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Olympics and Paralympics (Funding)

Today, there are 151 days to go and the good news for the whole House is that the construction is now 96% complete and we are on track to deliver within the much-discussed £9.3 billion funding package. Of the original £9.3 billion, more than £500 million remains as uncommitted contingency, with the ODA holding just over £100 million and the Government about £400 million. The details will be released to the public, as they always are, tomorrow morning. I thought the best way to wind up the debate would be to go through the various contributions made, the first of which was from the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale). As we have come to expect from him, he made a typically sensible, informed and balanced speech and, I am delighted to say, he acted as a lightning conductor for all the early questions, thereby saving me some trouble. My hon. Friend was right to point out that when the budget was moved from the bid budget to the delivery budget, it contained considerable contingency funding. It is a fair point that, as a result, we have able to absorb the lack of private sector investment in both the village and the international broadcast centre/main press centre. My hon. Friend rightly praised the ODA. I believe that the ODA has recalibrated Britain's reputation abroad, as we saw clearly during the world athletics championship bid at the end of last year. Put simply, we are now trusted to deliver what we promise. That is the real achievement of the ODA. He rightly pointed out that the LOCOG operating budget is finely balanced. Set against that, it has done extraordinarily well both in ticketing revenue—for all that that has given rise to one or two other issues—and in gaining private sponsorship. My hon. Friend rightly drew attention to the repayment of the national lottery, in fulfilment of an undertaking given by the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell) at the time the new budget was set in March 2007. It will be reimbursed by land receipts. It is also worth pointing out that the national lottery is doing much better now than it was in 2005, and the amount of money that sport receives from it is due to increase from £1.3 billion in 2010 to £1.8 billion by 2016-17. In part, that is because of the change in the shares and the Olympic levy dropping out, but it is also because lottery ticket sales are rising. I believe that when people see lottery cash being spent on projects to which they can relate, they buy more tickets. The Olympic project has a part to play in all that. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is no longer here. He attacked the Scottish position, but as many in his party do, he forgot that the increase in lottery shares and in cash going to sport, the arts and heritage benefits organisations in Scotland just as it does organisations south of the border. Sport in Scotland will benefit precisely when he wants it to—around the time of the Commonwealth games. I cannot say much about the legacy of the stadium, because we are in a contractual moment. There were 16 expressions of interest in the stadium, which is rather more than we expected, and the process is continuing. We will know at the end of March how that has gone. My hon. Friend the Member for Maldon said that two challenges remain. In a sense, for Government there are three main challenges relating to the Olympics: security and transport, which he mentioned, and legacy, which everyone who has spoken in the debate referred to. If we get those things right, everybody will concentrate on the sport and forget about us, which is probably the ideal situation.