Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence



Examination of witness (Questions 100 - 112)

TUESDAY 18 JANUARY 2000

MR TONY BANKS

  100. Finally, we have heard from several witnesses that the way in which sport is currently administered is a muddle and a mess and does not give us that best performance overseas and does not look good. Under the constitutional changes that we have made since we came to Government, you were the Minister for English sport?
  (Mr Banks) Yes.

  101. Now, looking back, what would your recommendations be to Government as to what the Sports Minister should be?
  (Mr Banks) Someone perhaps with more direct authority. The Sports Minister has to deal with a large number of other bodies and other Government departments. I have made this quite clear in all of the evidence I have given. It is a role that has an influence and, depending on how well the job is done, can have a significant influence on sport. We allow the decisions to be taken by other bodies. When it comes round to major projects like this I think the arm's length principle starts to come under critical examination. As in other countries—Australia is one of them—it is advisable for the Government to take things over. If this is national then for God's sake why does the Government not take it over? I have made this clear and I have said it on the floor of the House, that if it is a national stadium it ought to be the Government that does it. I am a great believe in the grand projet approach. The French for all their faults, and as we know they have many, have a way of dealing with this, although as we heard the Stade de France did run into difficulties. The one thing that I deeply regret about this is not that it has affected the 2006 World Cup bid, because it has not, but what it said about the culture of decision-making in this country and what it said about the Government's attitude to these sorts of things. We continually whinge about things happening or not happening. Until we take charge of great projects like this we can hardly start turning around and blaming somebody else.

  Derek Wyatt: But we did have charge of the Dome.

Miss Kirkbride

  102. Mr Banks, you have partially answered the question I wanted to ask you in your last response to Mr Wyatt. Following when you left in July of last year and the decision that has now been taken not to pursue the dual purpose stadium, can you speculate and outline for me what you think happened that changed that decision and who might have been involved?
  (Mr Banks) I can endlessly speculate but I am not sure that would be of any use. I usually leave that to the press. It does seem to me that there is more in this, and I come back to my starting point, that I can perceive and maybe up until now that the Committee can perceive. I do not know to be perfectly honest, I do not know. I made one suggestion that the BOA decided, because obviously they were not throwing their medals in the air on 29 July, to issue a generally supportive press statement, which you have seen no doubt, of the Wembley design and then perhaps thought that with the change of personnel it was worth opening up again. That was where I became concerned because there could be cost factors in this, for example the warm-up track. Looking at the Olympic Games what Government has to realise is that it is not just a question of Wembley Stadium, one stadium for the opening and closing event and athletics, it requires an enormous amount of investment. Perhaps the Government ought to be asked whether they still support London bidding for a future Olympic Games because it is an enormously costly exercise. This is one thing that you cannot move off to the Lottery. This is something that would require considerable Exchequer funding because of the development of the whole Wembley area. I said in the adjournment debate on 29 June that it is not just about building a new national stadium, it is about redeveloping the whole area around Wembley. You cannot just put a new national stadium into that mess which is Wembley at the moment. That is why a special Wembley Taskforce was set up in order to try to generate income for the redevelopment of the whole area. I believe there are enough resources in the Wembley area generally, commercial resources, that could unlock the value of that whole area in order to develop a fine national stadium which could be the centrepiece of an Olympic Games, plus all the ancillary things you need like a warm-up track. That requires commitment and it requires commitment from Government.

  103. I know you are a London MP but if there is going to be a separate athletics stadium where should that be sited? Why do you think that it should be in London and not in one of the other regions?
  (Mr Banks) Unfortunately what happens is that a number of non-London Members get very edgy and uppity when people stand up and they happen to be a London Member, and at the same time a Sports Minister, saying "it has got to be London". Effectively these are the requirements of the international governing bodies. They want to come to London, that is the point. With the country being small, unlike huge continents like the United States, London is the obvious place for them to go when it comes round to things like the Olympic Games. Primo Nebiolo wanted Wembley and, Mr Wyatt was absolutely right, he wanted to get into Wembley before anyone else got into Wembley. This would be a great tribute to athletics, to the IAAF and to Primo Nebiolo. I was quite happy to go along with that because I thought that it would be great for London as well as for sports and athletics in this country. I do not care whether it is massaging someone's ego, I will massage his ego or almost any other part of the anatomy. The fact is they want to come to London. Manchester was put forward so was Birmingham, but they did not want to know. I know that it can be offensive to non-London Members to hear this but they want London because it is the capital city. It is not just about the sports event itself, it is all the other ancillary things, they want to come to London because they want to shop, they want to see the sights, they want to go to shows and maybe, who knows, other nefarious practices which London can offer in legion. The fact is they want London. If we are talking about an Olympic Games it has got to be London. Given the problems that UK Athletics had, and I feel for them more than anybody else at this moment, they really have been knocked all over the place. I went to see Primo Nebiolo to get the decision date changed. I lobbied personally in order to try to get athletics at Wembley and the World Athletics Championships, as David Moorcroft knows. The fact is they want London and although it might be possible for the World Athletics Championships to go to Manchester, I think it will in many ways, take the gilt off the gingerbread. If Mr Moorcroft and his colleagues have got to go to the IAAF and say "I am afraid it is not going to be the new Wembley we promised for this major international event, it is going to be Manchester". I think that will undoubtedly make the bid that much less attractive to the IAAF.

Mrs Organ

  104. Of course, as Mr Banks knows because he has visited that part of the world, I do not understand why they do not want to go to the Forest of Dean. Can I go back to a few detailed questions about the National Stadium Monitoring Committee. I will be very quick about it. I am interested in this because at the point that the design was shown and everybody thought we had got the compromise, people felt that it needed to be looked at a little more carefully. I wonder if you could tell me, because you said the Government Office for London was there, the FA, the English Sports Council, who chaired those meetings?
  (Mr Banks) Effectively the Secretary of State if we had a meeting with the Secretary of State. Discussions would have taken place between officials but in terms of formal meetings it would have been the Secretary of State.

  105. Whose decision was it to set up the Monitoring Committee?
  (Mr Banks) It is difficult to answer that question. It was definitely a political decision. It was definitely Ministers who took the decision. If I remember rightly it might very well have been a proposal that I put. Why not, let me claim the genesis of the idea. Certainly I felt that it was something we needed to have. Of course, we needed to have it as soon as we got hold of Wembley and, as I said, we did not effectively get hold of Wembley until the beginning of 1999.

  106. Who made the decision who should be on the Committee and, therefore, that BOA and UK Athletics were not to be involved in this Monitoring Committee?
  (Mr Banks) That question I cannot answer because I cannot recall. I know the membership of the Committee now but I cannot recall.

  Mrs Organ: We have asked for the possibility of the minutes of this Committee, is that right, Chairman?

Chairman

  107. That is something that is up to the Secretary of State.
  (Mr Banks) I am not prevaricating, Chairman, if I could remember I would certainly answer the Committee honestly but on this occasion I am afraid my memory is at fault.

  108. Obviously we accept entirely what you say, Mr Banks, but I do have to make clear that there was one occasion when Mr Smith, of his own volition, decided to make available to us an internal minute from the Department. It was in fact—forgive me for mentioning it—over the Royal Opera House. It is entirely up to the Government as to whether they supply that kind of information to a Select Committee. We cannot require it in any way.
  (Mr Banks) Perhaps it can be placed on the record that I would certainly hope that the Department would make those minutes or any other papers available to the Committee. In my opinion this is not a matter of, as it were, pointing the finger and apportioning blame, it is a question of trying to resolve how the situation came about and trying to ensure that it never comes about again. That is obviously what we are all trying to do. I would hope that those minutes would be provided unless they have some clear commercial confidentiality involved in them, they certainly cannot be state secrets.

Mrs Organ

  109. Lastly, you mentioned about the importance of Government taking the thing by the horns and actually having a real role and a function in big events like this. When we look at what happens in Australia and France, does government put money in?
  (Mr Banks) Yes. The States put money in in Australia. In fact, they compete amongst themselves and government certainly puts money in. I think in France that money is raised through bonds and loans and various other things and no doubt the City of Paris will be paying off the bill for some considerable time to come. That is something we have mentioned before in this Committee, if not on the floor of the House, that a future Mayor of London will be very much involved in something like this because given the amounts of commercial benefit to a city like London it is quite right that the London government should, as it were, if not support financially certainly be prepared to assist in raising finance to fund things like the Olympic Games. I suspect that is exactly what will happen when we come round to getting a bid hopefully for the future Olympic Games in London. Personally I would very much support the idea of having a designated Minister when you have a project of this significance who could be put solely in charge. I might add that it does help both to concentrate the mind and also to avoid all the other distractions that come when you have a project which is only one part of your portfolio, however big that project might be, because there are so many other things to which you also have to attend. As you know, in politics you are very rarely given the benefit of the doubt. If you cannot do something they will assume that you do not want to do it, not that you are busy doing something else.

Mr Faber

  110. I am sorry to come back again but there was just one thing that you said, Mr Banks, subsequent to when I was questioning you. You were talking about the £20 million that could possibly be returned to athletics. It has always been assumed that money would come from Wembley National Stadium or from the FA but you chose your words very carefully and you said "from football in general". Are you suggesting that it might come from any sources of football?
  (Mr Banks) Obviously it could. The obvious candidate would be the Premier League.

  111. Why on earth would the Premier League want to spend £20 million?
  (Mr Banks) Because they are wealthier than the Football Association. A number of the individuals are synonymous to both organisations. It could very well be that it is the Premier League, I do not know. That may very well be the situation. Words have been chosen carefully and I have seen that football would contribute, not the Football Association but football. Who knows, this is something that the Select Committee might want to look at. It might be that the Football Association has said that the money will be paid out of the revenue stream coming from the new national stadium—

  112. I think given the scrutiny that football in general is under, given the reports of a Government Taskforce and possible proposals for a Government regulator on that Taskforce, I think it is probably very significant if the Premier League are willing to pay £20 million for something that was not their responsibility in the first place.
  (Mr Banks) I would not wish to comment on that, Mr Faber.

  Chairman: Since we have got Mr Banks making the historic statement that he will not comment, I think this would be an appropriate point at which to end the meeting. We would like to thank you very much indeed.


 
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