2012 Olympics (Legacy)

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have secured this debate on the last possible occasion in 2010. I want to set out some concerns, on behalf of the community that I represent, about the legacy of the 2012 Olympics. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), in whose constituency the Olympic stadium is located, had wanted very much to attend the debate, but her Front-Bench commitments have kept her away. I am grateful that the Minister is here. I am conscious that I shall of necessity touch on some topics beyond his brief, and I am grateful for his willingness to respond.

The 2012 Olympics are a huge opportunity for London and for Britain—and in particular for the regeneration of east London. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) is in the Chamber. She led our effort to secure the games for London, and the impact of her success will be etched on the economic geography of London for generations to come.

We are already seeing important benefits in east London. When the economy has been in poor shape in the past—for example during the period of cuts under the last Conservative Government in the 1980s—east London has been hammered. I am fearful about the impact on rising unemployment of the Government’s programme of cuts during the next four years. Last week’s unemployment figures have, I fear, given us a foretaste of what is to come.

In east London, however, we shall be buttressed to some extent by the fact that £9.2 billion is being invested in the Olympic games. Today, more than 900 residents of Newham, my borough, are working on the construction of the Olympic park and Olympic village, and there are 2,300 from the five Olympic host boroughs as a whole. I am pleased that the great majority are being paid at least the London living wage, and I particularly commend efforts such as those of Bovis BeOnsite and Newham council’s Workplace initiative with Jobcentre Plus, which have successfully targeted local unemployed people to work on the project.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Westfield Stratford—the stunning retail development alongside the Olympic park, which will be the largest urban shopping centre in Europe when it opens next September, providing jobs for 12,000 full and part-time staff. At the moment, there are 70,000 jobs in the borough of Newham, so 12,000 new ones will be an enormous boost. The idea of that centre was around before the decision to bring the games to London, but given the form in which it has been realised and the speed at which it has been implemented, it is a very important element of the Olympic legacy. I vividly remember the dismay locally when Marks & Spencer pulled out of Stratford in the 1980s—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) remembers as well, so the return of Marks & Spencer to Newham when Westfield Stratford opens will be a welcome boost.

During the next year or two, it will be very important to ensure that people who live in the Olympic host boroughs enjoy their full share of the employment and other opportunities that are created. I shall mention just one idea that I have been talking about to people. Newham is home to people with roots in every country of the world. In too many cases, people are unable to find work. During the games, we shall be hosting visitors from literally every country in the world, and I hope that we shall be able to establish a location where people living locally can set up stalls for modest restaurant businesses to provide cooked food from their home countries, which would help to make visitors to the games feel welcome and create new jobs for local residents. I hope that we can establish that food court in good time for the games and that it can become a permanent feature of the area. There are a number of locations where it might be established.

I want to refer to a particular issue that will be addressed early in the new year: the future of the Olympic stadium. I was present last night, together with the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood, at the ceremony to switch on the lights in the Olympic stadium for the first time. It was an opportunity to admire the splendour of the stadium now that all the seats have been fitted and to appreciate—it was certainly the first time that I had been able to do so—what an extremely impressive venue it is, even when it is covered in snow.

I support the proposal submitted by West Ham United football club, together with the London borough of Newham, for West Ham to take over the stadium after the games. For more than 100 years, since not long after the club was established—it emerged in 1900 from the Thames Ironworks football club—the club’s ground has been at Upton Park in East Ham, in my constituency, rather than in West Ham. Of course, if and when it moves, we in East Ham shall miss it, but I am convinced that that is the right solution. I appreciate that the Minister has no formal say in the matter, but I hope that he will agree that the West Ham solution is the right one for the Olympic stadium.

I shall suggest three reasons why the West Ham solution is right. First, it honours our obligations to the Olympic movement and fulfils the commitment to a strong sporting legacy, which was the basis on which the London bid was successful. Secondly, it offers the best opportunities to the community in east London in which the stadium is located. Thirdly, it is a financially robust bid based on a sound business case.

I shall start with our obligations to the Olympic movement. The Minister will have seen the recent open letter from Olympic and Paralympic medallists, with more than 40 games medals between them, calling for the retention of the athletics track in the stadium. West Ham is committed to retaining it to secure a national athletics centre; the alternative bidders, Spurs, would remove it.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that although there has been some confusion about the athletics legacy, it clearly is the strong viewpoint of the athletics industry, the international Olympic movement and everyone associated with this venture that athletics will continue at the stadium?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is right. That view is strongly held by the International Association of Athletics Federations and UK Athletics. Also, when the bid was submitted, a promise was made—it was a significant element of the bid—to retain athletics in the stadium beyond the games, and that promise will be broken if the track is removed. It is very important that we do not let that happen. My hon. Friend is right to underline how strong feelings about that subject are.

An open letter from the athletes sets out their position. They said:

“One of the most compelling aspects of our bid back in 2005 was the promise of an athletics legacy in the form of a world class stadium. This promise made the idea of legacy real. It showed that the Games would continue to touch the wider community long after the Olympics and Paralympic spectacular had left town.”

The letter was signed by a bevy of famous names, including Steve Cram, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Kelly Holmes and Daley Thompson. They are right—we should not break the promise that has been made. The provision of a world-class athletics track in the stadium after the games was one reason why the UK bid secured the crucial support ahead of the 2005 decision of Lamine Diack, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, and it is why the West Ham-Newham bid has the support of UK Athletics as well.

The proposal offers additional sporting benefits. It has the support of Essex county cricket club, which wants to be able to use the stadium, too. It will also be used for rugby. The bid is also being supported by Live Nation, the world’s biggest live events company, which describes the stadium as

“a superb venue for hosting major concerts and other events”.

Secondly, the bid represents the right solution for the local community, which is why the local authority is supporting it. The stadium will inspire learning and achievement, with thousands of local young people visiting each year to make use of its facilities. The university of East London and Newham college of further education will also have a role. The stadium’s legacy will include a studio school focused on sport and leisure, and the West Ham Playing for Success centre will relocate there.

West Ham has a thriving community sports trust involving 3,700 local people a week, and that will be strengthened further by a move to the Olympic stadium. Its training and mentoring scheme has produced 36 fully qualified coaches, all of whom were recruited from the borough. It has delivered PE at key stage 2 of the national curriculum to more than 50,000 pupils at the club’s Beckton training centre. The Minister has visited the centre, after which he rightly praised it for

“empowering young Londoners to take responsibility through sport and education”.

West Ham’s Asians in Football project engages with more than 36,000 youngsters a year and has been recognised and acknowledged by the Football Association as a national example of effective integration practice. Its multi-sports project delivers 14 sports in addition to football across the borough, and multi-sports coaching is provided to a wide range of people with disabilities. The British Heart Foundation recognises the men’s health project at West Ham for its engagement of men in a fitness and exercise programme.

There are discussions about using the stadium to widen cultural activities in Newham—the CREATE festival, arts development for local residents, and concerts and community music events—and it potentially has rehearsal space for local groups such as East London Dance. Such a full link to the local community would strengthen the potential for the health element of the proposals on the Olympic polyclinic. The bid’s success will boost jobs locally. Half the 1,000 hospitality and safety staff at Upton Park on a match day are from the local area, and that number is likely to grow if the bid is successful.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the West Ham bid largely involves the use of much of the existing stadium, while the alternative bid from Tottenham Hotspur involves dismantling the stadium? I know that he has immense Treasury experience, so does he think that destroying £500 million of taxpayers’ money to set about something new can be good value for money at this time of fiscal austerity?

[Stephen Timms]

I think that it would be a tragic waste of the investment that has been made and of the superb facility that we saw last night. It would be tragic if the facility was there simply for the brief period of the games. My right hon. Friend is right to underline the importance of retaining what has been achieved, which is impressive.

One thing that struck me at last night’s ceremony was the strength of local support for, and engagement with, what is happening in the Olympic park. Tessa Sanderson was there with a group of local young people who are training at her academy to compete in the 2012 games, and other local interests were also present. I hope that that local commitment will be harnessed to make the most of the stadium’s future with the existing building. We should not tear it down and start again, and the West Ham bid is best placed to achieve that.

West Ham’s Upton Park ground is in my constituency, and, as a local resident, I will be sad to see it go after more than 100 years. However, access to the new venue will be much better, especially by public transport, and the existing site could be redeveloped in a way that would strengthen the local community and the neighbouring shopping centre in Green street. The site would be very restricted if the club envisaged further development.

Thirdly, the West Ham bid makes business sense. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) pointed out, it does not involve tearing down a structure built with substantial public investment. The capital costs that the project would entail would be met from a combination of the funding made available by the Olympic Delivery Authority, the receipts from the disposal of the current ground at Upton Park and a loan facility provided through Newham council—not a grant, as has been suggested in some quarters, but a loan. The club has been able to show how it will meet its continuing liabilities, even in the highly unlikely event that its recent run of poor results continues and it spends next season in the championship, which I hope will not happen. For all three reasons—honouring our Olympic commitments, achieving a local solution and because the bid makes business sense—I hope that the West Ham bid for the future use of the stadium is successful.

Finally, I want to comment on the sporting legacy of the Olympic games, and the partial U-turn we saw from the Government yesterday when they reinstated at least some of the funding for school sport partnerships. We all agree that inspiring and supporting young people to be active in sport should be—must be—one of the biggest prizes from the 2012 games. It is welcome that the Government will not withdraw the funding entirely, following protests from schools and sports people, but it looks as though there will still be a drastic cut in funding for school sports—I have heard suggestions of an 80% cut.

[Mr Don Foster (Bath) (LD)]

If I get the opportunity to catch your eye, Miss McIntosh, I will comment on the right hon. Gentleman’s earlier remarks, but on the school sport partnerships, does he accept that he might be slightly misrepresenting the situation? He has failed to take into account that by removing the ring fence that was applied to school sport partnerships, some of the money that was originally there has gone into schools, and, therefore, will still be available for them to buy into the network. We all agree that it was right to preserve the funding in the form that it is now in.

[Stephen Timms]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s last point about the importance of retaining the partnerships, but I do not and cannot share his confidence that the funding will be used in the way he suggests. The Minister might be able to shed some light on this, but I gather that funding for some specialist sports, such as judo, boxing and fencing, may be removed altogether, which would substantially reduce the choice of sport available to young people. The concern that I put to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) is that confidence has been damaged because the funding is not secure. I am told by schools in my area that the confidence in the arrangements has been quite badly undermined, and it is not clear that yesterday’s announcement will repair it. I hope that it will, at least partially, but it is not clear that it has.

The co-ordination resource for the network of more than 1.5 million young people involved in sports leadership and volunteering appears also to be under threat. It is impressive that the number of sports volunteers almost doubled in the past three years, thanks to policies that my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood put in place, but it is hard to see how what has happened can do anything other than constrain that important element of the Olympic legacy.

I have been speaking to the head teacher of Langdon school in my constituency, which is a successful sports specialist college that my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood knows. Ten years ago, it was a pioneer for the school sport partnerships, and a large group of young people from that school was part of the London bid team at the meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Singapore in July 2005. My right hon. Friend will acknowledge that their youthful enthusiasm, showcasing the diversity of today’s young London, played an important part in winning the games for the United Kingdom. Today, Langdon is part of a thriving sport partnership of seven secondary schools and 30 primary schools. The benefits of the partnerships are not just sporting in nature; there is close work with feeder primary schools to support children in their academic work, particularly in the primary to secondary transition. The partnership also strengthens the ties between the schools and sports clubs in the community. It supports inter-school competitions. I have heard some criticisms that the partnership has not supported inter-school competitions. The partnership to which I am referring certainly has a large number of competitive inter-school events as part of it. It has coaching programmes to help senior students to gain skills and qualifications for future sports leadership roles.

The head teacher of Langdon, Dr Tabassum, wrote to the Prime Minister 10 days ago, making the point:

“As for the Olympic legacy, we can only fully realise the potential of London 2012 and the inspiration it offers by maximising the development systems that we have been creating and developing over the past decade through our established Schools Sports Partnerships.”

Of course, the school welcomes the reinstatement since that letter was written of some of the funding, although it is not yet clear to it how much of the activity can be retained. Dr Tabassum makes the point that announcing a complete withdrawal of funding was very damaging to the confidence in schools—primary and secondary—in what they had been doing and was damaging to their commitment.

The Olympic games, in 18 months’ time, present a huge opportunity for the UK. It is particularly important that their potential be harnessed to create new opportunities for people living close to the park in east London. In that light, I hope that the West Ham bid for the stadium is successful and that it will be possible for the school programmes, which can underpin the future sporting legacy for the UK, to be sustained after the raid on them over the past couple of months by the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Education.