Nigel Adams
Main Page: Nigel Adams (Conservative - Selby and Ainsty)(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Gray, for calling me to speak.
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on having his crystal ball to hand when he applied for this debate? It is great news that one of the world’s greatest sporting events will be starting in our county in 2014.
When I first heard that Yorkshire was going to bid for the grand départ, I thought to myself, “Mais non! C’est pas possible!” However, I did not reckon on the guile, the craft and the salesmanship of Welcome to Yorkshire. Everyone at our tourism body deserves credit for winning the bid. We have singled out Gary Verity, who did a fantastic job leading the bid, but I would also like to mention Peter Dodd, who did a fantastic job supporting Gary along the way. They should be rightly proud of what they have done; they have turned a rank outsider into a winning bid, and they should be congratulated. Welcome to Yorkshire has a history of delivering success, winning the award for the world’s leading travel marketing campaign three years running and winning the award for Europe’s leading travel marketing campaign twice. It beat worldwide brands such as Expedia and Thomas Cook, tourism organisations such as Visit London, and countries such as Spain and Denmark.
It was only when I met Gary, Peter and their contacts from France to discuss the bid that I reckoned that Yorkshire had a serious chance of securing it. However, I was disappointed to receive a straight bat from the Government when I raised the prospect of supporting Yorkshire’s bid in the House before the summer. I was a little more disappointed that UK Sport did not appear to want to engage with the bid, not even with a supportive letter. Well, it looks like UK Sport backed the wrong horse.
The 5 and 6 July will be fantastic for the north of England, and particularly for Yorkshire, as Leeds will host the grand départ. Two stages of the Tour will need to go somewhere, and I hope the Amaury Sport Organisation, the race organiser, is listening to the debate; indeed, I am sure it is. I want briefly to make the case for part of the Tour to come to my area.
Nigel Adams
I thought about giving the whole speech in French, but I decided, for reasons of expedience, to deliver it in English.
Selby has a fantastic cycling history. It also has links with France going back more than 950 years, and I will list a few. Members will be intrigued to hear that the town of Selby was founded by a French Benedictine monk—in fact, it was Benedict himself—in about 1067. The fourth son of William the Conqueror, who was French, of course, would go on to become King Henry I, and he was born in Selby, becoming the only English-born Norman monarch. Selby abbey’s patron saint is St Germain, who was based in Auxerre, and evidence suggests he visited Selby.
Nigel Adams
I do not believe he cycled, but the name of Garmancarr lane, which is in the village of Wistow, is a corruption of Germain’s carr. As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, carr means low-lying washland. The lane’s name therefore suggests that St Germain held land in the Selby area.
The scientist Smithson Tennant was assisted in discovering two chemical elements in 1804 by two French chemists. Cochrane’s shipyard built many of the ships and supplied some of the barge men for the D-day landings, which made the liberation of France possible—mind you, we also built the ships that helped us defeat the French at Agincourt.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
Order. While I am hesitant to interrupt the hon. Gentleman’s speech, which I am very much enjoying, it might help hon. Members to know that six or seven Members still hope to speak. Therefore, it might be courteous if Members could keep their remarks as short as they reasonably can.
Mr James Gray (in the Chair)
No, not maybe—definitely. [Hon. Members: “No, ‘Mais oui.’”] Ah, mais oui.
Nigel Adams
The Tour de France last visited the UK in 2007, when London hosted the grand départ. It is estimated that the Tour brought £90 million to the capital and the south-east. It has been suggested that Yorkshire could benefit to the tune of over £100 million, and perhaps much more with the Government’s backing. As we have heard, the bid had the backing of local authorities, MPs from across the parties, the business community and the area’s people, 170,000 of whom signed the bid. The legacy plans are already being discussed. As we have heard, we are looking at delivering a bike bank and at improved investment in cycle lanes and infrastructure. I hope the Minister will take away the message that, having won the bid, Yorkshire could benefit from financial support in the run-up to the Tour. Although no funding was forthcoming during the bid, I can assure him that any help received now will produce an outstanding return on investment.
This is Yorkshire’s opportunity to welcome the world, and we will do it properly. With the recent success of British riders such as Bradley Wiggins, who became the first Briton to win the Tour, the popularity of cycling has never been higher. I myself have recently dusted down my old boneshaker, although I do not aspire to wear the yellow jersey. I am confident that this fantastic event will inspire more people to take up cycling and that millions of people will cheer on the champions of world cycling in our great county.
The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)
I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) on securing this debate and on the way that he and other hon. Members have conducted it. The debate has been quite a lot of fun, which is a very good start.
I also welcome the formation of the all-party group, which, particularly given how things have developed, will be incredibly important, as the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) said, in bringing together disparate groups in order to make the event the success that it undoubtedly should be.
I will go through the various contributions and try to answer the questions that have been raised, but I will start with a few general remarks. I genuinely say this, and I have no worries at all: I congratulate Yorkshire wholeheartedly on pulling off the bid. To me it does not matter whether people wish to engage with the Government and Government agencies when making bids; what matters is who wins at the end. I absolutely, 100% congratulate Yorkshire on a stunning triumph. I may not have helped Yorkshire very much—I think my sole contribution was nearly standing on a Yorkshire terrier on the Champs-Elysées in July—but it was clear then, and in the way the bid was conducted, that Yorkshire was on to something that others possibly had not picked up. I wholeheartedly congratulate Yorkshire on that achievement.
There are a number of good years for cycling in front of us, and I will come on to that, but 2014 is an important year for this country any way with the Commonwealth games coming to Glasgow a month or so after the Tour de France, which will fit into the calendar very well.
Given the comments on the Olympics, I ought to congratulate Yorkshire on its contribution to London 2012, not only, as a number of hon. Members said, with the huge numbers of people who turned out to watch the torch, but with the number of Yorkshire athletes who secured medals during the competition. At the end of the first week, the joke doing the rounds was that Australia was being beaten in the medal table by both Yorkshire and Millfield school. At that stage, looking at the birthplaces of the athletes, Yorkshire was about fifth or sixth in the medal table, so it made a considerable contribution to the sporting summer, as would be expected from a county with such sporting tradition.
The hon. Member for Eltham touched on this, but while we are on the subject it is worth paying tribute to the work of British Cycling. No other sport in this country combines excellence at the top end with participation. The medal tally from London 2012 is extraordinarily impressive, given the dual achievement of winning the Tour and delivering medals across Olympic and Paralympic sports. Sarah Storey is now the most decorated Paralympian in Britain’s history. Our cyclists are an extraordinary success story. If we look at what they achieved in the Olympics and the Tour, they were the predominant sport at the BBC awards on Sunday night: not only did Bradley Wiggins win, of course, but David Brailsford, the performance director, picked up the coach of the year award.
More than 2 million people cycle regularly. Dave Brailsford told me that he thinks more than 500,000 people have taken up the sport since our success in Beijing. As the hon. Member for Eltham correctly said, that has been recognised by Sport England, which has given a record award in the recent whole sport plans.
On major events, it is fantastic that the Tour is coming to Yorkshire in 2014, but Yorkshire has all sorts of opportunities to star next year as well. The rugby league world cup will be important to the county, and the Ashes are here as well. I am looking at my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams); I cannot remember whether Headingley stadium is still being redeveloped—
Hugh Robertson
It is, so it has not got one of the tests. Yorkshire athletes will be involved in the world rowing championships and the world triathlon series, which will be held here next year, and possibly even in the champions league final, which is due to be held at Wembley next year. There is a lot for Yorkshire to look forward to.
I will run through the points raised, dealing first with the general ones. Can I nail a point that is taking off about it being a Government decision to back the Scottish bid? It is not a Government decision to back any of the bids. It is rare to have two competing bids for a sports event from the same country. Normally, the country sorts things out itself and uses whatever bid is most likely to succeed.