Games ceremonies cost an extra £40m

Ministers revealed the pricetag for the four shows for the Olympics and Paralympics had spiralled to £81million.

In a further blow to the public purse, it was also announced that the bill for security and policing of the London Olympics has risen to more than £1billion.

The first and biggest of the ceremonies will take place on July 27 with a spectacular in the 80,000-seat stadium masterminded by film director Danny Boyle with an anticipated global television audience of a billion.

The decision to bail out the ceremonies was taken by Prime Minister David Cameron, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Sports Minister Hugh Robertson.

Delivering the Government's quarterly Olympic budget update, Mr Robertson said: "It is about seizing this great ceremonial and economic moment to the benefit of the economy and the public and tourism in the long run."

On security, ministers blamed the huge increase on the extra £271million cost of recruiting 23,700 security guards to work at more than 100 competition and training venues. It brings the cost to the taxpayer of venue security to £553million and with the policing bill set at £475million takes the overall cost of Olympic security to £1billion.

Cash will come from the Olympic contingency fund and the London 2012 project remains on course to come in at around the budgeted £9.3billion.
The extra cash will go to Games organiser Locog which has come under fire for underestimating security personnel requirements.

The Standard revealed this year that Locog would have to at least double its estimated requirement of 10,000 security personnel.