FOURTH REPORT
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has agreed
to the following Report:
WEMBLEY NATIONAL STADIUM
I. INTRODUCTION
1. For several years, the new National Stadium to
be built at Wembley has been at the centre of the ambitions of
successive Governments to bring major sporting events to this
country.[13]
Last spring we considered the Stadium as part of an inquiry into
Staging International Sport Events. In our Report published on
19 May 1999 we stated that "we are greatly concerned at the
apparent lack of strategic thinking" about the project. Given
its importance, "far too many issues surrounding the development
remain up in the air".[14]
We quoted the words of Mr Tony Banks MP, the then Minister for
Sport, about Wembley National Stadium: "this is a project
that we simply cannot allow to go wrong".[15]
2. On 1 December 1999 the Rt Hon Chris Smith MP,
the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, made a statement
to the House of Commons that implied that the project had been
allowed to go wrong. He suggested that the ability of Wembley
National Stadium to meet the original requirement to be able to
stage major athletics events was open to question and that the
Stadium's suitability as a central venue for an Olympic Games
in London was in doubt.[16]
In response to that statement, we announced on 17 December 1999
our intention to conduct an inquiry into Wembley National Stadium.
3. We began the inquiry with a presentation by Mr
Rod Sheard of the Stadium Design Team. We then took oral evidence
from the British Olympic Association (BOA), UK Athletics, Mr Tony
Banks MP—the Minister for Sport from May 1997 to July 1999—Wembley
National Stadium Limited (WNSL), Sport England and two current
Ministers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—the
Rt Hon Chris Smith MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and
Sport, and Ms Kate Hoey, now Minister for Sport.[17]
In addition, we received a range of written evidence, all of which
is published with this Report. We obtained a copy of the Lottery
Funding Agreement governing the grant from Sport England to WNSL.
We have not made reference to those parts of this Agreement that
have not already been made public, but we are satisfied that there
are no provisions of the Agreement that are relevant to our considerations
which are not accurately summarised in published evidence. We
are most grateful to all those who submitted evidence in the course
of the inquiry.
13 HC Deb, 3 March 1997, col 500W; Fourth Report from
the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Staging International
Sporting Events, HC (1998-99) 124-I, para 129. Back
14 Ibid,
para 138. Back
15 Ibid,
para 140. Back
16 HC
Deb, 1 December 1999, cols 305-313. Back
17 WNSL
was formerly the English National Stadium Development Company;
for convenience, the current nomenclature is employed throughout
this Report. Sport England is now the preferred name of the English
Sports Council; again, the current terminology is used in this
Report. Back
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