Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012: Olympic Truce

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend for his enthusiasm and persistence in ensuring that the possibilities for an Olympic Truce are not overlooked. He will be aware that the UN resolution will not be drafted until January, and the Government will welcome proposals and ideas, including those along the lines that he suggested, which could be incorporated in the resolution. As for international peace proposals, we are of course dependent on other countries to help us to make any headway there.

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, have the Government thought about whether they might want to extend the idea of the Olympic Truce to all other major sporting events, or at least have some occasion when we might discuss things outside sport when we are having a sporting event?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend makes a valid point. The core of the Olympic Truce was to promote the Olympic ideals, to use sport to help promote dialogue and reconciliation, especially between nations in conflict. We could perhaps look at future sporting events to see how that could be applied to, say, Rugby League, football and various other World Cups and world events.