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London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I agree very much with what the noble Baroness has just said. Certainly the presentation by my noble friend Lord Stevenson laid out the case for why we should look at this very clearly. If we get this wrong, it has the potential of being a PR disaster. Nothing will turn people away and make them more cross about not being able to get to their place of work or not being able to do the things that they want to do in their normal day than seeing sponsors and people from other organisations—dare I say fat cats—using this gilded route. Nothing will turn the general public away more clearly than that. No one in their wildest dreams would suggest that the athletes and their coaches should not be given priority, and the media. That is essential to the smooth running of the Games. There has surely to be some flexibility. We have to do more than persuade people to go on public transport; we may have to instruct people that they have to do that. It may be that those boats have already been burnt and that we have undertakings with our sponsors and the people whom I gather will come to stay in the Dorchester and the Grosvenor Hotel and everywhere else—people coming from other organisations to which we will give this priority transport. I am not sure about any of that. This is something that we have to look at clearly, and it may have to be addressed as a problem that needs further scrutiny.