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Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful that the Minister has put that statement on the record. He will be aware that another Minister in the other place, Lord Davies of Oldham, recently said that there would be no role for the dome in the Olympics because the dome was on the wrong side of the river. I raised the issue in part so that we had it on the record from the Minister that it would be an integral part of the games. I am delighted to hear it, and so will be those people who live on that side of the river.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 28 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 29
The Olympic lottery distributor
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Foster: I shall make a small point to the Minister. The Bill makes it clear that there will be an Olympic lottery distributor and the clause refers us to schedule 5, which describes how that will be done. I draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 1(2) of the schedule, which says:
''The Secretary of State shall aim to ensure that the distributor has at least 5 members at any time.''
On page 36 of the regulatory impact assessment, we are clearly told:
''It is the intention that any new Olympic Distributor should be as lean and focused as possible and free from historical baggage.''
We welcome that and the intention that the loss to the Olympic lottery fund through necessary bureaucracy would be minimal. The assessment continues:
''The measure proposes that an initial Board of five members be appointed with specific or relevant expertise.''
Will the Minister provide reassurance that it is the intention to restrict the number of board members to five and to minimise the bureaucracy associated with the board's work, and that the wording in the Bill is to provide for someone being taken ill or any other such event?
Mr. Hawkins: I follow up on the point made by the hon. Member for Bath. I was going to leave my comments until we discussed schedule 5, but given that he has raised the issue, I want to raise a similar query about the Government's intentions. Paragraph 7 of the schedule reads:
''The Distributor may appoint staff.''
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Paragraph 8(1) states:
''The Distributor may establish a committee.''
I would be grateful if the Minister could put on the record, in general terms, the number of people on the committee—the hon. Member for Bath queried that—and the number of staff that the Government have in mind. If we deal with that point now, we will probably be able to take schedule 5 on the nod.
Mr. Caborn: Paragraph 1(2) of schedule 5 refers to ''at least 5 members'', and it is our intention that the board have 5 members. However, the schedule provides flexibility, particularly if more expertise is required. We want to ensure that the board is small, but that it has the necessary quality and breadth of knowledge. We intend to keep schedule 5. The hon. Member for Bath can write back to Mrs. Foster to say that he has had yet another victory, on interpretation, in Committee.
10 am
Mr. Foster: That requires only a postcard.
Mr. Caborn: Just a one-liner this time. The question of the number of staff is difficult, but the intention is to make sure that there is a quick clearing out, which is very focused and hypothecated. We want to keep both the committee and the number of staff to a minimum. The committee will be more of a conduit than an operations board, so we would expect a small number of staff to make sure that it works efficiently and effectively.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 29 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Clause 30
Distribution
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. Hawkins: There is one issue that I want to raise. We debated amendment No. 72 in an earlier group, when we sought to persuade the Government to add a new paragraph to clause 30(2). I now want to discuss subsection (4)(a), which relates to expenditure for the provision of facilities outside London. The Minister will appreciate that the shooting events at a 2012 Olympics would be at Bisley, which is in my constituency and straddles the border with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins). I have spent a lot of time talking to people there. They have already had an expansion in their facilities to host the shooting events at the Manchester Commonwealth games. I was lucky enough to be able to go to watch those and was asked to present some of the medals, which was a great privilege.
As the Minister will recognise, it will undoubtedly be necessary to create many new facilities outside London, not only for shooting at Bisley but for sailing, which is anticipated to be in Weymouth, and other things—training camps and so on. In particular, there
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will be a need to create facilities for sports such as rowing. I am grateful to the Minister for his answer yesterday to a written question of mine, relating to concerns that had been raised with me and my hon. and right hon. Friends about rowing, a sport of particular interest to my noble Friend Lord Moynihan, who was a distinguished Olympic silver medal winner at the Moscow games. The Amateur Rowing Association is concerned about the fact that it needs to host the world cup in 2005 and the world rowing championships in 2006, both at Dorney lake. I was delighted to note from the Minister's answer that provision is being made for rowing, but there will no doubt need to be more if, as we all hope, we are successful in our bid for the 2012 Olympics.
I therefore ask the Minister to expand a little on what the Government have in mind for other sports that might be covered by grants or loans. I appreciate that it is very early to be certain about these matters, but I am glad that we have specific provision in subsection (4)(a) for grants or loans for facilities outside London. If the Minister has other sports in mind, I would be grateful if he would indicate those to us. In particular, I am sure that he will want to confirm for the record that shooting, rowing and sailing are three of the sports for which it is envisaged that, in a successful Olympics, the facilities would have to be outside London.
Mr. Caborn: We are a long way from 2012. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that the Government are taking sport very seriously indeed. He will recall that, on announcing our intentions for the Olympics, we announced another £100 million of investment in sports facilities. I know that we are having to catch up a bit because previous Administrations did not invest in sport to the same degree as us, but we are doing our best to ensure that there are new, high-quality facilities, not just for the Olympics, but for sport more widely.
Turning to rowing, I can tell the Committee that, on the back of the great success of our rowers in Sydney and with the help of a number of schemes throughout the country, young people are going into rowing in a way that we never believed possible.
I, too, went to the shooting event at the Commonwealth games. Millions of pounds were spent on that facility, which has been well used beyond the Commonwealth and the Olympic games. If it is necessary to upgrade that, we shall do so. The same applies to sailing. I have been to Weymouth on a number of occasions. It is a fantastic centre of excellence for sailing, probably one of the best in Europe, and it has helped to regenerate the marine sector. It is good to see the regional development agency set up by the Labour Government when they came to power in 1997 working closely with the authorities and the governing body to ensure that it is a state-of-the-art facility now, let alone in 2012. We shall continue to invest in that and, indeed, in other facilities around the country.
I hope that, when the evaluation committee comes to the UK, it will see that we are not investing just for the Olympics, although that is important; we are
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putting huge sums into the nation's sporting infrastructure, and we shall continue to do so in the coming years.
Mr. Hawkins: I am grateful to the Minister for putting his comments on the record.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 30 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 31
Distribution policy
Mr. Hawkins: I beg to move amendment No. 74, in
clause 31, page 16, line 34, leave out subparagraph (ii).
The Liberal Democrats have always made it clear that they support the Olympic bid. However, although an important side effect of a successful Olympics will be the worthwhile regeneration of the part of east London involved—the lower Lea valley and the surrounding area—we want to ensure that there is no danger that the Mayor of London could hijack a serious Olympic bid and turn it simply into a regeneration project. Who is calling the shots? We are happy for subsection (5)(b) to say that the Mayor of London needs to have a copy of any proposals, but the danger of subsection (4)(b)(ii) is that it could give the Mayor, as a statutory consultee, a power of veto.
Until recently, as all members of the Committee and the wider world will be aware, the Prime Minister was not at all keen on the current Mayor of London and was critical of him: indeed, at the last mayoral election he said that he would be a disaster for London. Only in the last few weeks has the Mayor apparently become the Prime Minister's new best friend. We are therefore anxious to ensure that the current Mayor has no power of veto. Of course we hope that there will be a different Mayor after the elections this year. Nevertheless, we believe that the Mayor should support the bid, and I am glad that he has said he does.
It is noteworthy that the Mayor was not one of the leading public figures on stage at the launch of the bid at the Royal Opera House. That was very much the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and Barbara Cassani's show, which is absolutely right. The Minister may recognise that we are keen that it should stay at all stages an Olympic bid and that, although regeneration is very important and worth while, we should not put the cart before the horse. That is the basis on which we probe the possible deletion of subsection (4)(b)(ii).
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