London Olympic bid chairman Lord Coe has denied he needs a minister devoted full-time to the campaign.

The Tory peer told ePolitix.com that he did not agree with the Commons culture, media and sport committee's recommendation that a "minister for the Olympics" should be appointed.

Talking to this website at the Conservative conference in Bournemouth expressed satisfaction with the level of support he is getting from government.

"I don't need a minister with the title 'Olympic minister'. I have got all the help I need," he said.

"It's an erroneous argument. No Olympic bid, not even Sydney, had an Olympic minister until they had actually won the right to hold the Games," the former athlete added.

"We have an Olympic minister in the form of [sport secretary] Tessa Jowell who is taking the leading role and co-ordinating the government response.

"I meet regularly with her Cabinet colleagues including Jack Straw, who's helping our international efforts and Alistair Darling who's helping with extensions to the East London Line."

Lord Coe did say that if the bid is successful the issue should be revisited. 

"There is probably a case to be made for a specific minister when London has won the bid to deal with implementation but at this moment I don't need a minister with the title," he added.

Late backing

Despite being satisfied with the level of support from the government, he said its delayed decision to support the bid had not helped London's chances.

William Hague's former chief of staff said: "I would have preferred their decision to back the bid to have been made earlier but I can't criticise them for that.

"As a working politician until recently I know there were other things on the agenda in the middle of last year."

Lord Coe took over as chairman when American businesswoman Barbara Cassani stepped down as the public face of the bid.

He criticised her for losing control of the debate about whether London's transport system could cope with the crowds attending the games.

Coe said: "When I became chairman we had been on the wrong agenda.

"I had to change the agenda from an argument about the historical basis of investment in transport in Britain to the more acute question of whether we could move spectators and athletes and the Olympic family around London for four weeks in August 2012. The answer was yes we can.

"Not only that but we can do it in a better way than any other city," he added.

Lord Coe insisted that, unlike the millennium dome, an Olympics would not turn into a wasteful white elephant.

"I don't know what the government funding was, I don't know what the arguments were, I don't know what the guidelines were, what I do know is that if they had been working to the International Olympic Committee guidelines something like the dome could not have happened," he said.

"The guidelines are very strict. I can't build the facilities without a five, or at least three-year business plan that shows they have an afterlife."