London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Advertising and Trading) (England) Regulations 2011

Lord Higgins Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, I have very few words to say on this order. First, it seems to be in line with what we were expecting. Anybody who has been involved in this knows that a great part of the Olympic movement has been the defence of the brand to allow sufficient funds to be raised to enable everything to go ahead. This was always going to inconvenience people to a degree. The question here is whether the Government and the entire Olympic movement have done enough to ensure that that minimal level of interference with ordinary life has been achieved. I suspect that they have taken some very good steps towards it.

When it comes to ambush marketing, everybody raised a smile at the thought of the last World Cup when all the, shall we say, very presentable young ladies in orange skirts were seen dancing around. The fact of the matter is, however, that the way these events are financed is by making sure that sponsors get in and get a reason to carry on sponsoring them, which is the most important factor. I thus suggest that the Government should be intelligently vigorous in enforcing this, because if they are not—and this is the important factor—future events will be threatened. This will be part of one of the legacy issues: do sponsors of major sporting events have sufficient backing to make sure that they get enough bang for their bucks to come back next time? I hope my noble friend will be able to assure us that this will be looked at in the overall review at the end of the Games process to make sure that sponsors are looked after in an intelligent way that does not stop all life during the Games.

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, I understand that the point raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee on this order—namely, that it would not be appropriate to have an order approved by negative resolution unless the Minister had given an assurance that it was necessary to proceed in this way for reasons of urgency—has already been met in the legislation which we have amended. I think that is a satisfactory situation.

I apologise, since I entirely share the enthusiasm of other noble Lords for the entire success of the Games, for raising just one point which I had not previously noticed. It relates to Regulations 6 and 7 of the order on page 4. Regulation 6 is concerned with the control of advertising activity, and we all understand the reasons for that, as has just been mentioned by my noble friend when discussing the whole question of sponsorship. However, I am concerned about Regulation 7(1), which says:

“Regulation 6 does not apply to advertising activity intended to—

(a) demonstrate support for or opposition to the views or actions of any person or body of persons,

(b) publicise a belief, cause or campaign, or

(c) mark or commemorate an event”.

It is really sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) which give me some cause for concern, given the recent protests which we have had outside St Paul’s. I am not at all clear why we want to make this exception in Regulation 7. On the contrary, I would have thought there was some case for strengthening the proposals for that. Indeed, we may want to make absolutely sure that provision is made to prevent demonstrations. As was pointed out in previous remarks, in the course of the Games it may be very easy to get enormous publicity for a particular cause, whatever it may be. Therefore, I would be grateful if my noble friend could tell us to what extent this has been considered and whether there is some argument in favour of strengthening or amending the order; or in favour of producing an alternative that makes it absolutely clear that demonstrations of the sort that I have described are prevented from getting advertising as a result of taking place, perhaps to the considerable disruption of those wishing to watch the Games, which we hope will be a great success.