Baroness Garden of Frognal
Main Page: Baroness Garden of Frognal (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Baroness Garden of Frognal
That this House takes note of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, 2012 is a very special year for Britain with three historic events to look forward to: first, the Diamond Jubilee, bringing the nation together to celebrate the 60-year reign of Her Majesty the Queen, the second-longest-serving monarch in British history; secondly, the London 2012 Festival, the UK’s largest ever festival of arts, culture and creativity, which will run throughout the summer with artists joining us from all over the world; and, thirdly, the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The greatest show on earth is coming to the UK. London is making history by becoming the first city ever to host the modern Games for a third time—1908, 1948 and 2012. With the arrival of the Olympic flame over the weekend, the countdown to an extraordinary period for the country has well and truly begun.
We want London 2012 to be an outstanding Games that enhances our global reputation. We also want it to be a Games for everyone, with opportunities for people to join in the spirit of celebrations wherever they live, whatever their age and whatever their interests. Nowhere is this better reflected than in the torch relay, which will visit more than a thousand cities, towns and villages across all four nations. The Olympic flame will come within 10 miles of 95% of the population, while giving us a chance to showcase the people and places that make Britain great. The coming weeks will provide an extraordinary advertisement for the different regions and nations of the UK, and we want to maximise the tourism benefits as much as possible.
Of course, the arrival of the torch also focuses our minds on how close the Games themselves are. With fewer than 70 days until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and with exactly 100 days until the Paralympics begin, I am pleased to say that our preparations for the Games are in a very good place.
I should like to give your Lordships an update on four key areas of preparation. The first is around the construction and planning of the event. Anyone who has visited east London cannot fail to see the transformation of the skyline across the Lee valley. A series of iconic new sporting venues is complete, such as the Olympic stadium, the striking aquatic centre, the velodrome, the Copper Box, Eton Manor and the Lee Valley White Water Canoe Centre which have already successfully hosted world-class test events. The quality and timeliness of our preparations have been recognised by the International Olympic Committee which has praised our efforts on each of a succession of inspection visits. The Olympic and Paralympic programme remains on time and on budget. Of the original £9.3 billion, around £500 million remains as uncommitted contingency. The big build has been finished and the Olympic delivery authority has delivered more than £900 million-worth of savings. These savings have allowed us to meet other essential Games needs without breaking the overall £9.3 billion envelope.
The ODA’s efforts represent a great advertisement for the British construction industry which is now winning other major contracts. It’s excellent health and safety record has set new standards for the industry and its recruitment and training initiatives, such as the Women into Construction project have broken new ground. LOCOG has been very successful in raising the money it needs from the private sector despite the difficult economic conditions. LOCOG has secured in excess of £1 billion from international sponsors, broadcast rights holders and domestic sponsors and has generated unprecedented ticket demand both for the Olympics and Paralympics. More than 7 million tickets have been sold so far, setting the scene for full venues at Games time and a wonderful atmosphere for the competing athletes.
The second area is safety and security. Our priority is to deliver a safe and secure Games for all and we have adopted a no-compromise approach to safety and security. The UK has an excellent record of policing major events, and the Games will be no exception. However, the Olympics and Paralympics are first and foremost a celebration of sport. While the Government will ensure that this celebration is safe and secure for participants and visitors, the security response will be proportionate and in keeping with the culture and spirit of the Games. We are keen to strike the right balance between the celebration of the Games and the need to keep everyone safe.
The third area is transport. The £6.5 billion transport infrastructure improvements leveraged by the Games will be of long-term benefit to everybody. The key elements have been delivered before the Games have begun, including major infrastructure improvements to build capacity across rail and London Underground. Examples are: £125 million upgrade to Stratford regional station which has trebled the station’s capacity. We are expecting some 120,000 people to be using the station at peak times. There is also the extension of the North London Line and improvements to the Docklands Light Railway. There is a new high speed domestic rail service from Kent to Stratford International station, which opened in December 2009 and the enhancement of 75 kilometres of east London’s cycle routes as a result of £10 million investment by the ODA.
Fourthly, I turn to the legacy of Games. This above all, as the IOC has recognised, marks London 2012 as different from previous Games. The physical legacy is impressive. The athletes’ village will provide more than 2,800 homes, 35% of which will be affordable housing. The new £1.43 billion privately funded Westfield shopping centre opened in Stratford in September 2011, providing 10,000 jobs. It had more than 1 million visitors in the first fortnight after opening. Six out of eight permanent venues on the park have had their future secured beyond the Games. No previous host city has come close to this. Legacy operators for the other two permanent venues—the Olympic stadium and the international broadcast centre and main press centre—are being actively sought. Plans for the future of the park, led by the London Legacy Development Corporation under the stewardship of the mayor, are going well, and we look forward to hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, on these matters.
Five world-class permanent sporting venues—the Olympic stadium, the aquatics centre, the velodrome, the Copper Box, and Eton Manor—will provide community facilities as well as being used for elite sport. There will be a wider economic legacy for the entire UK. The Olympic Delivery Authority alone has awarded £6 billion-worth of contracts to build and supply the Games to over 1,500 suppliers. Over 98% are UK-based companies, half of them based outside London. Many more companies have won work in the supply chains of the ODA.
Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games will provide a unique opportunity for the UK to showcase the best of its manufacturing sector, innovation and creativity, and to attract new visitors, investment and export. The British Business Embassy at Lancaster House will showcase the UK as an outstanding global investment destination and a springboard for global growth. The programme of events which they are hosting includes a Global Investment Conference and a series of sector-specific days, aimed at elite overseas businesses, along with UK businesses with innovative products and services to export, on an invitation-only basis. The Embassy includes the “Imagine: Great Ideas Made Real” digital showcase to challenge perceptions of the UK and demonstrate its creative and innovative strengths.
This year also presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the tourism industry in the UK. The “GREAT” campaign seeks to stress the excellence of our culture, heritage, sport, and shopping and of the holiday experience in Britain. We want to reinvigorate our appeal in important markets where we have seen decline, such as the United States, and to build our brand image in vital emerging markets like Brazil, India and China.
We want to ensure our tourism industry remains one of the largest in the world. In addition to attracting inward tourism, we want to encourage our domestic tourism offer to thrive and to promote the staycation effect. VisitEngland is asking tourism businesses to give visitors another reason to stay in the UK by encouraging them to offer 20.12% off and other great offers. This means 20.12% off accommodation stays, meals, and other experiences. Offers and deals could include three nights for the price of two, or two-for-one entry at attractions. I fear the mathematicians among us will realise that those particular discounts do not entirely reflect a 20.12% discount, but they will understand the spirit of these offers.
Lord Cormack
I am sure everybody would welcome the discounts, but would it not also be a good thing to discourage selling of the torch flames?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, that may well be the case, but the torches are actually the property of the people running, and I do not think the Government could get directly involved in that.
As part of the 2012 legacy, we also wish to reverse the decline in sports participation. The Government launched a new youth sport strategy on 10 January with £1 billion of lottery and Exchequer funding. This will mean a much greater focus on young people, particularly 14 to 25 year-olds, and this strategy aims to deliver: consistent growth in sports participation in the 14 to 25 age range and across the adult population; an excellent sporting experience to keep people playing sport; high quality talent development to create a better talent pool and help those with real potential to make the grade; and a growth in participation by people who have disabilities, including the most talented.
The School Games is the Government’s new framework for competitive school sport. It is a key strategy for creating a meaningful sporting legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and to increase the number of pupils participating in competitive sport. More than half the schools in England—around 13,000—have signed up, including primary, secondary, special and independent schools. The UK and Brazil, which will host the next summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016, have jointly written to the IOC and to the International Paralympic Committee to ask them to encourage future bidders for the Olympic and Paralympic Games and Youth Olympic Games to have in place a competition structure similar to that of the School Games.
The International Inspiration initiative is delivering on the promise made by my noble friend Lord Coe in Singapore in 2005 to,
“reach young people all over the world and connect them to the inspirational power of the Games, so they are inspired to choose sport”.
The programme develops a series of activities tailored to each country’s needs, to introduce a more systematic approach to delivering sport in school and community settings for all age groups, based on practices that have been successful in the UK. To date, more than 12 million young people in 20 countries have been reached through the International Inspiration programme. Since 2007, the programme has helped train 100,000 teachers, coaches and young leaders. Thanks to the phenomenal efforts of my noble friend Lord Bates, the Olympic Truce has a much higher profile than in previous Games. We look forward to hearing more from him about support for the Truce.
We are not complacent and recognise that challenges still lie ahead in 2012. For example, during the course of the Games we will be hosting 26 simultaneous world championships; converting for the Paralympics and then hosting another 20 events; and coping with millions of extra journeys on our transport systems. However, the omens are good for us to deliver a safe, successful and memorable Olympic and Paralympic Games, with legacy benefits for the whole country.
Before I close, I should note that the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, withdrew her name from the speakers list out of courtesy to the House because, with 100 days to go to the Paralympics, she was unable to stay for the whole debate. On behalf of the House, I thank her for observing that courtesy and express appreciation for all her achievements and for her work on the Paralympics, and assure her that she will always be welcome to raise any matter, either inside or outside the Chamber.
The Government acknowledge the work of the previous Administration in the planning and organisation of the Games. We are grateful for the cross-party support in the work that has still to be done, and for the healthy scrutiny from your Lordships, particularly given the levels of Olympic and Paralympic expertise that we have in the House. I look forward to hearing all contributions in the debate, and to the UK delivering a Games of which we can all be proud.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank noble Lords very much for their contributions to this debate. One of the wonders of a debate such as this in your Lordships’ House is that many, if not all, of the questions that Members have asked seemed to have been answered by those with far more expertise in the various subjects than I have, but I will do my best to pick up the questions as they came up.
The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, asked about suppliers. The answer from my noble friend Lord Moynihan has gone some way to respond to his queries, if not to satisfy him. The contracts for suppliers permit specific mention of their involvement with the Olympic and Paralympic Games in particular cases, but it is for the major sponsors to have exclusivity over rights, because without those we would not be able to put on the Games as we wished. I acknowledge that his story about a flaming torch breakfast seems to be taking these things somewhat to extremes. However, who are we to say what the context is and where you draw the line on these? We feel that sponsors’ rights have to be protected, which is of course an obligation under the terms of the agreement with the International Olympic Committee, both because of that and against ambush marketing. That is quite a comprehensive sector, which we debated when it came through earlier in your Lordships’ House and when we passed the instrument to say that it should go through.
My noble friend Lord Addington talked about the protection of the Olympic brand and the real importance of learning lessons from what has gone right and what has not gone quite so smoothly in these Games, from which we will quite certainly take away a number of lessons. It is not that we are likely to host the Olympics and Paralympics in the UK again for a great many years to come, but all these lessons go back to the Olympic family as a whole to make sure that all Games learn from previous ones.
One or two noble Lords mentioned the matter of tickets. There was an unprecedented demand for tickets, which had never happened in previous Games. The systems that LOCOG set up would have coped if the interest had been as the media predicted in fairly cynical terms. It has obviously been a disappointment for those who did not get tickets, although they have been coming back on sale. I have already heard a number of stories of people who were not successful the first time around but who now have tickets. We hope that that position continues to improve. I enjoyed the intervention by my noble friend Lord Grade. I suppose we can only be grateful that the Prime Minister of the day was convinced that the bid should go ahead.
My noble friend Lord Higgins spoke of his Olympic experiences, and my goodness it seems a different day. I noticed that “Chariots of Fire” is currently on my local theatre and I am about to go for a nostalgic review of that. However, the Olympics of the 1940s were run and competed in a very different mode from the Olympics of today. The big change from amateur to professional has been one key difference. He raised the matter of drugs, a matter which my noble friend Lord Moynihan also took up. We should confirm the very tough line that is being taken on drugs here, because undoubtedly sports and sportspeople suffer tremendously if drugs become permitted, whatever the sport.
My noble friend asked what happens if people arrived with tickets that they cannot use. I do not currently have an answer to that scenario. I know that we have already discussed whether people could use tickets if their names were not on them. The response was that the person who bought the tickets has overall responsibility for them, but obviously they may be used by those who do not appear on the named tickets.
As for protestors, everyone has the right to protest and nothing that is being planned for the Games will curtail the right to legitimate peaceful protest, but that does not extend to disrupting the Games or their preparations. We certainly do not want to undermine years of dedicated training by those competing, or ruin the enjoyment of fans who have paid to see their sporting heroes in action, so we expect that the response to protests will be proportionate.
My noble friend Lord Higgins also mentioned the legacy of the athletics stadium. We are of course encouraged to know that the athletics legacy will certainly continue until 2017, because the stadium will be used when we host the world athletics championships there.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, spoke about the legacy. I join other noble Lords in paying warm tribute to the work that she has done to ensure that the Olympic park is indeed a real credit to the country once it has completed its sporting time during the Olympic and Paralympics. She mentioned the importance of not pricing local people out of access or homes. My noble friend Lady Doocey also brought up concerns about local people being excluded from those. Considerable steps are being taken to ensure that the number of affordable homes in the Olympic park remains high. We hope that it will not become the preserve of the rich, because assurances are in place that local people will have their say. We congratulate the noble Baroness on what she has done and are sure that we have not seen the last of her in connection with Olympic matters, but she may act in a more personal capacity in future. We welcome Daniel Moylan, who will be carrying the torch in the post that the noble Baroness has vacated.
My noble friend Lord Bates lived up to expectations by talking warmly about the Olympic Truce being the point of the ancient Games and the torch relay heralding the fellowship and peace of the truce. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is leading on this and we will certainly seek to work with parliamentarians and bodies such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the Commonwealth and others to ensure that through an active public diplomacy programme we have an opportunity to increase international public interest and involvement in conflict prevention and peacebuilding and to raise the level of ambition for future Olympic Truces. My noble friend has done an enormous amount to put the Olympic Truce high on the agenda of the Games.
I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, on all the work that he did in the previous Administration to ensure the success of the Olympics and Paralympics, and I was pleased to see him reflecting optimism in his speech. He raised concerns about faith issues, which I know my noble friend Lord James shares. Four years ago, LOCOG set up a faith reference group that includes the nine faiths recognised by the IOC: Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i and Zoroastrian. This group has looked at all aspects of the plans, including the multifaith centres, prayer spaces, food provision, uniform design, quiet areas and accommodation, not only for athletes but for the workforce, volunteers, media and spectators, where appropriate.
We are conscious that with the Games taking place during Ramadan and on the 40th anniversary of the Munich attacks this multifaith approach has been crucial. LOCOG’s faith adviser, the Reverend Canon Duncan Green, who was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, has led this work, but LOCOG has also worked closely with the Muslim Council of Britain and its general-secretary Dr Muhammad Bari, so I hope noble Lords are reassured on this issue. It has been taken extremely seriously, and I assure the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and other noble Lords that considerable efforts have been made by LOCOG to ensure that the needs of faith communities have been addressed appropriately and respectfully.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, mentioned Heathrow, which has been overmuch in the news recently with its possible inability to cope. The UK Border Force, BAA, LOCOG and other partners are working very closely together to ensure that visitors have a good experience at the airport and a warm welcome to the UK. We recognise that there is some way to go in ensuring that that is the case for everyone who comes here. Additional resources will be deployed by the UK Border Force to reduce queues to a minimum. BAA is providing a temporary terminal for the athletes’ departure, which will be one of Heathrow’s busiest days, and putting improved services in place to help Paralympic teams, which should provide a real legacy for disabled visitors afterwards. We are conscious of the need for cross-departmental conversations and discussions on this. The Home Office is quite naturally concerned that levels of security should be high for the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games but is also conscious that visitors must be given a warm welcome to our country.
My noble friend Lady Doocey has done an enormous amount to contribute to the Games. I think particularly of the work that she has done on carers and on ensuring that people who need someone to come with them to the Games should be accompanied. She paid tribute to the security staff. I agree that we are in the best possible hands. The people working on security for us have worked enormously hard to try to ensure that all goes well.
My noble friend Lady Doocey mentioned transport, as did other noble Lords. We certainly hope that our lanes do not become Zil lanes. We are keeping the lanes that are reserved for the Olympic family to a minimum, and taking every possible care so that London can go about its normal business as far as possible.
My noble friend also raised concerns about tickets for officials. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Graham, talk about the hard work of local councils around the Games. I am conscious that there are allocated tickets for officials. However, the Government have kept their allocation to fewer tickets than they were entitled to. On affordability, 2.5 million tickets were priced at £20 or less. There were special prices for tickets for more than 220 sessions. Getting the balance right between having the right level of hosting and people to support the Games and making sure that the vast majority of the tickets were on sale to the general public has been striven for. By and large, LOCOG has got the appropriate balance. I think 8.8 million tickets were on sale. It is an enormous number. The proportion going to the Government and officials is relatively small.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan talked about the British businesses that would benefit from the Games. I accept that there is a difference of opinion between him and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, on this.
Lord Haskel
There is absolutely no difference between the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and me. He spoke about the benefit that those businesses will get in the future, when the rights return to the British Olympic committee. I was asking about allowing British companies to use the Olympic Games as a shop window today. It is not about bread tomorrow; I was talking about bread today.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I hear what the noble Lord says. It is important to the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic family that they should be very protective of the branding of Olympic and Paralympic goods and services. Part of the contract that businesses signed set out in some detail where they could refer to their involvement in the Olympics. However, one of the other aspects is that officials in BIS and businesspeople throughout the country will use the Olympics as a showcase for British business. Therefore, even if they cannot stick an Olympic brand on their goods, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to meet the international community and build their businesses. We will certainly look for results from that.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan referred to doping, which I have already mentioned. We all agree with him about how tough it is to compete. The figures that he gave about the microscopic differences between those who won gold and silver medals just shows us all how intense the competition is for the athletes.
When the noble Lord, Lord Graham, spoke, I could not help thinking that if the trial for Newcastle boys had only gone differently, we might not have had the benefit of his wisdom in this House over the years. Perhaps we should grateful for some things.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth
The preparation has clearly gone better than anyone could have expected, bit in the round of very well earned bouquets that have been dished out because of what we hope will be an enormous success, there is a slight omission. Through the National Lottery, Camelot has contributed more than £2 billion to the Games—and I declare an interest as a former chairman of Camelot. Even more importantly, the revenue that it has created, which has sustained many British sports men and women between the Games, has been transformational for the medal tables since it came on-stream. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Camelot?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am most grateful to my noble friend for that jog. I have no hesitation in joining him in thanking Camelot for its enormous contribution to the athletes and the Games. My noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint was hoping to speak. Family circumstances meant that she was unable to be here for the opening speeches. Conscious of the rules and courtesies of the House, she took her name from the list. We appreciate her compliance in this matter. Her contributions are always most welcome and we look forward to hearing her speak on future occasions.
I was delighted to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, say what a cause for celebration the Games were and I warmly applaud the positive aspects of her speech. She mentioned her disappointment at the change in school sports policy when the coalition Government came in. I can only assure her that we have been working closely with schools to reverse the decline in sports participation. Under the new sports strategy, as I set out in my opening speech, there will be a particular focus on 14 to 25 year-olds. We are very aware that the interest and participation in sport of most young people severely declines when they leave school. We are working with clubs and schools to ensure continuity when young people move from school to adulthood. A great deal of effort is going on to talk to all parties to ensure that we have sport in all schools and not, as she said, just in independent schools, which would be of grave concern to us.
The noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, also mentioned sustainability. We are committed to setting new standards for sustainability in terms of the building and the staging of these events. The London Games are going further than most major events have ever gone in the commitment to reducing carbon emissions. We are confident that we will be able to deliver on an ambition of sustainability for these Games in modern times.
There are fewer than 70 days until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. London is on track for a great Games. The project is on time and on budget. Test events and readiness exercises are taking place. Our wonderful world-ranking athletes are in training and I think that we would all wish to pay tribute to the hours of dedication to their sport which they demonstrate. We may see just the final moments but behind that their effort is truly inspirational. Like my noble friend Lord Addington, the other day I was at a Sainsbury’s reception and I have been at other receptions meeting Paralympic athletes. If we think that our Olympic athletes are inspirational, we have to have the same view of our Paralympic athletes. They are quite unbelievable in their dedication and efforts to achieve world-ranking standards in their sports.
I make no apology for repeating the remark from Jacques Rogge and the IOC at their final inspection in March, already quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, which hailed London 2012 as “a legacy blueprint” for future host cities. This is a fantastic achievement of which we can rightly be proud. I also pay tribute to all those who have contributed. In your Lordships’ House, we have the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, and my noble friends Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan, who have been very instrumental, and others who have had an enormous impact on the building and delivery of the Games. We owe them all an enormous debt of gratitude.
The official broadcasters will be the BBC for the Olympic Games and Channel 4 for the Paralympic Games. I do not doubt that those of us who cannot be there will be glued to our sets. These Games are a once-in-a-generation opportunity to showcase the UK to a massive international audience. Along with Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, this summer will show the world what we as a nation can do. The overriding message from what we have heard today is that we can all look forward to a tremendous summer of sport and celebration, and to a wonderful, lasting legacy for London and the rest of the UK. We all wish our athletes every possible success.