Clause 1 - Interpretation of principal terms
London Olympics Bill
9:30 am
Don Foster (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, Culture, Media & Sport; Bath, Liberal Democrat)
Again, I hope not to detain the Committee for long. Members are aware of the clear commitment made by the bid team, in putting together the bid for the 2012 Olympics, to ensure that the games are in all respects developed in a sustainable way. The team produced an extremely good document ''Towards a One Planet Olympics'', which clearly sets out its intention to ensure that it provides the first sustainable Olympic games and Paralympics. Indeed, that was a fundamental objective of the Olympic movement, through Agenda 21 and ''Sport for Sustainable Development''.
Unfortunately, although that was made a high priority in our bid document, the Bill reflects little of the zeal that underpinned that aspect of the bid that we took to Singapore. There is little mention of sustainable development, and that term is not defined in the Bill. Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to give the Minister the opportunity to tell us a little more about sustainable development and how he foresees it fitting into our future plans for the delivery of the 2012 games. That is why I tabled these amendments, with some definitions of sustainability that he may wish to discuss and suggest some changes to.
I should make it clear where the definitions in the amendments come from. They are largely based on the ''One Planet Living'' document, a set of benchmarks produced by World Wide Fund for Nature and some other organisations. Along with those that they produced, in these amendments two further benchmarks are proposed: low energy demand, which would, of course, be over and beyond the low carbon emission aims that we already have; and the use of a local and sustainable work force.
There are a number of other issues that we could discuss in some detail if the Minister were interested in doing so, but I think that he and Committee members are well aware that sustainable development is a key element in the planning for, and delivery of, the games. By these amendments we have given an opportunity for sustainable development to be given a higher priority than it has in the Bill. I hope that they will be supported by the Minister, at least in principle, if not in their full detail.