Lord Coe
Main Page: Lord Coe (Conservative - Life peer)London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill
Lord Coe Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Higgins
My Lords, my concern is not so much on the issue of organised criminal gangs. I think that we all recognise that serious penalties need to be imposed in that regard. But I am not clear exactly what the situation is in this clause as it stands. Is it the case that, if people who have a ticket that they cannot use simply stand outside the stadium and sell the ticket, they will be committing an offence? As I understand it, the crucial issue is whether the ticket is sold above its face value. Perhaps if Section 31(1)(b) of the Act, concerning selling a ticket,
“otherwise than in accordance with a written authorisation issued by the London Organising Committee”,
was amended on Report so as to read instead, “and above face value”, that would overcome the problem facing people in the circumstances that I have just described. People who have a ticket that they cannot use would not find themselves suddenly open to a fine of £20,000.
Lord Coe
My Lords, if it may be helpful for the purpose of the Committee, on the point that my noble friend Lord Higgins made, in the early part of next year we will identify a ticket exchange system that will allow somebody who may be in that position not to feel the need to stand outside a venue, if for any reason they cannot use that ticket. I will be very happy to brief your Lordships on that system at the time. There will be an organising committee structure through which they can resell that ticket or hand it on in exchange at face value.
Lord Higgins
I am most grateful to my noble friend. If at the last minute people find that they cannot use the tickets—if someone is ill or whatever—will there be a facility at the stadium itself so that they can go and say, “I would like to resell this ticket”? I suppose that might be somewhat similar to the arrangements for Wimbledon.
Lord Higgins
Again, I am grateful to my noble friend. Would it be all that difficult to have a system in which the box office can take tickets that are surplus? The danger, otherwise, is that we get empty seats, which we do not want to see. I do not ask my noble friend to respond now, but what I have proposed would seem to overcome this problem. Otherwise, we will potentially be imposing pretty substantial penalties on people who are engaging in a perfectly normal exercise of trying to ensure that tickets of which they cannot take advantage are used—and we want them to be used.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, I declare an interest in that I sit on several sub-committees of the organising committee for London 2012.
At the moment, I am not convinced that it is appropriate for the Government to be amending the terms and conditions of ticket sales, although it is important that those questions are asked. From my personal Games experience, it is vital that LOCOG remains in control and that it has the ability to refuse entry. The reality is that the vast majority of people will pass through security into the park with no problem whatsoever. I think we would all welcome further communication when the tickets are formally released to the public. When they get their tickets in hand, there is greater understanding of what they are able to do.
If your Lordships look at the option for resale, however, it is incredibly positive. The only Games that have done it before are the Vancouver Winter Olympics. It has not been done by a summer Games and certainly not by a Paralympics, so the opportunity to offer resale and make sure that we have the seats filled to give the best possible experience to the athletes is really welcome. I also expect that LOCOG would be sensible in the implementation of this, to ensure that all the tickets get to the right people.
Lord Coe
Prompted by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I should have declared an interest in my previous observations as the chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
If the Committee is comfortable, perhaps I may cluster my observations around the three amendments. I shall deal with the immediate questions of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. Will the name be on the ticket? Yes. Is ID required? It is, but it can be a driving licence or a credit card with which you made the original application for the ticket. If you are ill, are you able to hand that ticket on? Yes, you will be able to hand it on to friends and family. That is fine. Picking up on the question of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, I can confirm that it is perfectly acceptable for the purchaser of the tickets not to be present when those to whom he has given the tickets enter the Games.
Perhaps I may put some practicality into this. I accept the observations on both sides of the Committee Room today about the need always to take the public with us, and for them to understand properly the guidance notes. I make the point that in the initial ticket application very detailed guidance was given, but I absolutely accept that we need to take the ticket-purchasing public through that process. As I mentioned a few moments ago, shortly there will be a ticket resale portal in place—probably post Christmas—which will be a good opportunity. Then we have what we describe, for all our client groups, as the journey to the Games, in about June. However, I recognise that we need good communications in place from this point on so that the public understand that the purchaser does not need to be there when, for example, their four children go into the Games.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, was right about the need for proportionality, as we want the ability to investigate suspicious activity. That will be the tip of the £11 million ticket iceberg that we are trying to move through the venues during the Games. Testing is really important and, yes, our volunteers and security teams will be completely practised in getting people in and out of the venues as quickly as possible, in understanding the implications of suspicious behaviour and in being able to prosecute any such behaviour in a sensible way.
On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, I make three points about transfer. There is massive scope for confusion if we are not careful. First, there is the issue of a handling charge for the reissuing of a ticket. There is also the issue of administrative confusion, because we would obviously need to ensure the safe and secure delivery of tickets. Clearly, a destroyed ticket would need to be reissued, and reissued in the name of the purchaser.
The broader point here is very important. This is not a one-off football match. I do not need to rehearse that argument. We have 26 simultaneous world championships taking place over 16 days. Our ability to control the system and to squeeze out the potential for ticket touting is important. We want this to be the greatest show on earth, not the greatest scam on earth. It is important for us to be proportionate. We are very clear that the purchaser does not need to be present and that those tickets can be handed on within a family without fear of prosecution. It is very important that we do not lose control of the system because the reputational damage of this descending into a tout’s charter is serious and goes way beyond this country's ability to deliver the Games.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, if I might intervene just for a moment, I think that we are all looking for a solution to these problems. Would it be feasible to say that the people coming with the tickets have to produce the credit card used to purchase them? That would at any rate give a pretty good assurance that it has not been sold from a ticket tout. I leave that idea with my noble friend.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling this amendment on the important issue of the Olympic and Paralympic legacy and for the contributions from my noble friends Lord Addington and Lady Doocey and the noble Baronesses, Lady Ford and Lady Grey-Thompson. I will come back to some of the points they raised in a moment.
Legacy was critical to the UK’s bid for the Games. It has been fully integrated into planning for the Games under the previous Administration and since May 2010. In December 2010, the Government published a comprehensive legacy plan in which we set out full details of our legacy objectives.
Before I say a few words about the specific legacy issues to which the amendment refers, I should like to deal with the requirement to report to Parliament. I suggest that the amendment is not necessary. Since May 2010, following the practice of the previous Administration, the Secretary of State has reported regularly to Parliament on progress with the 2012 Games legacy in the following ways: in the Government Olympic Executive’s quarterly economic reports and annual reports, which I am quite sure are bedtime reading for all noble Lords; in reports against the Government’s legacy plans; and in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s corporate plan. Following the Games, we expect government departments delivering particular aspects of the legacy to report to Parliament in the usual way, including through Select Committees. The National Audit Office will also continue to issue reports giving its assessment on progress with the Games.
It will also be important to make sure that we fully capture the wider impact of the Games and the legacy programmes supporting them after the event. That is why we have commissioned an independent metaevaluation of the Games legacy which will provide an assessment of impacts, benefits and value for money. This will take account of more detailed work on individual programmes, including the Cultural Olympiad and the international inspiration programme. An interim metaevaluation will be published in autumn 2012 with the final evaluation due by summer 2013. In addition, Members of both Houses have sought and can continue to seek debates on matters relating to the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, including delivering the legacy.
I now turn to the specific legacy issues referred to in the amendment. The first is the sporting legacy of the Games. We are determined to get more people playing sport. Some sports are consistently performing, and this should be recognised. Sport England recently awarded additional funding of £3.5 million to reward successful work from netball, cycling, running, canoeing and lacrosse so that those sports can continue to drive up participation. We have emphasised to sports governing bodies that we expect concrete results in return for government investment. Sport England has recently reduced funding for certain sports—basketball, rugby football union, rugby football league and England Golf Partnership—in the light of disappointing participation figures.
I pick up the point made by my noble friend Lord Addington about government not being responsible for everything. We need these initiatives to come from other bodies. We have already introduced a schools Games, Sport England has a £136 million lottery-funded legacy programme in place and we are reviewing with Sport England how to increase the number of young people playing sport. I hope that responds in some way to the question asked by noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, about what is happening with that. I commend the programme that my noble friend Lady Doocey spoke about and the inspirational work done by Kate Hoey and her team. I also pick up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about disability sport being an area where we hope there will be a significant legacy from these Games.
In our legacy plan last December we set out details of two major new sports legacy programmes: a new schools Games programme to increase competitive sports opportunities for young people through a voluntary scheme aimed to encourage schools to invest in extending opportunities to all children and not just the most sporty. Eight thousand schools have already signed up. We also have the places people play programme, a £135 million lottery investment to strengthen grassroots sport with more than 1,000 improved local sports clubs and facilities, the nation’s playing fields protected and 40,000 new community sports leaders—
Lord Coe
I do not really want to delay the Committee or your Lordships for long but I felt this was possibly the right moment, particularly in the discussion about sports participation, to make an obvious point which I have made before in the Chamber. It is that the organising committee—LOCOG—is ostensibly a privately funded organisation. While we do not have direct responsibility for legacy in all its manifestations it is worth remembering that in our ability to deliver the Games, we have ostensibly to raise all our money from the private sector. We have done so with the support and largesse of world-class British businesses; some 44 of them have come to the table, making a contribution of £700 million towards that effort. That is not the main point I wanted to make. The main point is that while they bring that spend to the table, which allows us to deliver the Games, they also activate their sponsorships around any number of these ambitions. In sport, they have of course been very active in driving participation.
It is not just about the response from the public sector, the Government, the Minister or the mayor, important as those are to the delivery of a sporting legacy. It is also worth remembering, for instance, that Lloyds Banking Group has already created local heroes, which is a fund for supporting networks of competitors and their support teams. National School Sport Week was a Lloyds-funded programme while by the time we get to 2012, Adidas will have completed 51 inner-city play zones. Across that piece, those companies have probably accounted for an increase of about 750,000 young people who are involved in sport through their sponsorships and activation programmes, while across the broader health-related fitness piece those partners have probably accounted for nearly 6 million people being involved in health and related fitness. I felt it was important to put on record the value that our private sponsorship has brought, not only to the funding of the Games but to our broader legacy ambitions.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am most grateful to my noble friend for those positive stories of what is going on across the country in that field. We are obviously grateful to the sponsors from the private sector that are enabling such great developments to take place. Perhaps I might move on to the Cultural Olympiad, which was also raised. As the finale of the Cultural Olympiad, the London 2012 festival will be a 12-week UK-wide cultural celebration running from Midsummer’s Day, 21 June 2012, until the last day of the London 2012 Paralympic Games on 9 September. The festival will provide an outstanding summer of arts and creativity in the UK. LOCOG has, of course, already raised around £97 million for the Cultural Olympiad as well. Across the UK, 431 cultural projects have received the Inspire mark, raised around £52 million in self-funding themselves and attracted to culture around 6 million people across the UK, so the outreach of both the cultural and sporting legacy is quite significant.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, set out in far more detail than I could what is happening with the Olympic stadium. We are aware that the stadium will now be developed in line with giving the commitments that the IAAF wishes, in support of the bid to host the World Athletics Championship in 2017. The importance of retaining the athletics track has been demonstrated in support for that bid alone. On the wider Olympic park legacy, the Government have provided the building blocks by constructing five world-class sporting venues and 2,800 new homes in the athletes’ village and by investing in major utilities, transport and environmental improvements. All this activity is inspiring a raft of new private developments and accelerating the delivery of existing schemes in the surrounding areas. The Olympic Park Legacy Company is responsible for the transformation of the park site after the Games and is currently on track to secure legacy uses for all the permanent venues before the Games. I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, in carrying forward the legacy for the Games site.
I hope I have been able to assure noble Lords that the Government regard the legacy of the Olympic and Paralympic Games as being of the utmost importance, and that we will continue to keep Parliament informed on a regular basis about the delivery of the legacy. I hope that, with that, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Addington
My Lords, when it comes to the last amendment of this short Committee stage, I assure you that I will not delay you very long. This amendment is primarily the result of a conversation with some people from wheelchair basketball, who are concerned that they would not be able to go and see their own sport. This problem was raised with me, and because we can table probing amendments to ask for clarification, I thought that a bit of reassurance might help.
One of the great successes—and I could have said this in the previous amendment—is that disability sport has risen to a higher pitch in the build-up to these Olympics than ever before and has reached a level of consciousness greater than ever before. Wheelchair basketball has an iconic place within the Paralympic Games, probably akin to ice hockey in the Winter Olympics. It is that great team event within the Paralympics. No sport captures that fully in the able-bodied Olympics. The people I met were worried that they might not be able to see it live because there might not be enough seats for them. I hope that they are worrying about nothing. I beg to move.
Lord Coe
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for his observations and couple that with my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for her work in this area.
On a broader point, one of the legacies that we seek from the Paralympic Games is our ability to challenge public attitudes in this country to disability. From broader conversations within the Paralympic movement and with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I think that we are fast approaching that point in disability sport where we may have to start redefining it. When you go into a school with Paralympians and have them explain to the so-called able-bodied children that somebody with one leg is scaling the door frame in their classroom and then explaining that probably 99.9 per cent of the population is not able to get within a country mile of that feat, we have a broader issue to discuss. Transforming public attitudes to disability through the Paralympic Games was clearly one of our key legacies.
I want to address specifically some of the practical issues that have been raised. Of course, we all want those people living with disability to have an extraordinary Games experience. We already have 9,000 wheelchair spaces available. They have been sold and those include 9,000 flip-down companion seats. We have an initiative that is partly funded through the private sector, because we place a levy on prestige tickets that allows us to create tickets for key groups such as school children. One of those groups comes under the broader title of Ticket Care, which allows us to provide a free ticket for somebody who is in need of intensive support during that Games experience.
So far, we have 300 Ticket Care tickets funded through the organising committee. As I said, they are aimed at people with high dependencies, so there are 300 carers going to the Games. Some 23,000 tickets have been sold with additional access requirements—seats with the fewest steps and those placed at the end of gangways and rows for fuller accessibility.
To put that into perspective, you can compare that with premiership football grounds. I have two examples. Arsenal’s ground has a capacity of 60,000 seats and there are 275 wheelchair spaces. Manchester United has a stadium that holds 70,000 with 200 wheelchair spaces. Both those clubs have detailed policies and are very aware of accessibility and related issues, so if you look at accessibility for a sell-out session in track and field or any of the venues that you have talked about, I think we are doing pretty well.
We of course have all the other related support systems such as blue badging, extra accessible toilets for disabled spectators and changing places at all our 36 venues, including hoists so that those with special needs can change with dignity.
One of the issues that has been raised with me when I have been wearing any number of hats as a competitor and somebody who is now vice-president of an international federation is that all too often people with visual impairments rely on the rather one-dimensional commentary on the PA. We are working on technology to allow a more informative commentary and a more descriptive process.
Of course, those with hearing impairment seats will be directly in the line of play and nearer the field of play. So there are a number of things that we are doing, and we take this very seriously. It is absolutely enshrined in our commitment to deliver a Paralympic Games.
I make this point time and again: I am chair of both organising committees. We see no distinction. My chief executive is chief executive of the Olympic Games and of the Paralympic Games. It is absolutely vital that we deliver this in a seamless, integrated way. They are different—they have a different spirit—but in terms of service levels and commitment to delivery, we are absolutely at one on this. We are the first Games to have appointed a director of Paralympic integration, Chris Holmes, who is blind and, with the exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, probably our most bemedalled Paralympian in the history of Paralympic sport in this country. So I assure the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that this is something that we take extraordinarily seriously, and thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for keeping us always on our toes on this issue.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, I would like to support the words of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I apologise to him, as I took his amendment to mean non-competing athletes as opposed to athletes who will have access to their own venues at Games time. I thank him because it is really important to remember disabled people when we talk about events such as this. At previous Games I do not think that there has been an awful lot of understanding about the needs of disabled spectators. For example, when I went to the Barcelona Olympics to watch my fellow Welsh compatriot Colin Jackson compete in the 110 metres final, I had a superb seat, right on the finish line—the ticket was free and I thought that all my dreams had come together. But what they did not take into account was that as soon as the gun went off everybody stood up and I saw absolutely nothing, not even the replay on the screens. It was about three weeks later, when I got home from the Paralympics, that I got to watch it on VHS.
I was involved in the bid and I have declared my work on a number of sub-committees of LOCOG. I really thought at the start that my job would be to sit there and constantly say, “What about the Paralympics?”. I am very pleased that I have never had to do that. One committee that I sit on is the diversity and inclusion committee. It is perhaps unfortunate that some of the work that it does is unseen by the wider public in terms of the number of disabled people now employed at LOCOG and who are Games makers and will be volunteers at Games time. It is important that we see disabled people in the park act as volunteers, and that everyone else can come in and see.
The noble Lord, Lord Coe, has covered most of what I wanted to say, but I wanted to say that the Changing Places toilets are incredibly important to a number of disabled people who have higher or complex needs. They have beds and hoists. There is a superb example in Lower Waiting, if any the noble Lord would like to go and have a look at it. I will not talk any more about toilets at this point, but it is something that is changing the face of how disabled people are treated in venues—and I hope that that will carry on to other sporting events, Olympics and Paralympic Games.
Finally, again as a spectator, the fact that at the Games the seating is scattered around venues in different price points is fantastic, because there is nothing worse for wheelchair users all to be stuck in one box in a really bad space where you cannot see anything—but that is where “you lot” go. I am really pleased to say that that definitely has not happened with London 2012.