Olympics and Paralympics (Funding)

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

My hon. Friend makes a good point in indicating the benefits to his area. One of the challenges, which we have spent some time considering, is how the benefits of our hosting the games can be felt outside London, as the whole country should gain from it. His example of what is happening in Medway is a good illustration of that.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

Returning to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), does the Chairman of the Select Committee agree that spending roughly £80 million on a total of four major events—two opening and two closing ceremonies—will be seen by 4 billion people around the world as good value for money? Is he aware that Martin Sorrell has said that were we to pay for that sort of advertising, it would cost £5 billion?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. As I said, although perhaps not as eloquently as he did, that is my view as well. This is a unique opportunity. The alternative—that we put on a poor show that was watched around the entire world—would be so damaging that it is right that we invest in it and make sure that we get it right. I am confident that, under the leadership of Danny Boyle, that is exactly what we will achieve. As I said, the budget for the staging of the games will be tight, but I hope that it can be achieved without cost to the taxpayer. Our initial hopes proved to be rather less accurate as regards the cost of building the facilities. The original candidature file put the cost of preparing for the games at £3.4 billion, of which £2.375 billion was to be spent by the Olympic Delivery Authority. In March 2007, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood came to the House and said that the public sector funding package would actually be £9.325 billion.

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[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

[Mr Foster]

rose—

[Mr Whittingdale]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and then to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath, but I probably should make progress at some point.

[Mr Whittingdale]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in his aspiration, although he identifies probably the hardest challenge for the Olympics to achieve.

[Mr Foster]

I apologise to the Chairman of the Committee for intervening a second time. Will he ensure that we have very clearly on the record the situation regarding the take from the lottery and good causes? He will recall that the previous Government initially wanted to take around £1.5 billion from the national lottery. There was a lot of concern about that, but they later requested a further £675 million. Many people were concerned about that further request, and it was agreed that that the additional £675 million would be returned. Will he therefore remind the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) that £1.5 billion of lottery money has gone in to help him and will not be repaid?

[Mr Whittingdale]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right and I am grateful to him for spelling out the detail. That is exactly why the £675 million was identified.

It has rightly been said that legacy is the most important issue facing us. In the course of the Committee’s monitoring of preparations, we have visited a number of previous Olympic cities. In the past seven years, we have been to Athens, Barcelona, Seoul, Munich and Beijing, and have talked to the organisers of the Sydney and Los Angeles games. It is fair to say that none has achieved a successful, lasting legacy. Some cities have achieved some aspects, but the challenge for London was always to succeed where other cities had not.

The first challenge, which is obviously of interest to the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), is on the facilities in east London. The Secretary of State told the House recently that six of the eight facilities now have identified tenants and uses, which leaves two. They are the two that have proved the most difficult—the stadium and the media centre. I suspect that we cannot yet say any more about how those two facilities should be used, but obviously the stadium is an extraordinarily expensive facility, and it is important that it is not just used for the Olympics and Paralympics and that we find future uses for it. All the members of the Committee who went to Athens and saw the grass growing out of the tarmac in the Olympic stadium came back determined to avoid such a thing here. I hope that the Minister will talk about that.

The other issue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham rightly raised, is the harder task of creating a sporting legacy. Seb Coe, when he originally made the pitch, concentrated on the need to use the Olympics to inspire young people across the country to want to take up sport. The Government have not sustained the 1 million target, but nevertheless I welcome the Places People Play programme and the extra funding given to it. We are most anxious that when young people, watching inspirational sportsmen winning medals in whatever discipline on the television, think, “I’d like to take up that sport”, they should find it easy to do so. It is terribly important that we support local sports clubs, schools and sporting facilities right across the country, so that those facilities are there and we can get that immediate benefit from the inspiration that the games will undoubtedly bring to people.

I will quickly touch on three areas that my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field), in particular, have mentioned. As I suggested to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, ticketing was always going to be difficult. LOCOG could either have pitched ticket prices at such a level that anyone who wanted one would have been likely to get one, in which case it would have been criticised for setting prices too high, or it could have done what it did, which was to set prices at such a level that they were within the reach of most people, but as was entirely predictable, I suppose, demand massively outstripped supply.

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[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), who—like, I hope, many other Members—has been supporting the Olympics and the Paralympics, but in particular ensuring that his own constituency has an opportunity to gain a lasting legacy from them.

The Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), began his speech by saying that we probably all remembered exactly where we were at the moment when Jacques Rogge tore open the envelope and said “London”. I can tell the hon. Gentleman—in fact, he already knows—that I was in Singapore at the time, enjoying the celebrations. Even before we had won, there was a genuine cross-party consensus supporting first our bid, and subsequently all the work that has been undertaken to ensure that we experience—as I am absolutely certain we will—the most amazing cultural and sporting extravaganza in the Olympics and Paralympics later this year.

The reason the Liberal Democrats were especially keen to support the bid, and the work that has followed, was not particularly to do with a cultural and sporting extravaganza that would last for a few weeks. Our support was due to the fact that we truly believed that putting on such a fabulous show would provide a lasting benefit for every single part of the country, including Northern Ireland. I have often spoken in the Chamber about some of the things that have happened in the Olympics, but I want to say something now about the important work that is being done in Brighton and in many other places where local committees, under the umbrella of the Nations and Regions Group, have been planning activities that will ensure that there is a lasting legacy in their own communities.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend can remember where he was when that announcement was made. So can I: I was in my office in the Upper Committee Corridor North.

If the Olympic games are to be the success that we wish them to be in all four nations of the United Kingdom and in the regions, they must, from the opening ceremony onwards, be more than London-centric.

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[Mr Foster]

I disagree with my hon. Friend. He says that that should be the case from the start of the Olympics, but I believe that all parts of the country should be benefiting from them now, and should have been benefiting from them for some years. I am sure he is aware of the opportunities that have already been provided for building and other contracts, and of the opportunity for schools to benefit through the Get Set programme. He will also be aware of the opportunities offered by the volunteering programme, and of the opportunities for cultural organisations and activities in his constituency and elsewhere to get the Inspire mark. I entirely agree that it is important that the benefits come not only to London but to all parts of the country, but we should also make the point that these benefits should have already started and that we hope they will continue for a long time.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Perhaps I did not make myself clear. I endorse all those points, but it is essential, in the opening ceremonies, that the nations of the United Kingdom believe it is their Olympics, not just London’s.

[Mr Foster]

I am sure Mr Danny Boyle is listening with great interest to the entirety of this debate and that he will have taken on board my hon. Friend’s comments, with which I entirely concur.

The quarterly report of the Olympic and Paralympic games is due to be published tomorrow, and I am optimistic that the figures will show that we continue to be on course to ensure we are within budget and that the building work will be completed on time. LOCOG and the ODA have already done a fantastic amount of work, not only in building the theatre, but in getting the show ready to be put on.

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the Olympics and Paralympics. Linked to that, we also have the British transplant games this year, which allow people with transplants to take part in sporting activity. Competitors will be using the excellent facilities in Medway park. We can therefore see the benefits of the legacy, as everyone will have a stake in such facilities.

[Mr Foster]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on drawing attention to that important additional sporting event. The Special Olympics and a number of other important sporting activities are also taking place, ensuring that we give people from all sorts of backgrounds the opportunity to become involved.

[Rehman Chishti]

Last week, I attended a British transplant games event. These games make people aware of the benefits of organ donation, as they can see transplant recipients participating in sports.

[Mr Foster]

I am sure all Members are grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the importance of that event and the wider issue of transplant donation.

The figures to be published tomorrow will only show what has been spent on the national endeavour. They will not include the great deal of money that has been spent up and down the country in ensuring there is a legacy. For example, in my Bristol-Bath area I had the privilege of establishing Team West of England, now jointly chaired by me and the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, Tim Hollingsworth. We have now been working for five years, with the support of our local councils and various businesses, to maximise legacy opportunity in our sub-region. As a result, in 2008 we were able to bring the UK school games to Bath and Bristol, thereby injecting £2.5 million into the local economy while also enthusing many businesses and schoolchildren. We have been able to ensure far more opportunity for inter-school sport competition. We have been able to provide taster sessions, enabling youngsters to find out about sports they did not know much about, and perhaps find one that truly excites them. We have also been able to engage large numbers of people, getting them involved in volunteering and providing them with training to give them the opportunity to become, perhaps, one of the games makers.

We have ensured that many businesses have developed the skills to be able to sign up for the CompeteFor website and, more importantly, to go on and win contracts with LOCOG and the ODA. We have helped to develop links with various national bodies, too. For example, the British Paralympic Association will locate its training camp at the wonderful Bath university sports facilities. The first deal done after we had won the Olympics was between Bristol university and the Kenyan Olympic team. It involved a 10-point plan, of which only one was that the training camp would be held in Bristol. That demonstrates the importance of legacy, because the deal included business links, other forms of sporting links, educational links between schools in Kenya and in Bristol, cultural links and many other things. Lots of things are happening locally in addition to the work that is going on nationally.

[Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks movingly of the legacy being put in place, particularly for young people in schools. As he mentions the Paralympics, does he agree that it is fantastic that, for the first time, Paralympic sports are being offered in schools as part of the legacy programme? That will offer unrivalled opportunities to disabled children, who in the past have not had such opportunities.

[Mr Foster]

The hon. Lady tempts me into a long peroration about the Paralympics. This country is the home of the Paralympic movement, and I am delighted that so much emphasis is being placed on it. The national media coverage by Channel 4 of those events will shine so much excitement into our homes, and I suspect that many Paralympic sports of which most people are currently unaware will become firm favourites in years to come. I often give a particular mention to the Paralympic sport of goalball in these debates, because I believe that many people will be talking about it in a few months’ time. She correctly says that it is all right having things done at the elite national level, but what is really important is making sure that our children with physical disabilities have an opportunity to participate and excel in sport, and to have competition in which they can demonstrate their excellence. That is why it is so good that the Olympic-style school games that has been developed by the Government includes Paralympic sporting activities. She is absolutely right to raise that issue.

Nationally, lots of legacies will flow from the games and from the funding that has been spent, and the high-profile ones have been adequately discussed by the Chair of the Select Committee. We have heard of the concerns about the security budget, which has increased significantly, but all hon. Members are well aware that the circumstances changed dramatically the day after we heard that we had won the bid, with the tragedy of 7/7. A more detailed analysis of the needs has shown that we now require 23,700 security people instead of 10,000, so the budget has inevitably increased. Everybody would welcome the fact that we have a team of people who have done fantastic work to ensure that these games are the safest they can be given the difficult circumstances, and most people would recognise the importance of providing that necessary funding.

As I mentioned in an intervention, the other thing that seems to be causing much concern, although I genuinely do not understand why, is the £41 million increase in the funding for the four ceremonies—the two opening and two closing ceremonies. That seems an awful lot of money, but we must bear in mind that 4 billion people will be watching, so we have an opportunity to showcase this country and there are potential benefits for tourism and business investment. As the Chairman of the Select Committee said, we can all imagine how disastrous it would be if we got those four ceremonies wrong. So that is money well spent, and I welcome the decision to increase the funding.

We need to ensure that we have legacy benefits in the areas of sport, culture, business, tourism, education, volunteering, transport and regeneration. I am confident that there will be benefits in every one of those areas, not only in London, with the huge development and regeneration of part of east London, but in all parts of the country. If we look at any of those in detail, the House will see that real benefits are set to come. Let us consider, for example, the sporting legacy. Of course I expressed disappointment in the early days of this Government about the decision to reduce the funding for the school sport partnership scheme. That had the potential to damage the sporting legacy we could hope for from the 2012 games. Since that time, with the development of some of the other initiatives—not least the school games—we have made up lost ground. I welcome the fact that there are a stack of schemes to ensure that there is a legacy.

It is worth remembering that we have made a commitment as a Government that after the games we will continue to fund elite sport at a high level—the first Government ever to do so following a games. I welcome the fact that we have so many schemes to ensure that there are improved sporting facilities for our local communities, including the Places People Play programme, which I very much welcome, and the London 2012 Changing Places programme, and I also welcome the way in which so many schools have embraced not only the school games but the educational Get Set programme.

One thing that is rarely mentioned but deserves to be is something for which the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), deserves a great deal of credit as she, more than anybody, pushed for the international inspiration scheme. As well as funding activities in this country, we have been funding work around the world. When we were in Singapore, as I mentioned, the now chairman of LOCOG, Lord Seb Coe, said that we would

“reach young people all around the world and connect them to the inspirational power of the Games so they are inspired to choose sport…improving their lives as a result”.

Already, 12 million children around the world in 19 different countries have actively participated in sport, physical education and play as a direct result of that scheme, many of them for the first time; nearly 80,000 teachers, coaches and young leaders have been trained to lead sports and physical educational activities; and 21 legislative changes have taken place around the world influenced by the work we are doing.

These games are important, not just because they will be a fantastic sporting and cultural extravaganza for a few weeks in London and one or two other places, but because they will benefit every part of the country, providing a lasting benefit to our generation and to future generations. The money has been well spent.

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[Tessa Jowell]

I am delighted to support everything the hon. Lady says. Through UK Sport, our athletes have been the beneficiaries of unprecedented funding to enable them to do their very best in front of the home crowd, but this is quintessentially a public-private partnership. I know the support that athletes have received from their sponsors has been indispensable, as has the sponsorship by some of our great companies of the games themselves.

[Mr Foster]

I was remiss in not mentioning this in my speech, but although the right hon. Lady is correct in saying that it is a public-private partnership and we should be grateful to all the private sector bodies that have sponsored and become involved, the one part of the public sector that is often missed and not thanked is local government. My local authority, Bath and North East Somerset council, has put in an enormous amount of effort and money to ensure that we get a lasting legacy.

[Tessa Jowell]

Again, I am delighted to join the right hon. Gentleman —my right hon. Friend for the purpose of Olympic business—in welcoming that work. I met a number of London local authorities last week to hear from them directly about their plans and the efforts they are undertaking. The commitment of so many local authorities is inspirational.

Many references have been made to the importance of cross-party support, which has been fundamental, first, to the stability of the delivery of one of the riskiest programmes imaginable; and, secondly, to maintaining public confidence. In particular, I thank the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport for the way in which they have maintained that cross-party solidity, from which lessons can be drawn, I believe, for other aspects of public policy that require long-term commitment.

There is a point at which we will hand the games over to the initiative, the passion and the enthusiasm of the British people, because there is only so much that Government, LOCOG and the ODA can do. There will be a moment in the middle of May when, as many hon. Members have said, the Olympic torch is lit and it begins its tour around our country. That will be the moment when the whole country wakes up to the certainty that the Olympic games—the UK’s games—will be held in London in a matter of 30 or 40 days.