Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
180-199)
RT HON
TESSA JOWELL
MP, MR DAVID
BROOKER, MR
SHAHID MALIK
MP AND MR
PHILIP COX
17 MARCH 2010
Q180 Alan Keen: We had a choice of
either investing in East London or West London and obviously the
choice was right, East London needed the investment, but that
was a pretty narrow choice we were left with, was it not? The
question I am asking is if we do not try to change the IOC's modus
operandi on this, and we are in the best position to help
change it because the people who will bid next time are not going
to try to get them changed because they want to win for whatever
reason it is, do we not need to make this point very, very strongly
that the Olympic Games are much more expensive to stage because
they have to be a city Games?
Tessa Jowell: Can I just say two
things. First of all, I think the truth is that what determines
the success of an Olympic Games is, first and foremost, the experience
of athletes and what athletes want is a compact Games. There is
no point in offering an Olympics on a format that athletes are
not going to be enthused by. There is tremendous, passionate anticipation
for the way in which our Olympic Park is configured with the Olympic
Village absolutely next door to all the main facilities. That
is the first point and, if Steve Redgrave were in front of you,
I am sure he would say exactly the same thing, but the thing that
you have to balance with that also is making sure that you maximise
the benefit of an Olympics, the investment and then the excitement
of the event itself, around the country, and I am very happy to
take further questions about that. My final point is I think that
if you had an Olympic Games around the country do not believe
that it would be cheaper. You would have to build villages, you
would have to build facilities for journalists, you would have
to create a multitude of mini Olympic parks in perhaps 20 different
locations and you would have the costs of security.
Q181 Alan Keen: But on this point
would it not be better for us, as a nation, to make that decision
rather than this small self-perpetuating body, the IOC? Should
we not have decided where we want to put this investment around
the whole country and not have somebody else telling us? That
is the real point I want to make.
Tessa Jowell: No, because the
Olympics is not within the gift of national governments. The Olympics
is within the gift of the International Olympic Committee, and
that is just a matter of fact.
Q182 Alan Keen: Moving quickly on
to something connected with this. When we went to Athens, after
the Games they told us that they did not think the Olympics had
inspired one person even to participate in sport and that is what
they actually told us. Why do you think that we are going to inspire
two million people to take up sport?
Tessa Jowell: Well, because we
are already and, since the figures were last published, 300,000
more people have been playing sport or been physically active,
about 114,000 more physically active and 186,000 playing sport,
so the evidence is there to see, but the point is that it does
not happen by chance.
Q183 Alan Keen: Where do those figures
come from then?
Tessa Jowell: They come from the
Active People Survey, a highly rigorous system of telephoning
some 120,000[2]
people. It is a wholly respectable survey method, so the conclusions
are conclusions in which we can have complete confidence. There
is a very important point in what you say about Athens. It is
the Active People Survey and 192,000 people are surveyed by telephone,
from which the conclusion is that 300,000 more people are playing
sport and taking part in physical activity over the past 15 months.
Now, that is major progress and it is important to remember that
if we succeed in reaching our two million, to be published December
2013, we will have done what no other country in the world has
ever done, apart from Finland. It is just like other aspects of
this Olympic project; we have been highly proactive and highly
purposeful in not accepting the conventional wisdom of passivity,
so driving increased participation in sport, making sure that
the economic benefits are felt all around the country and making
sure that there is a legacy in the five boroughs of people who
are more skilled and more able to get jobs in the future than
would have been the case without the Olympics.
Q184 Alan Keen: I am very sceptical
about these figures. We should be encouraging people to participate
in sport anyway and we always are.
Tessa Jowell: May I ask, so that
we can deal with any scepticism, which figures are you sceptical
about?
Q185 Alan Keen: That the Olympics
have inspired these people to participate in sport. I find that
hard to believe. We should be investing in facilities around the
country.
Tessa Jowell: I would not claim
that every single one of these 300,000 people have got up in the
morning and said, "It's the Olympics in 2012. I'm going to
get on my tracksuit and run round the block", but the fact
is that better facilities, investment in sport, coaching and the
record of what this Government has made by way of sport as a priority
over the last 10 years are producing this result and it is further
accelerated by the impact of the Olympics, but I am not laying
claim to every one of those 300,000 people.
Q186 Alan Keen: The whole of my argument
is that if we invested throughout the whole of the country we
would encourage people to participate in sport, as we have done.
Tessa Jowell: And I would say
you would not get the same result.
Q187 Alan Keen: I do not think it
is very much to do with the Olympic Games, so sorry, I disagree
with you there, and that is why we have to change the system.
Tessa Jowell: Well, I am sure
you are in and out of sports clubs and in and out of schools.
I met a young woman at the beginning of this week who is a member
of a running club up in Brent and she believes she is going to
be a 2012 Gold medallist, and do not tell me she has not—
Q188 Alan Keen: So do I!
Tessa Jowell: You too? Do not
tell me that she has not been inspired by the prospect of the
Olympics.
Alan Keen: Well, thanks for all the work
that you are doing; I know that you have done it with great dedication.
Q189 Chair: We have not got very
much time left, so can I just cover a couple more areas before
we finish. On the Stadium, a conversation we have had in the past
and will no doubt have again, Sir Robin Wales was very clear that
he wants West Ham in it.
Tessa Jowell: He is a West Ham
supporter and he is the Mayor of Newham, so what is the surprise
there?
Q190 Chair: I agree, it is not perhaps
surprising, but he seems to put that as a priority. There does
seem to be some doubt as to whether or not you can have both West
Ham and a continuing world-class athletics stadium.
Tessa Jowell: Can I tell you what
you are going to have. You are going to have the new Olympic Park
Legacy Company going out to solicit bids for the anchor tenancy
of the Stadium, and bids will be both solicited and invited. Once
the bids have been submitted, they will be properly considered,
no doubt negotiation will take place and the Olympic Park Legacy
Company will reach a conclusion, and their conclusion will be
informed by commercial viability, compatibility with the rest
of the park and so forth, and I am quite sure that they will be
consulting the local community. The important thing for the Committee
to know is that there is a process whereby this question is going
to be answered. Do I know what the outcome of the answer is? No.
I have been asked if I would meet West Ham and I declined because
there has to be a proper tendering process with integrity, but
I hope that every organisation that would like to make a bid to
occupy the stadium after the Games will take part in this process
and if West Ham wish to be a part of that then I know that their
bid will be welcome.
Q191 Chair: Whatever the outcome,
is it your view that the Stadium must remain as being capable
of hosting a world-class athletics tournament?
Tessa Jowell: Yes.
Q192 Chair: So anybody else has got
to fit in around athletics?
Tessa Jowell: Yes, for the very
simple reason that that is the commitment we gave when we won
the bid, an athletics stadium with a warm-up track, a Grand Prix
stadium with the capacity of the stadium adapted to be realistic
for the audiences that will come to Grand Prix events, and of
course then it has other consequences for decisions about Crystal
Palace and so forth which will be taken in due course. Why did
we not host the World Athletics Championships in 2005? Because
we did not have a stadium. Would we like to host the World Athletics
Championships and more minor and major athletics championships
in the future? You bet we would, but in order to do that we need
a stadium and it would be pretty pathetic, frankly, not to have,
as part of our Olympic legacy, an athletics stadium that is capable
of providing that for athletes in the future.
Q193 Chair: Specifically relating
to the World Athletics Championships, the 2015 possibility, we
understand that the Chairman of UK Athletics has said that our
chances of hosting it might be jeopardised if you are still arguing
with West Ham about the number of seats and whether or not they
are going to be able to come into the Stadium.
Tessa Jowell: You will have heard
from the Legacy Company that they are, within a matter of weeks,
about to go out to tender. I absolutely support them in ending
the uncertainty and reaching an answer to that. Where are we now?
2010. I think that the Chairman of UK Athletics, with whom I have
discussed this, can have every confidence that a bid to host the
2015 World Athletics Championships will be based on clarity and
certainty.
Q194 Mr Ainsworth: Some of us remember
the bitter saga around Wembley Stadium, which of course was originally
going to be an athletics stadium as well.
Tessa Jowell: Well, if I can just
remind you, it does have athletics capability and it would take,
I think, six weeks to install the athletics track, but it is important
not to forget that it is a stadium that has athletics capability.
Q195 Mr Ainsworth: Can we move from
sport to culture and can I ask you a few questions about the Cultural
Olympiad which obviously is not just a legacy issue, but also
involved in that is the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and so
on. Are you content, in relation to the more immediate issues
of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, that all the ducks are
in the order that they need to be in at this stage of affairs?
Tessa Jowell: I am.
Q196 Mr Ainsworth: Is everybody else
involved content?
Tessa Jowell: I think so, yes.
Q197 Mr Ainsworth: Are the gantries
in place for the swinging trapeze artistes?
Tessa Jowell: You will see the
lighting gantries already are being erected in the stadium, and
I did agree to some additional contingency funding to support
cabling that would bear heavier weight perhaps for a trapeze artiste
at some stage. LOCOG are actively engaged in developing the content
for the ceremonies and I think that together we are developing
an approach to this that will be popular with people in this country,
preceded of course by the Torch Relay, so there are three festivals,
the Torch Relay, the Opening Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony,
and I think they will be distinctively British and I hope that
they, as well as the Games themselves, will begin to convey an
image of modern Britain to the rest of the world that is more
in tune with some of the stereotypes that parts of the rest of
the world still harbour about us.
Q198 Mr Ainsworth: Remember the Dome,
Minister, is all I would say to you, and beware.
Tessa Jowell: Well, if you remember,
the Dome was completed, the structure was completed on budget
and on time. The Dome faltered over content. I can tell you that
the Olympic Park and the Cultural Olympiad will not falter over
content, and also one of the disciplines—
Q199 Mr Ainsworth: How do you know
that when you do not know what the content is going to be?
Tessa Jowell: Of what?
2 Witness correction: The Active People survey
telephoned 192,000 people not 120,000. Back
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