Lord Haskel
Main Page: Lord Haskel (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Haskel
My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Olympic Delivery Authority on delivering the Olympic park to LOCOG on time and, as the Minister said, on budget. We should congratulate not only the main contractors but the subcontractors—the suppliers of the products and the materials that have gone into creating the Olympic park. It looks wonderful and is a tribute to the companies that have worked so hard.
I agree with Hugh Robertson MP, who wrote in the February Olympic Quarterly Report:
“One of the greatest adverts for the UK from the London 2012 Games is the Olympic Park itself, which showcases the best of British architecture, engineering and construction”.
The Minister repeated this. It is indeed a wonderful showcase for our companies, which supplied not only the innovative products about which the Minister spoke but also the recyclable materials—products that make this a green Olympics. The floor coverings, waste bins and much of the pipework are all recyclable. The new road surfaces use waste material. The energy centre burns waste material. New materials were developed for the roofing membranes, for the 80,000 seats in the main stadium and for the 6,000 seats in the velodrome. The water and sewerage services are most ingenious. As the Minister said, it is a showcase for the best of British industry. What a good story we have to tell—a story that British companies should tell out loud. They can supply these materials and their products to construction companies in all parts of the world.
However, they cannot tell it. Why? In order to get the business, companies had to sign an agreement that they would not publicise their products without permission from LOCOG. Despite many applications, none of the companies that supplied the products and materials that I have mentioned was given permission. A few others have. What is more, companies are not even going to get permission after the Games finish. Why? LOCOG says that it is because, quite rightly, it is protecting the rights of the generous sponsors. However, no one is asking to use the logo, not even the phrase “London Olympics 2012”. They are not allowed to show any association with the Olympic Games. Even using the word “Olympics” or the number “2012” is banned. Permission to publicise this information has been turned down.
The Minister spoke of the torch relay. To give her a flavour of what is going on, I refer noble Lords to a report in this morning’s Guardian. When the Olympic torch started out from Plymouth, LOCOG officials confiscated leaflets advertising an Olympic breakfast at a local café. The officials said—wait for it—that “flaming torch bacon and egg baguettes”, which were on the menu, contravened branding guidelines. Does the Minister really think that firms such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are concerned about calling a bacon and egg baguette “flaming torch”? Are the Government really going to defend the ridiculous?
One indignant subcontractor got his trade association to write to the Prime Minister. It asked him to justify his claim that:
“We expect these events to generate at least £1 billion for British businesses and they are vital to secure our long-term return to sustainable growth”.
How much easier it would be to make this happen if companies could tell potential customers about their products and demonstrate how well they work. A tie manufacturer wrote to me last week saying that his company had produced a fabric which showed the three Olympic Games that have taken place in Britain, and they wanted to produce a tie with it. However, LOCOG would not let the company call it an “Olympic tie”, or anything of that name, and so it has had to call it a sporting tie. Yes, we do still produce fabrics and ties in this country. The Minister said that the Olympic park should be a showcase. Should it not also be a shop window?
The response to the letter came from Mark Prisk at BIS. He agrees that the Olympics should be a showcase for British business and points out that some of these products have been included in the Beyond 2012 legacy document and the suppliers directory. He considers this to be proportionate. Proportionate to what? The proportionate fact is that the taxpayers paid 90% of the cost and the sponsors 10%. I will not labour the party political points that can be drawn from this; I just await the Minister’s reply.
This matter was drawn to my attention in my capacity as the honorary president of the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network, a commercial and technological organisation of some 4,500 businesses, universities and research organisations, all working to improve the materials in our lives—and they are angry. Why are they angry? If the Government really cared about this, they would have cleared it up months ago. I am angry because, instead, someone like me has to try to shame Ministers into doing something about it at the last minute.
There are 68 days left until the opening of the Games. Will the Government make good their rhetoric and take steps to allow British businesses to use the Olympics as a shop window for all the wonderful materials and products they have supplied—and also allow cafés to serve celebratory breakfasts?
Lord Moynihan
My Lords, I start where my noble friend Lady Doocey finished by recognising London 2012 as a story of great achievement, great British creativity and great British involvement. The fact that the Olympic park was completed on time and on budget is to a great extent thanks to the skill and professionalism of more than 1,000 British businesses. The Olympic Delivery Authority’s contract for the construction of the Olympic stadium resulted in work for 240 UK companies, with many more subcontractors. This included the supply of steel from Bolton, turf grown in Scunthorpe and seats from Luton. More than 40 UK companies won contracts to work on the velodrome, including supplying the timber for the cycling track from Sheffield and seating structures from Barnsley.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games have been a catalyst for delivering this urban regeneration of the East End in six years rather than 26. My noble friend in sport, the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, has been the torch bearer in the project to steer that area of London into a vibrant urban legacy for future generations—I emphasise that to my noble friend Lady Doocey—of the local communities. That has been at the heart of everything she has done, for which she deserves the congratulations and support of us all.
We are now ready for 15,000 athletes from more than 200 countries to come to both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They will be competing for 4,400 medals. More than 3,000 officials will preside over the world’s fiercest competition and—would you believe it?—20,000 accredited media will carry the action to billions of people around the world. We are holding the equivalent of 26 world championships at the same time over 19 days, transitioning the city and then holding another 20 world championships for the Paralympic Games over 12 days. More than £700-million worth of goods will be procured for the Games, including 900,000 pieces of sports equipment—every one to perfection. For example, there are 8,400 badminton shuttlecocks, 6,000 paper archery target faces and 510 hurdles for the athletes. We expect around 8 million spectators, with 800,000 people expected to use public transport to travel to the Games on the busiest day. I say to my noble friend Lord Davies that, of course, transport is a concern and security has also been expressed as a concern. However, to have an investment because of the Games of some £6.5 billion, not least in upgrading and extending transport links to get people to and from the Games, to ensure that London keeps moving, is surely beneficial both for the Games and as a legacy project.
I shall refer to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Haskel; I was going to say my noble friend, as he frequently is on the subject of sport. He raised an important issue. I am not here to defend the definition of a breakfast menu; nor, I am sure he would accept, am I here to argue over the margins of the legal definition of ambush marketing. I hope that I can give him some comfort by saying this from the London organising committee perspective. It raised some £2 billion from the private sector to put into the Games. That has come not least from TV rights and, of course, ticket sales. Above all, it has come from sponsorship rights. Protecting those sponsorship rights is inherently important in retaining the value of that essential contribution to a £2 billion package which has not resorted to government funding.
I think that the noble Lord was focusing more on the future. In that context maybe I can give him some comfort as I have a good degree of sympathy with his point. At the end of this year, the rights will return from the London organising committee to the British Olympic Association. We are in discussion at this time—well in advance of the end of the year—to see how we can showcase British expertise among the contractors and subcontractors who have been involved with the project, to ensure that they get some recognition moving forward, without losing the right of those commercial advantages that the British Olympic Association will have to support the young athletes of the future once the Games have moved on from London 2012. The noble Lord makes a very important point but I give him the assurance that we are already in discussion with those contractors, such as Sir John Armitt—he has been critical in this, as the noble Lord knows—and with the Government to see whether we can find a solution to recognise and showcase the outstanding work that has been done for these Games, and to work with those companies to make sure that not only they succeed but that young athletes in the future are given the support they so richly deserve when it comes to moving on to future Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Lord Haskel
I thank the noble Lord for that reassurance, but the point that is being continuously made to me is that the Olympic city itself is a wonderful shop window and it is not allowed to use the Olympics as such.
Lord Moynihan
I have made a distinction, I hope, in trying to assist the noble Lord about what happens when those rights return to the British Olympic Association. He made a very important point about the future benefit to those companies being showcased for the work that they have done and what is happening today. What is happening today is clearly a matter for the legal department and, as I say, I am not here to defend a legal department that is looking in detail at the definition of a breakfast menu. However, I am very concerned as chairman of the British Olympic Association that companies that have done a huge amount of work for these Games should be able to showcase in the future and win further contracts in the future. Sports facilities around the world are a multimillion-pound business, and it does not end with the Games in London. For them, it is the beginning of a long road, and we should be there to support them on that road. We need to get the balance right between ensuring their recognition—which is important to their business—on the one hand, and on the other the return of the rights of the British Olympic Association, which for over one hundred years had to rely purely on private sector funding; there was not a pound from government in those hundred years. The only way to do this is through the sale of the rights through sponsorship. I believe that we can achieve that balance.
I will move on to the work of the Government. The House should have nothing but praise for the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson. He fought for our athletes in maintaining funding for our Olympic and Paralympic teams after London 2012, going into the Rio cycle. He has boosted the credentials of this country to make sure that we have a decade of sport, by supporting our successful bids—and I emphasise that all these have been successful—to host the Rugby League World Cup in 2013; the Commonwealth Games, of course, in 2014; the Rugby Union World Cup in 2015; the World Athletics Championships in the Olympic stadium in 2017, and what a magnificent achievement it was to win that bid; and, not least after our great victory today, the Cricket World Cup in 2019. This will be a decade of sport for the United Kingdom.
However, Hugh Robertson will not be short of future challenges when the curtain falls on the Olympic and Paralympic Games. There is a need to restructure British sport. It is still a myriad of too many quangos and of public sector-driven and overlapping bureaucracy. I have always believed that the role of government in sport is to empower, not to micromanage. Where sport is at its best, it is driven from the athletes up, with the support and enthusiasm of their parents, families, friends, clubs and schools. It provides the ideal opportunity to implement the Prime Minister’s earlier objective of “big society, not big government”. The months after the Games will provide the best chance in a generation for fundamental reform. A leader like Hugh Robertson, who has won respect across the sporting world, has the ability to take on the forces of the past and deliver a true sporting legacy for the future. However, delivery of that sporting legacy will be our biggest challenge.
Against this background, the British Olympic Association will continue to perform its role as an independent voice for sport. When the Government, the mayor’s office’s attention and the Olympic movement move on and LOCOG is disbanded, we will still be there for the athletes. It is my view that sport holds a mirror to society. The values of sport reflect the values of society. Many of the principles and ideals inherent in sport have a broader application to our lives as a whole. The standards of probity and integrity in sport should mirror the highest standards of behaviour in society. The corresponding forms of sanction and discipline should apply if that behaviour is flouted. Keenly contested though it is, winning at any cost is inimical to the very essence of sport and to its philosophy of team spirit, honesty and loyalty.
The concept of fair play is one of sport’s most cherished tenets. Cheating, by whatever means, from overt fouling to match fixing to doping, is not fair play and has no place in sport. On 7 November last year, the greatest living Olympian, Sir Steve Redgrave, stated, with reference to the World Anti-Doping Agency:
“A two-year ban for doping is almost saying that it’s acceptable”.
He was speaking for clean athletes across the globe. Yet last month was marked by a deeply disappointing development. The Court of Arbitration of Sport formally declared the British Olympic Association’s lifetime ban for serious drugs cheats unenforceable. That effectively denied the British Olympic Association the autonomy to select Team GB athletes. We held a special meeting of all the governing bodies of sport to consider the effect of the ruling. There was a universal condemnation of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s decision to reduce to two years the bans for first-time offences. Let us hope that it is not tantamount—as postulated by my noble friend Lord Higgins—to giving a green light to the use of drugs in sport. If this proves to be the case, and nothing is done to stem the tide, we will drift inexorably towards a sporting world in which competition between athletes is equally competition between chemists’ laboratories. At the British Olympic Association and in the corridors of the IOC, national Olympic committees and international federations, we may have lost the battle. However, on behalf of the athletes whose interests we represent, we must win the war.
My noble friend Lord Higgins suggested that the benefits of performance-enhancing drugs may pass and go away during a period of two years. That may be a seriously wrong observation. If I had taken growth hormones throughout my teens and had ended up six feet tall like my noble friend Lord Bates, I guarantee that I would not have shrunk back to my present height in my 20s. That was a light-hearted way of making a serious point. If one takes a cocktail of drugs to enhance one’s performance in training and can do eight, nine or 10 times more circuit training in the winter than one would otherwise have done without those drugs, even when one comes off the drugs one can attain high performance levels with the muscular structure one has now acquired illegally by taking the performance-enhancing drugs, sometimes for a very long time. The case of growth hormones is extremely important, especially for people in their teens.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank noble Lords very much for their contributions to this debate. One of the wonders of a debate such as this in your Lordships’ House is that many, if not all, of the questions that Members have asked seemed to have been answered by those with far more expertise in the various subjects than I have, but I will do my best to pick up the questions as they came up.
The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, asked about suppliers. The answer from my noble friend Lord Moynihan has gone some way to respond to his queries, if not to satisfy him. The contracts for suppliers permit specific mention of their involvement with the Olympic and Paralympic Games in particular cases, but it is for the major sponsors to have exclusivity over rights, because without those we would not be able to put on the Games as we wished. I acknowledge that his story about a flaming torch breakfast seems to be taking these things somewhat to extremes. However, who are we to say what the context is and where you draw the line on these? We feel that sponsors’ rights have to be protected, which is of course an obligation under the terms of the agreement with the International Olympic Committee, both because of that and against ambush marketing. That is quite a comprehensive sector, which we debated when it came through earlier in your Lordships’ House and when we passed the instrument to say that it should go through.
My noble friend Lord Addington talked about the protection of the Olympic brand and the real importance of learning lessons from what has gone right and what has not gone quite so smoothly in these Games, from which we will quite certainly take away a number of lessons. It is not that we are likely to host the Olympics and Paralympics in the UK again for a great many years to come, but all these lessons go back to the Olympic family as a whole to make sure that all Games learn from previous ones.
One or two noble Lords mentioned the matter of tickets. There was an unprecedented demand for tickets, which had never happened in previous Games. The systems that LOCOG set up would have coped if the interest had been as the media predicted in fairly cynical terms. It has obviously been a disappointment for those who did not get tickets, although they have been coming back on sale. I have already heard a number of stories of people who were not successful the first time around but who now have tickets. We hope that that position continues to improve. I enjoyed the intervention by my noble friend Lord Grade. I suppose we can only be grateful that the Prime Minister of the day was convinced that the bid should go ahead.
My noble friend Lord Higgins spoke of his Olympic experiences, and my goodness it seems a different day. I noticed that “Chariots of Fire” is currently on my local theatre and I am about to go for a nostalgic review of that. However, the Olympics of the 1940s were run and competed in a very different mode from the Olympics of today. The big change from amateur to professional has been one key difference. He raised the matter of drugs, a matter which my noble friend Lord Moynihan also took up. We should confirm the very tough line that is being taken on drugs here, because undoubtedly sports and sportspeople suffer tremendously if drugs become permitted, whatever the sport.
My noble friend asked what happens if people arrived with tickets that they cannot use. I do not currently have an answer to that scenario. I know that we have already discussed whether people could use tickets if their names were not on them. The response was that the person who bought the tickets has overall responsibility for them, but obviously they may be used by those who do not appear on the named tickets.
As for protestors, everyone has the right to protest and nothing that is being planned for the Games will curtail the right to legitimate peaceful protest, but that does not extend to disrupting the Games or their preparations. We certainly do not want to undermine years of dedicated training by those competing, or ruin the enjoyment of fans who have paid to see their sporting heroes in action, so we expect that the response to protests will be proportionate.
My noble friend Lord Higgins also mentioned the legacy of the athletics stadium. We are of course encouraged to know that the athletics legacy will certainly continue until 2017, because the stadium will be used when we host the world athletics championships there.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ford, spoke about the legacy. I join other noble Lords in paying warm tribute to the work that she has done to ensure that the Olympic park is indeed a real credit to the country once it has completed its sporting time during the Olympic and Paralympics. She mentioned the importance of not pricing local people out of access or homes. My noble friend Lady Doocey also brought up concerns about local people being excluded from those. Considerable steps are being taken to ensure that the number of affordable homes in the Olympic park remains high. We hope that it will not become the preserve of the rich, because assurances are in place that local people will have their say. We congratulate the noble Baroness on what she has done and are sure that we have not seen the last of her in connection with Olympic matters, but she may act in a more personal capacity in future. We welcome Daniel Moylan, who will be carrying the torch in the post that the noble Baroness has vacated.
My noble friend Lord Bates lived up to expectations by talking warmly about the Olympic Truce being the point of the ancient Games and the torch relay heralding the fellowship and peace of the truce. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is leading on this and we will certainly seek to work with parliamentarians and bodies such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the Commonwealth and others to ensure that through an active public diplomacy programme we have an opportunity to increase international public interest and involvement in conflict prevention and peacebuilding and to raise the level of ambition for future Olympic Truces. My noble friend has done an enormous amount to put the Olympic Truce high on the agenda of the Games.
I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, on all the work that he did in the previous Administration to ensure the success of the Olympics and Paralympics, and I was pleased to see him reflecting optimism in his speech. He raised concerns about faith issues, which I know my noble friend Lord James shares. Four years ago, LOCOG set up a faith reference group that includes the nine faiths recognised by the IOC: Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i and Zoroastrian. This group has looked at all aspects of the plans, including the multifaith centres, prayer spaces, food provision, uniform design, quiet areas and accommodation, not only for athletes but for the workforce, volunteers, media and spectators, where appropriate.
We are conscious that with the Games taking place during Ramadan and on the 40th anniversary of the Munich attacks this multifaith approach has been crucial. LOCOG’s faith adviser, the Reverend Canon Duncan Green, who was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, has led this work, but LOCOG has also worked closely with the Muslim Council of Britain and its general-secretary Dr Muhammad Bari, so I hope noble Lords are reassured on this issue. It has been taken extremely seriously, and I assure the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and other noble Lords that considerable efforts have been made by LOCOG to ensure that the needs of faith communities have been addressed appropriately and respectfully.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, mentioned Heathrow, which has been overmuch in the news recently with its possible inability to cope. The UK Border Force, BAA, LOCOG and other partners are working very closely together to ensure that visitors have a good experience at the airport and a warm welcome to the UK. We recognise that there is some way to go in ensuring that that is the case for everyone who comes here. Additional resources will be deployed by the UK Border Force to reduce queues to a minimum. BAA is providing a temporary terminal for the athletes’ departure, which will be one of Heathrow’s busiest days, and putting improved services in place to help Paralympic teams, which should provide a real legacy for disabled visitors afterwards. We are conscious of the need for cross-departmental conversations and discussions on this. The Home Office is quite naturally concerned that levels of security should be high for the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games but is also conscious that visitors must be given a warm welcome to our country.
My noble friend Lady Doocey has done an enormous amount to contribute to the Games. I think particularly of the work that she has done on carers and on ensuring that people who need someone to come with them to the Games should be accompanied. She paid tribute to the security staff. I agree that we are in the best possible hands. The people working on security for us have worked enormously hard to try to ensure that all goes well.
My noble friend Lady Doocey mentioned transport, as did other noble Lords. We certainly hope that our lanes do not become Zil lanes. We are keeping the lanes that are reserved for the Olympic family to a minimum, and taking every possible care so that London can go about its normal business as far as possible.
My noble friend also raised concerns about tickets for officials. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Graham, talk about the hard work of local councils around the Games. I am conscious that there are allocated tickets for officials. However, the Government have kept their allocation to fewer tickets than they were entitled to. On affordability, 2.5 million tickets were priced at £20 or less. There were special prices for tickets for more than 220 sessions. Getting the balance right between having the right level of hosting and people to support the Games and making sure that the vast majority of the tickets were on sale to the general public has been striven for. By and large, LOCOG has got the appropriate balance. I think 8.8 million tickets were on sale. It is an enormous number. The proportion going to the Government and officials is relatively small.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan talked about the British businesses that would benefit from the Games. I accept that there is a difference of opinion between him and the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, on this.
Lord Haskel
There is absolutely no difference between the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and me. He spoke about the benefit that those businesses will get in the future, when the rights return to the British Olympic committee. I was asking about allowing British companies to use the Olympic Games as a shop window today. It is not about bread tomorrow; I was talking about bread today.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I hear what the noble Lord says. It is important to the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic family that they should be very protective of the branding of Olympic and Paralympic goods and services. Part of the contract that businesses signed set out in some detail where they could refer to their involvement in the Olympics. However, one of the other aspects is that officials in BIS and businesspeople throughout the country will use the Olympics as a showcase for British business. Therefore, even if they cannot stick an Olympic brand on their goods, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to meet the international community and build their businesses. We will certainly look for results from that.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan referred to doping, which I have already mentioned. We all agree with him about how tough it is to compete. The figures that he gave about the microscopic differences between those who won gold and silver medals just shows us all how intense the competition is for the athletes.
When the noble Lord, Lord Graham, spoke, I could not help thinking that if the trial for Newcastle boys had only gone differently, we might not have had the benefit of his wisdom in this House over the years. Perhaps we should grateful for some things.