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Will this event seriously take account of the context in which it is to be set? The London Borough of Newham is probably one of the most multicultural boroughs in Europe; it is certainly one of the youngest communities in Europe. As an east London borough, it contains quite a high proportion of children and

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young people who fall below the poverty line. Are those young people and children going to be engaged in the Games?

Last year we had the incidents of people being arrested in Stratford on terrorist charges, and all the issues of the image of young people from different cultural communities. Will this be an opportunity for us to build a more open and successful society, including the many faces of life that form our community today? As the planes bring the athletes into London, will we still have aeroplanes taking asylum seekers and refugees out of London? I had my attention drawn to a person who had been working in Newham for 10 years but who, last week, was sent home. These issues have to be joined up and connected.

Will the Games have a ring of steel around them, in which case the community in which they are set will not be engaged, or will there be real opportunities, by us all working together through volunteering and employment, to draw a whole generation into the excitement of this experience?

If you go into east London today, you cannot avoid the reality that religious faith is important for people. It is important that the legacy of the Games also takes account of those issues in their lives for the future. Will we have a serious conversation, not just with the churches but with the other faith communities, about the needs of those communities for the future? I was told, recognising the size of the south-east of England, that nearly two-thirds of young people who are active members of churches in England are inside the ring of the M25 and that a very high proportion of them go to predominantly black-led churches. How are their needs, as they see them, to be met in the structuring of the legacy? Are we thinking about those sorts of facilities?

I want to talk about housing. I understand that people are already buying up properties in east London and that the affordability of housing is becoming an issue. I am told that people in Asia and across the world are buying properties with a view to the Games. What are the proportions of the affordable housing that will be part of the legacy? I heard what the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, said about the London Docklands Development Corporation. I am sure that we all endorse the need for a clear structure, but one outcome that we do not want in east London is the gentrification of Tower Hamlets and Newham whereby the poor of those communities disappear into Barking, Dagenham and Thurrock. With the mobility of people, there are now 11 BNP councillors in Barking and Dagenham. We must watch that in the end we do not say how wonderful things are in the immediate communities when all that we have done is shift the problems elsewhere; we gentrify the riverbank and a few hundred yards back, moving the poor elsewhere. That will not do. We must think about the social issues and make sure that the benefits of the legacy go to the people who host the Games. These are complex social, spiritual and cultural issues, but they are terribly important because if we get the legacy right we shall have done something for the well-being of the whole of our country.

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12.27 pm

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, on raising our sights beyond the topic of the moment and encouraging us to look at the value of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. When I started to make notes for this debate, I found that it was impossible not to mention the chimera of a budget. It is beginning to be quite difficult. I do not want to skimp—to use my noble friend’s phrase—and I know that the bid document states:

“We are only building new venues where clear legacy needs have been identified and supporting business plans developed for post-Games use”.

However, it is beginning to be quite difficult not to think about taking a hard look at the number and scale of the venues and the existing facilities that London and the UK have to offer. My other reason for being unable to resist the temptation of mentioning the budget is that, like the Mayor of London, I do not believe that any contractor could look at a 60 per cent contingency and not be tempted to regard that as part of his base budget.

My main point about the budget is that what is happening does nothing but feed opposition to the Games. Some of that opposition comes in the guise of conditional support, which is really opposition waiting to break out in public. A huge benefit of the Games should be to draw people together in their enthusiasm for them. The more that confidence in the enterprise as a whole ebbs away, the more damage is done. I do not know whether the figure in the bid book should have been £3 billion, £4.5 billion or £5 billion instead of £2.375 billion; if it had been one of those, a higher figure might well have been broadly accepted, but the rumours and the time that is elapsing mean that support is leeching away. When we get to the budget, we must have enough detail to be able to analyse it, the variations from the original figure and the subsequent changes after it is published, because I do not think that it will remain a static figure. We must not hide behind commercial confidentiality and keep from the public what these Games are really costing because, as the noble Baroness reminded us at the start, there is immense value, not all of which one can put a cash figure on.

The budget itself is a legacy issue, given that the money will have to come from somewhere: indeed, £340 million has already been diverted from community sport, and the Secretary of State says that more is to be taken. How do we contribute to the sporting legacy? No wonder that the charitable and voluntary sectors are so concerned about the position of the lottery. Those sectors will, in different ways, be contributing to achieving many of the potential legacy aims.

Like my noble friend, I am a Mancunian, and I am proud of what Manchester did with the Commonwealth Games, even if my team does not seem to be as inspired as it should be by its new stadium. I am now—I am not sure whether this is an “and” or an “or”—a Londoner. One of the legacies that I very much do not want is the feeling that affluent London is getting it all. As we have just been reminded so powerfully, “affluent” does not apply to the area of London where many of the events will take place. The

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legacy should not have a geographical limit; it should not be confined to, or within, London. I am surprised that we have so far not heard speeches about the need to show legacy benefit right across the UK. Indeed, I thought that we might have a Welsh speaker today. As the noble Baroness has said, we need to acknowledge the regeneration in its broadest sense, particularly the transport developments, which would never have been achieved without the bid for the Games being won.

I particularly want to mention the Paralympics, the legacy of which is to,

“motivate greater numbers of young people—and in particular those with disabilities—to become involved with sport, and to aspire to elite performance”.

The LOCOG budget has £90 million for the Paralympic Games and I understand that half of this comes from the public sector funding package. There are no established pathways for disabled people to get into sport and no pathways for training non-elite athletes and coaches. Not very long ago, the London Assembly, of which I am a member, looked at sport for disabled people in the context of the bid having been won. We heard from those working in the area that, although there has been some discussion of legacy funding, there are no financial or timescale commitments and no indication of what will go towards disabled sports. There has been no increase in funding for community sports since we won the bid; indeed, as I said, some money is being redirected. I ask this not to carp but because I hope that there is a positive answer: how can the Paralympic sport legacy, any more than the whole Olympic sport legacy, happen without more funding for community sport?

Just talking about the value of the Paralympic Games will not magically create a change in attitude or participation. Someone needs to drive this forward. As part of the investigation by the London Assembly, I visited a sports club in Camberwell. The visit was at once inspiring and disheartening. It was inspiring because we visited a class of very disabled children, run by an absolutely terrific coach, where there was one-to-one assistance from trainers; one could see from the attitude of the children who attended and from talking to their parents who were with them what value this gave to their lives. However, between the time of our visit and the time we launched the report, which was only two or three months later, the club had to cut its classes to one a week. There had been only two, but this was cut to one. Fifty-thousand pounds a year—peanuts for this budget—would make an enormous difference to that club, and there must be many like it.

Access to sport for children with special needs is horribly neglected. They are often sidelined from sports provision in mainstream schools. Lack of transport is a barrier; teachers are not properly equipped and they barely get any training. The London Games provide the impetus for change and we should honour the promises that we made in London’s bid. We should also stick to our promises to another group. The noble Baroness has talked about skills and training. The group that I am talking about so badly lacks jobs skills. It is only too easy not to make the effort to reach the very hardest to reach: those deprived personally and those in deprived communities.

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To end more positively, I shall quote the leaders of two of the so-called Olympic boroughs at a meeting of the London Assembly. One said,

“we are using the whole carnival, celebration and excitement ... as a catalyst to re-ignite passion within our communities and serious engagement with our communities”.

Another said,

“we want to use the Games to enhance community cohesion”.

Her borough, Tower Hamlets,

“is rolling out, through the local strategic partnership, the coming together of communities to bring forward their ideas and how they want to see the Olympics affecting our borough”.

She reminded us that 42 per cent of children are in poverty in the borough, in which the average salary, because of Canary Wharf, is £100,000 a year.

The great thing about winning the bid was the can-do approach that it encapsulated. It is now essential to maintain people’s confidence and show that we can do it, and do it well.

12.36 pm

Lord Crisp: My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness on this timely and important debate and on starting it off in such a thought-provoking and powerful way. As has been said, there is some controversy and public concern about the cost of the Olympics and the Paralympics, and rightly so: it obviously needs to be gripped and dealt with, lessons need to be learnt, as has been said, and public confidence needs to be maintained in this whole enterprise. I guess that we could probably all predict some of the other storms that we will see and hear about over the next five years, although I shall not tempt fate by doing so. Some of them will need real attention, but none of them should blow the Olympics off course or lead to short-term and short-sighted reactions.

That is why the noble Baroness’s debate about the long term and the legacy is so important. All her arguments about how the legacy needs to be planned for and managed are powerful. It will not simply happen; someone needs to be responsible for it and for each part of it. We need to be clear about what sort of legacy we want and, as important, about what the measures of success will be. These measures need to be about outcomes and not only about processes. They need to be things that we can point to and identify as lasting, beneficial results—the legacy, if you like.

All that implies a significant role for leadership and management, but this is not only about robust planning and management or governance and government. If the Olympics and Paralympics are about anything, they are about inspiration, effort, achievement and ambition. They are about individuals and teams. They play to our aspirations. I suspect that one of the most lasting legacies will be in what thousands of people actually do and actually feel. It is not only about authority planners and government; it could be about us all. It certainly sets challenges for very many people such as architects, designers, teachers, health workers, sports people, and public and private organisations.

In this context, I was very impressed by the energy of the bid and by the images and portrayal of London and its citizens. There was a real sense of momentum,

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of unity of purpose and of community built from diversity. It was very inclusive; I was struck by the words of the right reverend Prelate on this. This was impressive and it bodes well for the future if it can be maintained.

When, on 1 March 2013 in this Chamber, the noble Baroness asks whether we are satisfied with the emerging legacy, I hope that we will have a great deal to say and that, although not all of it is likely to be positive, much of it will be. Most important, I hope that we do not conclude that it all went pretty well but that it was a great missed opportunity.

Let me turn to that legacy. I declare an interest as the former NHS Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary for Health, so your Lordships will not be surprised to know that my comments will concentrate on health. There is, I know, an awful lot of planning under way from the NHS and the department with its partners. Excellent work is being done with Sport England, with its great campaign for sport and exercise, making sure that we all understand the link between exercise and health and that exercise is as widespread as possible. Good work has already been started on sports medicine, as was raised in a recent Question in this House. I also want to mention the Paralympics in this context. What boost will we see for sport and activity for disabled people as a result of the Paralympics? I very much identified with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on this. But what, for the Paralympics, will be the wider impacts and who is responsible for securing them?

Let me draw out one aspect that can often be overlooked in this context; namely, the link between mental health and physical activity. Evidence shows that physical activity is the second most important thing for people’s mental well-being—the first, incidentally, is having somebody whom you can confide in and trust. I guess that that is not surprising—we all know it—but it is another important point about the legacy of these Olympics and Paralympics. We need to make sure that it reaches everyone. That can be very difficult; it can be pretty difficult for us all to get to the gym or whatever is our intended method of getting some exercise, but persuading people who are not feeling very good about themselves to do it may be even harder.

Let me talk about east London. As has been said, the Games are taking place in the poorest part of London with the worst health facilities and the worst health—although east London has some wonderful beacons of excellence. It is said, and I believe it to be accurate, that as you go east, for every tube stop life expectancy drops a year. Presumably that stops being the case at some point. However, it is a real point about the area in which this enterprise is taking place. I note from Sport England’s recent study that the people of Newham are the least physically active in the city; it is perhaps not surprising that sports activity is often associated with affluence.

Sheila Adam, the director of public health for London, reminded me that one reason why many health people signed up to the bid was that the Games would take place in east London, not west London,

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and that we saw the opportunity for enormous health benefits from that. What is likely to be left behind in health terms in east London? I know that some health facilities are being planned for the Olympics. It is important that these are secured for the longer term and that we understand that these are community and primary care facilities and not hospitals. The thing that is greatly lacking is services that are available immediately to people in the community. We need to be reassured that these facilities, which will be created for the great influx of people over this period, will then be turned over to local people for their use.

Mental and physical health is determined by things other than the NHS, such as community facilities. However, there is no use in sport if there is no access and I hear rumblings that some facilities may not be available in the longer term. We need to be reassured about that. But this is also about transport and infrastructure and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, said, regeneration. Poverty and ill health go hand in hand, as do ill health and worklessness. The economy and health go hand in hand; good health can benefit the economy and a healthy economy boosts health. When I asked other health planners what was most important in this legacy, high on their list was employment, which of course helps to pull people out of poverty. They went on to mention employment in the construction period, not just for outsiders but for local people and local organisations, and the need for longer-term investment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, and others have said. It will be interesting to know what local people with all their diversity of culture and background will say about the legacy. Will they feel part of it? Will they feel more connected to affluent Britain? Without the gentrification, will this be a place where people choose to live?

I have talked about the things on which the Government need to take the lead in securing, although they will depend on the enormous creativity and energy of all those involved locally. But on the aspirational, what new standards will be set? What records will be broken off the track or sports field or out of the pool? What is the opportunity for people to be challenged and inspired in every field? Let me conclude with three quick examples, two of them not from health.

The first one relates to sustainability and sustainable building. I was talking to some architects recently about the challenging sustainability targets that are already in place in London. They were saying, “Why not raise the bar even higher with the Olympics? Why are we not showing a generation what can be done and what the aspiration for the future should be?” The second is another topic that we have not talked about—security, that growing industry that intrudes on us all. How will that be achieved in a safe and friendly but non-constraining way? How will it be managed in the midst of a lively community? There are standards to be set there.

Finally, I turn to research. The biggest problem in health today is keeping people healthy. As I have said in the House before, that is about early health, not late disease. We know a lot about late disease—we know the biomedicine and the research—but there is

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not yet very good research on maintaining health. This is an opportunity to have a laboratory in the UK, perhaps in the East End, to understand the issues and learn some of the lessons.

I hope that the illustrations that I have used are useful. My contribution can be summed up simply: plan systematically for the legacy, play to the aspirations and imagination of us all and challenge people to set new standards in every field.

12.46 pm

Lord Newby: My Lords, it is a pleasure to be debating this aspect of the Olympics rather than the minutiae of the budget, although I agree with my noble friend Lady Hamwee about the need to get some certainty on it to avoid a corrosion of public support for the Olympics. I also agree with my noble friend Lord Lee’s thoughts about the budget, not least in respect of museums and galleries. Having queued like an eager schoolboy yesterday at the tremendous exhibition organised by the northern museums and galleries to hold the football which was used in the 1966 World Cup final and have my photo taken—I am sorry if noble Lords missed that chance because I think it has gone back to Preston—I know how important even that kind of legacy can be in terms of driving both aspiration and economic development.

However, in my view the cost of putting on the Games can only be justified if they produce a legacy which goes well beyond the immediate impact of the Games themselves. I think it is pretty clear that there will be a substantial positive legacy in the Lower Lea Valley and surrounding areas. There is clearly going to be significant physical regeneration, which is extremely welcome. However, I do not believe that the cost of putting on the Games could be justified if the only beneficiaries were going to be the communities in east London contiguous to the Olympic park. For me, the real success of the Games will be measured by the extent to which it has been possible to use them as a catalyst to longer-term changes in economic and social behaviour. This is a lot to ask but I do not believe it is impossible because of the power of the Games’ brand and the extraordinary power of sport to motivate people to behave in ways which society believes to be positive.

What would then constitute a successful legacy? In the time I have today, I would like to concentrate on the social component because I believe we should be looking to the Games to enable us to effect a stepped improvement in health, fitness and educational levels across the whole of the UK and not just London. If we are to achieve this, we will need to be more successful than any Olympics or any other international sporting event to date. I believe it is possible, first, because we are debating this a long time before the Olympics happen so there is time to get things right, and, secondly, because there are examples elsewhere in the world and in the UK where good practice has developed around big sporting events. I would like to mention three of them and in doing so I declare an interest because I have acted as an adviser to all three.

First, as a result of the failed bid to host the 2006 football World Cup in England, an initiative was launched between the Prince’s Trust and the FA Premier

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League, the PFA and the Football Foundation to link the work of the trust’s programmes for unemployed and disadvantaged young people with professional football clubs. This year, 10 years on, 12,000 unemployed young people will have participated in this programme and more than 80 per cent of them will have gone on to get a job or have gone into further education and training. None of that would have happened without a bid, which in the end was unsuccessful. How much better could we do on the back of a successful bid?

Secondly, I am involved in a programme which has just begun at the North-West University’s Mafikeng campus in South Africa. It gives poor students a university education which they would otherwise have been unable to afford—because they have an ability in football. That is possible because the 2010 World Cup is going to South Africa and funding partners are willing to get involved in sport and community development, which, frankly, would not have been forthcoming without the impetus of that great sporting event.

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