Clause 26 - Payments out of Fund
Horserace Betting and Olympic Lottery Bill
9:30 am
Mr Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath, Conservative)
I welcome you back to the chairmanship of our proceedings, Mr. Illsley, which I expect we shall move through fairly swiftly this morning.
Amendment No. 64 replaces the original amendment that we sought to table, amendment No. 24. At the successful launch of the Olympic bid at the Royal Opera house a week ago last Friday, Lord Moynihan and I had a useful, if brief, discussion with Philip Lane, the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, who is keen that the interests of paralympic athletes should be fully recognised in the Bill.
It was pointed out to us that in the original amendment No. 24 we had referred to the National Paralympic Association, whereas officially, as I think the Minister will confirm, the proper title for the purpose of changes to the Bill should be the National Paralympic Committee. On that basis we tabled not only amendment No. 64, but a later amendment replacing National Paralympic Association with the National Paralympic Committee. We believe that, in relation to the powers in the clause to make payments out of the fund, the Bill should refer specifically to paralympic athletes. As subsection (2)(e) refers to the NPC, it would be helpful to make it clear that payments can be made to the NPC.
One of the things that British sport is, rightly, most proud of is the prominence given to paralympic athletes in recent Olympics. The United Kingdom has an amazingly successful record for medal winners in all kinds of paralympic sports. We have done well over the years in many Olympic sports, but even the success of our medal-winners in the main Olympics has been dwarfed by the huge success of British paralympic athletes. I know that the Minister will want to join me in paying tribute to the courage and determination of
all those athletes. He will also agree that it was good to see one of them interviewed on stage by Sue Barker at the big launch and to hear his tribute to all those who had helped and supported him. He was a paralympic athlete from very much the area chosen for the London 2012 Olympics bid.