Olympic Games 2012: London Air Quality

Lord Davies of Coity Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I obviously failed to explain properly to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that there is very little chance indeed of us being fined by the International Olympic Committee. We could be fined only if an event could not take place for any reason—for instance, if there was far too much pollution to run a marathon—or there was some non-compliance with the contract. Both those conditions are extremely unlikely to arise.

[Lord Davies of Coity]

My Lords, in answer to an earlier question the Minister said that we are all responsible. Is that not a case of the Government again passing the buck?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we are certainly not passing the buck. We have helped the mayor with a £5 million grant to deal with some of the technical issues; for instance, fitting particulate traps to London buses to deal with some the PM10 hotspots that I talked about earlier.