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Olympic Games 2012

My Lords, when the founding father of the Olympic movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, mapped that seamless path between sport, culture and education 120 years ago, he was right then and he is right today. He would have been heartened by the quality of the debate that has dignified this place over the past few hours. It was a wonderful debate. It contained passion and insight and, if I may so, the questions, and the forensic nature of those questions, were of the highest order. It is normally the province of the Minister, but with leave of the House I will, if it is thought to be reasonable, write separately to noble Lords about the specific issues that were raised, particularly around the organising and staging of the Games. It would be remiss of me not to join noble Lords in the compliments that were paid to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Loughborough, for a very fine maiden speech—the first of many, I hope. I am delighted also to be joined in this place by my former university tutor. It would be remiss of me to alight upon any speeches in particular, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, summed it up when he said that the bulk of people in this country want this project to be a success. He also said "I want to be there". I can do no better than echo those words. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion. Motion withdrawn.