Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing) I advise the House that
Mr Speaker has selected the manuscript amendment in the name of Sir
Chris Bryant. Copies are available in the Vote Office. After Clause
308 Secondary ticketing facilities 3.02pm The Minister of State,
Department for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake) I beg to move,
That this House disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment and
proposes Amendments (a) and (b) to the Bill in lieu of the...Request free trial
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame )
I advise the House that Mr Speaker has selected the manuscript
amendment in the name of Sir . Copies are available in the
Vote Office.
After Clause 308
Secondary ticketing facilities
3.02pm
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade ()
I beg to move,
That this House disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment and
proposes Amendments (a) and (b) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords
Amendment 104B.
The Bill will drive growth and deliver better outcomes for
consumers across the UK. Both Houses have now reached agreement
on digital markets measures relating to appeals, proportionality,
the countervailing benefits exemption and guidance. However, the
Bill returns to the House today as the need to agree on secondary
ticketing remains outstanding.
Lords amendment 104B, tabled by , would introduce additional
regulatory requirements on resale sites. In our view, new
regulations should be considered only if they are necessary,
proportionate and future-proof, and should not duplicate existing
rules. Simply adding new rules and regulations that add little to
what is already there is not the answer to the problems of the
secondary ticketing market.
The first provision that the Lords seek to add to the Bill would
require secondary ticketing platforms to obtain proof of purchase
of the ticket from the reseller before listing the ticket for
resale, but it is already a criminal offence—of unfair trading or
fraud—for a reseller to offer for sale products that cannot be
legally sold.
(Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work, as well as to
, who has doggedly pursued
this matter with the Government. My hon. Friend rightly points
out that making additional regulations for the sake of it is not
something that we as a Government would support, but can he tell
me why the Competition and Markets Authority has prosecuted so
few people under the current regulatory structure over recent
years?
We believe that the problem is about enforcement, not
regulations. The reason why the CMA has not prosecuted anybody is
that it does not have the responsibility or the right to
prosecute sellers on ticketing sites. It has jurisdiction over
the platforms, but not the sellers. We are giving the CMA that
opportunity and those powers, which we think will make a profound
difference.
Secondly, the Lords amendment requires that the ticket's face
value and trader's details be clearly visible to the consumer,
but likewise, existing legislation already provides that traders
must make that information clear and comprehensible. The
amendment would also prevent resellers from selling more tickets
than can be legally purchased from the primary market. We agree
with the principle, but believe that to be unenforceable. Many
sources on the primary market sell tickets, and each has their
own ticket limit.
(Richmond Park) (LD)
The Bill could have such a significant impact in tackling the
issues associated with secondary ticket sites, and could reduce
instances of fraud and online scams. I do not understand why the
Minister is so reluctant to commit to the recommendations made by
the CMA. That is all we want implemented through the Lords
amendment.
The CMA report differs from the amendment proposed by the Lords.
We believe that Lord Moynihan's requirements relating to face
value and the address of the trader are already covered. What is
missing from the amendment is the ability to enforce regulations.
There have been prosecutions only recently, a couple of months
ago; there has been a four-year sentence and a £6 million
confiscation order, so we are seeing prosecutions by National
Trading Standards, but we believe that the CMA will have a more
profound effect if it can tackle this issue.
(Na h-Eileanan an
Iar) (Ind)
My question is similar to that of the hon. Member for Richmond
Park (). I just do not understand why
the Government do not get involved with this. From what I have
read of the Lords debate and what said, that is exactly what
happened for the London Olympics in 2012. Ireland has got rid of
the secondary market because it thought it very corrosive indeed.
I also understand that fans are frequently in tears outside
venues such as the O2 because they have bought the wrong tickets
from the secondary market. As the political wing of the very
noble tartan army, I would not want fans to be unable to get into
games at the Euros in the coming weeks because of irregularities
in the secondary market. If that happens, will the Minister
commit to coming back and changing tack?
The hon. Gentleman raises important points. Alongside what we are
doing to give the CMA more enforcement powers, which we think are
needed, we are also committing to a review of the primary and
secondary market over the next nine months, in order to see what
else can be done to ensure that the secondary ticketing process
is fairer for consumers.
The Minister is generous in giving way, and I appreciate it. Has
he spoken to his counterparts in Ireland about what they have
done in this area, why they have done it, and what the effects
have been? That might be instructive.
Yes, we are aware of what is happening in Ireland, where there is
a complete prohibition on secondary ticketing sales. Our concern
about that is obvious: secondary sales are then just driven
underground into a black market. That is what we have seen in
Ireland. Indeed, tickets to see Taylor Swift in Dublin are
available on the internet at exactly the same, or a similar,
price as tickets to see her in the UK, so we do not think that is
a solution. We are looking for a practical solution that works
across the piece.
A person could purchase multiple tickets from different sources
on the primary market and resell them on a platform. That would
make it nearly impossible for either the platform or an enforcer
to calculate what the total limit of tickets should be. We must
avoid the trap of thinking that we are solving problems simply by
adding words to legislation. We should not be tempted to devise
legislation that cannot be implemented.
We believe that the solution lies not in more regulations, but in
regulation—in other words, enforcement. This House has already
radically strengthened the CMA's enforcement powers in part 3 of
the Bill. That strengthening applies to all consumer law,
including on secondary ticketing. The CMA will have civil fining
powers, and fines could total 10% of the global turnover of firms
breaking consumer law. New powers will mean that the CMA can
process many more cases even more quickly.
However, the Government appreciate the strength of feeling in
both Houses on the issue of secondary ticketing. We have
therefore tabled Government amendments to further strengthen the
enforcement powers. Amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords
amendment 104B will give the CMA new powers, first to enforce
existing rules against unfair buying-up of tickets using
electronic bots, and secondly to enforce existing rules on the
information that platforms and resellers must present to
consumers. That is in addition to the Government's previous
commitment to review the primary and secondary ticketing markets.
That review will allow us to gain a deep understanding of how
tickets flow from the primary market to the secondary market. It
will also include consideration of the timeliness and
effectiveness of the information that must be provided to buyers,
and of what reassurance is necessary for consumers to be
confident that ticket offers are genuine.
Taken together, the CMA's new enforcement powers and the upcoming
Government review represent a clear strengthening of consumer
protections. They will help to ensure that further steps can be
taken in future, in the light of the good practice that has
recently been emerging in the market.
I am again grateful to the Minister for giving way, but like the
hon. Member for Richmond Park (), I am still stumped as to why
the Government are not the champion of the consumer—the small
person or small family who face the disappointment of financial
loss. I hear what the Minister says about laws being
enforced—that could apply to any law—but laws also have a
deterrent effect, and it would be quite useful to have that
deterrent effect.
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. I agree with him about the
deterrent effect, but to me, that deterrent effect is delivered
through enforcement and prosecutions, which are making it easier
to deal with the platforms. As for the Lords amendment,
information such as the seller's address is already required
under schedule 2 to the 2013 consumer contracts regulations, and
the face value of the ticket must be displayed under clause
90(3)(c) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, so that is already
covered. It is enforcement that we need to improve.
Sir (Shipley) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the selling-on of tickets has always
happened, and always will? It is important to reinforce existing
safeguards, rather than making the secondary ticketing market
unviable and pushing people into unregulated spaces where they
get no protection at all. At the moment, they do get protection
from most of the sites that sell tickets on the secondary
market.
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The concern is that we
would simply drive people into a black market; that seems to have
happened in Ireland. The CMA has said that capping prices, which
is what the Opposition want, would not reduce the incentive to
resell, for exactly the reasons my hon. Friend has pointed out,
so through the Bill, we are taking the pragmatic step of
increasing the enforcement of current regulations, while also
looking at the wider picture, in the review, to see whether
improvements can be made. We think that is the right balance.
In conclusion, I encourage this House to agree with the
Government's position on Lords amendment 104B, and accept the
Government's proposed amendments (a) and (b) in lieu. It is
imperative that Royal Assent be achieved without further delay,
so that the legislation can be implemented and the Bill's
benefits realised as quickly as possible.
Sir (Rhondda) (Lab)
I beg to move manuscript amendment (a), leave out from “House”
and insert
“agrees with the Lords in their Amendment”.
I confess that I am completely perplexed as to why the Government
have adopted the attitude that they have taken today. The Bill
could have gone through both Houses quite easily and have steamed
ahead to Royal Assent if they had simply agreed to these very
minor recommendations from the House of Lords. We do something
very similar to what the amendment suggests in relation to
Olympics tickets, partly because the Olympics' organisers insist
on such legislation for any Olympics, but we also do something
very similar for sporting events. The question of why we do not
do exactly the same for music, comedy and other events is
legitimate.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir
The Minister has only just sat down, but now he is intervening on
me.
I just wanted to address one of the points that the hon.
Gentleman makes. He talks about the Olympics, for which there was
a complete ban on resale. Is that what he is proposing?
Sir
No. If the Minister will listen for a few more minutes, I will
get on to precisely what we recommend. Indeed, he may remember
that in the last debate on this issue, I said very clearly that
we do not intend to ban all resale. If somebody has a ticket that
they bought themselves, not through a bot, but is unable to use
it and wants to resell it, that should be a perfectly legitimate
process, but the price should be capped at a sensible level—at
something like 10% or 15% above the original cost.
3.15pm
Mrs (Washington and Sunderland
West) (Lab)
I just want to help the Minister correct the record. Through the
Olympics legislation, we as a Parliament did not ban resale; we
said that resale had to be authorised. I did not want him to have
that wrong on the record.
Sir
Indeed. I will come to authorised resale later, because it is a
real problem with the way that the market operates. Fans are very
unclear whether the ticket they have bought through the secondary
market is authorised by the original vendor—that is, the venue or
one of its authorised vendors—and therefore whether they will
actually be admitted in the end. That is one of the problems:
even when fans are paying very inflated prices, they are not
certain that the ticket they are buying is a genuine ticket that
will gain them admittance to the event they have paid for.
Over the years, Members have repeatedly given evidence—
Sir
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir
I ask the hon. Gentleman to let me make a little progress. I am
still on the first sentence of my speech.
Over the years, Members have repeatedly given evidence that the
secondary ticket market is not working: with tickets advertised
with no declaration as to whether they are real, or of their face
value; websites that only declare the face value of a ticket at
the very last stage, with a clock ticking away and the fan
already hooked; fake tickets being sold, leaving consumers out of
pocket and completely in the lurch; tickets sold without evidence
of proof of purchase, or of the seller's title to the tickets;
and websites circumventing artists and venues' policies on the
resale of tickets.
Taylor Swift tickets with a face value of £75 are presently
selling on Viagogo for £6,840. If a Foo Fighters fan from the
Rhondda wanted to buy a ticket to see them at Cardiff's
Principality Stadium, it would have cost them £95 direct from
that stadium; on Viagogo today, that exact same ticket would cost
them £395. If a child from the Rhondda who loves space and hopes
to one day become an aeronautical engineer wanted to see “Tim
Peake: Astronauts - The Quest to Explore Space” at Swansea Arena,
they would have paid £48.75 face value; on Viagogo, they would
have to find £134. This is about much more than just price
gouging and ripping people off from their hard-earned money: it
is robbing children of their chance to be inspired, to spark a
creative idea, to see a career in our growing creative
industries, or to learn from an expert. That is why I wish the
Government were adopting the measure passed by the House of
Lords.
Fans, the people who really create the value, are being excluded
from live concerts. The UK's secondary ticketing market is
estimated to be worth £1 billion annually, but it is rife with
fraud and scamming, which affects people every single day. I
would not even mind if just some of the inflated price money went
into the creative industries, and into training young people and
providing them with a creative education, but not a single penny
of it does. It is set to get worse, too: ticketing security
expert Reg Walker has reported “a massive escalation” of
harvesting using software. People who have long used bots to
bulk-buy items such as iPhones are now turning to ticket touting
because it is more profitable, and according to Reg Walker, there
is a new generation of young, tech-savvy armchair touts
“smashing ticket systems to bits”.
It is a market that simply does not work, and Labour will fix
it.
The Lords have given us a perfectly sensible measure. Their
amendment establishes a legal requirement that secondary
ticketing facilities must not permit a trade or business to list
tickets without evidence of proof of purchase or evidence of
title, a matter not mentioned by the Minister. It forbids a
reseller from selling more tickets to an event than they can
legally purchase on the primary market. It requires the face
value of any ticket listed for resale, and the trader or
business's name and trading address, to be clearly visible in
full on the first page on which a purchaser can view the ticket—I
have had a bit of debate with the Minister about that proposal,
so I will come on to the specifics later. It also requires the
Government to lay before Parliament the outcomes of a review of
the effect of these measures on the secondary ticketing market
within nine months of Royal Assent. I cannot understand why any
sane person would oppose such a measure, unless it was purely and
simply for ideological reasons.
On such ideological reasons, the Conservative party claims to be
the party of , but if we read “The Wealth of
Nations”, we see that the behaviour of the rentier class is not
exactly praised by , and this is pure rent seeking.
As the hon. Gentleman said, this is taking a ticket at £75,
charging 90 times that and doing nothing to add any value at all.
This is rent seeking, and ideologically it should be opposed by
the Conservative party.
Sir
The hon. Member makes a very good point. Indeed, in the main the
market is a good thing—it can operate to produce good and
efficient outcomes in society—but in this case the market is not
working, and where the market does not work, the state has to
intervene.
I cannot understand why any sane person should oppose such a
measure, but unfortunately the Government have. Their amendment
(a) in lieu is a weak sock puppet of a concession. It does not
strengthen the rules; it simply leaves them in place. It does not
prevent tickets from being sold without evidence of proof of
purchase or the seller's title to the tickets. It does not limit
the quantity of resale tickets to the original number limited by
the seller or artist. It leaves in place the current system for
showing the face value of a ticket, despite the fact that section
90(8) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, in my view and in the view
of everybody who has spoken to Members about this, is very opaque
and open to interpretation—or, I would argue, open to deliberate
misinterpretation by the secondary ticketing market.
For instance, Viagogo does not say “face value”, but has a little
box that says “FV”, which is not explained anywhere on the
website, and people have to click on that. If Viagogo genuinely
wanted to be open and transparent, it would say “face value”, and
put the price at the very beginning. StubHub is similarly
advertising tickets for Taylor Swift on 21 June at £711, but
nowhere on the first page does it give the face value. I note
that, if someone goes on to the second page, it says $75 there,
but I am told that that is not the actual cost of the ticket.
Seatsnet has tickets for Murrayfield—for Taylor Swift
again—selling at £1,294.79 or £1,092.15 each, and nowhere does it
give the face value of the tickets. Interestingly, AEG Presents
and AXS, which are managing the tickets for the concerts at
Murrayfield, say that tickets are strictly not to be resold:
“Any tickets found to be purchased via re-sale on the
non-official secondary market will not be valid for entry into
the concerts.”
In other words, it is completely in doubt whether the tickets
being sold at £711 or £1,294 are tickets that will actually gain
admittance for an individual.
(North West Norfolk) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman referred to Viagogo, and I have just gone on
to its website. He mentioned the “FV” symbol, but when I click on
it, it tells me the face value of the ticket. Did I misunderstand
the point he made?
Sir
Yes, the hon. Member did misunderstand the point I made. Why does
it not just say “face value”, instead of “FV”, which would be
perfectly simple? For that matter, why should people have to
click on it? The point of the Lords amendment is very clear, and
it is that people should know from the very first time they see
the ticket what the face value of that ticket is. I am perfectly
happy, if people want to be scammed, that they should be free to
be scammed, but they should at least know from the very first
point at which they seek to buy a ticket what the face value of
the ticket is.
Sir
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir
I will give way to the hon. Member, although I am keen to move
on.
Sir
I am very grateful. As the hon. Gentleman was struggling so much
with the previous intervention, I thought I would intervene and
give him a way out. If he gets his way, all that will happen is
that all of these tickets sold on the secondary market will be
sold by spivs outside the location of an event. Why does the hon.
Gentleman think that consumers will be better protected by spivs
selling these tickets outside the event than by their being sold
on official secondary ticket markets?
Mrs Hodgson
Because of the scale!
Sir
The secondary ticket market is the spivs: it is precisely the
same set of people scamming the system and the public. They are
taking advantage of people's desire to get tickets, and thereby
making the market simply not work in the interests of the
creators of the art, the fans, or the stadiums and venues
themselves. That is why we want to take action.
The hon. Gentleman is quite right about the market not working.
The point that has been missed hugely by Conservative Members is
that a finite number of tickets are going on sale, and this
finite number is being gobbled up by the spivs, speculators and
whoever online. He mentions the guys outside a venue, but they
can only hold so many tickets. It is the scale of this, as I
heard the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs
Hodgson) say from a sedentary position. Without the Lords
amendment that has been proposed, this is being allowed on an
industrial scale. Why are the Government and the Conservative
party willing to see people ripped off? It is just
unbelievable.
Sir
I rather agree with the idea that some Conservative Members
actually want people to be ripped off, and maybe that is what we
have seen for the last 14 years when we have seen taxes rise, but
what we get for the taxes has diminished.
The Minister says that he wants to give more powers to the CMA to
be able to enforce the action. The problem with that is that the
CMA itself gave evidence that, when it tried to take Viagogo to
court, it came up against inherent weaknesses in the existing
consumer protection toolkit, and the Government are not adding
anything to that consumer protection toolkit whatsoever. Indeed,
they are deliberately voting down precisely what they said they
wanted.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir
No, the Minister will get to reply afterwards, I am sure. [Hon.
Members: “Oh!”] So the Minister is begging. I will give way to
his begging.
I beg the hon. Member's leave, but can I draw his attention to
the comments of the CMA before the Bill Committee? One witness
said exactly this in response to the point he has just
raised:
“We think that many of the changes in the Bill will address those
weaknesses directly by giving us civil fining powers for the
first time.”[––[Official Report, Digital Markets, Competition and
Consumers Bill Public Bill Committee, 13 June 2023; c. 7,
Q3.]](/search/column?VolumeNumber=&ColumnNumber=7&House=1&ExternalId=A85CF177-9829-4084-9AFE-73C11850ADA9)
It is not right to say that the CMA is getting no more ability to
oversee this regime.
Sir
No, because I read that completely differently from the way the
Minister does. If the Minister were right, why is it only at this
stage that he has chosen to bring forward amendment (a) in lieu?
Precisely as with every single step of the way on ticket touting
that we have seen over the last 14 years, somebody moves an
amendment in the House of Lords—quite often , wonderful man that he is—and
the Government are dragged kicking and screaming to introduce
sensible measures that have cross-party support, but that the
Government object to for some bizarre ideological reasons.
Labour will strengthen the consumer rights legislation to protect
fans from fraudulent ticket practices, restricting the resale of
more tickets than permissible and ensuring anybody buying a
ticket from the secondary market can see—clearly, easily, readily
and absolutely unambiguously —what the original price of that
ticket was and where it came from. All of this could have been
done today if the Government had not rejected the Lords
amendment, but supported Labour on the cross-party amendment from
the Lords. However, they have put touts before fans, and profits
before the public.
If Labour is given the chance to form a Government, we will also
go further. We will restrict the resale of tickets at more than a
small set percentage over the price the original purchaser paid
for it. No more touts buying a £50 ticket and selling it on for
£500; no more bulk buying of seats for Taylor Swift concerts that
could go to a 13-year-old fan from Wigan, but instead go to a
millionaire from the US. No more scalping of our creative
industries and artists, who set reasonable prices for their
tickets, only to find somebody else making money off their talent
and hard work by reselling them at 10 times the price. Ministers
say that the CMA will enforce more, but I doubt that anything
will change as a result of anything the Government are intending
to do with this measure.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame )
I call the SNP spokesman.
(Gordon) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, much as I wish we were
not here, because we would not need to be here if the Government
had done the decent, sensible thing and accepted the Lords
amendment.
We have heard stories in interventions and substantive
contributions, and in past debates, about the effect of an
under-regulated secondary market that leaves fans paying over the
odds for tickets, and places experiences beyond the financial
reach of families. There is also a high risk involved that
tickets purchased that way will not even grant entry to the
events, and I had hoped that by this stage the Government might
have read the room, understood that, and decided to respond in a
meaningful manner. Let us be in no doubt: the Government
amendment does little other than add the Competition and Markets
Authority to the list of bodies that are able to enforce the
already existing and inadequate rules on secondary ticket sales.
As just about all Opposition Members can see, even if Government
Members cannot, the existing rules are not working as well as
they are intended to work.
3.30pm
My hon. Friend makes a good point about the powers given to the
CMA, and I wonder whether the Government can increase the ability
to finance and give capacity to the CMA to deal with this sort of
stuff, or is this just something that has been passed on in
paper?
Perhaps the Minister will be able to deal with that question when
he responds to the debate. Certainly the measure might bring a
bit more resource, but it will also spread the resource for the
CMA that little bit more thinly. The fact that the rules are not
working as effectively as they need to has been evidenced in
previous debates, when we have heard of obscure charging
practices, of pressure to pay with countdown timers, and of the
exorbitant end prices that often result.
The Government amendment is fine as far as it goes. It might
bring a little more resource to the problem and a more strategic
capability when tackling rule-breakers. I also gave two cheers
when the Minister announced the promise of an inquiry at the tail
end of the previous debate, but the Government are still not
taking those practical measures that could be taken today with
amendment 104B to clean up the marketplace for secondary
ticketing.
Amendment 104B would involve measures such as a requirement to
provide proof of purchase or evidence of title for the tickets
for sale, which would forbid resellers from selling more tickets
than they would legally have been able to purchase from the
primary market. It would ensure that the face value and end price
paid are clearly visible, along with the name and trading address
of those doing the secondary vending. Crucially, it would also
allow secondary legislation to be introduced, which could take
account of and bring in anything from the inquiry that the
Minister has announced, and it would compel the Secretary of
State to have concluded that work within nine months. Contrary to
what the Minister says, I believe that the measures in Lords
amendment 104B are proportionate and add clearly to the existing
Bill.
Lord amendment 104B is a bit like Lords amendment 104 which came
before it. Indeed, it is almost the holy grail of amendments—it
is popular, it does not cost anything, and more to the point it
would be effective and do the right things in the right way for
the right reasons. I do not think I am speaking out of turn when
I say that hardly any Government in these isles, whether Labour
in Wales, the SNP in Scotland or the Conservatives at UK level,
are so overwhelmed with public support and good will at this time
that they can afford to turn down good ideas when they are
presented to them on a plate. It is therefore baffling that the
Government would seek once again to steer these practical and
effective measures off the road and into the ditch.
I will conclude my remarks by remarking on the “Dear Colleague”
letter that was sent from the Minister yesterday, in which he
expressed a clear desire to get the Bill on to the statue book
without delay. Not a single Member of the House looking at the
Bill in its totality would want it to be delayed, but we want it
to go forward into legislation in as strong a form as it can be.
That, for me, clearly means going forward in a way that can
tackle the egregious abuses of people's trust, and the reasonable
expectations they have when they participate in the secondary
ticketing market. Accepting the Lords amendment would allow
everyone to do that, and I hope the Government will take heed of
the genuine strength of view that exists on this matter, not just
within this House or the other place, but outside and among the
population at large, and that they will allow the Bill to
progress as amended accordingly.
(Worsley and Eccles South)
(Lab)
I rise to support Lords Amendment 104B, which seeks to safeguard
fans from the fraudulent abuse that is rife in the secondary
ticketing market. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir
), I am really disappointed
that the Government have repeatedly refused to accept the
amendments to the Bill tabled by . In fact, for many years
before that, they have failed to act as advised by my hon. Friend
the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and
her colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on ticket
abuse, supported by FanFair Alliance.
The Lords amendment includes the minimum of protection that fans
deserve. It would ensure that anyone reselling a ticket has to
show evidence that they have bought the ticket in the first
place. As we have been hearing, that is a big issue in the
secondary market, where ticket touts often list tickets that they
do not own. The Lords amendment also aims to stop touts from
listing more tickets to an event than they can legally purchase
from the primary market.
If the Minister looks at Viagogo's listings for BBC Radio 1
upcoming Big Weekend, he will see that touts based in Germany are
selling more than 10 times as many tickets as can legally be
acquired. He has said that measures to do anything about that are
unenforceable, but that should not be an excuse. We cannot be
standing here in this House and saying that a law that we could
pass is unenforceable—it is ridiculous.
Another important measure in the Lords amendment is provision for
a review to be published within nine months of the Bill passing.
That is an urgent issue, and the Government must be ambitious in
acting to tackle it.
I point out again to the Minister that action to crack down on
ticket touting has significant support from the music industry
and fans. Regulating against exploitative secondary ticketing
practices is part of the manifestos put forward by music industry
bodies including Live music Industry Venues and Entertainment and
UK Music.
Many promoters, artist managers, venues and musicians have been
highly critical of the market as it currently operates and called
on the Government for urgent action to tackle the problem, but it
is not just a problem for the music industry; foremost, as we
have heard, it is an issue for fans. It is now commonplace for
fans to miss out on tickets to sporting and cultural events only
to see those same tickets on sale on a secondary ticketing site
for far more money than they can afford.
With about a third of UK ticket buyers in the lowest
socioeconomic bands, those inflated prices are reinforcing
inequalities. The price of a ticket can make a significant
difference to social and cultural inclusion, in some cases
enabling marginalised or disadvantaged groups the opportunity to
access events.
It is important that many venues and artists now endeavour to
widen access to tickets by through-ticket pricing to certain
groups, but that approach is undermined when touts use software
to restrict fans' access to the primary market and then force
them on to resale sites such as Viagogo, which charge prices at
the top of what consumers can bear, as we have been hearing. For
example—this is disgraceful—I have been told that touts will buy
up discounted tickets intended for young people, for people in
wheelchairs, for carers and for others, and sell them on at the
going rate on the secondary market to increase their profit
margins. That has a serious impact on those consumers, who are
then refused entry at the door, as well as impacting on the venue
or artists that had subsidised tickets, and on the people for
whom the lower priced tickets had been intended and who can no
longer afford to attend the show.
I have spoken about music so far, but touting also affects other
live events such as sport. Most recently, we have seen Viagogo
listing up to 100 tickets for the England versus Iceland friendly
at Wembley on 7 June, despite the fact that listing football
tickets is illegal on unauthorised platforms—including Viagogo's
platform—for reasons of the safety of fans. When The Guardian
journalist Rob Davies highlighted the listings on social media,
Viagogo took down the tickets straightaway. Resale platforms
should not be waiting to be caught out before complying with the
law, but that is what we are seeing.
Another example of a secondary resale site having to be pushed
into acting by media coverage was a recent BBC “Watchdog” report
that raised concerns that some customers have not been able to
receive a refund from Viagogo after being sent invalid tickets.
Beth from Salisbury told the programme that she had booked a trip
to Singapore to see her husband's favourite band Coldplay as a
thank you to him for his unwavering support during her cancer
treatment. The two tickets to the show were bought through
Viagogo for £500, but when the tickets arrived, the piece of
paper said
“this is not a valid ticket”.
When she tried to get a refund, she was refused, despite the fact
that Viagogo has a guarantee, apparently. In fact, it only
refunded Beth's money for the faulty ticket after the BBC
“Watchdog” report. Given the weight of evidence of market
dysfunction, which we have heard here and in the other place, it
is disappointing that the Minister insists that the Government
are already doing enough. If that is the case, why not agree to
the amendment and see what comes out in the review?
Sir
The hon. Lady is making a good argument for what the Minister
said—ensuring better enforcement of existing regulations. That
seems to be the thrust of her argument, and what the Government
say that they are delivering.
It is just not happening. As we heard the last time we debated
this issue a few weeks ago, just six people have been convicted
of ticketing fraud—four of them in the past week. The
exploitative practices that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda
(Sir ) and I have talked about
continue to be rife on resale platforms. The Minister must accept
that this derisory and dismal record must not continue. Labour
has committed to a range of strong measures to crack down on
ticket touts and fix this broken system for fans. Will the
Government start to accept the weight of evidence and do the
same?
Mrs Hodgson
I am thrilled to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and
Eccles South (), who has done so much work
on this matter in the past few years, especially since she took
on the brief. She made an excellent speech.
Here we are again. I see that we have been joined by the hon.
Member for Shipley (Sir ), who back in 2011 did the
terrible thing—he might not think it was, but I do—of talking out
my private Member's Bill, the Sale of Tickets (Sporting and
Cultural Events) Bill. If it had been passed, we would not be
here today, because we would have already fixed this broken
market well over a decade ago. I welcome him to his place—I know
he likes to keep an eye on his handiwork.
It is a great shame that the hon. Lady was not listened to 13
years ago, but I have a feeling that, unfortunately, after the
Euros, with a political microscope on this issue, we will be back
here an awful lot sooner than we think.
Mrs Hodgson
Sadly, if amendment 104B is not accepted today, that might be the
case.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in today's debate, as short as
it might be. I am sure that the Minister is aware that I am here
in my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on
ticket abuse, which has done some great work in this area. I
support the Opposition's manuscript amendment, and therefore
support the revised Lords amendment 104B as it relates to the
secondary ticketing market. As others have done, I thank the
excellent for his continued efforts as
co-chair of the all-party group to regulate black market resale
sites such as Viagogo. He is right to do so, and I commend his
tenacity and brilliant work over many years. I fully supported
the original amendment 104, but I warmly welcome the difficult
decision to reintroduce the amendment with some notable
changes.
The Government's reason for rejecting the original amendment
was:
“Because protections for consumers in relation to secondary
ticketing are adequately provided for under existing
legislation.”
However, despite uncontrolled touting taking place on an
industrial scale, with tickets resold through sites such as
Viagogo, there has not been a single prosecution under the
Breaching of Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations 2018, no
convictions for using bots under the Digital Economy Act 2017,
and only two major tout prosecutions, with six individual
convictions, since 2017. I can hardly see how the Government can
describe current legislation as adequate.
The hon. Lady mentioned . For context, it should be
remembered that he was a sports Minister in Margaret Thatcher's
Government. If a Thatcher Minister is anti-market—the charge made
from the Conservative Benches against anyone who supports his
amendment—either the world has gone topsy-turvy or the Tory party
has gone so far to the right it has lost itself.
Mrs Hodgson
The hon. Gentleman makes exactly the correct point. was a highly respected
Minister, and he is hardly a lefty—or whatever it is that people
call people like me.
3.45pm
While I welcome the Government's somewhat muted attempts to
enforce existing law with their amendments in lieu, fans are
crying out for more concrete action. Common-sense amendment 104B
seems timely, with the so-called “ticket queen” just last week
sentenced to four years behind bars, but again, with just two
cases prosecuted over six years and only six convictions and zero
budget for more, this latest prosecution is not a success of the
current regulations, but a damning indictment of their
inadequacy.
Viagogo claims that “bad actors” such as the ticket queen
“go against all we stand for”.
Yet while British music lovers were conned and defrauded by these
crooks—they are crooks, because they are now in jail—Viagogo and
other secondary websites are likely to have made millions of
pounds in service fees from their transactions, perhaps as much
as £4 million by my calculations. And that is for only one group
of touts who were permitted to list tens of thousands of tickets,
no questions asked.
I fear that this dirty money is now being used to fuel a huge
lobbying and public relations campaign that, I have to say,
appears to have worked on some Government Ministers and some
advisers. When they champion Viagogo's rip-off business model at
the Dispatch Box, they are regurgitating at length its bogus
evidence and unsubstantiated claims about the impacts of our
current pro-consumer legislation, which, as I have already said,
is just not adequate. From the few convicted touts alone, the
secondary ticketing market is receiving potentially tens of
millions of pounds in—it has to be said—the proceeds of crime.
Viagogo's boss, who has no-showed multiple times at parliamentary
inquiries, declined to answer whether Viagogo may have benefited,
inadvertently or not, from the proceeds of those crimes, when
asked in an interview recently by Rob Davies of The Guardian.
Had amendment 104, with its five uncontroversial measures, been
in place at the time, it is unlikely that these crimes would have
been committed in the first place. Three things would have
occurred. First, the touts would have been allowed to re-sell
only the same number of tickets they could buy in the primary
market. Secondly, the secondary platform operators, Viagogo and
Ticketmaster, would have needed to check the receipts of those
tickets. Thirdly, ticket buyers would have been provided with far
clearer information about who they were buying from, and would
have likely reconsidered.
This past weekend, I was also made aware, again from the article
in The Guardian by Rob Davies, which my hon. Friend the Member
for Worsley and Eccles South also referred to, that Viagogo was
listing 100 seats at Wembley for England's 7 June friendly
against Iceland. I remind the House that the resale of football
tickets without permission from clubs or football governing
bodies has been illegal in England and Wales since 1994. Viagogo
has been asked how many football tickets it has sold over the
years—not just recently, through what it called human error—how
much it has made from such sales and whether it would donate that
income to grassroots football charities. Its answer? Silence. The
Government must be under no illusions: this is a thriving online
black market that is scamming hard-working families. With the
cost of living crisis ongoing, it is heartbreaking to see live
events added to the pile of small luxuries being taken away by
parasitic touts and Government inaction.
In a few weeks' time, fans will be gathering for Taylor Swift's
first UK performance. I do not know whether any colleagues are
going to see Taylor Swift, but the first concert is on 7 June in
Edinburgh. I have already heard of single seats, with average to
poor views, going on sale for up to £600 on secondary
websites—many times their face value—and seats next to each other
for upwards of £1,000 each.
While this will be an amazing night for many—I am sure that the
Minister and his family will enjoy it—as will all the nights that
follow, I have heard from industry specialists that they expect
dozens of fans at each gig, perhaps more, to be heartbroken when
they are turned away with invalid tickets bought from sites such
as Viagogo. Many venues have now had to set up special services
to deal with these victims of fake or invalid tickets bought
online, because they know that it is going to happen. Lots of
fans will already have shelled out hundreds of pounds for travel
and accommodation, and some may not even receive a refund for
their ticket, despite Viagogo's so-called guarantee. This was the
focus of the “Watchdog” section of the BBC's “The One Show”
recently, which I shared with the Minister just last week—I hope
he had time to watch it. It is still not too late to fix this
broken market, and I implore the Government to support the
revised Lords amendment 104B. The Minister could change his mind
when he gets to his feet.
In addition, despite the overwhelming evidence and the already
damning findings of the excellent independent review produced by
Professor Michael Waterson in 2016 following the enactment of the
Consumer Rights Act 2015, Lords amendment 104B endorses yet
another review of the secondary ticketing market, which the
Government have previously called for, while maintaining some of
the problems that Lords amendment 104 would have fixed.
The hon. Lady has touched on the industrial scale of this
practice, and we have heard about touts outside venues. Families
may be thinking of buying tickets, and committing themselves to
travelling and spending money on hotels, and that is what is
wrong. If that happens again, the Government should face those
families and explain why it has happened.
Mrs Hodgson
That is a very good point. As much as none of us wants to see any
unhappy, devastated fans at any of these venues, we will probably
have to face those images, in the emails from those fans, on our
television screens and maybe on the front pages of newspapers. We
have to be prepared for that, and I am sure that the Minister
would be sad to see it.
If the Government are truly committed to another review, I know
that Lord Moynihan—as we have heard, a highly respected
Conservative Lord and a former Minister—has already been
recommended to them as a possible chair. [Interruption.] I hope
that the hon. Member for Shipley is agreeing with me. I hope he
agrees that that would be a very fair and pragmatic selection. It
is one that I would wholeheartedly support.
I will conclude. On two occasions the Lords, having listened to
evidence and the stated views of the CMA, have voted through
these amendments, but Ministers seem hellbent on ignoring the
views of the other place. The Lords have sent a clear message to
the Government, asking them to look at the facts and think again.
I ask the Minister once again: will he finally side with fans,
artists and athletes, support Lords amendment 104B today, and not
let this be another opportunity wasted by the Conservative
Government? As I said in our last debate on this matter, they
should either start putting fans first, or move aside so that we
can.
With the leave of the House, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will address
the points that have been raised during the debate.
The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir ) presented a cap on ticket
prices as his solution to this problem, but that flies in the
face of the evidence given by the CMA in its report. It said that
such a measure would not significantly diminish the incentive,
and the misconduct would therefore continue. However, it was good
to hear the hon. Gentleman finally admit that the market is a
good thing—that, coming from an Opposition Member, is a
revelation.
There is a common factor between what was said by the hon.
Gentleman and what was said by the other contributors to the
debate. He said, for instance, that face value was not made
sufficiently clear on the various secondary sites, but there is a
key saying clearly what face value is on the first pages of the
Viagogo and StubHub websites. All those points relate to one
thing and one thing only, namely enforcement, because the
requirements are there in the existing legislation. We are keen
to bolster enforcement. He says that we are somehow kicking and
screaming to do so with this amendment, despite the fact that
this Government have unilaterally brought forward this
legislation. Part 3 offers huge new powers that were not added
through an amendment in the Commons or the Lords; they were on
the face of the Bill from day one.
Sir
The Minister knows that Taylor Swift tickets are being sold. The
organisers of those concerts have said that tickets sold on
unauthorised secondary ticket markets are not valid. Would he
therefore encourage people to buy tickets only from authorised
ticket vendors and not from those that are unauthorised, which
include Viagogo?
I would certainly advise any consumer to comply with the rules
set out by the primary market. It is quite clear that the primary
markets can do a lot more about restricting secondary sales, and
we have been quoted examples of that today, including the way the
Olympics was run, the way that football matches are run and the
way that Glastonbury is run. All those things have very tight
controls on secondary markets, which is in the gift of the
primary market.
The hon. Member for Gordon () asked about resources, as
did the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (). The CMA's budget is
£122 million, so we feel that it has the necessary resources
available to it. The fines and penalties can be kept by the CMA
for its enforcement activities.
The hon. Members for Worsley and Eccles South () and for Washington and
Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) made similar points about the
inappropriate resale of tickets—for England football matches, for
example—and refunds that have not been processed properly. Only
six people have been prosecuted for abuse in this sector, and we
want to see more. Prosecutions for the use of bots have not been
brought forward, and the amendment allows the CMA to do that. All
the concrete action that the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles
South calls for is about enforcement, not more regulations. I
absolutely agree with that, and we want to ensure that there is
more enforcement in this space.
It is of paramount importance that we get this Bill on to the
statute book so that it can start delivering for businesses and
consumers as soon as possible. I thank all who have helped to get
to this place, including the Clerks, the officials in the
Department and the Bill team. I thank them for their hard work on
this legislation, and I hope that all Members will feel able to
support our position.
Question put,That the amendment be made.
[Division 155
The House divided:
Ayes
217
Noes
268
Question accordingly negatived.
Held on 21 May 2024 at
3.57pm](/Commons/2024-05-21/division/0D52932A-0722-420C-A176-60D47CF8C1E5/CommonsChamber?outputType=Names)
Main Questionput and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House disagrees with the Lords in their Amendment and
proposes Amendments (a) and (b) to the Bill in lieu of the Lords
Amendment 104B.
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