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Lord Moynihan: My Lords, I shall be very brief. I am pleased to support the principle behind the amendment. What the noble Lord proposes seems eminently sensible
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and should be of benefit to sport in the United Kingdom. It is hard to believe it, but now is the first time that London has bid for the Olympic Games since it last hosted them in 1948. If the unthinkable happens and London is not chosen to host the 2012 Olympic Games, there should be an inquiry into how we could have done better. That should include such areas as government support and transport, as well as finance. I very much hope that the Minister will support the amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we considered a comparable amendment in Committee, and I said that I was very happy to discuss the matter with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and wrote to him to that effect to invite him to a meeting. However, I had no response.
Lord Addington: My Lords, if a letter were sent, it never got to me.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry; it must have been one of those things. I am afraid that my answer is very similar to what it was on the comparable amendment. The amendment would make the creation of two reports—one to be commissioned when the IOC decides who will host the games in 2012, and a further on completion of a London games—a statutory requirement. Certainly there must be due process to capture and make the most of all the available information in relation to staging the Games, but I do not believe that the amendment is the best way to achieve that.
As we said in Committee, there are already a number of arrangements in place to capture key information, and hold accountable those bodies charged with delivering the Games and ensuring an appropriate sporting legacy from them. In terms of parliamentary scrutiny, there are appropriate measures through existing parliamentary powers, and I am confident that those would be exercised. The Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport has already demonstrated a close interest in the London Olympic bid. We have welcomed that and contributed to it. I am sure that the committee will continue to do so, and the Public Accounts Committee will play an appropriate role. My department already works closely with other key stakeholders in the bid, including the sports lottery bodies and the devolved administrations, to consider how best to capture the benefits of the Games, whatever the outcome, so that knowledge can be transferred and used for future bids.
As for the report on the completion of the Games, the host-city contract that will be entered into with the International Olympic Committee requires that within three months of the conclusion of the Games, the organising committee for the Olympic Games—it has the horrible acronym of OCOG—submits to the IOC a report on all aspects of the organisation of the Games, including an analysis of performance. A report has been produced for each Olympic Games since Athens in 1896. I cannot see how commissioning a further report with the same purpose will enhance the legislation, nor can I see a good reason for such a provision to appear in the Bill.
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The proposals should not be translated into additional statutory requirements as part of the legislation. I honestly think that the issues are already covered by the arrangements in Parliament and from the International Olympic Committee. I shall be very happy to discuss the matter in more detail with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, without the necessity for a letter, which might not reach its destination.
Lord Addington: My Lords, if there is a letter in future, we hope that the parliamentary postal service will meet its normally excellent standards and will not let us down. I have a nagging suspicion that I shall discover that the letter has fallen down the back of a file somewhere; that is the normal fate of letters that do not get through. I shall leave the mess of my office aside.
We have not moved any further forward. My thrust was to try to bring the matter to one coherent whole, so that people can actually find out what is going on and so that there is a report that is better designed for the reference purposes of those who look at it from outside. If there is some way to achieve that, it would help dramatically in the whole process through which we are going. It might even help in all future relevant situations in which we try to get something to encourage public attention, as there would be something from which we were able to break down information for other sporting events.
One of the changes in tack between the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, and myself is that I regard the Olympics as the best thing on a conveyor belt going past us, although other events are very important. The Olympics are the cherry on top of the cake—they are something to strive for, but there are many other sporting and cultural events for which we should go. That is one reason why it is so important that we have better information.
Given the very favourable response and the fact that the Minister has been prepared to discuss the matter, it would be totally inappropriate to take the amendment to a Division at the moment, but I shall endeavour to get in touch with the Minister's office this time. Let us see if I can get a message through. We can discuss the matter and see whether there is some caveat, or something else that can be done. There is a practical point here that is not addressed by the current systems, which seem only to address the top-level organised professionals. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Moynihan moved Amendment No. 42:
"( ) No part of Part 1 shall be brought into force unless a draft of a statutory instrument containing the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the intention behind the amendment is to ensure that Parliament has the final approval on the Government's decision to sell the Tote. I recognise that there has been much debate about the need to hold the Government to their manifesto commitment to sell the Tote to a racing trust. As such, I will endeavour to provide a brief
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overview of the benefits of the amendment, while recognising that it clearly falls into the category of an amendment that has far greater relevance if the Government fail to fulfil their undertakings given earlier this afternoon when we return in September.
As we know, so many of the Government's intentions for the Tote are to be taken on trust. Although I recognise that there has been some movement during the passage of the Bill, the Government still refuse to specify the Racing Trust in the Bill. Noble Lords will also be aware that the price charged for the Tote is of vital importance to the Racing Trust. That is because the trust will need to borrow the money to pay the Government, and so is limited by the cost of interest payments on the debt. In other words, the promise to sell to the Racing Trust is worthless unless the price is one that the trust can afford.
I shall not develop the full detail of the argument during my short speech. I want to underline that the amendment is designed to do the next best thing to delaying Third Reading until a satisfactory sale of the Tote to a racing trust is achieved. It does so by allowing the Government a free hand to negotiate or complete the sale of the Tote, with the proviso that the final agreement is then subject to parliamentary approval. If Parliament does not agree with the Government's intentions, the whole of Part 1 will fall and the Tote will remain as it is currently constituted.
The amendment overcomes all the concerns that the Minister put before the House earlier. It overcomes the concerns about finalising the negotiations and waiting until the European Commission has come up with its ruling—if any. It overcomes all the concerns shared by many people, both inside this House and outside, that there is a possibility, if Part 1 is passed unamended, that the Government could simply nationalise the Tote and sell it to whomever they like, whenever, at whatever price and under whatever circumstances.
The Minister and the Minister for Sport have been eloquent in arguing that selling the Tote to a racing trust is sacrosanct—that it is a manifesto commitment and a policy that the Government will see through. The amendment allows them to go ahead and deliver, with Parliament having the final say. I am sure that that final say would take only minutes, if that, when it was finally requested, but at least it would be a backstop. It would enable myself or someone in my position in future to praise the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, as chairman of the Racing Trust, for their work in achieving the goal that they set out before Parliament.
The amendment has the benefit of allowing flexibility for the Government and the House. I humbly suggest that it offers more flexibility than the Government's own amendment. It has also the not inconsiderable advantage that, rather than relying on the Secretary of State's opinions about whether someone is a person,
it relies on the facts as presented to both Houses of Parliament.
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As I mentioned at the start of this speech, the principle behind the amendment has already been well debated. I am conscious that it would be unwise to move to a Division at this stage, because it is absolutely the type of amendment that we would need to consider when we return in September on the first day after the Recess to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of the Government's commitment to negotiate a successful sale with the Racing Trust.
Every day between now and mid-September, therefore, is focused towards that goal and the amendment could be returned to if the undertakings that the Minister has given the House today are not achieved. For those reasons the principle behind the amendment is important and becomes even more important as a result of today's proceedings. I beg to move.
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