Clause 1 - Interpretation of principal terms
London Olympics Bill
9:30 am
Hugh Robertson (Shadow Minister (Sport), The Family & Culture, Media & Sport; Faversham and Mid Kent, Conservative)
I start by apologising for not welcoming you to the Chair in my opening remarks, Mr. Hood. I was slightly caught out by the brevity of the Minister's initial remarks in moving the motion formally.
It is fair to say that our party has three key objectives in this Olympic process. The first, which I suspect is shared by many Committee members, is that we want the maximum benefit from the games devolved to sport generically—right across the sporting spectrum. The second is that we are keen that the tax from the Olympic lottery games benefits sport. That will also not surprise anybody. The third is that we want to ensure that things run to budget and do not overrun to the detriment of London council tax payers.
I am entirely behind the spirit of the Liberal Democrat amendment. However, before I supported it, I would want assurances that it would not add a considerable bill to the games that would fall to London council tax payers. It is right that council tax payers in London—the host city—should pay as they are doing at the moment, but I do not want them to be saddled with an open-ended and fairly lengthy commitment to pay off any cost overruns afterwards. The key aspect is that we agree with the spirit of what is being said, but before we supported it we would want assurances that a huge cost would not be involved.