Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012: Olympic Truce

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Baroness makes a valid point. We are promoting a number of different ideas around the Olympics. They are not directly connected to the Olympic Truce but seek to involve today’s youth in different sports programmes. There is the Get Set programme sponsored by LOCOG, for example, and a project involving young people making films around the theme of truce. A lot of ideas are floating around at the moment and, as we get closer to the Games, we will need to pull them all together so that we derive a concrete legacy from the Olympics.

[Lord Jopling]

My Lords, is it true—this story has appeared in the press—that the budget for security for the Olympic Games in London is being severely cut? If it is true, and bearing in mind that whether or not we have a truce this extremely expensive two or three-week circus in London will be an invitation for bombs, bullets, bloodshed, blackmail and boycott—to say nothing of bogus budgets—would it not be a major folly to cut the security budget?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend makes some valid points but paints a rather depressing picture. Certainly matters of security around the Olympics are of high priority to the Government and will be dealt with in an appropriate way.