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Olympic Legacy

My hon. Friend is right about the deadline. There is a need to make four-year allocations to sport by December to allow for planning. He will know that we have already made provisional allocations—I think that he raised that point during oral questions—and we want to enable governing bodies to have firm allocations in December. We are engaged in those discussions right now. On top of the allocations that we are able to make, we will have a fundraising drive. There is a plethora of schemes out there in which people are saying, ““Come and support local heroes””—everyone wants a piece of Team GB. In the ““medal hopes”” scheme, we are creating the only official route by which businesses at every level—local, regional and national—can come behind the British team and supplement the unprecedented amounts of public money that are going into elite sport. It is important to remember that some Opposition Members and some of those in the other place have claimed that there is a Government black hole. That is not the case. When the Chancellor set up the system, he said that the public would put in an unprecedented amount of money, but we want to build on that further and bring in private revenue. That is exactly what we are planning to do. My hon. Friend will see soon a number of discrete schemes under ““medal hopes””, which are exactly the kind of things that will be offered in the marketplace. I would ask him to exhibit a little bit more patience, but he is right—we will introduce these plans shortly. There will be a package that ensures that we do right by our sportsmen and women. We will build on Beijing, and go on to have our most successful performance ever at the London games. In conclusion, some might think that our plans for legacy for 2012 sound optimistic, but I remind the House that pre-Beijing, there were those who were cynical about our chances. I quote from the Select Committee's report:"““Performance at recent Olympic Games suggests that the aspiration towards eighth place at Beijing in 2008 is ambitious; the aspiration towards fourth place in London 2012 might appear even rash.””" I do not wish to rile the distinguished and esteemed Chairman of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, but before he goes to the bookies at the weekend, he might want to take some advice about his sporting predictions—from these Benches perhaps. We have an in-house expert who is very good at making high-profile and risky wagers. I hope that the Chairman of the Committee will see that we have a track record in delivering what we say we will deliver.