Olympic Cabinet Committee readout: Monday 30 July

30 July 2012

The Cabinet Committee met today to discuss the Olympic Games. The meeting was chaired by the Prime Minister.

They agreed that it had been a very positive start. The opening ceremony had been widely applauded at home and overseas and the public enthusiasm for the games had been demonstrated by the hundreds of thousands of people lining the roads for the cycle races.

LOCOG updated the meeting on the challenge around empty seating in the accredited areas and set out the measures being taken to address the issue. This will obviously be kept under constant review on a venue by venue basis over the coming days to ensure that as many seats as possible are filled.

They discussed transport which had, had a smooth start to the games. Today would be exceptionally busy across parts of the network but early indications were that Londoners were heeding the travel advice. The committee looked ahead to the weekend events where numbers travelling, to the Park in particular, would be very high.

The PM concluded that there were bound to be challenges throughout the games due to the scale and complexity of the event but reiterated that overall it had been a very positive and encouraging start.

Today’s Ministerial activities include:

  • The Prime Minister is attending diving and handball; Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt also attending diving
  • Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Caroline Spelman is attending sailing
  • Minister of State for Olympics and Sport Hugh Robertson is attending equestrian-eventing
  • Minister of State for Transport Theresa Villiers is attending rowing

To date:

  • Around 26,000 Games Family members have now arrived in the UK (including over 7,600 athletes)
  • 8.7m people in the UK watched Team GB swimmer Hannah Miley in the 400m medley final. That already beats the best live figure for Beijing, which was 7.5m for the men’s 100m final.

Background information

Ministers and senior officials are meeting in the run up to and during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Committee has been established to ensure strategic coordination across the Olympic project.

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