Consumer Rights Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Grand Committee

I see no reason why we should not build on experience of the Games in Committee and, through consensus, avoid taking the amendments to a vote at Report or Third Reading. In my experience in your Lordships’ House, well thought through legislation on sport builds all-party consensus and secures the support of the House. In sport, that has been in no small measure due to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, who has been a consistent friend of sport, along with my noble friend in sport, the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, the best Minister for Sport this country never had. Together with the work of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson—who, incidentally, is en route to this Committee from a speaking engagement in Cardiff, and offers her apologies if she does not make it—the indefatigable noble Lord, Lord Addington, the forensic mindset of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and the assiduous work of my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint, they provide a powerful cross-party voice in your Lordships’ House for sport. I hope that their agreement on this key issue of how to protect the consumer, the sports fan, will be carefully considered by the Minister.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I was debating whether or not I should speak but, having been told that I am expected to, I think that I probably have to. I should declare a couple of interests. Probably the most important one is that I am a lifelong rugby player. Even now at this advancing age I still occasionally don a jersey and wander around the pitch—I would say “run” but wandering is a bit closer to it now.

One of the first points made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was that if you are generating income from these major events, at least some of it—as much of it as possible—should go to the grass roots, and many of the events that we are talking about do that.

Then there was the other major point about the fact that by touting in this way you are devaluing the event for the fan, the people who often actually make it a special event. To talk about Rugby Union, and I thank the RFU for once or twice giving me tickets, I would say that makes those games so special is the fans, so you are actually damaging your base if you allow these things to happen. These people do not go to an “event”; they are going to watch a sport and give some enthusiasm. That will be helped by this amendment; you will help to build it up and layer it through. Please pay attention to this.

The Government have been given—what shall we say?—a very moderate set of proposals. Any one of these amendments, or any combination of them, could probably achieve a great deal to make the situation slightly better. That is all we are asking for—to try to make it slightly better and preserve what is important. That is about all that we can hope for. As my noble friend Lord Moynihan has pointed out, we have tried and succeeded with a more draconian system for an event that was at the top of sporting demand, the Olympics, so surely having something here that at least gave greater certainty could not hurt.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I am somewhat reluctant to go slightly against the tide in the face of noble Lords who I greatly admire in the sporting world speaking here today. I have great sympathy with what my noble friends Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Moynihan, the noble Lord, Lord Hendry, and my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint said about the war on ticket touts; I support that, and I support the values in it. However, we have to ask a number of specific questions about these amendments and what this legislation can actually do.

Most authorised resale ticket sites give guarantees on the validity of tickets or provide a value back if the tickets are not valid. One of the issues is how we get people to use those sites more. We do not want to upset anyone to move away from them, which would be into the hands of people who are fraudulent and are trying to break the system.

The other thing that is very important is that the public want the opportunity to resell and buy in the secondary market. This is particularly important when tickets are being sold a year ahead of the event. Another problem is that often the tickets are not issued until six weeks or so before the event, so some of the information that might be required in the resale market might not be available.

There is already considerable legislation against fraud and against competition and there are issues of restraint of trade, all of which need to be taken into account. We also have to ask ourselves why this primary legislation is being asked to make specific requirements in one sector. Should it be doing that? Should we not have more embracing legislation that deals with this issue? All the recognised operators have an interest in preventing fraud; that is what actually protects their brand, as any fraud inevitably undermines their genuine business.

There is an issue with sellers providing information, particularly individual consumers. I am not sure that I want my name going on a ticket that I might have had if it has gone through a recognised secondary provider—in fact, I certainly would not want that. So the guarantee is the key, as is establishing that the tickets are valid.