London Olympics: Government Under Pressure to Provide Funds for London 2012

Political tensions over preparations for the 2012 Olympics have risen to the surface at Westminster as the government comes under increasing fire for failing to announce funding for potential medallists. Hugh Robertson, the shadow Olympics minister, has tabled a series of Commons questions, asking whether the Department of Culture, Media and Sport backed calls from the British Olympic Association for an additional £50m.

The BOA has said the funding was essential to achieve its ambition of moving Britain from 10th to fourth place in the medals table by 2012. It described the absence of an announcement in the chancellor Gordon Brown's pre-Budget report as "devastating news" and Lord Moynihan, the BOA's new chairman, fears the delay may cost a whole year of preparations.

The election of Moynihan, a former Conservative sports minister, to the pivotal role at the BOA has created tensions with the government and his medal target has been criticised as "grandstanding" by Labour MPs.

Robertson's questions to Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary and Olympics minister, appear on the Commons order paper today. He said the government instructed backbench Labour MPs to vote against his amendment last week, which would have ploughed £320m of tax taken by the chancellor from Olympic lottery games back into sport - and could have met the BOA's needs.

He wants to establish whether the DCMS backed the BOA's case and was frustrated by the Treasury. He also wants to know whether UK Sport, the quango responsible for elite sport, supported guaranteed seven-year funding, which the BOA has said is essential.

Richard Caborn, the sports minister, said UK Sport was putting a case forward and he believed there could be a positive response, if it was well argued. "Trying to bounce the Treasury is not the best way forward," he said.