Oral Answers to Questions

Huw Irranca-Davies Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

Let me take this opportunity to thank the right hon. Lady for her outstanding contribution to the Olympic project to date. I hope that she will be able to continue to contribute as the project reaches its final two years. I must tell her, however—while expressing the greatest respect for her efforts—that although some elements of a sporting legacy were in place, we do not believe that enough was in place. I am thinking particularly of the creation of a sporting legacy in schools throughout the country. We very much hope that we will be able to work with the right hon. Lady to ensure that every child in every school in the country is able to be touched by, and be part of, the Olympic dream, not just in 2012 but in every year thereafter.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

10. What recent discussions he has had with representatives of business organisations in Wales on measures to ensure a positive legacy for the private sector in Wales from the London 2012 Olympics.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

The Olympic Delivery Authority has met over 10,000 businesses as part of its engagement programme across the United Kingdom. To date, 10 businesses registered in Wales have won work supplying the ODA, and more are winning work in its supply chains, including one— B and W Tunnelling—in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

Indeed. I welcome the Minister to his post. Does he agree that the Olympic motto, “Citius, Altius, Fortius”—swifter, higher, stronger—should apply not only to constituents of mine such as David Guest, who at the age of 20 has just become the highest-achieving decathlete apart from Daley Thompson, but to private companies such as Turfgrass Enterprises Ltd, which provided the turf for the Beijing Olympics? What more can he to do encourage excellence in the Welsh private sector?

[Hugh Robertson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his positive words about the process. The short answer is that the Olympic Delivery Authority has devoted a huge amount of time to taking the message around the country and encouraging firms to bid for contracts, and the organising committee is about to go through exactly the same process. I hope that he and other Members across the House will encourage firms in their constituencies to get involved. This is not a matter of party political difference: it is a huge opportunity for everybody and I encourage him and others to take it up.

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[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman also take into account the extra-curricular activities of MPs of the better kind, such as contributing to VSO overseas? I have reluctantly cancelled a two-week engagement with VSO this summer because of the uncertainty. It is undoubtedly the case that the additional activities that MPs undertake—for example, on promoting workers’ rights overseas—are to be protected. Will the hon. Gentleman take that into account as well, in looking at how we manage our timetable?

[Mr Heath]

I am not sure that we can guarantee to protect the timetable for all the extra-curricular activities of hon. Members, but the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. We indicated at the earliest opportunity what we would be doing this summer, but hon. Members want a degree of certainty about the parliamentary calendar, so far as that is possible. I hope the hon. Gentleman will contribute to the review that we will set up to look at that.