Sport and the 2012 Olympics Legacy

Tania Mathias Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

The debate has improved steadily as it has gone on, and Members on both sides of the House have made sensible points. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) and to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) for their excellent maiden speeches.

The language in the motion is unfortunate. Most international observers would say that to say Britain has “squandered” the legacy of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games is utterly nonsensical. I think most fair-minded people would say there has never been an Olympic games of modern times that has produced such a substantial legacy of every kind.

[Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)]

The idea of the legacy having been squandered cannot be true when one takes into account the transport logistics, the amazing Olympic volunteers—who were almost at the level of the absolute hero, Ben Parkinson, the torch carrier—and, thankfully for Twickenham, the rugby world cup. We are benefiting from those transport logistics and the volunteers. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that “squandering” is absolute rubbish?

[Boris Johnson]

I wholeheartedly agree that “squandering” is totally wrong. The reason the International Olympic Committee said that London offers a blueprint to the rest of the world is that it has been around other post-Olympic cities and seen, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the buddleia sprouting from the athletics tracks and the dustbowl stadiums. It has come to the Olympic park and seen the exact opposite: all seven key venues with a long-term private sector solution and contractor.

Since the park opened only a year ago, 800,000 people have gone to the swimming pool, 600,000 have gone to the VeloPark, 600,000 to the Copper Box, and tens of thousands to the Lea Valley hockey and tennis centres. As Members have pointed out repeatedly, we are about the only Olympic city on record to have solved the problem of what to do with the stadium. We have a long-term future for the stadium, in spite of the catastrophic errors made by the previous Government. There will be not only premiership football, but rock concerts, baseball, rugby and all manner of entertainments. Our park in east London is going to be a centre of sporting excitement for generations to come. The Secretary of State rightly listed a procession of world championships: athletics, rugby, hockey, wheelchair rugby, swimming and so on.

We are succeeding in getting people from the poorest boroughs to play sport and to take part. Some 45,000 people have taken part in the Active People, Active Park project and 26,000 have enjoyed Motivate East, a programme to get disabled people more active in sport. I am absolutely confident, as my friend the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) rightly said, that those numbers will continue to rise. The area is changing out of all recognition.