Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Main Page: Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Labour - Life peer)London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, in moving Amendment 3, I will also speak to Amendments 4 and 5 in this group. The amendments address a concern raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The 2006 Act provides for the making of advertising and trading regulations. Under the Act, all such regulations, including amending regulations, are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
The Bill amends the 2006 Act to provide that advertising and trading regulations other than the first set may instead be made via the negative resolution procedure. This is intended to enable the making of amending regulations if unforeseen events crop up late in the day, such as if it is necessary to move a Games event from one venue to another shortly before the event is due to take place. If the need to amend the regulations arose at this point, such as if a water main serving a venue burst a few days before that venue was scheduled to be used, it would be impracticable to amend the regulations via the lengthy affirmative resolution procedure.
Because the regulations are very detailed and specify precisely the places where, and periods during which, they will apply, it may be necessary to amend them if a venue or the Games schedule has to change. It is not possible, in the abstract, to describe all the incidents that might necessitate such a change, but I emphasise that we are not planning any such amendments. A lot of work has gone into identifying and preparing venues and the event schedule for the Games, and we intend the venues, the schedule, and the regulations that have already been published to remain as they are. A change will be necessary only if unforeseen circumstances such as the burst water main I mentioned occur.
The Delegated Powers Committee accepts the need to amend the 2006 Act to facilitate the amendment of the regulations in such circumstances. However, it is concerned that the extent of the procedural relaxation in the Bill goes further than is necessary. Accordingly, it has recommended that the Bill is amended to provide that the affirmative resolution procedure must be used unless the Minister considers that, by reason of urgency, it is necessary instead to use the negative procedure. As it was always the intention that the negative resolution procedure would be used only where there was an urgent need to do so, the Government are happy to accept the committee’s recommendation and to provide the additional clarification.
The effect of these amendments is that advertising and trading regulations will be made via the negative procedure only if the Minister considers that that is necessary by reason of urgency. In such a case, the regulations will confirm, on their face, that this is the Minister’s view.
In essence, what we mean by “urgency” is that, for reasons of time, it would be impracticable to use the affirmative procedure and it is necessary instead to use the negative procedure. That is likely to be because the amending regulations have to take effect quickly, before the earliest date that affirmative regulations could practicably be made. This would be the case, for example, where the incident necessitating the amendment occurs only a short time before the relevant Games event. Likewise, it would be the case if amending regulations had to be made when Parliament is not sitting. As noble Lords will know, affirmative regulations cannot be made when Parliament is in recess, whereas negative instruments can.
I hope that these amendments and the further explanation that I have set out today provide noble Lords with welcome assurance that the power to amend the regulations via the negative procedure will be used only when that is genuinely necessary. I beg to move.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these amendments. There is obviously sense in having flexibility within the legislation to deal with unforeseen events, and we fully understand why the Government have decided to take these powers. However, as was pointed out in the report of the Delegated Powers Committee, these powers are wide-ranging, and it is important that they be subject to appropriate scrutiny.
The recent Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report called for assurances that the provision to make these regulations via the negative resolution procedure would be exercised only when there was an urgent need to do so. The Minister reaffirmed that the intention is always to work within the set of advertising and trading regulations laid in Parliament on 10 October, which will be subject to the affirmative procedure. However, the problem with the approach being taken by the Government is that these present regulations are going to be made only in the deepest recess period, July to September 2012, so there is a Catch-22 situation. You can make negative regulations of the type described by the Minister when you cannot make regulations under the affirmative procedure, but because the Houses will be in Recess, neither House would be in a position to exercise its power under the negative resolution procedure in those circumstances. The net effect is to provide the Secretary of State with wide-ranging Henry VIII powers exercisable on his or her assertion that it is an emergency. When the Minister responds, will she enlighten us about why it was decided that the negative/affirmative procedure was appropriate?
It might have been easier to fess up and simply say that, on reflection, the Government take the view that it is necessary for the Secretary of State to have these powers and that some procedure, such as a full report, will occur once the Houses have resumed after the Games have finished. Clearly, we are where we are, so the question really is: what are the urgent situations that could give rise to the need to use this provision? I may be straining at a gnat here, but I have noticed in the documentation that we have been provided with that there are three different variations on what is defined as an urgent situation. The wording of the amendment is that the regulations would be used only if,
“the Secretary of State considers that by reason of urgency it is necessary that they be made”.
The Delegated Powers Committee slightly inflects that and changes the terms. It states that the powers would be needed only when there was an urgent need. The Minister suggested in correspondence, which was copied to several noble Lords, that the amending regulations would be brought forward only to provide flexibility in cases where exceptional circumstances, such as a burst water main, require a change of competition venue. I am not sure that a need for flexibility is by definition an urgency, but I think we understand the sense behind the points made in the correspondence. I do not think at this stage we wish further to oppose this amendment, but it would be helpful if the Minister would write to us with a few examples of where she thinks such a situation might occur so that we have them on record.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I would be very happy to do that because this is an area where perhaps a little more clarity could be due. As the noble Lord has indicated, we are introducing these measures at this stage as a matter of pragmatism.
“( ) In section 31(1) of that Act, omit paragraph (b).”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 7, and to support Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, and Amendment 10 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Addington.
We recognise the huge logistical issues involved in running a successful Games. Thanks to the helpful letter that I received recently from the chair of LOCOG, the noble Lord, Lord Coe, we are all much better informed about the thinking, research and planning that has clearly gone into the ticketing and access arrangements for both sets of Games, across all the venues. It may well be argued later that the issues raised in this group of amendments are not a matter for the Government, but for LOCOG. That may well be the legal position, but I am sure that the Committee will recognise that, while the Government will undoubtedly get no credit whatever from a successful Games, they will certainly get all the opprobrium going for any failure, or perception of failure, in any aspect of the Games. Such is life.
At Second Reading, seven noble Lords raised concerns about the ticketing arrangements in so far as the details were available at that time. There seem to be several issues in play, and it might be helpful if I summarise them. I have also added some answers from reading between the lines of the correspondence that we have received, and the comments made during the debate. Will it say on the face of a ticket who the main purchaser is? I think that the answer is yes. Does the lead ticket-holder—the person who ordered the tickets—have to attend and use one of their allocation of tickets? No, but the lead ticket-holder must be available to be contacted. Does the lead ticket-holder have to bring identification with her or him when attending the events for which she or he has tickets? Yes. If so, what is the level of ID required—is it a passport, driving licence or what? We seem to have been told that it must be a photo ID card, which would include those.
What happens if there is a problem, and the lead ticket-holder is ill or otherwise uncontactable? I am afraid that that is not clear. What contact phone number will be held by LOCOG? Will it be the home, business or mobile number? Will every ticket-holder's number be checked before the Games start to be sure they the ticket-holder can in fact be contacted if needed? All of that seems rather ill considered. When will LOCOG actually collect this information? In its most recent letter, LOCOG says that it will be in contact with ticket purchasers. There is a long time to go until the Games and I can foresee many problems on this front. Can the person who bought the tickets sell some or all of them to friends and family at face value without falling foul of the ticket-touting regulations? We have received good responses to that question, and we look forward to hearing further details of the scheme nearer the time.
Does the resale or selling-on process have to be notified to LOCOG, and the tickets released in the name of the new holders? I think not, but, on the other hand, if the exchange scheme is up and running and the portal works, that question takes care of itself. However, it is an issue that may need to be pursued. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that I am right so far in the answers to my questions. She is avoiding my gaze. Now I am getting a gentle smile of encouragement, so I think that I am on the right track. So far, so good.
The watchwords of the early planning for these Games were the need to build in flexibility and proportionality, bearing in mind the risks involved. But I wonder whether the genuine concern, which noble Lords expressed at Second Reading, reflects a worry that the need to prevent ticket touting has upset the right balance on this issue. I think that concern is growing, and it leads to further questions.
In his letter to which I have already referred, the noble Lord, Lord Coe, says that LOCOG has worked with the “ticketing leads” from many national and international sporting events, including those responsible for previous Games, the FA and Wimbledon. He says that the terms and conditions are in line with “standard practice”, and,
“NOT out of line with what the public would expect”.
Well, I wonder how he knows that. I admit that this is anecdotal, but there is a view held widely around your Lordships’ House that the public are not on the same page as LOCOG. Many events that I have attended recently did not follow this procedure. At any rate, perhaps we can encourage the noble Lord to join our debates and give us some information on all of these points later in the proceedings. For the moment, these are the questions that are left in my mind.
Will the training of the largely volunteer staff, at both turnstile and box office, be sufficient? Can the Minister explain precisely what will be involved in cases where tickets are thought to be fraudulent in some way or other? Will there be sufficient staff on duty to ensure an uninterrupted flow for other audience members? Would it be sensible to try out some real-time testing of these procedures, perhaps in the trial events in the run-up to the Games, so that teething and other problems are identified?
Can the Minister say something about the urgent need to ensure that the successful ticket-holders know and understand what they need to do to ensure that they can get into the venues with the minimum fuss and controversy concomitant with good security and proper evaluation of risk? Finally, the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Higgins and Lord Addington, make good sense and I look forward to hearing from the Minister whether they offer a way out of the potential PR and operational problems that we seem to be facing. I beg to move.
Lord Higgins
My Lords, it may be convenient if I speak first to the amendment that has just been proposed by the noble Lord, which seeks to remove Section 31(1)(b) from the original Act. His amendment would leave the clause simply reading that the person commits an offence if he sells an Olympic ticket,
“in a public place or in the course of business”.
That would create a dangerous situation, for the reasons that I mentioned in the previous debate, namely that unless we are successful—as my noble friend Lord Coe said a little while ago—in setting up a situation on site that enables people to dispose of tickets that they cannot use, it may be that perfectly reasonable people seeking to sell their ticket in any public place, not necessarily outside the stadium, would commit an offence. As I suggested earlier, instead of sub-paragraph (b), which the noble Lord has suggested we omit, we should say “or above face value”.
Turning to my main point, I do not presume to say that my amendment is in any way perfect, but I put it down originally because no one else had put down an amendment that would enable us to debate the issue that a number of noble Lords said at Second Reading gave them cause for concern. I will come to the specifics in a moment, but I regret to say that I agree with the noble Lord who has just spoken. The statement in the extremely helpful letter written by the noble Lord, Lord Coe, in his Olympics role, states that the,
“Terms and Conditions are standard practice at major events. They are NOT out of line with what the public would expect”.
Certainly, a quick—even a slow—survey of your Lordships’ House asking, “Do you expect the purchaser of the ticket will either have to be present or be available on the telephone to allow someone to use the ticket, which that individual has purchased on behalf of, let us say, his children?” would show that this is not the general view. I do not believe this is what the public expect, because a large number of the public do not go to football matches and so are not familiar with what the practice might be there.
One has to face the fact that the public do not expect this to be the situation, but it may be that they can be informed of it in appropriate ways having purchased the ticket. As I understand it, if that information is not actually going to appear on the ticket, it is proposed that a fairly lengthy document would be sent to the ticket-holder explaining these things. Certainly, it would need to say very clearly, in big letters in red type, that the ticket can be used by someone whom you bought it for only if you yourself are present. I leave to one side the question of what happens if the person who bought the ticket is dead—that will raise a difficult issue—but none the less it may be extremely difficult for the individual to be present or even to be on the telephone.
I have put down an amendment whose effect would be to make the situation more flexible. The amendment states:
“To prevent ticket touting, tickets should record the name of the person purchasing the ticket—
I understand that it is proposed that that will be done—
“and indicate that ticket holders may be admitted even though they are not accompanied by the person purchasing the ticket”.
The organisers may well feel that that drives a cart and horses through the whole thing, but they are not proposing to apply these provisions in a draconian way. On the contrary, they are proposing to adopt a flexible attitude. People need to be clear whether the person who bought the ticket has to be present when they wish to use the ticket on a particular occasion. We need to clarify whether we are going to stick to the thing rigorously or whether we are not going to stick to it rigorously but make it clear that ticket-holders ought to be able to establish that they are related to the person who purchased the ticket.
As I said, my amendment is certainly not perfect and comes up with a solution that may be thought to be too favourable to ticket touts, but we need to clarify. We all recognise that there has been an enormous and extremely difficult exercise on ticketing. At the same time, we do not want to create a situation where, because of the provision stating that a ticket-holder must be accompanied by the purchaser, we have large queues of people trying to telephone the person who bought the ticket to say, “Please will you confirm to the ticket office that I am related to you?”, or whatever it may be. That is a genuine problem, and I do not say that I have the answer yet. We need to give more thought to this.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
I thank all noble Lords who took part in this useful and helpful debate. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coe, for being present and for sharing his thoughts on this. We are all in a much better place as a result of the discussion. We know more about what the issues are. We support what has been done. There is no question of any destructive view on that. Like my noble friend Lady Billingham, we want to continue to say that, in order to build on what has been achieved and to make sure that these are the greatest Games ever.
There are three points that I would like to leave with the Committee. First, would it be possible at some point for LOCOG to get across—obviously it does not need to be said too widely—what I thought the noble Lord, Lord Coe, said, which was that, given the vast majority of people in the iceberg, as he put it, who come into our Games are going to be able to do so without any let or hindrance, there is not going to be an issue about that? These regulations are at heart back-stop regulations to be used only if there is suspicion. Somehow that has not come across. There has been a sense that somehow we are all under surveillance and are all somehow possibly complicit in some frightful game involving tickets. When you buy a ticket or get a ticket, it may well be covered in beautiful colours and have all sorts of ideograms and other things on it, but you do not really know whether it is the right one or not until you turn up, put it in and it goes through. There is that sense that you are always going to be caught. Can we somehow agree among ourselves, even if we cannot say it publicly, that that is not the main purpose here? The main purpose is to get the touts who are out to disrupt the Games for their own horrible and nefarious purposes. That would be helpful.
Secondly, as the Minister said, we need clarity on a number of things. I do not want to reopen the debate but, for example, on identity, her answer was very firm and clear: people who have tickets and are bringing themselves or a party will need to bring identity with them. The letter states that that identity must be in the form of a photo card, but the Minister said that it could be a credit card, possibly the credit card with which you bought the tickets. You are already giving us two versions. We must be clear about this: either it is a photo card or it is credit card, or we are very clear that it is both. To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, a credit card might well be the right answer because it ties you to the original purchase. If phone calls are going to be the way you begin checking whether those who are under suspicion are right, it would be helpful if some more explanation is given about that. I can imagine a scenario where my children set off on their own to the Games to watch the synchronised swimming, which are the only tickets we have, they arrive to find that somebody has already got in on false tickets, they are dragged off, and I am rung—
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am sorry to interrupt, but I understand from my noble friend Lord Coe that telephone numbers are already available for those who purchased tickets.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, my point—had I been able to make it—is this: what happens when the noble Lord, Lord Coe, rings me and says, “We have your three children here, and they have fake tickets”, but I do not have my mobile phone—I have dropped it in the bath or something like that—so all that I get is a message, and when I ring back I get through to some call centre which, in the nature of trying to internationalise the Games, might be situated in Bangalore? You get the point.
Let us just be clear about this, get the narrative right and communicate clearly so that we carry the public with us, which is a vitally important point, and bring everyone along with us. This is going to be fantastic, and we will definitely be there to make it so. However, following the testing, once we have been to the archery and we have the tickets—and the T-shirt, too—then we need to communicate again that the systems work, and that the testing is happening along with everything else. Then we will all be happy, and I will withdraw the amendment in order to facilitate that.
“Operation of Olympic Route Network
(1) Section 11 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (4)(a) leave out from “unless” to the end of the paragraph and insert “the following have been consulted—
(i) the highway authority, traffic authority or street authority with responsibility for each road designated in the order, and(ii) members of the public living in the Greater London Authority area and in the local authority areas through which roads designated in the order run,”.(3) After subsection (4)(a) insert—
“(aa) may not be made unless the consultation under paragraph (a) considered—(i) proposals for the minimisation of disruption to the general public due to the operation of the Olympic Route Network,(ii) proposals for informing members of the public in relation to the proposed Olympic Route Network and its likely impact on local and regional traffic,(iii) proposals for maintaining road safety and preventing accidents which might result from operation of the Olympic Route Network,(iv) proposals for allowing taxis licensed under section 37 of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, section 6 of the Metropolitan Police Carriage Act 1869 or under any similar enactment to use the Olympic Route Network in appropriate circumstances, and (v) proposals for ensuring that the Olympic Route Network and related restrictions should be in operation for the shortest time possible in order to achieve the purposes set out in subsection (1) and (2).””
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, the traffic management provisions in the original Act cover the Olympic route network and the areas around Games venues. As we heard at Second Reading from the distinguished Olympian the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who was there, the power was introduced because of the traffic chaos at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Clearly, we do not want competitors missing their events and officials failing to turn up at the right time because London is gridlocked. However, these provisions in the Bill caused the most discussion in the other place. The amendment gives us the opportunity to scrutinise carefully what is proposed to ensure that the balance is right.
My attention has been drawn to a recent article in the Evening Standard that alleges that Olympic ticket-holders using public transport will spend up to five times longer getting to events than those travelling on the ORN. It suggests that it will take two and a half hours to get to the Olympic park from central London. On the other hand, the same distance will be covered in 30 minutes by athletes, media, officials, sponsors and VIPs who are allowed to use what has been branded by the media the “Olympic Zil lanes”.
In another article in the same paper, the broadcaster James May attacked the elitist use of the ORN. He said:
“If it's the athletes OK, because they have to be at a peak state of readiness … But if it's the chairman of Coca Cola or Barclays then they should either bloody well run there or go on a bicycle”.
Those are strong words and possibly unparliamentary—I apologise if they are—but there is a potential PR disaster here. There is a great deal to be said for minimising the number of people who will use the Olympic lanes, and to make a reality of the rhetoric that these are truly public transport games. Yet there is a sense of two classes of travellers to the Olympic park—those whose journeys are hell and those who glide down the Olympic lanes—and we have to anticipate that that will quickly become a source of tension because London is that sort of city.
Would the Minister answer some questions? We know the Games are going to cause serious disruption, and we are all agreed the key to this is issuing accurate, timeous and comprehensive information about the ORN plans. Will the Minister spell out when, and with what frequency, that will start to happen? Clearly the fewer days that the ORN has to be in place the better. What consideration has been given to reducing the time for which the ORN is in place to a minimum, hence minimising the disruption for ordinary Londoners?
We have seen various reports about the proposed changes to traffic signals. There is a need to assuage the fear that this programme, however modest, will significantly increase congestion throughout the whole of London. Will the Minister advise us when the final list of road closures will be issued? Is there any opportunity for people to be consulted? Is there a right of appeal if people have good grounds to be concerned? Regarding who exactly will be able to glide down the Olympic lanes, have any efforts been made to restrict the number of such persons, and with what success? Has any progress been made with plans to use the River Thames transport system for the Games?
There is concern about pedestrian road safety and how it would be affected by crossing closures. Will the Minister advise us when the final list of those closures will be issued? Is there an opportunity for people to consult it? Is there a right of appeal if people have good grounds to be concerned, for example, about safety?
Finally, what progress has been made to allow taxis to use the Olympic road network in specified areas or at specified times? At Second Reading we understood that negotiations were continuing, but we now hear that no taxis will be allowed to use the ORN at any time, including the very small hours of the morning. Is that true and is there any chance of a more flexible approach? I beg to move.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
My Lords, I declare an interest. I am a board member of Transport for London. Also, as an ex-athlete, I feel slightly guilty that I have glided down Paralympic lanes in the past. The amendment would prevent the ORN and PRN coming into force unless there has been consultation with local authorities, residents and businesses that may be affected by it. I still think there is a huge amount that needs to be done to educate the public around the use of the ORN and the PRN, and I raised this at Second Reading.
I have seen personally that it is quite difficult to engage the media in issues around the ORN and the PRN, perhaps because it is not the most glamorous side of the Games in terms of spreading understanding. The aim of the ORN and the PRN is to move athletes and Games families around in a sensible manner, and we accept that London will be busy. However, I would like to raise a few points around the consultation and what the ORN and PRN are going to look like. It is important to remember that they will come into force only just before the Games begin. They will be discontinued when they are not needed, and there has been a serious attempt to minimise the number of roads used. It is 109 miles, which is, in effect, 1 per cent of London’s roads. It is also important to differentiate between the ORN and the Games lanes, which are only going to be 30 miles of London’s roads.
There has been extensive consultation with the boroughs, engaging with officials and politicians over design, implementation and the operation. Informal engagement about the detail has just come to an end and the commissioner has met with borough leaders to discuss the ORN and other Games timing issues. In terms of consultation with Londoners, half a million letters have gone out as part of an informal engagement. There have been 70 drop-in sessions run by Transport for London, and changes can be made in response. Also, all the information on the ORN and PRN is on the Transport for London website. In terms of minimising disruption, the ORN will only be operational a few days before the Games and not used between the Games, as has already been said.
There is also a lack of understanding about taxis’ use of the ORN. They are able to use the ORN but they are not able to use the Games lanes, which are vital for moving the athletes around. TFL has consulted with the London Cab Drivers Club, the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association and Unite the Union, and are including the possibility of giving them access to the same permissions as buses to turn onto the ORN and PRN. Those meetings are going to continue on a monthly basis. Finally, considering road safety has been central to the design of the ORN and PRN, there is an awareness that pedestrian crossings are of concern. Where the crossings have to close, there will be barriers with signage to the nearest safe crossing. I believe it is important that tactile paving will be covered to ensure that visually impaired people are not misguided. A great deal of work is ongoing with the London Visual Impairment Forum and local mobility groups to ensure that that consultation continues.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am not sure that I can entirely answer the noble Lord and I will have to come back to him on that specific point. Obviously, it will be part of the whole parcel of communication which will go to all the different people involved in ensuring that London keeps moving and that the Games operate as successfully and smoothly as we want.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I thank everyone who participated in this debate, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her ability to spin across into Transport for London issues, which was very helpful, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, whose contribution brought the practicalities of London very much to the forefront.
I am left with three or four points that it might be worth sharing with the Committee. We are dealing with a road transport system in London that is already pretty fragile and anything that one does to it is bound to have a major impact. It used to be said that if you wanted to bring London to a standstill you simply had to put one man and a digger somewhere in Soho: it had such an effect in terms of road traffic that it could close the whole of the city, which may still be true. I know that attempts are going to be made to make sure that there are no road repairs during the period about which we are talking. But, even so, it is a fragile arrangement.
Given that it is fragile, the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, are quite worrying. I know that the Minister tried to give us some gloss on those figures. If the bid book was wrong and the figures were underestimated, what are the correct figures? Would it be possible—not in this debate—for her to write to the noble Baroness and me to give us a linkage back to the bid book, to what the figures should have been if they were wrong and to what the figures will be on the best possible estimates? I am intrigued by the idea that somehow there has to be a reduction of 30 per cent in current use. How will that be achieved? Are we saying that more measures than have currently been discussed will have to be brought out? Are we going to say to people that they will have to take rolling holidays? I can see some advantage in that. Again, I do not need a response today, but it would be useful to have some sense of how that will happen.
My worry is that we may have the best Games possible and that they will be incredibly successful, but that the price we will pay will be a significant dip in GDP, which we perhaps had not anticipated, because people are not able to get to work or they decide to take the line of least resistance and not go into work on the days when the Games are happening. I am being frivolous, but at the heart of this there are problems.
The points on which I am still a little concerned are that the river will be used only for events happening at Greenwich—it seems to me that the river could be utilised much better in terms of providing ancillary transport from a river stopping point, perhaps near Canary Wharf, to the Games, which would save all the central London movement—and the issue about black cabs. Again, I could not quite make out what was being said.
The ORN is a physical mark on a map and can be measured. It is said to be 109 miles in length. Clearly when it is not being used for Olympic purposes, it can be used for ordinary transport, but the feeling has come across, whether it is right or not, that black cabs will not be allowed to go on to the network at all, and that is what is causing the problem. If it is clear that they can, we are back to our old friend communication.
These are going to be brilliant Games, but we must get people on side. We must get them to support them. We need to start communicating better about the transport issues because they are definitely going to continue. The Minister gave us a lot of detail about the consultations going ahead, which was generally very comforting, but there is a difference between consultations about particular closures in particular places and general broad communication about what is happening. I still think that there is room for much more on the latter point, even though the former point will take much of the load. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
This is a formal procedure in order to get into a discussion about the relaxation of licensing conditions that will make it easier for haulage operators to adjust to the difficulties that they may experience as a result of the Games. In response to the query from the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville, I intend to mention newspaper deliveries because that seems to fit more closely with the general concerns that the Newspaper Society was expressing.
For those whose business is delivering and transporting goods and services, it is a major concern that there is going to be sustained problems during the Olympic Games, but they accept that. The difficulty is that they have not experienced the impact of the sustained duration of the Games compared with what they have to do for big, one-off events such as royal weddings, and that creates the different proposition that they are struggling with. The keys to this are more flexibility, proportionality and information. When the Minister responds, can she advise us of the final list of operating constraints and when it will be issued so that the information flow can begin? Can she give us some information about the consultations that took place on that?
Time-critical deliveries for perishable goods or newspaper deliveries, as I have mentioned, often operate with a limited time slot, so they are particularly vulnerable not only to the traffic measures that we talked about on a previous amendment, but to the need to make changes to arrangements that may impact adversely on the working conditions of the drivers and haulage operators directly affected by the changes. Can the Minister tell us what assessment of the impact of these changes, particularly in the working practices of the drivers and ancillary workers, has been carried out? Can that assessment be published?
Finally, can the Minister say what information it is proposed to issue to businesses in this area of activity, when it might be issued, how regularly it will be done and whether there will be a central point where this information is held and can be consulted? Will there be a dedicated website? Will this be a proactive process or a reactive one? In other words, will information be pushed out to businesses or will they have to find it for themselves and make what they can of what they can find? The former would certainly be more appropriate and, given the particular difficulties of the long period of disruption, it would be a gesture that would be very well received.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
Deleting Clause 9 would remove a provision added in the other place to permit last-minute changes to goods vehicles operator’s licences. It allows traffic commissioners temporarily to suspend or amend licence conditions regulating the hours of operation of goods vehicle operating centres without the need to carry out a consultation. The provision applies in the period leading up to, during and immediately after the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games. It ensures that businesses in London can continue to receive goods deliveries in Games time and permits freight operators to rearrange deliveries to comply with Games restrictions without breaching their licence conditions.
If I thought that it was difficult to raise the media profile of the ORN, it is even more of a challenge to do so for freight deliveries. The temporary provision is necessary to ensure that freight deliveries continue to take place in central London. It might not be immediately obvious, but they are crucial to the success of the Games. Many goods vehicles licences held by freight operators include an environmental restriction that constrains hours of operation and additional night-time deliveries may be necessary. While it is important to encourage businesses to think about Games times, it has been a real challenge to encourage companies to think nine or 10 months ahead. Some companies are not in a position to do that, especially single traders or the man with a white van. That is one of the realities that we face with this.
We need to ensure that those people are not penalised. It is also important that traffic commissioners are able to deal with late requests effectively and to protect the needs of those residents who will otherwise be affected by operators breaking their licence conditions. I do not believe that it should be a permanent change, but it is necessary for Games time.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for those words. She has given us an insight into the thinking and the deliberations that have gone on, which have been extensive. With that, I am happy to withdraw my objection to Clause 9.
“Delivery of an Olympic and Paralympic legacy
After section 36 of the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006, insert—“36A Legacy
The Secretary of State is required to report to Parliament twice annually on the progress of the delivery of a London Olympic games and Paralympic games legacy, with specific focus on the following aims—(a) to deliver a lasting sporting legacy which—(i) increases national participation in sports;(ii) improves sports provision in schools; and(iii) delivers wider uptake of new sports;(b) to deliver a programme of cultural activity which—(i) showcases UK creativity, culture and innovation;(ii) promotes grassroots cultural engagement in communities; and(iii) delivers a UK Cultural Olympiad;(c) to deliver an Olympic Park legacy which—(i) achieves economic regeneration and sustainable development of the local economy;(ii) supports continued local and national use of the Olympic Park and its buildings; and(iii) provides an international blueprint for sustainable living”.”
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, London's successful bid to host the Games was premised on a shared view across all the parties and both Houses that they should be about much more than 60 days of Olympic and Paralympic sport.
At Second Reading, we talked about bringing desperately needed jobs and inward investment to London and the local area and the hope that a successful Games would generate a sense of national renewal whereby after the Games, communities up and down the country would be more optimistic and ambitious about their futures and would have a greater belief in the possibilities of their own achievements. The interest in tickets for the Games and the burgeoning media interest in the organising of the Games and the progress of our athletes bodes well. It would be a great pity if we did not in the event manage to use the Games to transform our economy, our culture and our environment in permanent and beneficial ways.
The previous Government published their legacy plans via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Legacy Promises document in 2007. The five promises were: to make the UK a world-leading sporting nation, to transform the heart of east London, to inspire a generation of young people to take part in local volunteering, cultural and physical activity, to make the Olympic park a blueprint for sustainable living and to demonstrate the UK as a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live in, visit and for business. It would be hard to give concrete figures or targets for any of those promises but can the Minister update us on the progress that her Government are making towards achieving those targets?
On making the UK a world-leading sporting nation, the previous Government pledged to use the power of the Games to inspire a million more people to play sport three or more times a week.
A second pledge, to be delivered through the Department of Health, promised to get 1 million more people doing more general physical activity. We gather that both those targets have been dropped. Is that the case? If so, what are the targets now? The latest Sport England figures that I can find, from April 2011, seem very disappointing. They show that 17 sports have recorded a decline in the number of people playing once a week since 2007-08 and only four, mountaineering, athletics, netball and table tennis, have recorded a significant increase.
Could the Minister also update us on the progress of the Cultural Olympiad? We gather that the programme is about to be announced, so perhaps she could give us a glimpse of the performances and activities that will put flesh on the aspiration to demonstrate that the UK is a creative, inclusive and welcoming place to live in, visit and for business.
On the Olympic park, part of the East End of London has been transformed from a contaminated wasteland into what has been described as the largest urban park to be created in Europe for 150 years. You cannot but be impressed by what has been achieved and by the plans for the sustainable community that are now coming to fruition. It is clear that the housing and retail developments there are radically improving the economic profile of the five boroughs. However, can the Minister explain in more detail the implications for the Government of the decision to pull out of negotiations to sell the stadium to West Ham football club? Where have the capital funds come from for this, given that, as we learnt from the February 2011 NAO report, the ODA’s contingency fund is almost fully committed, and also given the NAO’s concern in the same report that there should be a clear plan for mitigating the costs of maintaining any assets for which the ODA remains responsible after the Games, in the event that the legacy company is unsuccessful in its procurement of long-run operators? Who will meet the long-run costs of this part of the site, going forward? I beg to move.
Lord Addington
My Lords, I tried to get my name down to this amendment, because this is a very important debate. I am afraid that I managed to mess that process up, as I did when I tried to draft an amendment for a similar type of discussion.
The idea that this Olympics went beyond purely the Games themselves is a very good aspiration. However, it has proved fairly difficult to deliver. To be perfectly honest, it seems that the more the Government are involved in those aims, the worse we have done. I use the word “Government” to mean the Treasury Bench and whoever is in charge. When the Olympic movement itself was in charge, it brought more concrete and sustainable things and seemed to do rather better. That is the impression that I have at the moment.
We had targets under the previous Government and we had arguments about double accounting and what it meant. One thing that we may discover from this is the limitations of government involvement to achieve certain things. Looking at this we can get some idea of what we can and cannot achieve, with reasonable levels of effort, and we will be able to take something very valuable away with us for the next time we have a huge event. The Olympics is the ultimate pan-national event. We have learnt from the delivery of various things what went wrong in Athens and right in Sydney, et cetera. The fact that we can pass this information on to the next cities to host the Games will be a good thing. If government piggybacks on the Olympics to achieve something, we should know what has and has not been achieved.
I suggest that we could go on with this matter for some considerable time. The questions raised in the amendment are quite profound as regards what has happened in the Olympics and where we go, and the relative successes and failures that there will be in the process. When I was trying to draw up an amendment, without getting too complicated or esoteric, I might have excluded paragraph (c) from the discussion, for the simple reason that it will be easy to judge that matter, and most of the activity there seems to have been reasonably successful.
Once again, I think this is a question about what government can achieve and cannot achieve. I would hope that, for instance, the first beneficiary of this information would probably be Glasgow and the Commonwealth Games, and all future Games. It is very easy to forget that there has to be a continuum, a legacy; it is not just a one-off event. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some idea about the government thinking as regards their involvement, learning lessons and backing up successes and not repeating failures.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I would like to thank those noble Lords who spoke in the debate. We got almost a full round with just a couple who did not seem to want to join in. I am sorry about that: they should have supported the party. But we had contributions from many noble Lords and it was a fitting near end to our discussions. I am particularly sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, was not able to add his name to our amendment. We talked about it on the phone and I hoped that he would do so, but he spoke up almost completely in support of what I was saying and therefore I think that it comes to the same thing.
I would like to mention three things. The first is that we all share the view that the legacy is important and we want to see that supported. We probably do not all agree on what would be a successful outcome, but we are close enough to be able to anticipate the results that would be good for us. We have the least concern about the physical side of the legacy, the Olympic park. It was extremely good of my noble friend Lady Ford to come to the debate in the middle of ongoing discussions about this issue and update us so that we are fully up to speed. We were all grateful to hear the principal concerns, which are that there should be an effective stadium working in that part of London that is available for sport in the long run. That might be the best solution to the problems that we had.
We are less happy about the Cultural Olympiad, only in the sense that we do not yet know what it is. We can hear the plans, but until it has been delivered, we are not able to judge them. I certainly know from other discussions that it is reaching out well and maybe we can be optimistic. I am afraid that discussions about the sports side were less convincing: the eye has been taken off the ball there. Despite the interesting and good-sounding results from the noble Lord, Lord Coe, and the impact that his work has been having through sponsorship, the general dimensions of the idea that more people would be doing more sport and would become healthier as a result of being inspired by sport, are not yet in place, although they may come in due course.
My third and final point is that the purpose of my amendment was to make sure that Parliament in the round received a holistic view about what the legacy was and how it should go through—not just for its own sake, but for the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about the benefits if we were able to pass on our learning to other potential host cities and cities within the United Kingdom that might be doing similar things, including Glasgow. It would also be a value-for-money consideration and it would reflect the need for us as a society to pass on our enjoyment of sport and the impact that it can have.
If that is done in the usual way, it will be too scattered and not effective enough. Simply going through departmental reports, getting the occasional NAO blast and having other standardised forms of reporting is not what the amendment is trying to do. Therefore, while I will withdraw it on this occasion, we might consider bringing it back at Report for further discussion because it is so important. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.