Examination of Witnesses (Questions 255-259)
RT HON
RICHARD CABORN
MP AND MR
PAUL OLDFIELD
7 DECEMBER 2005
Q255 Chairman: Good afternoon. It is
my pleasure to welcome you Minister, to this meeting of the Scottish
Affairs Committee. As you are aware, we are conducting an inquiry
into The Potential Benefits for Scotland of the 2012 Olympics.
Before we start on the detailed questions, would you like to make
an opening statement?
Mr Caborn: I would only like to
say, Chairman, thank you very much for the invitation, and can
I say thank you to the population of Scotland because it was very,
very helpful, as we were running to the bid, that slightly over
80%, when it was polled, of the Scottish population was supporting
the 2012 bid. When we set off to show that the country was behind
us, we had what we call "Leap for the Olympics"; we
expected to get around about a million and we had in excess of
three million. It really did show what tremendous support we had
for the bid and particularly, as I say, from Scotland. That was
very pleasing indeed. I thank all those who were supportive of
us. Can I also say to the Scottish Executive as well, again they
have been incredibly supportive to us, both in terms of lobbying
and also in other areas as well. I hope now we have won that,
as we all remember that day on 6 July when the envelope was opened
and it said "London", that is only the start. I hope
we can deliver, right across the whole of the United Kingdom,
obviously including Scotland, what I believe are tremendous opportunities
on the back of 2012.
Q256 Chairman: Thank you. As the
UK Minister for Sport, I believe that you have to be impartial.
If different nations and regions of the UK approach you and lobby
you wanting the Government's support in order to secure training
camps or win construction contracts in their areas, how will you
resist?
Mr Caborn: I think what we are
trying to do to make sure that we maximise the benefits of 2012
for the whole of the UK is we have reconstituted the Nations and
Regions Committee, which is chaired by Charles Allen, the Chief
Executive of ITV. He chaired the previous Nations and Regions
Committee. We will be putting a full-time person in each of the
devolveds and also in the regions to make sure that we have got
a proper line of communication and a flow of information going
both ways. We have asked all the component parts of the UK to
draw up a strategy to address the issues which were in our submission,
where we believe advantages can be had. That is an audit on all
sports facilities, so we know where holding camps can go, on tourism,
the supply chain and also the development of the cultural festival
that we will have. I will say a little more about that later.
Also, we need 70,000 volunteers and, again, we want to make sure
there is a good spread of both national and international who
will be able to work in that. We will be collating all the activities
of the devolveds and the regions which should then be fed back
into the respective bodies. The Olympic Board is made up of the
Mayor's Office, the Government and the BOA. Underneath that, as
it was cleared last night in the House of Commons, there will
be two major companies: one is LOCOG, the Local Organising Committee,
responsible back to the IOC, and the other one is the Olympic
Delivery Authority, which is effectively a construction company.
Underneath that is the Nations and Regions and it will be feeding
into any one of those three the information coming out from their
various consultations, making sure that the decisions that those
three companies make are well informed about the potential and
the activities inside the regions. We do not want beggar my neighbour,
we want to maximise it for the whole of the UK, and that is the
way we believe it ought to be managed.
Q257 Chairman: Minister, you have
mentioned that you need 70,000 volunteers and I believe 65,000
volunteers have already registered. Can you tell me what percentage
of those volunteers come from Scotland?
Mr Caborn: I cannot answer that,
but I will make sure that information is furnished to your Committee.
I will contact the people who are dealing with the volunteering
and make sure that information is there.[1]
Q258 Mr Davidson: Would it be possible,
also, to tell us which parts of Scotland they come from, because
one of the things I would be worried about is that people from
an area like mine would not be able to afford to participate as
volunteers because of the high cost of travel and the like. Can
you tell us what steps are being made to ensure that the opportunity
to volunteer is available to everyone, irrespective of their social
background or their financial means?
Mr Caborn: I think that is right,
Mr Davidson, we have got to watch that carefully. I say that from
the experience we had on the Commonwealth Games, which is probably
the second largest multi-sport event outside the Olympics. There
were about 10,000 volunteers in the Commonwealth Games, but what
was very pleasing was that many young people who were effectively
unemployed, by the skills they gained through being volunteers
on the Commonwealth found themselves in jobs. I know companies
like ASDA and others who were working closely with us found work
opportunities for them after the Games. It can be a way into employment
by getting skills through volunteering. I think the point you
make is right, there has got to be a spread across social groups
and we will be looking at that.
Mr Oldfield: To add to that point,
also I think what we are looking to do with all the 70,000 volunteers
who have volunteered already is making sure that they are active
in their communities and get on with volunteering work now and
do not just wait until 2012. We use that resource of people who
have already volunteered and make sure that we use that in their
communities at the moment.
Q259 Chairman: Minister, can you
confirm that it is the responsibility of the Scottish Executive,
rather than DCMS, to argue and support Scotland's case?
Mr Caborn: What is meant by "argue"
and who is the arguing to? I can assure you that were this the
Olympics or your bid for the Commonwealth Games, they have not
been backward in coming forward in asking for support for a number
of issues around sport from, as it were, UK Limited and through
the DCMS. As I say, we are hoping that on the back of 2012 and
our experience on bidding a lot of that is going to be used now
for Scotland's bid for the Commonwealth Games. I am working very
closely with your Sports Minister, Patricia Ferguson, on that
bid. We are doing everything we can to prosecute that. I will
be working with her in Australia early next year when the Commonwealth
Games is taking place. It depends on what exactly you mean; I
am not quite sure, Chairman, what you mean by that. No doubt,
Scotland will be lobbying itself, but I think there are areas
sometimes where we can help Scotland.
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