Basketball (Funding)

Debate between Hugh Robertson and Lindsay Hoyle

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I am terribly sorry, but I cannot let the hon. Lady get away with saying that it is easier to win a gold medal at rowing or sailing than it is for basketball. [Interruption.] She did definitely say that we should not fund sports that are easier to get a medal in. She should see the sheer exertion that young men and women go through to win a rowing gold medal—they are up at six o’clock every morning, day in, day out. I appreciate her concerns, but it is unfair to run down other sports on the back of them. She did say that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We are in danger of straying off the point. The debate is purely about funding for basketball. I understand that there will be examples, but I think we have taken the example a little bit beyond where we should be. I am sure that the hon. Lady will come right back on the subject of funding for basketball.

London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Hugh Robertson and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this we may take Lords amendments 2 and 3.

[Hugh Robertson]

The amendments address a technical concern raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place.

Hon. Members will recall that the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 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, when we debated it earlier this year, would have amended the 2006 Act to provide that advertising and trading regulations, apart from the first set, could be made via the negative resolution procedure.

The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in its report of 14 October, accepted the need to amend the 2006 Act to facilitate the amendment of the regulations via the quicker negative resolution procedure.

London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Hugh Robertson and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 8th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 2, in clause 1, at end insert—

‘( ) In section 21 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 (offence of contravening advertising regulations), omit subsection (4).’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment 2.

[Hugh Robertson]

I think everybody will be relieved to know that these are two minor and very technical amendments—I see nods all around the Chamber at that.

Amendment 1 repeals a redundant provision in the 2006 Act. Section 21(4) provides that a person convicted of contravening the advertising regulations may be ordered to pay the ODA’s or the police’s reasonable enforcement expenses. The provision is redundant, because other sections of the Act—sections 22(9) and 28(7)—already allow the ODA and the police to recover their enforcement costs from people who contravene the advertising and trading regulations.

Amendment 2 amends the advertising and trading provisions as they apply in Scotland, so that they remain largely as operated by the 2006 Act but more closely follow the model of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games Act 2008. The amendment has been requested by the Scottish Government, who consulted the police and prosecuting authorities in Scotland.

Although the amendments will result in a small and technical variation in the operation of the advertising and trading provisions in Scotland as opposed to England and Wales, they are not likely to cause significant differences in practice. Indeed, I hope that all hon. Members recognise that Scotland’s legal system is different from the one in England and Wales.

Amendment 1 agreed to.

Amendment made: 2, page 6, line 15, leave out subsections (9) and (10) and insert—

‘(9) In section 37 of that Act (Scotland), omit—

(a) subsection (6), and

(b) subsection (11).

(10) At the end of that section insert—

“(12) In section 22, subsection (6) has effect as if there were substituted for it—

(6) An article that is held by a constable (having been removed by or delivered to the constable) shall be returned when retention is no longer justified by a matter specified in subsection (5)(a) to (c), unless—

(a) in the case of a perishable article, the article has ceased to be usable for trade, or

(b) the court orders the article to be forfeited under Part 2 of the Proceeds of Crime (Scotland) Act 1995.

(6A) Subject to subsection (6), the article shall be treated as if acquired by the constable in the course of the investigation of an offence.

(6B) An article that is held by an enforcement officer (having been removed by or delivered to the officer) shall be dealt with in accordance with sections 31A to 31E.”

(13) In section 28, subsection (4) has effect as if there were substituted for it—

“(4) An article that is held by a constable (having been removed by or delivered to the constable) shall be returned when retention is no longer justified by a matter specified in subsection (2)(a) to (c), unless—

(a) in the case of a perishable article, the article has ceased to be usable for trade, or

(b) the court orders the article to be forfeited under Part 2 of the Proceeds of Crime (Scotland) Act 1995.

(4A) Subject to subsection (4), the article shall be treated as if acquired by the constable in the course of the investigation of an offence.

(4B) An article that is held by an enforcement officer (having been removed by or delivered to the officer) shall be dealt with in accordance with sections 31A to 31E.”

(14) In sections 31A, 31B and 31D, the references to a magistrates’ court are to be read as if they were references to the sheriff.

(15) Section 31A has effect as if—

(a) in subsection (4), “before the end of the relevant period” and “at the end of that period” were omitted,

(b) in subsections (5) and (6), “before the end of the relevant period” were omitted,

(c) in subsection (6), in paragraph (b), for “section 143 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000” there were substituted “Part 2 of the Proceeds of Crime (Scotland) Act 1995”,

(d) in that subsection, paragraph (c) were omitted,

(e) in subsection (8), “or (6)(c)” were omitted, and

(f) subsection (10) were omitted.

(16) Section 31E has effect as if subsections (5) to (10) were omitted.”’.—(Hugh Robertson.)

Clause 9

Commencement and duration, extent and application, and short title

Amendments made: 3, page 14, line 34, in clause 9, leave out ‘8’ and insert ‘[Goods vehicle operator licences]’.

Amendment 4, page 15, line 1, leave out ‘and 2’ and insert—

‘, 2 and [Goods vehicle operator licences]’.—(Hugh Robertson.)

Third Reading

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Robertson]

May I give my hon. Friend some reassurance on this point, because it is very dangerous if the idea he alludes to is allowed to take root? There is absolutely no chance of our being left with white elephants on the park after the Olympic games. The single biggest frustration in my life at the moment is that two London premier league football clubs and one in a lower league are competing to take over the stadiums after the games. That represents an entirely different situation from those in Beijing, Athens and Sydney. The aquatics centre, wonderfully designed by Zaha Hadid, will provide an Olympic-sized swimming pool in a part of London that has simply never had one before. We have just concluded an amazing deal, at more than half a billion pounds, to sell off the private sector part of the athletes village. The public sector part has already been sold to Triathlon Homes. The velodrome, probably the most iconic building on the park—we did not spot that at the beginning—will become a new home for British cycling, which is one of our most successful sports.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I understand that the Minister wants to get his points on the record, but we have to be careful here. He is making an intervention, not a speech.

[Hugh Robertson]

I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I offended you, and I absolutely take the point you make. I shall simply say that the broadcast media centre is out for contract at the moment and there is fantastic interest. We have the largest new urban park in Europe and a half-a-billion-pound shopping centre. This is a pretty convincing package.

London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Hugh Robertson and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 28th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I am going to take this only so far, as this has been a consensual debate thus far and I do not want change that. I am absolutely prepared to take criticism from the hon. Lady about this if she will tell me what she would have cut from the sports budget had that not been done.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I have allowed latitude but I do not want us to get into a political row. This has been a good debate so far and I am sure that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) will think about how her speech is going to continue.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I did not intend to expand on that point, but if I had responded, without your intervention, Mr Deputy Speaker, it would have been only to say that such decisions were above my pay grade.

I want to place on record my praise for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games and the Olympic Delivery Authority for the excellent way in which the preparations for the games are coming together. It would also be remiss of me not to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) again on the integral role that she has played in securing the games. The fact that we have them here in the UK in the first place is one of her greatest achievements. We talk about legacies, and that is her legacy to the country from her time as the Olympics Minister.

As we have heard, this week saw the close of the application process for the tickets. I had planned to apply for tickets but then decided that I would wait and test out the resale forum that the right hon. Member for Bath was just asking for more details about. I am interested in seeing how that works, and hon. Members might be aware why I am so interested in that issue. I believe that that mechanism could be rolled out to tackle ticket touting across the board for all major sporting, cultural and live entertainment events, as I suggested on Second Reading of my Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill. I am sure that the Minister and other hon. Members will not be surprised that it is on the subject of ticket touting, and therefore clause 3 of the Bill, that I wish to concentrate my comments today.

I agree wholeheartedly with the provision to increase the fine for those prosecuted under section 31 of the 2006 Act. I know from my own meetings with officers from Operation Podium that touts caused serious problems at the Beijing games, and it is absolutely right that the Government and the police should do everything within their power to ensure that the same does not happen here. As I told the House on Second Reading of my Bill in January, those officers from Operation Podium told me, when I met them to discuss my Bill, that a fine of £5,000 would be seen as an occupational hazard by the real hard core of touts, particularly as it is possible to make that much profit or more on a single ticket to one of the premium sessions, such as the opening or closing ceremony.

The right hon. Member for Bath has mentioned Wimbledon, which happens every year but for which debenture tickets have been known to sell at mark-ups of £10,000 each. The Olympics takes place every four years, but it is not in the UK every four years or even every 40 years, so for many of our constituents, even the relatively well-off ones, being able to go to them is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It would therefore be no surprise whatever to see tickets going at astronomical mark-ups. That prompts the question that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) asked—whether even a £20,000 fine would be seen as nothing more than an inconvenience to some of the hardcore, criminal, organised touts. However, I understand that Ministers have to draw the line somewhere, and I am fairly confident that £20,000 is sufficient to deter the touts at the bottom of the pyramid—the kind of chancers who might ordinarily get half a dozen tickets to a gig to sell on. I hope that when big operators are caught, the prosecution will assess the offence as a lifestyle crime and claw back more substantial amounts of money by using the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that issue in his closing remarks.

The next key part of the drive to stamp out touts from the Olympics is to remove their market as far as possible. By that I mean making sure the public know that tickets they buy from anywhere other than the official website—and, from next year, I believe, the official resale or exchange forum—have been sold to them illegally. For many, although not all, this will serve to change their attitude to buying from a tout. Of course, the task of changing attitudes might be difficult, because touting for almost every other form of live entertainment, as we heard in response to the right hon. Member for Bath, is still allowed and condoned by this Government—as it was, it must be said, by the previous Government. Indeed, some Opposition Members came along to the Second Reading of my private Member’s Bill to say that they thought ticket touting was a classic case of the free market in action and that touts were nothing more than entrepreneurs. It is good to know that the spirit of Baroness Thatcher is still unashamedly alive on the Tory Back Benches, but it makes one wonder whether the Minister might have a small Back-Bench rebellion on his hands today.

However, I notice that some of my main adversaries during the debate on my private Member’s Bill are not present today. Perhaps the Minister has already neutered their free-market tendencies—I hope that they are recovering well. Presumably, they might say that Olympic tickets are indistinct from tickets to a 200-capacity U2 gig, and are an asset to be traded like any other. Either way, I am pleased that the amendment is being made today and that touting’s parasitical nature and criminality are being taken seriously by both the police and the Minister.

During the course of the conversations that the Secretary of State and his ministerial colleagues will have had with police and officers on the inclusion of clause 3 in this Bill, I hope that they will have been sufficiently convinced of the egregious nature of ticket touting to engage with me now and look for ways of ensuring that fans of other sporting and live entertainment events will enjoy similar protection. After all, Ministers must have been very convinced by the evidence presented to them, as we have already heard.

A Home Office press notice on 10 March stated, in a direct quote from the Home Secretary:

“The focus of the government and everyone involved is to deliver a safe and secure Olympic and Paralympic Games that London, the UK and the world can enjoy. It will not be spoiled by ticket touts.”

That is great, and I could not agree more. Allowing touting, either by not legislating or by not enforcing that legislation, would be hugely detrimental to ordinary fans who want to get along to the games. We know that because we can see how detrimental it is every night of the week in towns and cities up and down the country to fans who want to go to gigs, matches, festivals and shows.

In the Home Office press release, Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison, the national Olympic security co-ordinator, stated:

“We do not want our Games blighted by touts....Touts are part of organised criminal networks, often involved in other crimes, and we are committed to dismantling them layer by layer.”

The Minister intervened on the right hon. Member for Bath to say that that relates in particular to the Olympic games, but I have been presented with evidence showing that those criminal networks are not only set up to take advantage of the Olympic games, but that they already exist and are taking advantage every time a bout of tickets goes on sale.