London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

The hon. Lady makes the point well. The best thing I can do is offer her a guarantee that I will bring her remarks to the attention of the Mayor. It might be sensible for her to write to him as well, but I can certainly give her that assurance.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I have often resisted intervening on issues relating to the London taxi industry, but on this occasion I cannot. It is the only fleet of transport vehicles in London that is fully accessible to disabled people. It is an essential part of making it easy for people with disabilities to get to the Olympic site. When the Minister is discussing that with the Mayor, would he please emphasise that point and perhaps allow those vehicles carrying people with a blue badge or some form of identification that shows they are registered disabled to enter the Olympic priority network?

[Hugh Robertson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is a point well made. As he knows, it is international Paralympic day today—there is not always a direct correlation with the term and I know that people do not always like it. One of the commitments made at the time of the bid was to make this the most disabled-enabled games ever. This country, of course, is the home of the Paralympic movement. It is absolutely our intention to do everything possible to make the experience for disabled people attending both the Olympic and Paralympic games as easy and pleasurable as possible. The hon. Gentleman’s point about the London taxi fleet was well made. I agree with him entirely and will certainly raise it with the Mayor.

I will finish by thanking the right hon. Lady not only for her new clause, but for the spirit with which she tabled it. I absolutely agree with the thinking behind it. Indeed, had we been having this debate 19 months ago I would probably have done exactly what she has done today.

I hope that in my remarks I have been able to reassure the right hon. Lady that we will do everything possible. As I have said, certainly in the House, not least because all Members receive constituency postbags, we are all aware of the potential for the situation to cause very considerable unease, anger and disappointment at games time. We gave a commitment at the time of the bid, and we must carry it out, but it is absolutely vital that it is carried out in a common-sense and, dare I say it, minimalistic way, so that the impact on an already very busy and congested city is kept as small as possible. I hope that with that reassurance she will feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw her new clause.

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[Clive Efford]

I was a Greenwich councillor when we first had the idea to redevelop the local peninsula, which eventually led to the building of the Greenwich dome. Without these iconic projects and without public money—people often forget that we got a lot of investment from Europe to decontaminate the site at north Greenwich—it is sometimes impossible to regenerate very expensive contaminated sites. However, once we take the brave decision, as we did in east London and in Greenwich, the regeneration takes place, and we now have one of the most iconic entertainment centres in Europe.

[Mr Field]

I accept that, although in many ways the hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. There was a sense in the immediate aftermath of 1 January 2000 that that area was going to be a white elephant and it was the private sector, in the form of the group belonging to Philip Anschutz, which had the vision to drive that area forward that made a difference. But it took some years for that to fall into place, which is why we need to keep an eagle eye on exactly what happens on the Olympic site from next September to ensure that 2013, 2014 and 2015 are not wasted years. They need to be years when we ensure the continued improvement of that site to make it an attractive place to live and work, and, potentially, an entertainment destination site well beyond that for West Ham United fans. One hopes that it will also be used for other athletics events and perhaps as a large-scale entertainment site, given the transport links in place.

I wish briefly to discuss the elements of the Bill that have been debated, about which I have expressed some of my reservations. We have had a useful debate about policing. This is a matter for not only the Metropolitan police, but the intelligences services, which are playing a huge role in this field and will continue to do so. One should not underestimate that in the context of the security implications of these Olympics. Equally, as my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, we could learn from elements of previous London Olympiads, particularly the 1948 games—the austerity Olympics. We are living in a time of greater austerity and one hopes that some of those lessons for a cost-effective games can also be learned.

I have publicly expressed my concerns about some of the issues to do with the large number of people who will be transported from the hotels in Park lane in my constituency to the Olympic village and the fundamental impact that that will have on traffic during late July and August next year. One accepts that for Heads of State and leading individuals there are, of course, security implications and they will need to be ferried in such a way, but it seems that many thousands of people will be getting this sort of treatment—a whole lot of hangers-on in the IOC and the sponsors. I would like to see the Minister playing a role in trying to pare down that number to the basic minimum that takes account of security implications.