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Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I believe that it is the third time we have got to blocks, but the first time we have started. Much of the thrust on which I wanted to focus has just been spoken about by the noble Lord, Lord Pendry. First, I want to compliment the Olympic movement and, in particular, the ODA. I congratulate you on being so dull: you have been so good at doing what you have been doing that you have annoyed lots of journalists. This House and the whole of Parliament should salute, with considerable joy and relish, any organisation which has annoyed journalists. Well done! There have not been any great dramas. You have delivered on time and on budget—so far, so good. Unless something goes severely wrong—I always felt this about the Olympics—we will have a wonderful Games. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Coe, will not take it amiss if I say that if you manage to mess up something as intrinsically good as the Olympic Games, you deserve a place in history and infamy together, because the Games are so special. I also believe that the entire Olympic movement benefited from the complete cock-ups that we had before it—I am thinking particularly of the Wembley fiasco—and the fact that people listened and learnt. They also learnt from the great success story of the Manchester Commonwealth Games, which gave British sport the confidence and the seriousness to apply for the Olympics. This brings me to the central thrust of what I would say about the preparation for the Olympic Games. We will lose the major benefit from these Games if we concentrate only on the month in which the Olympics and the Paralympics take place. They must be seen as a point in a continual flow of activity. I always felt that the aim of getting 2 million more people actively involved in sport was basically absurd, but not the aim of getting 2 million more people to take up sport or to exercise regularly—in other words, to do themselves some good through exercise in a competitive or non-competitive environment. I do not know where the dividing line is. I have asked the Government several times, and it is quite clear that they do not know either. What will be the drive behind that? The Olympics have given enough political energy and activity to this to allow it to happen. This is probably one of the great things that one can cash in on. I know that sport is usually a subject in which party politics do not get too involved, but, in this election year and for the next couple of years, when we will not face the most expenditure-friendly environment, we should remember the benefits for the health service, social cohesion and all the other projects of making sure that we allow greater activity and flow through. Such activity and flow through is helped by things such as the Commonwealth Games, the Olympic Games and the Rugby World Cup, which we are getting here as well, coming together and learning and benefiting from each other. Without this idea of a continual pattern of activity, much of what we do in connection with the Olympics is in danger of being wasted. After that month of activity, there will be a huge temptation to shrug one’s shoulders, to say, "That is done", and to let it go. It is a perfectly normal reaction, and we have all had it. We have had it in groups to which we have been attached. After a huge burst of activity, we have said, "Oh, let’s do something else. Let’s not hang on to the idea". I appreciate that my party is under-represented here today—consideration of the Digital Economy Bill tomorrow will take a lot of energy out of my party’s DCMS team, but I have decided that I will treat them with the same contempt with which they treat me—but all political parties must ensure that we keep the drive going because without it we will not get very far. I thank the Minister for allowing the Government and not someone from the Back Benches or the opposition Front Bench to take the lead in this debate. My questions to him are: what are the Government’s plans to find out what does and does not work, and when will they publish them? These Olympic Games are taking on new activity and a new thrust, and they are bound to make a series of mistakes. With the best intention in the world, they are trying to get things right but you will get things wrong when you try new things. What works and what does not? I have asked the Government time and again which schemes are best for mass participation, which are not so good, which ones only get the kids running around for three weeks and then disappear, and which ones build up mass participation in grass-roots sports beyond the school-age drop-outs and the end-of-college drop outs. Which schemes are working? These are very important questions that I have asked many times. Also, have the Government decided, provided that they are still in a position to influence it—the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, might be able to give us an idea of his party’s approach, should it be in a position to do so—which department will take ultimate responsibility for this judgment? Is the Department of Health in charge? It is, a bit. The DCMS is in charge a bit as well, but mainly this is done through other bodies, and here I pay tribute to the sensibilities behind the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, about the number of boards that get in the way. We could certainly lose half of them, although I am not sure I know which half. When I asked the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, about it, he said that the Treasury is in overall charge. The Treasury has no way of delivering or judging the issue even if it does provide the finance. Where will the judgment be made? We have got to make this assessment at some point. Personally, if we going for mass participation and mass support, I favour putting the emphasis on the Department of Health. Apart from anything else, you need a big spending department to defend an issue, and if this is that department’s particular baby, it will be defended. Anyone who has observed these things for a length of time and has their hands on the levers of power will confirm that something has to be defended. What is going to happen? Can we be told who is going to carry on the project and make sure that this is not a one-stop shop? A physical structure will be left behind. People are looking forward to seeing a wonderful stadium, or better still—if you are a journalist—to seeing the stadium not being used. But what about having an idea of where we are going after 2012? Once we have sounded out what has worked and what has not, we must look at how we move on to the next series of sporting events. If we lose that, we will lose the real one-off opportunity of being able to benefit from how to bring the rest of the community together behind our major sporting events.