House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Oral and written evidence Tuesday 24 January 2012 Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Hugh Robertson MP, Minister for Sport and the Olympics, and Jonathan Stephens, Permanent Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 24 January 2012 HC 689-v Published on 7 March 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £5.50 The Culture, Media and Sport Committee The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its associated public bodies. Current membership Mr John Whittingdale MP (Conservative, Maldon) (Chair) Dr Thérèse Coffey MP (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal) Damian Collins MP (Conservative, Folkestone and Hythe) Philip Davies MP (Conservative, Shipley) Paul Farrelly MP (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme) Louise Mensch MP (Conservative, Corby) Steve Rotheram MP (Labour, Liverpool, Walton) Mr Adrian Sanders MP (Liberal Democrat, Torbay) Jim Sheridan MP (Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North) Mr Gerry Sutcliffe MP (Labour, Bradford South) Mr Tom Watson MP (Labour, West Bromwich East) Powers The committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the internet via www.parliament.uk. Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the internet at www.parliament.uk/parliament.uk/cmscom. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some of the written evidence are available in a printed volume. Additional written evidence is published on the internet only. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Emily Commander (Clerk), Sarah Heath (Assistant Clerk), Elizabeth Bradshaw (Inquiry Manager), Jackie Recardo (Senior Committee Assistant), Keely Bishop/Alison Pratt (Committee Assistants) and Jessica Bridges-Palmer (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6188; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] List of witnesses Tuesday 24 January 2012 Page Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Hugh Robertson MP, Minister for Sport and the Olympics, and Jonathan Stephens, Permanent Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport Ev 61 List of written evidence 1. Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) Ev 73 2. London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) Ev 74 3. Department for Culture, Media and Sport Ev 77 cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [SO] Processed: [06-03-2012 08:49] Job: 018632 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/018632/018632_w003_kathy_OLY 04 DCMS.xml Culture, Media and Sport Committee: Evidence Ev 61 Tuesday 24 January 2012 Members present: Mr John Whittingdale (Chair) Dr Thérèse Coffey Mrs Louise Mensch Damian Collins Steve Rotheram Philip Davies Mr Adrian Sanders Paul Farrelly Mr Gerry Sutcliffe ________________ Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Hugh Robertson MP, Minister for Sport and the Olympics, and Jonathan Stephens, Permanent Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, gave evidence. Q365 Chair: Good morning. This is a further session very important to keep bearing down on costs to make of the Committee’s ongoing examination of sure that we maximise that headroom. preparations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and I would like to welcome the Q367 Mrs Mensch: As things stand, the national Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, lottery have been promised a £675 million rebate. Are Jeremy Hunt; the Minister for the Olympics, Hugh you confident you are going to be able to deliver that Robertson, and the Permanent Secretary, Jonathan rebate? Perhaps Mr Robertson might answer that one. Stephens. I am going to invite Louise Mensch to Hugh Robertson: It all depends on the movement of begin. land values on the park, and there was a bullish Mrs Mensch: Secretary of State, we have six months estimate done at the beginning of the process and then to go now before the Games kick off. How confident an extremely pessimistic one done just recently. is the Government that the budget, which at present is Remember, of course, it is not strictly an either/or. £9.3 billion, is not going to be exceeded? You don’t get the whole £675 million or nothing. Jeremy Hunt: You can never say never, but we are as There are a variety of amounts in between those two. confident as we reasonably can be. If you look at the It is absolutely a commitment of this Government to overall numbers, of the £9.3 billion budget, we have ensure that that money is safeguarded, and that will committed £8.5 billion, so there is about £800 million be written in the new agreements when the Mayoral that has not been committed, and of that £800 million Development Corporation is formed next year. With a there is about £300 million of known cost pressures. fair wind and good luck, that money will be repaid, We may not need to spend all that. The last figure that but there is a time lag because it is dependent on we published in terms of unallocated contingency was land sales. for the end of quarter 3 2011, and that was £528 Mrs Mensch: Just to be absolutely clear, you at the million. We will shortly be publishing the figures for moment are still anticipating returning the full £675 the end of the last quarter of last year and we do not million. expect it to have changed significantly, which I think Hugh Robertson: Correct. is an encouraging sign. Obviously, the closer you get Mrs Mensch: You are, thank you. to the Games, the less likely it is that you are going Hugh Robertson: But it is dependent on land sales. to end up being able to spend £500 million, and we continue to control costs very tightly. It is a very Q368 Mr Sanders: In the context of a time of important objective of ours to deliver this project austerity, how can you possibly justify spending an within budget. additional £41 million on just the opening and closing ceremonies? Jeremy Hunt: It was a decision that we looked at very Q366 Mrs Mensch: Do you see, then, any risk to the hard. It is a lot of money, but it is not just less than public sector funding package and, if so, how are you the Chinese spent on the Beijing opening ceremony, mitigating those risks? For example, is the nascent because it is also less than the Canadians spent on crisis in the eurozone a risk to the public sector their opening ceremony and less than the Russians are funding package? planning to spend on their opening ceremony. While Jeremy Hunt: There are lots and lots of risks and we I fully accept that you get a lot of flak for a decision spend a great deal of time going through the risks, like that, you would have been questioning me much quantifying them and trying to estimate the likelihood more critically in a year’s time if we had not made of them happening. The purpose of that contingency, the most of an absolutely unique moment that is which currently is still around 25% of the total potentially going to be seen by 4 billion of the world’s original contingency that was left, is to give us some 7 billion population. Martin Sorrell estimated that it headroom if there are unanticipated things that go would be potentially worth £5 billion to the UK in wrong that we need money for; a change in the terms of how it would promote the UK. It is not just security situation, for example, would be an obvious a question of making sure that we put our best foot one to point out. As I say, we have some headroom forward when we are at the centre of the global but we can never be complacent, and that is why it is spotlight. I see it as an extraordinary business cobber Pack: U PL: COE1 [E] Processed: [06-03-2012 08:49] Job: 018632 Unit: PG01 Source: /MILES/PKU/INPUT/018632/018632_w003_kathy_OLY 04 DCMS.xml Ev 62 Culture, Media and Sport Committee: Evidence 24 January 2012 Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Hugh Robertson MP and Jonathan Stephens opportunity. There are tourists all over the world who a moment, to get that message across and I am very are making decisions as to which countries to visit, happy to be held accountable for my decisions in there are students deciding which country to study in, wanting to be able to say to everyone that we did there are businesses deciding which country to invest everything possible to make sure that we did not in, and if you get something like the opening scrimp on such an extraordinary opportunity. ceremony for the Olympics right, you strengthen our Mr Sanders: But that was the original plan, so why national brand in a way that is very hard to quantify have you had to double the budget to do it? but that I have absolutely no doubt will be extremely Jeremy Hunt: The original plans were published positive for British businesses and British jobs.