Consumer Rights Bill

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Borwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is such a shame when a fan of sports, or theatre, or music, has their enthusiasm exploited, and is ripped off. But I do not think that the amendment would do what it intends to do. It is designed to allow sports grounds to cancel tickets not sold by them. When people hear of a secondary market, they think of shady touts selling fraudulent tickets on the street corner. They think of sportsmen, officials or media pundits who are offered freebies, and then choose to sell them at inflated prices. These things will not be stopped by this amendment. They are not what proper secondary markets are about.

A proper secondary market will allow people to trade tickets among one another; to allow supply to meet demand, with the market doing exactly what it is supposed to do—arriving at the right price for both parties. Using a safe secondary market on the internet is safer than using a tout. If someone were to purchase a ticket for an event, and closer to the time realised that they could not go, then it is only fair that they should try to find a buyer for the ticket. If information such as seat numbers, transaction numbers and the names of sellers is required for resale, then sports governing bodies or theatres could cancel the tickets without a refund. So the person who bought the ticket originally would be out of pocket. Then the incentive is there for sellers to lie about their name.

With this amendment, we will find that Mr D Duck is a top ticket dealer. Or the seller may even list an adjacent seat number. Imagine the problems that could be caused when the wrong seat is cancelled. If your ticket was cancelled because a tout said he was advertising it, you may eventually get a refund after a struggle—but you will certainly miss the show.

Someone hoping to sell a ticket could also just try to sell it on an offshore site—or indeed sell it to those malicious touts outside the venue, helping to fuel more fraudulent activity. However well intentioned, I think this is one of those laws that will make sensible people do silly things. People use secondary ticket markets quite happily as they currently operate. The majority of users want a safe space to resell tickets online. People are very concerned about privacy online too. They know that scammers are out there looking for personal information such as names and addresses. Asking for this level of information for an online secondary market will worry users.

When we hear about the astronomical prices quoted for a ticket, quite often in newspaper reports, they are usually just the advertised price. That does not mean the ticket will sell for that much. Buyers are as canny as sellers. They know that they can wait for a while, until the date of the show gets nearer, to see a drop in the price. Again, this is the market determining the right price between grown-up consumers. And why do we not celebrate high prices? Surely this just shows that the lucky fans who purchased at face value have got them themselves a bargain.

We have seen what it is like when there are no secondary ticketing markets in the UK. The Olympics were a success in so many ways, but it was disappointing to see banks of empty seats at many exciting events. It was a condition of our bid for the Games that there was no secondary market and the results spoke for themselves—empty seats. We should also look elsewhere to see if another country has introduced these kinds of regulations, and what the effect has been.

In France, the legislation seems to have had little impact, and has done exactly what I alluded to earlier—sellers have moved to selling tickets on offshore markets. Canada and states such as Michigan have introduced legislation like this, and then had to remove it. There is a thriving secondary ticket market elsewhere in America—for baseball games and American football matches. The prices are wildly different at times, and they simply reflect the demand for a ticket. You can get a ticket to a baseball match starting that same afternoon for less than $10. But a big football match is likely to be more expensive on the secondary market. Overall, though, transactions are safe and demand meets supply. We seem to be five years behind in considering legislation like this. So we should take this opportunity to make sure that we do not follow bad examples but copy good ones.

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

I rise briefly to prove that we on this side of the House can also have fun and go to concerts and rugby and football matches. I want to support those who tabled the amendment—obviously my noble friend has yet to speak. I believe that this is a very sensible but extremely light-touch proposal—it is feather light. We are not asking for criminalisation, as in the case of the Olympics. We are talking about the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Heyhoe Flint, made demanding equality of treatment for consumers of both original tickets and secondary tickets. That is a very simple demand to make in this extremely light-touch amendment.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. I have a number of interests in sport, which are declared on the register. We might be here a long time if I went through them all.

We have been discussing this for longer than I have been involved in sport—and that is at least 30 years. As an ex-athlete and a sports fan, of course I want people to be watching and supporting. It is important to say that this is not a ban on secondary tickets; it would not be so in practice. This is about those people who hide behind the lack of transparency to mislead or defraud.

We should not take lightly the number of governing bodies which are in agreement on this issue. Again, in the length of time I have been involved in sport, it is very unusual for so many to agree on a single issue. They believe in this because they feel that it is very harmful to what they are trying to do. This is a pragmatic step that empowers consumers. It will not inhibit the legitimate exchange of tickets on secondary platforms. It will just make government policy much more effective.

I would like to come back to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, on the Olympics and the Paralympics. It was briefly in the media about seats not being filled, but my understanding was that that was part of the contract with the IOC: it was IOC members who had to have those seats available if they wanted to watch the sport. It was not a case of tickets that had been sold and not used—it was a very specific area. Every Olympics and Paralympics Games have to set a number of those seats aside. I feel slightly embarrassed talking about that with the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, in the Chamber. He was much closer to it than I was.

With the Olympics and Paralympics, the legislation that was in place meant that people felt very confident, knowing that when they went to events they would get tickets. I have been to events where I have seen parents standing outside, explaining to their 10 year-old why the ticket they have is not valid. They might have paid over the odds for it, but the pressure from children to see One Direction and all those other people is huge. As a parent you might pay more, because you want to give that experience to your child. You do not spend lots of time checking out different methods of buying tickets on the internet; you buy the ticket because you want to be there. This is about protecting those people and making sure that they know that those seats are protected.

This is pragmatic. Nobody loses out from this proposal apart from those who seek to make huge profits by mis-selling or defrauding consumers. I strongly support the work that the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is doing in this area, because it is vital that we do this.