Olympics: Britain puts 2,000 more troops on standby
SHOTLIST:
LONDON, JULY 18, 2012, SOURCE: AFPTV
-Wide of Hugh Robertson being interviewed
SOUNDBITE 1 Hugh Robertson (man), Minister for Sports and Olympics (English, 18 sec):
"The biggest challenge as I suspect it will be for any Games is bound to be security. If you list the challenges the government, almost in any stage, in the delivery of an Olympic Games, they are in order: security, transport, and legacy. So, actually that's not an answer that's dependent on the events of recent days. Whenever you would have asked me, I would say the biggest challenge is security."
SOUNDBITE 2 Hugh Robertson (man), Minister for Sports and Olympics (English, 7 sec):
"We will activate a series of penalty clauses on the private security provider. Those will be sufficient to pay for the extra cost of deploying the military."
SOUNDBITE 3 Hugh Robertson (man), Minister for Sports and Olympics (English, 17 sec):
"I think we are all very disappointed in the way that G4S' management has performed over this. That shouldn't for a moment, detract from the very good work that many of the employees have done on the park for many many years now. G4S has been securing the park, during the construction phase, or the work that we expect those employees to do, moving forwards."
-Wide of Hugh Robertson being interviewed
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AFP TEXT STORY:
Olympics: Britain puts 2,000 more troops on standby
LONDON, July 18, 2012 (AFP) - Britain has drawn up contingency plans to deploy another 2,000 troops for the London Olympics after a private security firm said it could not provide enough guards, a minister said on Wednesday.
Sports minister Hugh Robertson said that the government would ensure security giant G4S would foot the bill for any further use of service personnel to guard the Games, which start on July 27.
The government announced last week that it was deploying another 3,500 troops after G4S said it could not fulfil its contract to supply 10,500 private security guards for Olympic venues.
"Contingency plans are being drawn up for 2,000 more soldiers," Robertson told a press conference in central London.
"We are clear we are not going to spend a penny more of taxpayers' money on security. We are working now to activate the penalty clauses" in the contract with G4S.
"Not a penny of the remaining contingency fund will be used to make up for the mistakes of the last few days or to plug the gap left by G4S's mistakes," he added, referring to the government's £476-million ($744-million, 606-million-euro) contingency fund in the overall £9.3 billion Olympics budget.
Robertson refused however to call for the resignation of G4S's embattled boss Nick Buckles, saying that "what is crucial now is that he and his organisation deliver a safe Olympics."
"What happens to Mr Buckles is a matter for others in a post-Games environment," the minister added.
The announcement that a further 2,000 troops have been placed on standby comes a day after Buckles said during a grilling by lawmakers that he could not now guarantee the number of guards that G4S could provide.
Buckles said on Tuesday that G4S currently had 4,200 people working and that the "minimum we can deliver" by the start of the Games was 7,000.
But when asked whether he could guarantee they would all turn up he said "I can't, no".
Britain currently has 17,000 military personnel lined up for security at the Games -- almost double the number of troops that it has in Afghanistan.
Defence minister Philip Hammond, speaking in Washington, denied that Britain had already put additional troops "on notice to move".
Such a move would mean the troops would be ringfenced to act as a reserve force during the Olympics and would not be available for other tasks.
"The military makes contingency plans for everything and anything, and then a few more contingency plans just in case," Hammond said after talks with US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.
"But we haven't placed any further troops on notice to move.
"However, if there is a requirement for more military support, it will be provided."
END
