Examination of witness (Questions 80 -
99)
TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2000
MR TONY
BANKS
80. Not in a formal meeting.
(Mr Banks) No. So you know, I give the Secretary of
State and Prime Minister's office regular updates on the progress
of the 2006 World Cup bid.
81. You were in the House when the Secretary
of State made his statement on 1 December, you were sitting in
the chamber.
(Mr Banks) No, sir, unless I drifted in there in some
catatonic state without actually knowing. Some members actually
do do that.
82. What did you make of, in particular, some
of the criticisms of the Ellerbe Becket Report and the Secretary
of State's interpretation of that and the fact that the stadium
would be unusable for football for two years? What did you make
of those?
(Mr Banks) I had not seen the Ellerbe Becket Report.
I obviously saw the final presentation of 29 July. My involvement
finished on 29 July and, as I said, I thought a line was drawn
underneath the deal at that particular point. I knew nothing about
subsequent meetings until I read about them in the newspapers
and, of course, I knew nothing about Ellerbe Becket and the report
until I heard various comments about it. From my point of view
what was I supposed to do? The one set of experts, the ones we
had been working with, and we had the presentation earlier, had
given us the design and the reassurances etc and it had convinced
me. Whether I should have been convinced or not is another matter
but it certainly convinced me. Then suddenly along came another
bunch of experts who started putting a contrary point of view,
if indeed they were putting a contrary point of view because there
is now some argument as to whether Ellerbe Becket addressed the
correct questions and whether they gave the correct answers. That
is not a matter for me to resolve, not now. It would have been
an interesting one to try to resolve had I been there but I have
got enough problems without going around looking for others.
83. You heard Mr Moorcroft earlier say that
he could not comment on the potential return of £20 million
to athletics because understandably he had not seen the terms
of the Lottery agreement. Perhaps you might have an advantage
over him there. Where do you understand that the £20 million
is going to come from? What authority do you understand that the
Government has to demand its return?
(Mr Banks) I can only offer opinions at this particular
stage. First of all, the Lottery grant has been spent. It was
spent largely in acquiring Wembley Stadium from Wembley plc, that
is the first point. As I understand it, because I felt that the
design met all the requirements the Lottery requirements placed
upon ESC and that ESC placed upon Wembley National Stadium Limited
etc., they were not only met but were actually exceeded. That
is the important point. Originally it was an 80,000 stadium in
football mode, 65,000 in athletics mode. It went up to 90,000
in football mode and something approaching 70,000 in athletics
mode with the platform involved with, as I understand it, a capacity
to increase to 80,000 in athletics mode. All the requirements
of the Lottery were met and, therefore, I would think Wembley
National Stadium Limited have got a perfect right to say "what
money? Where is it coming back from?" As I understand it,
it is football generally that has been asked to pay back the money
but you would have to ask the Football Association or whoever
represented the Football Association to tell you how much and
over what period of time that money is going to be paid back and
what is then going to happen to the money. In addition to the
arm's length principle in terms of the English Sports Council
there is also the additionality argument with regard to the Lottery.
Lottery money is not Government money in terms of the Exchequer,
although David Moorcroft made it quite clear that in the minds
of most people there is no distinction between the two but legally
there clearly is a distinction.
Mr Fearn
84. Do you have any idea what impact the present
developments surrounding Wembley are going to have on 2006 FIFA
World Cup bid?
(Mr Banks) They will have no impact at all in terms
of presenting a football stadium at Wembley, none at all. Indeed,
one could very well argue the case that this has boosted the 2006
World Cup bid. Whilst, as it were, wearing one hat I would welcome
that, as one of the Ministers who was responsible for delivering
the national stadium I consider it a matter of great regret that
there is not going to be athletics in the new national stadium.
It is no longer the national stadium in the broadest sense that
I described to the hon. Member for Watford when I came before
this Committee before, it has now become a national football stadium.
In a perfect world I think it would be perfectly reasonable to
have a national football stadium and a national athletics stadium
and I have argued that case before. That also involves the Government,
for once, putting its hand in our pocket and actually spending
rather more money on sport than it has been prepared to do up
to now.
85. Do you have a view on whether there should
now be a London bid for the 2005 World Athletics Championships?
(Mr Banks) Absolutely. Going back to a question that
Mr Wyatt asked about Primo Nebiolo, the late and much lamented
Primo Nebiolo, certainly in some people's minds. We had a meeting
at Downing Street, this was exactly how it happened and I recognised
what Mr Wyatt was saying. When we were discussing Wembley with
the heads of the international governing bodies of sport with
the Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street and it being ready for
2003, Mr Nebiolo immediately said "you can have the World
Athletics Championship at Wembley in 2003" and I said "I
will hold you to that, Mr President" and duly did. I subsequently
found out that he had also promised exactly the same thing to
Paris and the Stade de France. The way that a number of these
decisions are taken, as Mr Wyatt knows probably better than anyone,
they are done like that. The 2006 World Cup bid which was supposed
to have been decided in March 2000, suddenly last year went out
to July 2000, thus throwing up many problems for the bidding countries.
Those are the sorts of things that happen. I still maintain that
2005 must come to London, that the configuration of the platform
is ideal in my opinion for a 2005 London bid. I think it would
be a great tragedy if that did not happen. I am glad I am not
David Moorcroft and the athletics authorities in this country
who are trying to get this together now in such a short space
of time. I think they have been put in an almost impossible position.
86. Finally, in your time as Minister did the
DCMS possess any independent expertise to examine the design proof
at all and did you oversee the monitoring of Sport England?
(Mr Banks) No, DCMS does not have a design team in
that sense. This is the point. We have set up a system in this
country based on the arm's length principle where we have bodies
with experts on who are given funds and are told to do a job.
What do we then do as Ministers? Do we oversee on a day to day
basis the very bodies that have been set up to carry out the decisions
that they have been asked to carry out? We expect things to be
done. There are times when they are not done and when they are
done they are not done as speedily as they ought to be done. There
are times when we are remiss as well, as Ministers, no doubt.
It is not just the one issue that we have to try to handle as
Ministers, there is a whole range of other things. When you have
to concentrate on a whole range of matters it really is not surprising
that from time to time some matters slip. No. We were relying
on our experts to give us good advice. That is precisely what
I thought we were getting. As I said, I do not in any way support
this idea of the arm's length principle, you get into messes like
this because of the arm's length principle in my opinion.
87. You must have overseen anyway from time
to time. You say the experts oversaw and reported, they must have
reported back to you.
(Mr Banks) Yes. They certainly reported back. The
National Stadium Monitoring Committee, which we have already described,
was picking up on these particular issues. Having had a number
of presentations, both the Secretary of State and myself felt
at the time that things were going okay. I have to say this for
the Secretary of State because he is not here to say it, towards
the end he was expressing concern about the choice between the
deck and the retractable seating. We had a demonstration in his
office with the designers when they went specifically through
the deck proposal as opposed to the Stade de France idea. In the
end—you will have to ask this of the Secretary of State—I
think he reluctantly accepted that the platform proposal was the
one to go forward with.
88. I asked about overseeing because had this
Committee not actually put their foot into the championships,
the Commonwealth Games at Manchester, probably the Minister would
not have been appointed. We had to do that because we saw the
danger there.
(Mr Banks) I agree. If you will recall, Mr Fearn,
I very much encouraged the Committee to go down that road. You
can look at the evidence but I think I might have been the person
who first introduced it into the Committee. It was not really
for me as a Minister to try to lead the Committee, and I used
those very words, but it did seem to me that was the way to do
it, that you put somebody in charge of a project. When you have
a major project you ought to determine one person in charge. It
can be a Minister or it can be a prominent backbench Member of
Parliament. I actually thought—this was why I put the proposal
to the Prime Minister—standing down as Minister and taking
over 2006 would be the best way of getting Government involvement
in a major project without having to get caught up or being involved
in a whole range of other issues. It is like trying to juggle
all the balls. It did seem to me to be the best way forward. I
very much welcomed—obviously I would—the suggestion,
the proposal, from this Committee with regard to a Minister in
charge, an Events Minister. It was good to see that the Prime
Minister also agreed with the conclusions of this Committee. This
is the way forward. We did it with the Millennium Dome with regard
to having a Minister in charge. Certain projects are of such national
significance and of such enormity and of such complexity that
I think it requires a specialist Minister or a Member, who knows,
maybe even a small committee of Members to oversee the project.
Why should it all be put on the plate of the Minister? Why should
we always go down that one road of saying that Ministers are generalists
and have to handle everything? Clearly there are times when that
is not an ideal situation and I suggest to this Committee this
is one of them.
Mr Fearn: I agree, thank you.
Chairman
89. Mr Banks, you said again today in forthright
terms, as you have said before, your views about the arm's length
principle. Do you believe that Sport England has been a fit organisation
to take the lead on this issue of the stadium?
(Mr Banks) Yes, I do. They have been punctilious.
Mr Casey is a man who has an eye for enormous detail. Some people
might say that is a fault. I certainly found it quite frustrating
at times when we were trying to, as it were, effect the sale of
Wembley because Mr Casey was insisting on requirements from the
Football Association that I felt at times were unnecessary as
though the Football Association might disappear, all those sorts
of things. Mr Casey is in a very, very difficult position. He
is somebody who has been appointed by Government and charged with
doing something and, much like people turn on Ministers, Ministers
are likely to turn on chief executives of bodies like Sport England
if things go wrong. Everyone likes to point the finger at someone
else and say "I was always completely in the clear, I knew
exactly what was going on all the time". Obviously looking
back over this there were a number of things that could have been
done that were not done or a number of different approaches that
could have been taken that were not taken, or indeed that were
ruled out. I have confidence in both Mr Casey and Sport England
in the way that they have conducted themselves but they also had
great problems. Again, these are questions best directed to him
and to Sport England.
Ms Ward
90. Mr Banks, you have rightly reminded the
Committee of the last time you appeared before us and of your
strong view that the stadium should be multi-purpose. You are
now saying today that two separate stadia would be possible, would
be acceptable.
(Mr Banks) In an ideal world, of course, I would like
to see a national stadium for athletics and a national stadium
for football. I think those would be ideal solutions. I think
all of sport would support that. I would like to see a purpose-built
Olympic stadium as well. There may well be the possibility of
using the Millennium site, which was something that I was very
much pushing because it seems if you want a good legacy from that
Millennium site then as the centre for an Olympic bid it would
seem to be ideal. Who knows, perhaps that is the way people are
going. It is very easy for Ministers or Members of Parliament,
any of us, to sit in committees or to say these sorts of things
but someone has got to pay. I have to say that up until now I
have not seen any great willingness on the part of Government
to pay.
91. Given that we may now have circumstances
where there will be two separate stadia, in hindsight would you
have thought it appropriate that £100 million of what may
be called public money, it is certainly not taxpayer's money or
Government money but public money through the National Lottery,
should have been given to what is essentially a new football stadium?
(Mr Banks) I would have supported it. If that had
been the proposal, yes, I would have supported it because it is
the national football stadium. The Football Association is not
the Premier League. The Football Association, as it were, is not
who does the deals that bring in the large amounts of money in
terms of individual clubs or broadcasting rights, the Football
Association is in a different capacity, it is the governing body.
It is right that we should have a national stadium in which we
can stage major national events, the international matches, the
FA Challenge Cup, rugby league obviously, rugby union if necessary.
Yes, I would have supported it but that was not what I was being
asked to support. I was asked to support a £120 million contribution
not from Government but a £120 contribution from the National
Lottery to be put together with £200 million raised by the
Football Association on the money market to build a national stadium
which would provide for athletics, rugby league and football.
That was the deal and that was the deal that I pursued to the
best of my endeavours and that was the deal that I thought we
had concluded when I left office on 28 July.
92. Given that you were asked to give your support
to what was a project for three sports and £120 million,
do you therefore consider it appropriate that now we have a stadium
which is, let us be honest about it, essentially a football stadium?
I am certainly not coming from the view that I have any problems
with football, football is my main interest. Do you consider it
appropriate that what is essentially a football stadium should
receive £100 million to return just £20 million for
athletics?
(Mr Banks) You would have a hell of a job getting
back £100 million or £120 million. I can only offer
my opinion to the hon. Member but I would have thought that legally
Sport England and Wembley National Stadium Limited have got a
cast iron case. They have done what they were asked to do. Indeed,
in my opinion, football could say "I am sorry, we have done
this in good faith", which is what I have always believed
they were doing, it was certainly what I was doing, "that
money has now gone, we are not going to give any money back, why
should we give any money back? What have we done wrong, please?"
Under those circumstances I think that the offer of £20 million
to be paid, not to be paid back as such because that money has
been spent and it has been spent not by football but by the English
Sports Council through the Lottery and by Wembley National Stadium
Limited in acquiring the stadium, is a very generous offer that
football is making. As I have said, I am not happy with this because
this was not what I was charged to try to achieve in conjunction
with others as part of Government policy. Therefore, all I can
say is that if this is the compromise that has now been struck
then who am I, as it were, to argue against it? It certainly is
not one that I would have ever hoped we would have got into.
93. Given that the agreement, as I understand
it, and I hope that the Committee eventually will have access
to the Lottery agreement between Sport England and the stadium
company, required in exchange for that £120 million a facility
to be provided that was for three sports—
(Mr Banks) Yes.
94. If we are to believe the Ellerbe Becket
study and if we are to accept the decision of the Secretary of
State that is no longer the case, we will now only have essentially
a football stadium. On that basis the Stadium has not kept to
the agreement, as we understand it, of Sport England from the
provisions of the Lottery?
(Mr Banks) If I can say to the hon. Member, I would
challenge that. I actually believe that the Lottery requirements
have been met in full, have been absolutely met in full. Any decision
that was taken subsequently by Ministers, as it were, to change
the nature of the Lottery requirements, the Lottery agreement,
is a matter for Ministers and subsequent Ministers, not for me
because I did not choose to change it, I did not seek to change
it, and I regret that it has been changed.
95. One final question. Do you think that we
could have avoided the situation that we are now in, one that
you say you regret, by having monitoring of the plans, of the
design, as we went through it much earlier on in the process?
(Mr Banks) I suppose one can always find ways of improving
a decision making process. In relation to the presentation that
Rod Sheard gave to the Committee, I would just ask the Committee
to put themselves in the position of now being the Minister, would
they believe that presentation as being adequate to meet the requirements
of the three sports or not? I think that is the question Members
have to ask themselves. I was as convinced when I sat and watched
as I had been previously and I have not shifted my position in
that respect. If the position of the Government has shifted, it
is not something that I was involved in or had been party to.
That is for others to be questioned about and their reasoning
ascertained. I have made my position quite clear. I thought that
the three sports were catered for adequately. As we know, there
was always going to be a compromise, even the Committee accepted
this early on. I think, indeed, the compromise was sufficiently
acceptable to all parties to be acceptable to Government.
Derek Wyatt
96. Good morning. The Dome has a single shareholder
which is currently the Secretary of State but that process was
not deemed viable or was not borrowed or accepted, so whereas
we control the Dome, for one year at least, we did not ever control
as a Government Wembley. Yet at some point in the ownership discussion
before it actually became, as it were, the current owner, Sport
England had a golden share. The golden share, if they had it now,
would have enabled perhaps a substantial amount of money to come
back. What was the discussion to relinquish the golden share?
(Mr Banks) The Trust, which of course has got the
freehold, still has the golden share. There are a number of very
complicated legal matters here. Part of the deal was because there
was concern expressed that football might decide to try to renege
on the athletics provision and it meant if that ever happened
all of the money would have to be paid back. Football has not
reneged on that. The game plan has been changed. As I understand
it, the golden share still exists. It exists in the Trust which
has the freehold which then gave a lease to Wembley National Stadium
Limited but it is still there in legal terms. I think that is
a good question to direct to the legal advisors of Sport England.
There are some highly complicated legal matters here which I am
not in any way a legal expert on, despite my rush to litigation.
I know enough about the law to know that there is a whole range
of highly complicated legal matters here about who owns what and
who you can call money back from. You actually said why did the
Government not do this, but there is no Government money in this.
If there was Government money, and that is taxpayers' money,—
97. There is not Government money in the Dome
but we have cleverly maintained a single share. That was from
the same department. So the legal teams may have said "that
is rather a smart move to have done with the Dome". This
was just the same timescale as Wembley. If it was right for one,
why was it not right for the other?
(Mr Banks) That is not a question I can answer.
Chairman
98. In any case, Mr Banks has explained the
position and he could not have been clearer about it. In the case
of the Dome Lord Falconer is the holder of the share and, therefore,
that is the Government. In this case it is Sport England and Mr
Banks has made his view absolutely clear about the failings of
the arm's length principle.
(Mr Banks) There is one other point and that is the
difference in the funding. The Dome was funded in majority measure
by the Lottery, through the Lottery, and of course in the end
I suppose the Government, since there is public money involved,
has got to keep an eye on it. In the case of Wembley there was,
and is indeed, public money but it was the minority element because
it was £102 million, £120 million, I cannot remember
the precise figure at the moment. £102 million I think was
the purchase price of Wembley Stadium. The great majority of the
money to build the stadium, or the majority of the money that
would be involved in the total project, which mostly is the building,
is the £200 million raised by the Football Association, not
by the Lottery but by the Football Association, on the money market.
Therefore, anything that, as it were, superimposed Government
ownership over the top of the Football Association who were making
the majority contribution would have been unacceptable and very
difficult to justify legally.
Derek Wyatt
99. Can I just say that I think I agree with
you that on the basis of what we saw this morning it is very hard
to understand why we cannot have athletics and soccer. It does
seem to me that between March and December the agenda was hijacked
by the British Olympic Association and that what you have now
got is a decision about a maybe bid for the Olympics, which we
cannot make until 2008, yet it is specific about making sure that
we have this opening ceremony seen by 80,000. Is that your view,
that the agenda changed between March and December?
(Mr Banks) In the Department we became aware of concerns
raised by the BOA when they wrote to our officials on 19 March
1998. That was when we first became aware, not just a few weeks
ago but on 19 March 1998. There were a number of exchanges that
then took place. My feeling was that the BOA needed to be consulted.
Those were the instructions we issued to Sport England, that they
must be involved in the discussions about design. To what extent
they were kept informed is a matter of debate as between the BOA
and Sport England now with somewhat conflicting evidence coming
from both sides. Let me make it quite clear, I have been a supporter
of the BOA and an admirer of the BOA from the day I became a Minister.
Indeed, I consider that getting the Olympic Games is of greater
significance to this country than getting the World Cup in football.
I have made that quite clear. I made that quite clear when I met
the Football Association executives when we were discussing Wembley
when I said that strategically the Olympic Games are more significant.
I do not think anyone can challenge me on that. When I saw what
was happening with regards to Wembley, when I saw it unravelling,
as it were, after 29 July, Mr Clegg might care to recall the conversation
that I had with him because I was obviously very concerned about
the role of athletics and I said "If I were you, Simon, I
would hang on to what you have got because you might end up with
nothing". They were my words to him, spoken not as a Minister
because I had long since given up that position but because I
could see what seemed to me to be happening and I was getting
very concerned that athletics, a sport with which I have a great
affinity and have supported for almost as many years as I have
been a football supporter, were going to be the losers in this
situation and I maintain they are now the losers. It could just
be that the BOA over-reached themselves after 29 July. Maybe it
was because they thought "let us have another try here".
That is something only they can answer. The fact is I did say
to Simon, who I consider is a friend of mine, as indeed I believe
the BOA to be, and Craig in particular, "hang on to this
because you might end up with nothing".
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