy to accept the committee’s recommendation and to provide the additional clarification.
The effect of these amendments is that advertising and trading regulations will be made via the negative procedure only if the Minister considers that that is necessary by reason of urgency. In such a case, the regulations will confirm, on their face, that this is the Minister’s view.
In essence, what we mean by “urgency” is that, for reasons of time, it would be impracticable to use the affirmative procedure and it is necessary instead to use the negative procedure. That is likely to be because the amending regulations have to take effect quickly, before the earliest date that affirmative regulations could practicably be made. This would be the case, for example, where the incident necessitating the amendment occurs only a short time before the relevant Games event. Likewise, it would be the case if amending regulations had to be made when Parliament is not sitting. As noble Lords will know, affirmative regulations cannot be made when Parliament is in recess, whereas negative instruments can.
I hope that these amendments and the further explanation that I have set out today provide noble Lords with welcome assurance that the power to amend the regulations via the negative procedure will be used only when that is genuinely necessary. I beg to move.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these amendments. There is obviously sense in having flexibility within the legislation to deal with unforeseen events, and we fully understand why the Government have decided to take these powers. However, as was pointed out in the report of the Delegated Powers Committee, these powers are wide-ranging, and it is important that they be subject to appropriate scrutiny.
The recent Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report called for assurances that the provision to make these regulations via the negative resolution procedure would be exercised only when there was an urgent need to do so. The Minister reaffirmed that the intention is always to work within the set of advertising and trading regulations laid in Parliament on 10 October, which will be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, the problem with the approach being taken by the Government is that these present regulations are going to be made only in the deepest recess period, July to September 2012, so there is a Catch-22 situation. You can make negative regulations of the type described by the Minister when you cannot make regulations under the affirmative procedure, but because the Houses will be in Recess, neither House would be in a position to exercise its power under the negative resolution procedure in those circumstances. The net effect is to provide the Secretary of State with wide-ranging Henry VIII powers exercisable on his or her assertion that it is an emergency. When the Minister responds, will she enlighten us about why it was decided that the negative/affirmative procedure was appropriate?
It might have been easier to fess up and simply say that, on reflection, the Government take the view that it is necessary for the Secretary of State to have these powers and that some procedure, such as a full report, will occur once the Houses have resumed after the Games have finished. Clearly, we are where we are, so the question really is: what are the urgent situations that could give rise to the need to use this provision? I may be straining at a gnat here, but I have noticed in the documentation that we have been provided with that there are three different variations on what is defined as an urgent situation. The wording of the amendment is that the regulations would be used only if,
“the Secretary of State considers that by reason of urgency it is necessary that they be made”.
The Delegated Powers Committee slightly inflects that and changes the terms. It states that the powers would be needed only when there was an urgent need. The Minister suggested in correspondence, which was copied to several noble Lords, that the amending regulations would be brought forward only to provide flexibility in cases where exceptional circumstances, such as a burst water main, require a change of competition venue. I am not sure that a need for flexibility is by definition an urgency, but I think we understand the sense behind the points made in the correspondence. I do not think at this stage we wish further to oppose this amendment, but it would be helpful if the Minister would write to us with a few examples of where she thinks such a situation might occur so that we have them on record.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I would be very happy to do that because this is an area where perhaps a little more clarity could be due. As the noble Lord has indicated, we are introducing these measures at this stage as a matter of pragmatism.
“(2A) But if, in relation to regulations under section 25 other than the first regulations, the Secretary of State considers that by reason of urgency it is necessary that they be made without being approved in draft—
(a) subsection (2)(b) does not apply to the regulations, and(b) the regulations are instead subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.””
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for tabling this amendment, which gives your Lordships the opportunity to consider what the maximum penalty for ticket touting should be. Ultimately, as in all matters of sentencing, this is a matter of judgment. Parliament has to take a view on the severity of the conduct in question and set a level of penalty, which both reflects this and acts as a deterrent to those who might otherwise be tempted to engage in such activity.
I think that there is a general acceptance that the penalty for the touting of Olympic and Paralympic Games tickets, which the 2006 Act created, was insufficient. All the recent evidence is that the truly unique nature of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the quite staggering demands among the public for tickets, means that a maximum fine of £5,000 would not be high enough to deter those minded to engage in touting, particularly those connected to organised crime, as the noble Lord has set out. That is why we are seeking in this Bill to increase the maximum penalty to £20,000. That represents a very significant fine and deterrent. For a gang of five people, that could amount to a total fine of £100,000, which is quite a figure that they would need to set in mind against potential profits.
The Government's view is that this increased fine level is sufficient. I do not in any way wish to downplay the menace of ticket touting, still less when organised crime is involved, but your Lordships should bear in mind that it does not of itself involve violence and that, ultimately, those who buy tickets from touts do so out of choice rather than through compulsion. There is also something to be said for consistency in penalties. Currently, the only other ticket touting that is illegal is touting of football tickets under Section 166 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The maximum penalty for that offence is a fine of £5,000. We are prepared to see a higher penalty for Olympic and Paralympic ticket touting, given the unique nature of the Games, but would not like to see the two penalties so very far out of step.
Compellingly, there is the view of the police, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has quoted, and the views of Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, when he gave the oral evidence that the noble Lord relayed to us. I think we are covering up some of the grounds of the arguments that were put forward on this. Perhaps I could also say that the assistant commissioner said that if there is,
“evidence that enables us to seize money under”,
the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 then, if it is necessary,
“we will make applications to court to do that as well”.—[Official Report, Commons, London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill Committee, 17/5/11; col. 47.]
The arguments that have come from the police are persuasive. At this point, I pay tribute to the work of the police service in preparing for next year. None of us should underestimate the challenge of keeping the Olympics and Paralympics safe, but we know that police planning is going well and that the service will rise to the challenge. I particularly commend Operation Podium, which is the team in the Metropolitan Police service that seeks to tackle ticket crime. Assistant Commissioner Allison made it very clear that the team will be looking to target ticket touts, and I know that at least one arrest has already been made. Of course, we recognise the argument that we are potentially dealing with serious organised criminals and, in that context, a fine may seem insufficient. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, set that out very clearly. But, of course, a court can only sentence an individual for the particular crime for which he or she is charged, and the punishment must fit that crime. If there is evidence that people are involved in other serious criminality, they can be charged with relevant offences relating to their crimes. So if the police manage to apprehend Mr or Mrs Big, who may be behind large-scale Olympic and Paralympic ticket touting and various other serious crimes, there is plenty of other legislation on the statute book already to deal with whatever other serious crimes the person may be responsible for. Those would not need to feature in the Bill in front of us.
In the light of the clear evidence from the police that the higher penalty created by this Bill is sufficient to deal with the conduct in question, and the fact that they will be able to use other existing legislation to go after the proceeds of Olympic and Paralympic ticket touting, I am not persuaded that we need to legislate for the possibility of custodial sentences. I thank my noble friend Lord Higgins for his contribution and other noble Lords for raising this issue, but I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, my concern is not so much on the issue of organised criminal gangs. I think that we all recognise that serious penalties need to be imposed in that regard. But I am not clear exactly what the situation is in this clause as it stands. Is it the case that, if people who have a ticket that they cannot use simply stand outside the stadium and sell the ticket, they will be committing an offence? As I understand it, the crucial issue is whether the ticket is sold above its face value. Perhaps if Section 31(1)(b) of the Act, concerning selling a ticket,
“otherwise than in accordance with a written authorisation issued by the London Organising Committee”,
was amended on Report so as to read instead, “and above face value”, that would overcome the problem facing people in the circumstances that I have just described. People who have a ticket that they cannot use would not find themselves suddenly open to a fine of £20,000.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I will of course withdraw my amendment, but I am a little disappointed with the Minister’s response. I was hoping that her response would be along the lines of saying that those who were clearly the brains behind the networks would almost certainly be charged with some other offence that would enable a custodial sentence to be imposed, if they were—to quote the assistant commissioner—people who,
“see that they are easily into seven figures and it is money that they will then use for other illegal acts”—[Official Report, Commons, London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill Committee, 17/5/11; col. 49.].
I certainly do not advocate a custodial sentence for the individual in the pub or on the street who sells a very small number of tickets and is not part of an organised network. However, when an assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police turns up at the Committee in the other place and talks in terms of “organised criminal networks”, “easily into seven figures” and money that will be used “for other illegal acts”, I stand by my view and seriously question whether a £20,000 fine is sufficient.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
If the noble Lord will allow me, those activities would certainly come under other forms of crime, which could attract a larger penalty than the fine. The sorts of cases that he has mentioned would not be subject purely to the £20,000 fine.
Lord Rosser
In that case, I somewhat misunderstood the Minister’s reply, from which it appeared to me that there was some doubt as to whether someone involved in those networks would end up with a higher penalty. I think that she said that you can charge people only with the offence that they have committed. That rather suggested that she felt that it might not be possible to charge them with any offence other than the one in the Bill, under which a £20,000 fine is the limit.
However, if the Minister is saying that where someone is apprehended who has been involved in running a network—and is the kind of individual who is seeing the ability to get “easily into seven figures” with money that could then be used “for other illegal acts”—she would normally expect that such individuals would probably be charged with some other offence carrying a custodial sentence, that would certainly meet the point that I am making and the concern that I am expressing. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Heyhoe Flint
In answer to the problems posed on the other side of this Room, perhaps I may say that I went to the test event for archery at Lord’s cricket ground, not because I could get in free with my own membership card there but just to see the whole set-up. I have the official ticket that we used on the day; I would have to have better eyesight to be able to read it out, but the terms and conditions on the back are absolutely clear as to what may or may not be done with regard to future movement of the ticket. I am sure that noble Lords will take this all into consideration with the production of ticketing throughout the whole of these 26 world championships that we are going to have over 16 days.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group and who have spoken to them, because it has provided your Lordships with the opportunity to discuss a very important issue. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Coe, who is in a much better position than I am to answer a great many of the questions that have been raised today, because they fall naturally to the responsibility of LOCOG and not the Government, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and others have pointed out.
I do not believe that there is any difference of opinion between any of those tabling amendments on this matter—the Government, LOCOG or any of your Lordships—in what we want to see in respect of Olympic and Paralympic tickets. We all want everything possible done to discourage and penalise ticket touting and as few obstacles as possible placed in the way of genuine sports fans who want to enjoy next summer’s festival of sport. The Government are doing their bit to achieve these outcomes by providing for the offence of touting of Olympic and Paralympic tickets, which we were discussing under the earlier amendment.
The other side of the coin, of course, is to ensure that all those with a genuine interest in attending the Games are facilitated in doing so and do not inadvertently fall foul of the law or regulations. I must again emphasise that Olympic and Paralympic ticket terms and conditions are a matter for LOCOG, not the Government. We are grateful to my noble friend Lord Coe not only for being here today but also for having sent a very helpful letter out after the previous meeting, when many of these issues were raised. Obviously, it was not so helpful that it has not stopped other questions from being raised at the same time, on which I hope we have now shed more light.
I appreciated the comment from my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint about the need for clarity. She was able to wave a ticket at us, which offered clarity in that respect. The need for clarity is one issue that has come out loud and clear from the debate that we have had this afternoon.
For all noble Lords I think there is comfort in response to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, and from my noble friends Lord Higgins and Lord Addington. They have raised issues and indeed offered certain forms of solutions, too, to try to make sure that the Games are the great success that we wall want them to be. In that respect, we all echo the enthusiastic support for the Games from the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, and the wish that whatever we do through or outside this legislation will ensure that the Games are an enormous success.
My noble friend Lady Doocey was one of those who asked about LOCOG’s terms and conditions being changed. Once again, that is a matter for LOCOG. It is not for the Government to intervene, but today’s debate has certainly added useful factors into the arguments that have been put forward.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank all noble Lords who took part in this useful and helpful debate. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coe, for being present and for sharing his thoughts on this. We are all in a much better place as a result of the discussion. We know more about what the issues are. We support what has been done. There is no question of any destructive view on that. Like my noble friend Lady Billingham, we want to continue to say that, in order to build on what has been achieved and to make sure that these are the greatest Games ever.
There are three points that I would like to leave with the Committee. First, would it be possible at some point for LOCOG to get across—obviously it does not need to be said too widely—what I thought the noble Lord, Lord Coe, said, which was that, given the vast majority of people in the iceberg, as he put it, who come into our Games are going to be able to do so without any let or hindrance, there is not going to be an issue about that? These regulations are at heart back-stop regulations to be used only if there is suspicion. Somehow that has not come across. There has been a sense that somehow we are all under surveillance and are all somehow possibly complicit in some frightful game involving tickets. When you buy a ticket or get a ticket, it may well be covered in beautiful colours and have all sorts of ideograms and other things on it, but you do not really know whether it is the right one or not until you turn up, put it in and it goes through. There is that sense that you are always going to be caught. Can we somehow agree among ourselves, even if we cannot say it publicly, that that is not the main purpose here? The main purpose is to get the touts who are out to disrupt the Games for their own horrible and nefarious purposes. That would be helpful.
Secondly, as the Minister said, we need clarity on a number of things. I do not want to reopen the debate but, for example, on identity, her answer was very firm and clear: people who have tickets and are bringing themselves or a party will need to bring identity with them. The letter states that that identity must be in the form of a photo card, but the Minister said that it could be a credit card, possibly the credit card with which you bought the tickets. You are already giving us two versions. We must be clear about this: either it is a photo card or it is credit card, or we are very clear that it is both. To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, a credit card might well be the right answer because it ties you to the original purchase. If phone calls are going to be the way you begin checking whether those who are under suspicion are right, it would be helpful if some more explanation is given about that. I can imagine a scenario where my children set off on their own to the Games to watch the synchronised swimming, which are the only tickets we have, they arrive to find that somebody has already got in on false tickets, they are dragged off, and I am rung—
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am sorry to interrupt, but I understand from my noble friend Lord Coe that telephone numbers are already available for those who purchased tickets.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, my point—had I been able to make it—is this: what happens when the noble Lord, Lord Coe, rings me and says, “We have your three children here, and they have fake tickets”, but I do not have my mobile phone—I have dropped it in the bath or something like that—so all that I get is a message, and when I ring back I get through to some call centre which, in the nature of trying to internationalise the Games, might be situated in Bangalore? You get the point.
Let us just be clear about this, get the narrative right and communicate clearly so that we carry the public with us, which is a vitally important point, and bring everyone along with us. This is going to be fantastic, and we will definitely be there to make it so. However, following the testing, once we have been to the archery and we have the tickets—and the T-shirt, too—then we need to communicate again that the systems work, and that the testing is happening along with everything else. Then we will all be happy, and I will withdraw the amendment in order to facilitate that.
Baroness Billingham
This is another example of things that looked fine on the night, but have subsequently gone seriously wrong, so we have to respond to them as far as the general public is concerned. We all saw awful things on our televisions a few weeks ago: riots in the street. It is not impossible that at the very time when you are looking to have police brought in from other police forces, something similar could be happening outside London, or in London itself.
I am raising this point so that we can make sure that we can reassure the general public that everything that can be done is being done. None the less, we must be realistic and ask ourselves whether any chief constable is going to release members of his force if he has some form of riot on his own doorstep? It is pretty unlikely. We have to look at this realistically. This is something that the general public are beginning to think about because, of course, safety is the absolute priority of these Games. We cannot possibly allow ourselves to miss out on making sure that we have enough force. The Minister said that there will be enough, but with a 20 per cent cut in police numbers already, the police are not particularly happy at the circumstances they find themselves in outside the Olympics. Are we going to face a situation where we find hostility towards the request to bring more police into London in order to facilitate policing the Games? These are questions that the general public would like the Minister to answer.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling this amendment. As the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, has just made so very clear, the safety and security of Games venues, supporting infrastructure and the wider public environment next summer is a paramount priority for the Government and for all concerned.
The noble Lord will be aware that the proposed amendment was considered, before being withdrawn, during the Bill’s passage in the other place. On that occasion, it was moved by the right honourable Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, Tessa Jowell, to whom, of course, we all owe a significant debt of gratitude for her tireless and unstinting commitment to delivering the bid and vision for London 2012. I am sure that all Members of your Lordships’ House will echo my sentiments on this point.
This amendment would require, in the context of such consultations as the Olympic Delivery Authority considers appropriate with relevant police authorities, the same police authorities to provide an estimate of required police deployments in order to enable the ODA to fulfil its responsibilities under Section 6(1) of the 2006 Act. Your Lordships will be aware that, as under the previous Administration, the Government have pursued a policy of maximum transparency in communicating what London 2012 safety and security will look and feel like. This includes public statements from the police on the expected requirement for policing the Games—at current estimates, up to 9,000 officers in London and 12,000 officers nationally on peak days. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Doocey for clarifying the position on police availability and numbers. Naturally, those numbers will be flexed up or down as necessary in response to changes in intelligence and the threat environment.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether sufficient police officers will be available. Yes, indeed they will. Planning for policing the Games has been going on for several years, determining the scale and nature of the deployment required to meet this unprecedented challenge. The police are applying their professional judgment for the size and nature of deployment required, including the call on mutual aid. Planning is taking place nationwide to ensure sufficient numbers will be available. The noble Lord also asked whether the military or territorial forces would be used to undertake police duties. There are no plans to use the military to undertake duties that are properly the responsibility of the police service, but the Government, LOCOG and G4S are working together to finalise the requirements for Olympic venue security and discussing with the MoD the likely role in Olympic security for military assets. So it is quite possible that the Armed Forces will provide some specialist support, as they already do in times of need, but the exact nature of this requirement is still to be agreed and a number of options are being explored. In addition, all mutual aid deployment will be by agreement between the lending force and the Metropolitan Police.
Noble Lords may have had an opportunity to read the evidence of Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, the national Olympic security co-ordinator, during the Bill’s passage in the other place. He was very clear that the police have the resources that they need to do their job and that the system of mutual aid that will be used to supplement Olympic policing in London and Dorset with officers from other force areas is robust and fit for purpose. In giving his evidence, he was, of course, fully aware of the budgetary constraints that police authorities, like all parts of the public sector, face and will continue to face next year. The police service conducts periodic reviews of the resources available nationally, particularly in relation to specialisms, and this consistently shows that there will be sufficient numbers of officers available next summer to ensure the safety and security of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It is also worth emphasising that forces which lend officers to London and Dorset, or indeed, any other venue, will be reimbursed in line with normal mutual aid arrangements. They will therefore be able to backfill, through the use of overtime, so policing in those areas will not be denuded as a result of the Olympics. I should make it clear that the additional costs of the safety and security operation are coming from the Government and not from local policing budgets. As the Committee may be aware, the Government are making available £475 million for the additional costs of policing and wider security, and that is part of the overall £9.3 billion public sector funding package.
While I welcome the focus of the amendment, its substance would be an unnecessary addition to the 2006 Act because there is nothing in that Act to prevent discussions on police resources between relevant authorities. In practice, there have been and continue to be extensive discussions between all concerned parties—the police, the Home Office, the ODA, DCMS, LOCOG and others—on planned police deployments at London 2012 venues.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I appreciate that behind this amendment is a concern about minimising the impact of the Olympic route network—the ORN—on people living and working in the areas concerned. I am pleased to be able to assure noble Lords that that is one of our key objectives in implementing the ORN for the 2012 Games and that extensive local consultation and communication are already under way and will continue through to the Games. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her very helpful clarifications on a range of points that were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, in his opening remarks.
The provision of an ORN to facilitate transport of the athletes, officials, accredited media and marketing partners who together form the Games family is part of the host city contract with the International Olympic Committee. The ORN is a tried and tested concept used at previous Games to ensure that all those working at the Games get to where they need to be safely and on time every time, while keeping London moving. In response to the question from my noble friend Lord Brooke, that of course includes all the different venues in and around London.
The vast majority of the ORN roads will be open to all road users. The Games family will be transported as efficiently as possible with most, including marketing partners, travelling by bus or coach; at peak times, on some sections of the ORN, the traffic flow will include a Games family vehicle passing every four seconds.
In response to my noble friend Lady Doocey, where feasible the Games family will be encouraged to use public transport, and Transport for London is working with the London Organising Committee on the supply of Oyster cards for them. Of course, we take into account the problem she highlighted of the stress that there will be on normal travellers on London transport. That will need to be monitored very carefully to make sure that they are not severely disadvantaged by this.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, mentioned river services. There will be enhanced river services on the Thames. These may be an attractive option for spectators travelling to the Greenwich venues, but they are unlikely to attract many Games family members due to their relatively low speed and frequency. They do, however, mean that all options for delivering effective Games-time transport are being utilised. The river, of course, provides a particularly appealing way of travelling through London.
The roads forming the ORN have already been designated, and the impact assessments for the designation orders made it clear that there are two stages to implementation of the ORN, the first being the designation and the second being the development of the detailed designs for measures on the roads, which includes the formal consultation on traffic regulation orders required for the measures. I stress that there have been consultations at every stage of this development.
The sorts of considerations listed in the amendment are most appropriate for this second stage. Transport for London is working closely with the boroughs in London, and the ODA and local authorities outside are working through the consultations, which are well under way. There is a wide-ranging programme of information and advice to business about the potential impact of the Games, including the ORN, on the transport system. That started last November, enabling businesses to plan ahead and minimise the impact on their operations. Information and publicity campaigns to the general public about Games transport and the ORN will begin next year.
The consultation process on the ORN measures is enabling Transport for London and the Olympic Delivery Authority to take account of responses from those living on and around the ORN, and those who may be affected by it in the development of the detailed plans. In particular, the ORN traffic regulation orders are going through the standard statutory procedures which include informal and then formal consultation. Detailed plans are being adjusted, where possible, in the light of the comments and representations received, further to reduce the impacts. As an example, as a result of intensive work with the boroughs and other key stakeholders prior to the launch of public consultation, Transport for London has reduced the number of planned pedestrian crossing closures on the ORN from 115 to 48, and received very few requests in the subsequent engagement process for crossings to be reopened. I also assure noble Lords that all the traffic measures are subject to road safety audits.
The ORN will be implemented with the minimum impact on London. Noble Lords asked about the timescale; it is expected to be brought into operation just a couple of days before the Olympic Games and discontinued swiftly when it is no longer needed. The ORN will operate only when and where it needs to as determined by the training and competition schedule. When a competition venue runs for only a few days, the ORN will need to operate only during these periods. The same strategy will be employed for the smaller scale Paralympic route network during the Paralympic Games.
Temporary Games lanes for use by Games family vehicles will be used on the busiest sections of the ORN only at certain times. Where lanes are required, these will tend to be those closest to the middle of the road, helping to minimise disruption to buses, cyclists and taxis. Lanes will not take up the whole road width in any direction. The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, was very concerned that the wrong people might be seen to be using the lanes. In the case of the sponsors, of course, they are entitled in certain circumstances to use of the Games lanes, because they have contributed very greatly to ensuring that funding is in place for the success of the Games. As a sideline, in that I often have to speak about tourism in this House, if they are staying at the Dorchester and spending money at our hotels it will be an extremely welcome boost to the London tourist industry. So all is not lost if some people who come to the Games are living at central London locations and taking advantage of the facilities available in central London hotels.
At Second Reading and again this evening, noble Lords raised the potential impact of the ORN on taxis. I assure noble Lords that taxis will, like any other vehicle, be able to use the vast majority of the ORN, but they will not be able to use the Games lanes when they are in operation. During their operating hours, Games lanes will be well used by Games family traffic, and if taxis were added to this mix it would be impossible to guarantee journey times for the Games family. But the vast majority of the lanes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, made clear, will be fully usable by taxis.
In line with the overarching aim of seeking to minimise, as much as possible, any adverse impact at Games time, I assure the Committee that we are working closely with the industry on the detailed plans for individual sections of the ORN to plan pick-up and drop-off points and to mitigate, where practicable, the impact of other planned access and turn restrictions. Transport for London is currently reviewing all such suspended turns on the network and examining the impact on traffic flows and journey times before making recommendations for each turn. Transport for London has already agreed to lift a number of such restrictions for taxis and will continue to meet regularly, every month, with representatives of the taxi trade in the run-up to the Games, because we recognise the very important part that taxis will play when we have so many visitors here in London. More widely, information packs are being put together for all taxi and private hire drivers, which will cover the ORN, venues and other details about the Games, ensuring that drivers can operate effectively and make the most of the opportunities that the Games offer.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, I can confirm that LOCOG is undertaking detailed planning of the transport arrangements at each venue, which I think I referred to earlier. I think that I have also covered the point on the pedestrian closures, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, referred, and the planned road closures and other traffic measures. The process is expected to be completed by spring next year, when the details should be very readily and widely available.
There were questions on the increase of transport, and my noble friend Lady Doocey mentioned the concern about the numbers that have been mentioned. Under normal conditions, there are 23.8 million trips per day in London, on the figures that I have here, and up to 3 million additional trips in London on the busiest day of the Games, with more than 600,000 people travelling to the Olympic Games on the busiest day. So we will need to reduce non-Olympic demand by approximately 30 per cent to ensure that London can keep moving, although there will need to be large reductions at specific stations and on specific lines, and that scale of reduction has been achieved at previous Games.
One other aspect of that, which was raised just recently, is the anticipation that the standard tourist traffic is likely to reduce during Games time. Concern has been expressed by people in the hospitality sector that, although the traffic coming to the Games will increase, they will lose on the other side people who come for normal tourist activities at that time of year. So there may be some balancing out of the numbers in the city, but we all recognise what an incredibly busy city London is and that there will undoubtedly be pressures on all the methods of transport during the time of the Games.
I hope that I have been able to assure noble Lords that their very reasonable concerns and the issues that have been raised in the course of this debate are under active consideration and the plans of the ORN’s operation are being developed and communicated. Once again, the need for clear communication has been raised by a number of noble Lords. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel free to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville
My Lords, I did not interrupt my noble friend the Minister during her speech because I did not want to break her continuity. I have now remembered the question that I wanted to ask; it enables me also to express pleasure in the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Coe, that the name Mandeville was selected as one of the celebrities associated with the Games. On the strength of Mandeville having been included, I paid my first pilgrimage to Much Wenlock earlier this year in order to learn about the Olympian Games in the 19th century.
I have a question for the Minister, who I do not think made any reference to this issue in her response and, therefore, it is possible that it was not a question that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked. The Newspaper Society, in addition to all the other what I would call games-related issues, is concerned about what will happen to newspaper deliveries in terms of haulage transport during the Games. The question about which there was concern is, if there are going to be last-minute road closures, it is vital that postcode data relating to road closures are communicated on a website as soon as they are known. It is really a case of whether they will all be done on the same website, which would make matters much simpler from the point of view of anyone relying on that data.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am not sure that I can entirely answer the noble Lord and I will have to come back to him on that specific point. Obviously, it will be part of the whole parcel of communication which will go to all the different people involved in ensuring that London keeps moving and that the Games operate as successfully and smoothly as we want.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I thank everyone who participated in this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her ability to spin across into Transport for London issues, which was very helpful, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, whose contribution brought the practicalities of London very much to the forefront.
I am left with three or four points that it might be worth sharing with the Committee. We are dealing with a road transport system in London that is already pretty fragile and anything that one does to it is bound to have a major impact. It used to be said that if you wanted to bring London to a standstill you simply had to put one man and a digger somewhere in Soho: it had such an effect in terms of road traffic that it could close the whole of the city, which may still be true. I know that attempts are going to be made to make sure that there are no road repairs during the period about which we are talking. But, even so, it is a fragile arrangement.
Given that it is fragile, the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, are quite worrying. I know that the Minister tried to give us some gloss on those figures. If the bid book was wrong and the figures were underestimated, what are the correct figures? Would it be possible—not in this debate—for her to write to the noble Baroness and me to give us a linkage back to the bid book, to what the figures should have been if they were wrong and to what the figures will be on the best possible estimates? I am intrigued by the idea that somehow there has to be a reduction of 30 per cent in current use. How will that be achieved? Are we saying that more measures than have currently been discussed will have to be brought out? Are we going to say to people that they will have to take rolling holidays? I can see some advantage in that. Again, I do not need a response today, but it would be useful to have some sense of how that will happen.
My worry is that we may have the best Games possible and that they will be incredibly successful, but that the price we will pay will be a significant dip in GDP, which we perhaps had not anticipated, because people are not able to get to work or they decide to take the line of least resistance and not go into work on the days when the Games are happening. I am being frivolous, but at the heart of this there are problems.
The points on which I am still a little concerned are that the river will be used only for events happening at Greenwich—it seems to me that the river could be utilised much better in terms of providing ancillary transport from a river stopping point, perhaps near Canary Wharf, to the Games, which would save all the central London movement—and the issue about black cabs. Again, I could not quite make out what was being said.
The ORN is a physical mark on a map and can be measured. It is said to be 109 miles in length. Clearly when it is not being used for Olympic purposes, it can be used for ordinary transport, but the feeling has come across, whether it is right or not, that black cabs will not be allowed to go on to the network at all, and that is what is causing the problem. If it is clear that they can, we are back to our old friend communication.
These are going to be brilliant Games, but we must get people on side. We must get them to support them. We need to start communicating better about the transport issues because they are definitely going to continue. The Minister gave us a lot of detail about the consultations going ahead, which was generally very comforting, but there is a difference between consultations about particular closures in particular places and general broad communication about what is happening. I still think that there is room for much more on the latter point, even though the former point will take much of the load. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
Deleting Clause 9 would remove a provision added in the other place to permit last-minute changes to goods vehicles operator’s licences. It allows traffic commissioners temporarily to suspend or amend licence conditions regulating the hours of operation of goods vehicle operating centres without the need to carry out a consultation. The provision applies in the period leading up to, during and immediately after the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games. It ensures that businesses in London can continue to receive goods deliveries in Games time and permits freight operators to rearrange deliveries to comply with Games restrictions without breaching their licence conditions.
If I thought that it was difficult to raise the media profile of the ORN, it is even more of a challenge to do so for freight deliveries. The temporary provision is necessary to ensure that freight deliveries continue to take place in central London. It might not be immediately obvious, but they are crucial to the success of the Games. Many goods vehicles licences held by freight operators include an environmental restriction that constrains hours of operation and additional night-time deliveries may be necessary. While it is important to encourage businesses to think about Games times, it has been a real challenge to encourage companies to think nine or 10 months ahead. Some companies are not in a position to do that, especially single traders or the man with a white van. That is one of the realities that we face with this.
We need to ensure that those people are not penalised. It is also important that traffic commissioners are able to deal with late requests effectively and to protect the needs of those residents who will otherwise be affected by operators breaking their licence conditions. I do not believe that it should be a permanent change, but it is necessary for Games time.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for raising these issues and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her helpful response in relation to this clause. As we have heard, the context for this clause is the impact on Londoners’ day-to-day lives that the Games and the Games operations will have, and the challenges, as well as opportunities, that businesses, employees and the general public need to plan ahead for.
Transport for London is leading an extensive travel demand management programme to help people plan ahead and to influence the pattern of transport demand. In particular, through its travel advice to the business programme, which started last November, it is helping businesses to start considering now how they will operate during the Olympic and Paralympic Games period to minimise the impact of travel disruption on their operations.
Transport for London is talking to businesses of all sizes to help them plan for the Games and is advising businesses that they may need to consider reducing travel or changing to another mode, re-timing or re-routing journeys to ensure that they can not only keep on running efficiently but benefit from the opportunities that the Games will bring.
To support this wider programme of encouraging businesses to plan for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, TfL argued in evidence to the Public Bill Committee in another place, that in order to ensure that businesses in London can continue to receive goods deliveries and that operators can arrange delivery times that are compliant with Games-time restrictions, amendments to goods vehicles legislation are required. This clause therefore addresses TfL's concerns by bringing forward a small number of essentially technical amendments.
To set some context, operator licences are granted by traffic commissioners, who are independent office holders statutorily appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport. One matter that a traffic commissioner is required to consider when granting a licence is the suitability of the operating centre where vehicles will be usually kept. Under the current process, on applying for an operator's licence, or on seeking a variation to their licence, an operator must advertise their application in a local newspaper. In addition, traffic commissioners publish all applications received in a document called Applications and Decisions.
There is an existing process by which operators may apply to vary the conditions of their licence, and traffic commissioners are planning to communicate early with all operators with environmental conditions that restrict their hours of operation to ask whether they wish to seek, under the current application procedures, a change in their route, hours or days of operation, if it is likely that they will be affected by the Olympics. In most cases, the Government would expect operators to plan for this eventuality and seek a variation via the normal procedures. Traffic commissioners plan to write to those operators who have environmental licence conditions reminding them of the need to consider this, so a number of different forms of communication will be used to ensure that people are aware of what they need to do and how they can continue to operate.
However, despite such preparatory steps, the Government believe that there will be some operators who, due to unforeseen circumstances such as the award of a short-term haulage contract, or a short-notice change to an existing contract, will need to seek a relaxation of their environmental licence conditions very shortly before the start of the Olympics period. Government intervention is therefore necessary to ensure that, in such exceptional circumstances, operators can apply at short notice for a relaxation of their hours of operation, so that they can continue to make deliveries in areas affected by traffic restrictions during the Olympics period.
Baroness Doocey
My Lords, I should like to take the opportunity to draw your Lordships’ attention to the good work done by Kate Hoey on sporting legacy and the mayor’s sporting legacy programme. For example, to date, £10.2 million has been invested, with £21 million of match funding, secured, which, in these economic times, is a superb achievement. All credit to the work that she and her team have been doing on this.
Included in this programme are the facilities investment programme under which 38 projects have been funded to provide either new facilities or refurbishment or upgrade of existing facilities; 6,000 training places have been funded for coaches and officials, in particular for disability sports; and 33 projects have been funded under the participation programme—from BMX to dance to rugby. Freesport gives out around 300 grants of up to £1,500 each year to small sports clubs or community groups, where the money is used to provide free sports coaching sessions to Londoners. Every year more than 17,000 Londoners receive at least six hours of free coaching through this programme.
The work that has been done is particularly relevant to those communities which find it difficult to get funding. Kate Hoey and her team have drawn together everyone in sport. They have got them around a table so that disparate decisions are not being made about funding something here and something there. There is a clear, logical plan as to what is needed where so that we do not end up with a borough that, for example, has got very good boxing facilities suddenly finding that some company has come in to set up another boxing ring. Those facilities will be channelled into boroughs that need them, which is a very helpful start. Of course, much more work needs to be done, but if she can raise £21 million for a £10 million investment, it bodes very well for the legacy of sport and the Olympics.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling this amendment on the important issue of the Olympic and Paralympic legacy and for the contributions from my noble friends Lord Addington and Lady Doocey and the noble Baronesses, Lady Ford and Lady Grey-Thompson. I will come back to some of the points they raised in a moment.
Legacy was critical to the UK’s bid for the Games. It has been fully integrated into planning for the Games under the previous Administration and since May 2010. In December 2010, the Government published a comprehensive legacy plan in which we set out full details of our legacy objectives.
Before I say a few words about the specific legacy issues to which the amendment refers, I should like to deal with the requirement to report to Parliament. I suggest that the amendment is not necessary. Since May 2010, following the practice of the previous Administration, the Secretary of State has reported regularly to Parliament on progress with the 2012 Games legacy in the following ways: in the Government Olympic Executive’s quarterly economic reports and annual reports, which I am quite sure are bedtime reading for all noble Lords; in reports against the Government’s legacy plans; and in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s corporate plan. Following the Games, we expect government departments delivering particular aspects of the legacy to report to Parliament in the usual way, including through Select Committees. The National Audit Office will also continue to issue reports giving its assessment on progress with the Games.
It will also be important to make sure that we fully capture the wider impact of the Games and the legacy programmes supporting them after the event. That is why we have commissioned an independent metaevaluation of the Games legacy which will provide an assessment of impacts, benefits and value for money. This will take account of more detailed work on individual programmes, including the Cultural Olympiad and the international inspiration programme. An interim metaevaluation will be published in autumn 2012 with the final evaluation due by summer 2013. In addition, Members of both Houses have sought and can continue to seek debates on matters relating to the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, including delivering the legacy.
I now turn to the specific legacy issues referred to in the amendment. The first is the sporting legacy of the Games. We are determined to get more people playing sport. Some sports are consistently performing, and this should be recognised. Sport England recently awarded additional funding of £3.5 million to reward successful work from netball, cycling, running, canoeing and lacrosse so that those sports can continue to drive up participation. We have emphasised to sports governing bodies that we expect concrete results in return for government investment. Sport England has recently reduced funding for certain sports—basketball, rugby football union, rugby football league and England Golf Partnership—in the light of disappointing participation figures.
I pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Addington about government not being responsible for everything. We need these initiatives to come from other bodies. We have already introduced a schools Games, Sport England has a £136 million lottery-funded legacy programme in place and we are reviewing with Sport England how to increase the number of young people playing sport. I hope that responds in some way to the question asked by noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, about what is happening with that. I commend the programme that my noble friend Lady Doocey spoke about and the inspirational work done by Kate Hoey and her team. I also pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about disability sport being an area where we hope there will be a significant legacy from these Games.
In our legacy plan last December we set out details of two major new sports legacy programmes: a new schools Games programme to increase competitive sports opportunities for young people through a voluntary scheme aimed to encourage schools to invest in extending opportunities to all children and not just the most sporty. Eight thousand schools have already signed up. We also have the places people play programme, a £135 million lottery investment to strengthen grassroots sport with more than 1,000 improved local sports clubs and facilities, the nation’s playing fields protected and 40,000 new community sports leaders—
Lord Coe
I do not really want to delay the Committee or your Lordships for long but I felt this was possibly the right moment, particularly in the discussion about sports participation, to make an obvious point which I have made before in the Chamber. It is that the organising committee—LOCOG—is ostensibly a privately funded organisation. While we do not have direct responsibility for legacy in all its manifestations it is worth remembering that in our ability to deliver the Games, we have ostensibly to raise all our money from the private sector. We have done so with the support and largesse of world-class British businesses; some 44 of them have come to the table, making a contribution of £700 million towards that effort. That is not the main point I wanted to make. The main point is that while they bring that spend to the table, which allows us to deliver the Games, they also activate their sponsorships around any number of these ambitions. In sport, they have of course been very active in driving participation.
It is not just about the response from the public sector, the Government, the Minister or the mayor, important as those are to the delivery of a sporting legacy. It is also worth remembering, for instance, that Lloyds Banking Group has already created local heroes, which is a fund for supporting networks of competitors and their support teams. National School Sport Week was a Lloyds-funded programme while by the time we get to 2012, Adidas will have completed 51 inner-city play zones. Across that piece, those companies have probably accounted for an increase of about 750,000 young people who are involved in sport through their sponsorships and activation programmes, while across the broader health-related fitness piece those partners have probably accounted for nearly 6 million people being involved in health and related fitness. I felt it was important to put on record the value that our private sponsorship has brought, not only to the funding of the Games but to our broader legacy ambitions.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am most grateful to my noble friend for those positive stories of what is going on across the country in that field. We are obviously grateful to the sponsors from the private sector that are enabling such great developments to take place. Perhaps I might move on to the Cultural Olympiad, which was also raised. As the finale of the Cultural Olympiad, the London 2012 festival will be a 12-week UK-wide cultural celebration running from Midsummer’s Day, 21 June 2012, until the last day of the London 2012 Paralympic Games on 9 September. The festival will provide an outstanding summer of arts and creativity in the UK. LOCOG has, of course, already raised around £97 million for the Cultural Olympiad as well. Across the UK, 431 cultural projects have received the Inspire mark, raised around £52 million in self-funding themselves and attracted to culture around 6 million people across the UK, so the outreach of both the cultural and sporting legacy is quite significant.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, set out in far more detail than I could what is happening with the Olympic stadium. We are aware that the stadium will now be developed in line with giving the commitments that the IAAF wishes, in support of the bid to host the World Athletics Championship in 2017. The importance of retaining the athletics track has been demonstrated in support for that bid alone. On the wider Olympic park legacy, the Government have provided the building blocks by constructing five world-class sporting venues and 2,800 new homes in the athletes’ village and by investing in major utilities, transport and environmental improvements. All this activity is inspiring a raft of new private developments and accelerating the delivery of existing schemes in the surrounding areas. The Olympic Park Legacy Company is responsible for the transformation of the park site after the Games and is currently on track to secure legacy uses for all the permanent venues before the Games. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, in carrying forward the legacy for the Games site.
I hope I have been able to assure noble Lords that the Government regard the legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games as being of the utmost importance, and that we will continue to keep Parliament informed on a regular basis about the delivery of the legacy. I hope that, with that, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, I would like to support the words of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I apologise to him, as I took his amendment to mean non-competing athletes as opposed to athletes who will have access to their own venues at Games time. I thank him because it is really important to remember disabled people when we talk about events such as this. At previous Games I do not think that there has been an awful lot of understanding about the needs of disabled spectators. For example, when I went to the Barcelona Olympics to watch my fellow Welsh compatriot Colin Jackson compete in the 110 metres final, I had a superb seat, right on the finish line—the ticket was free and I thought that all my dreams had come together. But what they did not take into account was that as soon as the gun went off everybody stood up and I saw absolutely nothing, not even the replay on the screens. It was about three weeks later, when I got home from the Paralympics, that I got to watch it on VHS.
I was involved in the bid and I have declared my work on a number of sub-committees of LOCOG. I really thought at the start that my job would be to sit there and constantly say, “What about the Paralympics?”. I am very pleased that I have never had to do that. One committee that I sit on is the diversity and inclusion committee. It is perhaps unfortunate that some of the work that it does is unseen by the wider public in terms of the number of disabled people now employed at LOCOG and who are Games makers and will be volunteers at Games time. It is important that we see disabled people in the park act as volunteers, and that everyone else can come in and see.
The noble Lord, Lord Coe, has covered most of what I wanted to say, but I wanted to say that the Changing Places toilets are incredibly important to a number of disabled people who have higher or complex needs. They have beds and hoists. There is a superb example in Lower Waiting, if any the noble Lord would like to go and have a look at it. I will not talk any more about toilets at this point, but it is something that is changing the face of how disabled people are treated in venues—and I hope that that will carry on to other sporting events, Olympics and Paralympic Games.
Finally, again as a spectator, the fact that at the Games the seating is scattered around venues in different price points is fantastic, because there is nothing worse for wheelchair users all to be stuck in one box in a really bad space where you cannot see anything—but that is where “you lot” go. I am really pleased to say that that definitely has not happened with London 2012.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Addington for tabling this amendment, because I warmly welcome the opportunity that we have had to debate this important matter. It is particularly heartening to hear the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who is an inspiring role model for disability sport and has done so much to raise the profile of the Paralympic Games.
When we bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we promised to make them everyone's Games. Accessibility and inclusion has been an integral part of the planning for the Games from the very outset, and it continues to be at the heart of everything that LOCOG and the rest of the London 2012 family does, as we have heard so eloquently from my noble friend Lord Coe.
London 2012 is the first Games that has brought the organisation of the Olympics and Paralympics fully together. We are aiming to go further than any previous host city to hold the most accessible Olympic Games and Paralympic Games ever. Most of what I was going to say has already been outlined by my noble friend Lord Coe and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It is significant that LOCOG appointed an accessibility manager specifically to ensure that the needs of disabled people are addressed, and it has spoken to a broad range of disability groups. LOCOG has not adopted a one-size-fits-all model, but is tailoring services and products, including tickets, to the differing needs of different disabled spectators. Right from the beginning, LOCOG has integrated accessibility into the ticketing website, which has allowed visually impaired people to buy tickets using a screen reader or other assistive technology without having to call a separate phone number.