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London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Bill

This is for London only, I assume. I thank all who have spoken in this debate, particularly my noble friend Lady Ford and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Doocey, who shared their expertise in these matters. I am left with three quotes and a conclusion which I would like to cover before we resolve how to take this forward. When the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, was talking about modelling, she said that on certain occasions demand is going to exceed supply. That is picked up by the sense of the word hotspot which I assume covers much of the same issue. There is obviously going to be a problem at some point during the Games and we recognise that. The noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, was worried that emergency service vehicles would be sitting in traffic jams for hours on end, and I hope that she found the Minister’s response helpful. If there are traffic jams, they will not be the only people sitting in them, It is also going to be Londoners and others who wish to go about their ordinary business, including visitors and businesses that may have time-sensitive deliveries to make—for instance newspapers. There is obviously a second concern in that. The third concern—the one we are all beginning to push at—is that we are making it clear that these will be the world’s first public transport Games, while at the same time recognising that even our enhanced public transport system will not really be able to cope. We have a problem. Our amendment was an attempt to try to take a little of the potential blame away and bring it back to Parliament. However, I think that it has not found much favour and therefore will not push it further at this stage.