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PETER MANDELSON: If the Millennium Dome is a success,
it will never be forgotten. If it is a failure, we will never be forgiven.
PAUL WILENIUS: Former Dome Minister Peter
Mandelson may be needing some forgiveness. The cost of the Millennium Dome
has almost reached a staggering �1 billion pounds. But for Tony Blair's
government there is also a high political price to pay. Ministers will
soon be criticised by official inquiries into the project and then they'll
face embarrassing votes in the Commons and the Lords over the cash used
to keep it going.
Thousands turned up for
their amazing day at the Dome last week. But ministers' dreams that 12
million people would pack into the great exhibition have turned into a
nightmare.
ACTUALITY
Blood curdling financial
losses are the result of an unexpected drop in visitor numbers to only
six million. Now many people want to find out what went wrong.
PETER AINSWORTH MP: There's very serious trouble
ahead on the Dome as gradually, bit by bit, and inch by inch the truth
comes out about this project. At the moment there's a great deal of ignorance
about what actually really went wrong and who was responsible, and over
the next few months we will be seeing how this huge national project came
to be the national disgrace, that it is today,
WILENIUS: Ministers will learn
in two weeks the contents of the key report from the National Audit Office
on the Dome , which is run by NMEC, the New Millenium Experience Company.
It's expected to be a brutal reminder of the Dome disaster and will put
the everyone involved a black mark. Ministers could not have foreseen
the incompetence that's dogged the project. But the shock waves from the
report could well reach the very centre of government.
BOB MARSHALL-ANDREWS MP: The impact of the National Audit Report
cannot be overstated. It is going to be a devastating criticism of NMEC
but that in truth is a devastating criticism of the Government. Now, the
problem here, of course, was the way in which it was set up - is this a
Government body or is it not a Government body? And everybody understands
the principle that in truth this is Government. And Government money at
the end of the day will be put at risk.
DIANA ORGAN MP: I do have concerns that I think
it will show that management was lax, that there weren't the financial
controls in place, and that there was almost a disregard for the amount
of money that was being spent. It was like we've turned on the tap and
it might not stop and it doesn't really have to be accountable. So I think
that may come out but we'll have to wait and see for that and I suspect
that the Select Committee will have to revisit another inquiry on the Dome
in the light of this.
WILENIUS: Over estimating the numbers
of people who would turn up to the Dome was the biggest single financial
problem. But the new Dome Chairman feels mistakes were made in the panic
to get it open on time.
DAVID JAMES: The closer it got to the opening
day there must have been tremendous pressures mounting on everybody concerned
and I'm sure that at that time a great many things occurred which took
short cuts, short corners which we're still having to sort out today. The
contracts to which you refer are one thing, the incompleteness of the asset
register, which has already been well publicised is obviously another very
big factor.
WILENIUS: But was lofty ambition
also a factor? In the post election euphoria, the project was given the
go ahead by Tony Blair, even though in the past the public have often given
grand schemes a large raspberry. It was hoped it would define New Labour's
success. But as there was little real control over the fast moving project,
senior Labour figures feel it may have been too ambitious for the Blair
government.
DOUG HENDERSON MP: I think people got carried away,
I think that is what actually happened, kind of they look back and said
there was the great Victorian exhibitions, there was the big exhibitions
in the 1930s after the Coronation, what can we do this time for the millennium,
let's build a big Dome and then let's try and think of something to put
inside it. They didn't need this large structure costing a colossal amount
of money, these, that could have been done in a better way more cheaply.
WILENIUS: Even though the government
will face criticisms over its handling of the project, it could choose
to ignore them. But there's a much more serious problem, Ministers need
the approval of Parliament to extend the life of the Millennium Commission
beyond New Year's Eve. That's because they need more lottery money to
compensate for the extra cash given to the Dome. So as time runs out
for the Dome, these votes will give its critics the opportunity to unleash
fresh attacks on Ministers. There may even be a rebellion in the Commons
over the measure.
Fifty Labour MP s are
backing a Commons motion tomorrow calling for a full debate on the move
to give more lottery money to the Millennium Commission.
MARSHALL-ANDREWS: I think that the public and members
of Parliament have had enough of the take it or leave it, it's going to
cost more money not to put more money in than otherwise - that argument
which is plainly spurious. The argument is used in order to lever more
money out of the Millennium Commission. Because the Government knows full
well that if the Millennium Commission doesn't give this money and ultimately
the Dome then falls - which it should do, as a commercial venture - then
the Government is going to be left with the bill and then, you will have
accountability. And that I am afraid is what the Government is worried
about.
WILENIUS: Here children at the
Dome try their hand at voting. But it's not only the vote in the Commons,
but also the one in the Lords that's causing a lot of worry. There are
now demands for the sacking of Dome Minister Lord Falconer as the price
the government has to pay, to get it through.
AINSWORTH I don't think the House of Lords
will be remotely impressed to see Lord Falconer, of all people, coming
back with a begging bowl for the Dome. He's the man who said there wasn't
a problem at all. He's the man who eventually had to put up his hand and
say there was. He's now the man who says he's going to stay there and
see the project through to the end. Many people find it astonishing that
he's still in position. He is the minister responsible for an enormous
financial disaster. And if the Government wants to get more money through
Parliament, in any way related to the Dome, I cannot imagine a worse person
to put that question, than Lord Falconer.
WILENIUS: It'll take more than
this one million pounds featured in the Dome Money Zone to fill the financial
black hole left by the project. No one yet knows exactly how big that
hole will be. So Labour MPs are reluctant to write out a blank cheque for
the Dome.
ORGAN: My view about extending
the life of the Millennium Commission to just fund the Dome would be that
I wouldn't support that. But of course I have concerns about wanting to
extend the Millennium Commission because there are many other projects
which are fantastic, that are being carried out in the regions that maybe
jeopardised if we don't. What I don't want to find is that we're being
duped in to believing that those would be in jeopardy if we don't extend
the Millennium Commission and that to discover that the finances being
funnelled away to support the Dome,
WILENIUS: The aim is to wrap up
the exhibition without needing more money. But the ever growing cost doesn't
include the high price of getting the site ready for a buyer, which could
increase the burden already placed on the public.
JAMES: It does not cover and has
never been intended to cover the decommissioning of the Dome itself in
full, or whatever strategy is going to come for the future of the Dome,
because that depends on what is needed by whoever buys it and it's quite
possible they will want to buy it in its present form or that they will
want modified decommissioning or whatever else, and so we would expect
that the costs for a very substantial programme of decommissioning would
be covered significantly out of any proceeds of the sale or out of the
proceeds of however the area was developed or the proceeds that came from
that.
HENDERSON: I think the government have
to really cut losses now. Nobody believes that there will be no future
demands for further money. We've already had four additional demands this
year, the last in September, which brought the total increase in public
funds to a hundred and seventy-nine million. A lot of people believe they
will come back for more and I think it is important for the government
to make sure that the book is closed now, that there is no begging bowl,
that they have got to sort it out.
WILENIUS: As the time for fun in
the Play Zone ebbs away, Ministers are looking for a way out. There are
calls for a public inquiry, the sort of political interaction the government
may wish to avoid. But to head off open displays of discontent in the run
up to the next election, the government may have to own up to its mistakes.
Confront the fact, that it got it wrong, to accept that the only way to
put things right could be to flatten the Dome.
AINSWORTH: If it is the case, as we hear
that clearing the site, getting rid of the Dome, would realise an additional
three hundred million pounds, we want to know that. That should be information
available to Parliament before anybody comes along and says, we need to
extend the life of the Millennium Commission, incidentally taking money
out of education and health projects, in order to pay off the Dome's problems.
We need to know if it is conceivable, that by clearing the site, an additional
three hundred million pounds could be raised, then that is information
that is absolutely relevant to any vote which may be taken on extending
the life of the Millennium Commission.
WILENIUS: Are you worried that
you may not be able to sustain it - the Dome?
JAMES: There has to be a possibility
that unless a buyer comes along and is prepared to see a constructive purpose
to the future of the Dome which fits into their plan then the Dome will
have to be considered either first in the first instance for alternative
usage in some leisure, sports or maybe some business park context, but
alternatively beyond there then comes the value of the land and the development
of the development of the peninsula, the whole Greenwich peninsula which
is a vast area, as I say. It's the biggest undeveloped area in the whole
of London.
WILENIUS: The Dome was supposed
to be an amazing triumph for the New Labour government. But even Cabinet
Ministers are openly admitting it has been a disaster. Now Tony Blair can
only hope that it is a distant memory for voters when they go to the polls
next year.
HENDERSON: It doesn't help our electoral
cause at the next election. I think people are very realistic and the
Dome is not the most important issue in politics in this country today.
But I think people will want the government to come clean on it, where
there are mistakes admit the mistakes
MARSHALL-ANDREWS: I think that the electoral consequences
of a failure to take responsibility of this will be dire. And the way
in which you do it, I'm afraid, is that ministers need to take responsibility
and resign. And there needs to be a full public inquiry. Now in those
circumstances the electoral, or the political consequences, will be minimal
because the Government will be perceived to have acted in the way that
governments should. Everybody makes mistakes. The most important thing
is to acknowledge them to the public and then to put them right.
WILENIUS: Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson
and Lord Falconer all put their trust in the Dome. They hoped it would
be a symbol of the future for a New Labour government and a new Britain.
But its financial failure means that even though millions have liked it,
critics will use it to attack the government's record and image. Bold and
glossy on the outside, but ultimately empty inside. So as long as the Dome's
there they'll find it hard to shake off this impression, even when the
lights finally go out, on New Year's Eve.
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