Labour MP Barry Gardiner on Tuesday urged the UK government to drop controversial American chemical giant, Dow Chemical Company, as the sponsor of the London Olympics over the Bhopal issue.
Mr Gardiner, who represents London’s Brent North constituency, raised the issue of Dow’s sponsorship of the London Olympics as part of a private members’ debate in Westminster Hall of the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon.
Urging junior culture minister John Penrose, who was representing Olympics secretary Jeremy Hunt in the debate, to accept that Dow is not the right sponsor for the London Games, Mr Gardiner said: “Today he should have the courage to stand up and accept that Dow is not a fit and proper company to be a sponsor of the most sustainable Olympic Games ever staged.”
“The minister is not a 12-year-old and he knows that the public are not naive either. He must not reply with a speech that is long on examples of sustainability and good practice but short on answers to the questions that I have posed about Dow. That would be cowardly,” the MP, who is chair of Labour Friends of India, said.
Mr Gardiner also raised the issue of the rules being allegedly bent for the procurement process that led to Dow being granted the wrap contract for London Olympics stadium. “The entire procurement process appears to be a sham. The application window was only ten days long. That is only 10 days to apply for a purported £7 million contract, something unheard of in the government or business worlds.
The Labour MP pointed out that the London Games, if the Dow sponsorship stands, “will be tainted by a sham procurement process and a sponsor that has shown it is contemptuous of the law, defiant of regulations and willing to engage in bribery and corrupt practices, but indifferent to the continuing suffering of thousands of human beings.”
However, the junior culture minister, in his reply, said that the London Olympics organising committee (Locog) is an independent private company. “The government has one board member out of 19 or 20. Most of the decisions which Mr Gardiner is criticising were taken by Locog and therefore for us in the government to respond on behalf of a private organisation is, I am afraid, shooting at the entirely wrong target,” Mr Penrose said.
“Everybody will share your concerns to ensure there is justice for the victims of the Bhopal disaster,” Mr Penrose said, but refused to intervene and said all the questions must be put to Locog.
Mr Gardiner, after the half-hour debate, said that he hopes Locog would respond to his queries now. “Now that the minister has said that Locg has the answers, I am sure that Seb Coe will be a fount of information.
However, in his speech in the Westminster Hall, Mr Gardiner had pointed out that “Locog is a private organisation that is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. On December 18.”