London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 3rd October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, when I looked at this Bill my initial thought was that it contained nothing that we had not looked at before or discussed a good few years ago when we were preparing for the submission of the bid. Therefore, I admit to asking myself why we have to do this again. As I understand it, the Bill is basically a tidying up exercise concerning the removal of infringing articles in Clause 1, the regulation of parliamentary procedure and public notice and the increase in the fine for touting. These matters have been talked about and are part of an ongoing discussion.

I understand that touting is the resale of a ticket for excessive profit. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to hand on a ticket or exchange money for its face value. It would reassure the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, if the Minister could confirm that that is the case. I suspect that the fears he mentioned are groundless but it is good that he raises them so that everybody knows they are groundless. All the tickets for the forthcoming Olympics have been sold due to the huge demand for them. We can safely say that no good deed goes unpunished. I am slightly narked that I did not get all the tickets for which I applied, but I am not alone in that. It is important to ensure that tickets can be transferred between friends, family and groups. I encourage my noble friend to make that situation as clear as possible on as many occasions as possible so that people are not frightened about this. If somebody breaks their leg and cannot get to the Games, they should feel free to hand on their tickets to somebody else and obtain a refund of their value. Such a measure would enhance the whole procedure of the Games and would keep the touts out. If tickets are not made available to them, they cannot sell them.

We discussed traffic problems in those heady early days when there was a more relaxed atmosphere, possibly because we thought that we might not win. I think there was an element of that involved, to be perfectly honest. Everybody asked whether the traffic problem would not be slightly awkward. I have heard that even one or two noble Lords on my own Benches are not totally satisfied with this process. If we seek to clarify what is required and why, that will help because at least people will know why they are being inconvenienced. Let us not pretend that you can have something like the Olympics without inconveniencing people. Whether that inconvenience is proportionate is the question, not the fact that it occurs—in my opinion, anyway.

I will probably not be the only person to raise one or two questions about the Olympic movement as a whole and what comes after it. We have learnt from our failures. I have described the process of getting the Olympics as brilliantly dull. There have been no great disasters. We have got things ready on time and we are waiting for something to go wrong. Indeed, there must be lots of journalists who have written lots of articles about disasters who are annoyed that congratulations are due to all those involved. That is a good thing. But that is the Olympic movement itself. The whole structure of government must have a long look at everything else that was supposed to come with it. At the moment, it appears that we have been overoptimistic about encouraging participation in sport as a result of the Olympics. If that turns out to be true, I would hope that the Government will look at why that occurred. This is an international piece of legislation and those who come after us should take some benefit from it and learn what can and what cannot be achieved. We should also learn about what can and what cannot be achieved. We will have the legacy of what happened, the idea of how to have a second go if we have the will.

I hope that the Government and all those who backed the bid politically will take on board that we must look at what has happened and what we have achieved. There is a huge danger that we will say, “Right, that was done”, in just under one year’s time, collapse in a heap and forget about it. That is a perfectly normal reaction when you have gone through something big and exciting—there is a hangover, almost, afterwards. If we allow ourselves to just forget about it, we will not be able to carry it on. There will, we hope, be more big sporting events as a result of a successful Olympics in this country. The Glasgow Commonwealth Games will be the first, and there should be more to follow it. Unless we can take on board the lessons not only of what we got right but of what we got wrong, we will have wasted one of the biggest legacies. What will succeed and what will not? I am hopeful about the Cultural Olympiad, having been very sceptical on its inception. We must look at what has and what has not happened. If we do not, we will throw out probably one of the greatest benefits we may gain: up-to-date knowledge to apply before it becomes historical fact.