National Health Service
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Philip Davies
Philip Davies
Thank you, Mr Speaker; I appreciate that.
I was making the point that when the Labour party gave out contracts to the private sector, it actually paid the private providers a higher tariff for carrying out that work than they paid NHS hospitals and providers. To my mind, that was a complete outrage. If Labour was so much against the private sector, why on earth was it paying private providers a higher tariff than NHS providers? It was the current Government who stopped that absurd practice and made sure that private providers were paid the same tariff as NHS providers. The hon. Member for Wirral West could have mentioned that in her remarks, but she failed to do so.
As I said, the whole Bill is based on a false premise, because it was the last Labour Government who introduced the private sector into the NHS and paid private providers more for carrying out the same work, and the current Government have dealt with that absurdity.
The hon. Lady was pretty quiet about the part of the Bill that deals with section 38 of the Immigration Act 2014, which she wishes to repeal. That section requires nationals from outside the European economic area who come to the UK for longer than six months to pay a health surcharge when making their immigration application. Although no statistics are yet available on the amount of revenue raised from that surcharge, an answer to a parliamentary question last year showed that the Government estimated that they would recover about £200 million a year from foreign nationals using the NHS. The hon. Lady wishes to repeal that legislation. In effect, she wants foreign nationals to come to the UK and use the NHS free of charge. No wonder she mentioned so little of that. At the end of her speech she talked about the financial crisis that the NHS is suffering, yet she is bringing forward a Bill that will stop the NHS being able to recover some of the money spent on treating foreign nationals. The whole Bill is a complete absurdity and nonsense.
If the hon. Lady is proud of that provision in the Bill, why did she not mention it during her speech? Perhaps she is secretly embarrassed about it. Perhaps she knows that her constituents would not particularly appreciate her attempt to introduce legislation to give foreign nationals free treatment, which would cost the NHS more money rather than saving it money. I know that she is one of the last remaining supporters of the Leader of the Opposition, but even he might think that that was rather a strange way of trying to improve the NHS’s financial position.
I know that this is the same Bill that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) presented during the last Session. Perhaps the hon. Member for Wirral West did not actually read the Bill. Perhaps she presented it without having looked at it, and did not realise that it included that particular provision. Either there has been an omission on her part, or we have the rather strange absurdity that she wants to introduce legislation to take at least £200 million a year away from the NHS. She might be able to discuss how that would help the NHS, but I do not see the logic in it.
I do not intend to prevent the hon. Lady from having her moment in the sun. I merely wished to point out that the whole Bill is based on a false premise. It was the last Labour Government who introduced the private sector into the NHS, not the current Government. No matter how many times the hon. Lady repeats that particular myth, it will not get off the ground. Her Bill would cost the NHS more rather than saving it any money, and on that basis, when it comes before the House, I shall be here.
Question put (Standing Order No. 23) and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Margaret Greenwood, Caroline Lucas, Dawn Butler, Stella Creasy, Nic Dakin, Peter Dowd, Mike Kane, Liz McInnes, Yasmin Qureshi, Marie Rimmer, Stephen Twigg and John Pugh present the Bill.
Margaret Greenwood accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on 4 November 2016 and to be printed (Bill 51).
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During a debate on 13 June, I raised the issue of British taxpayers’ money being used to fund convicted Palestinian terrorists. I twice requested that the Minister of State, Department for International Development, publish the memorandum of understanding between DFID and the Palestinian Authority. The Minister has now written an extraordinary letter to me, saying that his officials are seeking a meeting with the Palestinian Authority to discuss the release of the document. The Palestinian Authority is being given the right to veto a Member of Parliament’s request for information. How are we supposed to hold the Government to account when they refuse to release crucial documentation unless they are given permission to do so by the Palestinian Authority?
Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill
Debate between Lord Austin of Dudley and Philip Davies(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). She is a brilliant MP and a formidable campaigner. I remember her relentless and successful campaign to pilot and promote free school meals to all children. Now she has ticket touts in her sight. If I were them, I would be very afraid. I completely understand why she has introduced the Bill. She is in touch with the people whom she represents. She understands ordinary people’s worries. She has listened to the concerns of ordinary sports and music fans who want to get a fair crack of the whip when buying tickets to watch the bands whom they love or the teams whom they support. As she said, every parent knows just how keen their kids are to see their favourite groups or watch their sporting heroes, but they are being priced out of the market by people who make mass purchases and exclude ordinary fans. For that reason, we should look very closely at what she proposes.
It is fair to say that many organisations in sport and the arts—as well as charities such as Teenage Cancer Trust, to which my hon. Friend has referred—are concerned about this issue. Many governing bodies have told me that they want proposals that will ensure ordinary grass-roots fans have access to tickets. I, too, want to ensure that ordinary fans have access to the primary market and that tickets are not bought up in huge numbers the minute they go on sale by organised gangs in the way that she described. I believe in open, free and fair competition. I want free access to fair markets. Free markets are underpinned by open access and fair competition. It is particularly important to ensure that any suggestion of organised criminals being involved and any question of links to the funding of criminal activity or laundering money for criminal operations are investigated and prevented immediately.
Philip Davies
On fair access, may I give the hon. Gentleman a scenario to find out what he makes of it? I might really want to see an event, but am unsure whether I can do so because of my work or family commitments. By the time I have sorted them out and rung up, the event might be booked up because it has sold out in a flash. Does he not recognise that, as a true fan, my only possible opportunity to go to that event would be provided by some form of ticket tout? If no ticket touts were available, I would be excluded from that event. They might charge a price that I do not want to pay—that is my choice, and I can make that decision—but they are helping genuine fans who have other commitments when tickets go on sale to buy them.
Ian Austin
I understand that, like me, the hon. Gentleman was educated in Dudley, but given the nonsense that he is speaking today, he wasted his time there. The Bill would not eradicate the secondary market. It would not prevent tickets from being sold on; it would simply limit the price. That might or might not be the right thing to do, but is he saying that the secondary market is perfect and that he can guarantee that there is absolutely no abuse, fraud, illegality or criminal behaviour? Is he saying, for example, that no one prints fake tickets, which cause all sorts of problems?
Such issues should be considered, but the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, with their juvenile antics—the usual nonsense and behaviour that bring the House into disrepute every Friday—are preventing them from being examined. My hon. Friend’s proposals might not be the right ones, but we should consider them in Committee. We should examine the Bill, listen to all the experts and take appropriate measures, but the hon. Gentleman is preventing that from happening.
Philip Davies
I am rather surprised at the hon. Gentleman’s fake outrage, because I posed a perfectly legitimate question. Most people watching would conclude that his reaction was juvenile. He talked about fake tickets being printed, but surely someone in his position would accept that such fraud is already illegal. If he is not aware of that, I worry for him in his new position.
Ian Austin
Of course such things are illegal, but they are happening. We should examine—[Interruption.] New technology and all sorts of things change markets all the time. We should not say that we are not prepared to look at the issues to see whether changes ought to be introduced—whether regulation might work—to make the markets operate more effectively and give ordinary fans greater access to them. The hon. Gentleman is trying to prevent that by talking the Bill out. That is a disgrace and he should be ashamed of himself.
Philip Davies
My hon. Friend spotted that, too, but the situation is beyond my control. If you, Madam Deputy Speaker, tell me—not for the first time—that I have to conclude my remarks, I shall accept your ruling with the good grace that I always show.
Ian Austin
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that new Labour is not dead. I said I believed in free markets, open competition and fair access for ordinary people. I want to ensure that the organised bulk-buying of tickets which excludes ordinary fans is prevented, so that ordinary people get a fair crack of the whip when it comes to buying tickets. When he thinks about it, he will find that that is a more free-market approach than his. It is the Opposition who are standing up for open access, competitive markets and free competition. If he believes that there are no problems at all with secondary markets, fair enough; but surely he can see that there must be some ways of improving them. My hon. Friend’s proposal might not be the best way of doing so, but I simply say that we should get the Bill into Committee so we can debate it.
Philip Davies
That is a perfectly fair point, but the hon. Gentleman did not manage to persuade his Government to adopt that approach when they were in office, as they killed the Bill when it last came up, so I am not entirely sure why anybody who is against it now should be considered a tyrant, because his Government killed exactly the same Bill in the previous Parliament.
New Labour clearly is not dead, because the hon. Gentleman seems to think that just by asserting something, it is therefore true: so if he says that he believes in the free market, it is therefore sufficient proof that the Labour party believes in the free market. I take a rather different view: I think our policies have to reflect our assertions. We cannot just say, “I believe in the free market” and then pass laws that completely fly in the face of the free market. I ask him for some consistency, so that his lofty words about believing in the free market might be followed up by action and policies that support them. I am afraid, however, that I cannot see any of that happening.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you are in a privileged position in this debate, because you were also on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee with me when we considered this matter two or three years ago. We conducted an interesting inquiry. The hon. Lady was absolutely right: not only did we find the secondary market to be perfectly legitimate, but her Government found exactly the same. She did not mention this point, but she will also be aware that the Office of Fair Trading has always made it clear that the secondary market for tickets is not only not a bad thing but actively works in the consumer’s favour.
That brings me to my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), who says that the people who own the rights to an event—the promoters or, in his words, the holders of the intellectual property—should be free to determine such matters. That is a perfectly legitimate and respectable view to hold, but I do not agree. I was encouraged, nevertheless, as he said he was not really taking the consumer’s interests into consideration. They did not matter; what mattered was the intellectual property holder. That is a perfectly respectable view, but I do not agree. I think that the public—the consumers—are an important part of the process.
Philip Davies
If my hon. Friend does not mind my saying so, he states the obvious. Obviously, if the market would guarantee a higher price for the tickets and the promoters were to sell them at a higher price, they would make more money. My point, however, is that that is their choice. If a promoter has 50,000 tickets to an event and chooses for one reason or another to sell them at £20 per ticket, their ambition is to bring in £1 million from the sale of those tickets. Rather than ticket touts causing a problem for the promoters, I assert that they are helping, because the more tickets they buy, the more likely the promoters are to sell the amount of tickets required for them to raise the sum of money for which they have budgeted. The ticket tout is therefore helping the promoters reach their targets. If there is no ticket touting, the promoter is not going to bring in more than £1 million; the tickets will still all be sold for £20 each. That is the only income the promoters are going to get, so they are certainly not losing out.
Ian Austin
I would like the hon. Gentleman to address the central question; it has not yet been dealt with. Is it fair that individuals are excluded from the market because cartels buy up the tickets in bulk and then rig the price? That is not a free market. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that that is fair? If he agrees that it may not be fair, and that it may need to be looked at, why is he not going to help get this Bill into Committee?
Philip Davies
I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that ticket touts prevent people from accessing tickets. I would make the opposite point. Tickets for an event might sell out in five seconds flat, before a genuine fan has the chance to realise they were on sale or before they could check whether they could get time off work or child care. If they later realise that they can go to the event and there were no ticket touting, they would have no chance of going to the event. The only mechanism that enables them to have a chance to go to the event is the secondary market. It may well be that the price the secondary market charges is more than the person is prepared to pay, but that is their choice. If the ticket touts were not there to offer their services, that person would not even have that choice in the first place. It is therefore my assertion that ticket touting gives the genuine fan more access, rather than restricts it.
Ian Austin
I am not arguing with the points the hon. Gentleman makes about the secondary market. I am simply asking him this: is it right that people should be able to use technology to buy up all the tickets right at the outset, prevent anybody else from having a fair crack of the whip, and then fix the price? That is not a free-market solution.
Philip Davies
I am not aware that the hon. Gentleman in his speech or the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) in her Bill advocate that these provisions should be limited to people who buy huge quantities of tickets over a website. This is a principled point about people selling tickets at more than a 10% mark-up, however they come by them.
I always thought that the Labour party believed in the redistribution of wealth from rich people to poor people. I thought that was the way they wanted to go. I am therefore a bit flummoxed by what has been said. A constituent of mine who has not got a great deal of money but is a great fan of cricket might buy a ticket to the cricket world cup final for, let us say, £25. They then go to the pub where a fellow says, “Do you know what? My lifetime ambition is to go to the cricket world cup final but I cannot get a ticket as they have sold out. I am so keen, I would give £3,000 to get a ticket.” My constituent might then think, “£3,000 for this ticket! All my Christmases have come at once. This fellow has obviously got far more money than he knows what to do with if he is prepared to pay £3,000 for my ticket.” That would be an example of great redistribution of wealth from rich people to poor people. The richer people are giving the money to the poorer people for a commodity that they want to sell. I would have thought that Labour Members would be all for that kind of redistribution of wealth. What on earth has happened to them? They have given up being new Labour, and now they have given up being old Labour.