Olympic Opportunities Conference Speech by Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP
I'm absolutely delighted to see so many people here today.
I think that your presence here today reflects the enthusiasm for the bid from all parts of the country.
Because this is not simply a London bid, it's a British bid.
We have been determined from day one to make this an Olympic and Paralympic Games in which the whole of the UK can be involved.
Games that will capture everyone's imagination and from which everyone in the UK can benefit.
And what about our decision to bid?
There are different ways of looking at our decision to bid.
There are those who say hosting the Games is far too risky and far too challenging.
Look at Pickett's Lock they say; look at Wembley's initial difficulties; look at the Dome.
Surely we would never be able to host the greatest show on earth?
So there are pessimists and bean counters who think that the Olympic Games belong to an economic sport called the "zero-sum game".
That's the kind of game where to have a winner you must have a loser.
Now that's true on the track, in the pool or on the field, but it's not true for the Games themselves.
But then there are others, like myself, who passionately believe that bidding for the Olympics is a statement of ambition and aspiration.
It is one of the clearest possible ways of saying we are optimistic, we are proud, we are ambitious and we can be the best.
Our decision to bid is partly about what John Maynard Keynes once called those animal spirits.
He said there is a "spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction…if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, enterprise will fade and die."
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So we want to feed the natural optimism people feel about their city, their country and their sport.
They want to believe that we are a can-do nation.
And we want to harness that energy. Energy for change. Energy to be better than we are now.
It's also about the courage to set targets which are hard, and not settle for the soft option of making promises which are easy to deliver.
Of course, life is easier living in the comfort zone, avoiding these great challenges for fear of failure.
But that's not how the people of our country or the people of London are.
If the London bid wins on July 6 then there will be many, many winners.
In London and in the whole of the United Kingdom.
The whole country stands to gain from hosting the Olympics and Paralympics:
· new employment and business opportunities;
· increasing sports participation amongst people young and old;
· giving people a renewed sense of enthusiasm and pride in their country.
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That's why enthusiasm for the bid is now as strong in Scotland as it is in the south of England.
That's why the whole of Government is so steadfastly behind the bid.
As the Prime Minister has said in his letter to you today, we firmly believe a London Olympics is a prize well worth fighting for.
It's worth remembering that Olympic competition will not just take place in London.
The IOC demands what they describe as a compact Games – and our bid concept reflects that.
But even so, Olympic competition will be spread across the length and breadth of the country.
The football tournament will see games in Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham.
The sailing will be in Weymouth.
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Canoeing will be in Hertfordshire and mountain biking in Essex.
The Games are serious. That's why national teams test out the conditions of the host country for years before the Games begin.
Training camps will also bring Olympic benefits to scores of locations across the country.
Team GB based their training camp 500 miles north of Sydney – bringing 6 million Australian dollars to the local economy.
Overall, 125 teams from 39 countries undertook pre-Games training in locations across New South Wales – injecting up to 70 million dollars into the state's economy.
This activity began as early as 1997 when Belgian athletes trained at Narrabeen.
That's why we will provide central support and guidance to regions on how to go about getting the interest of national teams to come to them.
Working not just through the Regional Sports Boards but also through the Regional Development Agencies to maximise the benefits.
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You will hear today about the undoubted regeneration boost that the Olympic and Paralympic Games will bring to East London, one of the most deprived areas in the whole of the UK.
But because the Games are inspirational in their appeal and huge in their scale they will have an economic impact on the whole nation.
The Manchester Commonwealth Games created over 6,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
We expect 7,000 jobs in the construction industry alone will be needed to deliver the Games.
And around 12,000 jobs could be created as a result of the legacy development of the Olympic Park area.
These benefits will reach companies and workers way beyond London, bringing new opportunities for business that will be sustained well beyond the end of the Games themselves.
Huge numbers of contracts will be available and will be open to all.
5,000 homes will need to be built in the Olympic Village.
Catering services will be needed for 17,000 athletes and officials.
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Clothing will need to be manufactured for the huge army of volunteers.
The Sydney experience shows that New South Wales secured 500 million Australian dollars in contracts, sales and new investment.
And Barcelona saw convention business increase by 129% in the year after the Games and it rocketed in the international league table for years after.
We will establish an Olympic network for business – providing early warning of opportunities and drawing companies together to compete for and win contracts.
The Olympics also offer the opportunity to develop specialisms – to become experts in fields that will be in demand in the future.
Australian companies still trade and thrive on the expertise and reputation they built as a result of the Sydney Games.
They secured significant contracts for both the Athens and Beijing Olympics.
I expect UK companies to do the same, not just in stadium building and event organisation, but in media and design as well.
The Games will need the largest volunteer force ever seen in peacetime in the UK – over 70,000 – who will come from all round the country.
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This new army of volunteers will love what they do – and will keep the spirit, bringing tens of thousands of volunteers to sustain sport and community activity across the UK for decades to come.
The Olympics will also provide a huge boost for tourism.
Australia saw 110,000 Games time specific international visitors and an increase in tourism spending over the next year of 6 billion Australian dollars with an additional 1.6 million visitors.
People will flock to the UK for the Games - many of who will want to travel further-a-field than the East End of London to experience the beauty that the rest of the country can offer.
The Games will open the UK up to a Global TV audience of 4 billion – the best exposure and advertising the tourist industry could possibly want.
The IOC estimates that 9 out of 10 people with access to a TV across the globe watch the Games.
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We will need to work hard to maximise that opportunity and we will.
To that end - and to help maximise all of the benefits that can be drawn from hosting the Games - we are committing resources to provide ways of showing how individuals, private companies and public sector bodies all round the country can benefit from hosting the Games.
The Games will also provide a huge shot in the arm for British sport.
As Steve Redgrave will explain later, sport is at the heart of our bid.
And it is the British passion for sport and the knowledge that the British public would get behind our proposals that provided so much inspiration for us to bid.
The Games will have huge impact on sport in the UK - from the grass roots right up to providing our elite athletes with the support and training they need to become world beaters.
There will be unprecedented investment in sport, building on the record levels we have already reached.
We will harness the Olympic excitement to drive up awareness of sport and healthy living.
We will motivate people to adopt healthier lifestyles – to get involved and enjoy physical activity – a key part of the Government's agenda.
And of course a successful London bid will inspire a new generation of sporting champions – driven on by the desire to compete and succeed on home soil in 2012.
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We'll harness that ambition too, with even better talent identification and development programme across the to create a stronger and even more successful Team GB.
So that every talented person gets to be the best they can be, regardless of where they live in the UK.
The 2012 Bid team have also come up with the brilliant idea of re-locating venues and equipment once the Games are over.
Three 50m swimming pools and two event halls will be dismantled and taken elsewhere in the UK.
Equipment used at the Games will be re-distributed around the whole of the UK – for free, for community sports clubs and elite training facilities alike.
But the Olympics - and all the benefits and excitement associated with the Games - are not just about the hosting of a fortnight's worth of sporting competition.
The Olympics is a unique opportunity to bring culture and sport together.
Our bid proposes a world cultural festival – of which Jude Kelly will talk more later.
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It offers opportunities for the whole of the UK to rejoice in our own rich cultural heritage but also to celebrate the cultural diversity of the many nations competing in the Games – most of whom will be represented in communities up and down the country.
It will present real opportunities for our creative and artistic industries to showcase the depth and breadth of talent we have here in the UK.
Olympic ambition and aspiration will unite the UK.
Ambition for our team to do well.
Delight that in our diversity we can make every nation in the world welcome here.
Pride in our nation delivering the finest of Games.
An international festival of youth will accompany the Games with the whole of the UK harnessing the dynamism and artistic expression of our young people in towns and cities across the country.
So all of that gives you a snapshot of what the Olympic and Paralympic Games will do for the UK as a competition and celebration of sport and culture.
But from decision day in July right up to the Games in 2012 and then for many years beyond, the Olympics has the potential to do more than even that.
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All of these factors were vitally important in informing our decision to bid.
But they weren't the entirety of our rationale for bidding.
The buzz, excitement and thrill that hosting the Games would bring are vitally important in our decision to bid.
We may not be able to quantify the feel good factor but we know it exists.
From the Rugby World Cup parade to the pride the Greeks took in the Athens Games, you can see how sport unites and excites whole nations.
Olympic pride goes beyond sport. It will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for Britain to demonstrate just what we can do.
The Olympics give us all the inspiration to achieve and a chance to celebrate how proud we are to be British and to welcome the world to our country.
The bidding process alone has been a huge prize - an opportunity we're using to promote Britain and celebrate our commitment to sport.
The bid is not about what the Games can do for London but what they can do for the whole of the UK.
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Our bid is strong. It would be good for sport, for London, and for the whole of the UK.
It's good enough to win.
And with the support of London and the nation, our chances are good and getting better.
This is a race that's going to go right down to the wire. With under six months to go, we need a sprint finish that even Kelly Holmes or you Seb would be proud of.
Kelly won by five hundredths of a second. Our relay team won by one hundredth. So we're used to close finishes.
It's going to be close – so in coming here today, resolve to be part of the effort that gives us the edge, and we'll bring the Games back to London for the benefit of the whole of the UK.
Thank you.
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