Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Committee: 4th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, before I introduce the amendment, I wonder whether we could reflect on the fact that we are missing rather an important person from the debate. The noble Baroness Heyhoe Flint was a keen and active Member of your Lordships’ House. She had several special interests apart from cricket and a wonderful raconteur’s skill of telling stories of her exploits at the crease. She was rather good at it. Whatever it was, it was always a delight to hear. She had a special interest in secondary ticketing, and in many of the debates held in your Lordships’ House on this issue, she was present and often contributed. She was responsible, along with the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, whom I see in his place, for getting changes made to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which brought in the first of what we hope will be a series of measures to improve and clear up this issue.

The amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill that we inserted in 2015 raised from a secondary legislation provision to a primary legislation provision a series of measures to improve and clear up the secondary ticketing market. It was done primarily to ensure that those who buy tickets for sports, arts and music events can do so in the sure and certain knowledge that their tickets are valid, that they will be able to gain access to what they want to see and that they are not being ripped off in the process.

It is fair to say that we got this only after a considerable struggle—and the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, might wish to share with us some of the difficulties that he experienced—but one of the things that was necessary in order to achieve that victory was to agree to a report on secondary ticketing to be carried out by a distinguished person. That person was Professor Waterson. He has now done that and the report has come out. Those involved are entitled to take a moment to reflect on the fact that what we were saying in Committee on the Bill and what we did in moving amendments and getting them inserted into what became the Act was brought out by the professor’s report, which was a comprehensive piece of work that showed that the scale of the issue was as we described it and that there was a need for further action.

The Bill before us is an opportunity to do more work, and the group of amendments that I am introducing—and for which I am hoping to get support from the noble Lords, Lord Moynihan, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Foster of Bath, and others as we go through it—is a mixed bag because there are still things that need to be sorted out. An issue that arose in the other place and which was very nearly accepted by the Government was the question of an offence caused by using digital ticket-purchasing software—so-called bots. They are a scourge of many people who organise and run events—particularly in the music industry, but they apply right across the piece. Automated software operated by a number of individuals creates a situation where virtually no tickets are available on the first release of an event, but they then appear very quickly at very much higher prices through secondary ticket outlets. This amendment would, we hope, stamp this out. It has been tried in a number of territories, including New York very recently, and it does seem to work, so we recommend that.

The other amendments deal with changes that we would like to see to improve the broader approach taken in the Consumer Rights Act which, in practice, needs to be taken to another stage. They are basically to do with greater transparency and accountability in how the secondary ticket market works. It is really important, however, that we get clear at the start that nothing in these amendments would stop the resale of tickets once purchased by an individual who wished to sell them because they could not attend the event or that they wanted to sell them on to other people in a closed circle. This is not about private purchases or operations. It is about those who go into the ticket market on a commercial basis, very often making huge amounts of money by exploiting people who do not understand and cannot get to the heart of the issue and therefore pay ridiculous prices. It also would help stamp out what is clearly a fraudulent activity that has been partially stopped by the changes made in 2015 but has not stopped completely. People buy what look on the surface to be valid tickets, but when they turn up at the venue they discover that they are not valid and are refused entry. This is fraud on an industrial scale, and probably the source of much money laundering and illegal activity, which was referred to by the police in their Podium report prior to the 2012 Olympics.

These amendments should be taken as a batch; they build on work in which this House has already been involved and they are the right changes to make this stage. I beg to move.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I support the seven amendments in this group spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. I echo that it is particularly appropriate in many ways, albeit very sad, that we debate the often malicious and pernicious use of bots on the sad day of the funeral of my very close friend Lady Rachael Heyhoe Flint. One afternoon, she was purposefully striding down the Corridor outside the Peers’ Guest Room, and said, “I need you”. I jumped to attention and we headed off to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I was totally unaware of why I was accompanying her on that occasion, or indeed the matter proposed for discussion. Rachael launched into a thinly veiled, front-foot attack on those in and around the secondary market, who fleece consumers to no benefit to cricketers, musicians, sportsmen and sportswomen, who are the ones who entertain them. Through her hard work and persuasive skills, I was galvanised into action. I thank the Government for the progress that we made in the Consumer Rights Bill at the time, as well as the Opposition and noble Lords from all sides of the House.

That was just a first yet important step. Today is the second opportunity to make further progress. I was very sad not to be at Rachael’s funeral today to pay my close personal, political and sporting respects, but she would have been the first to admonish me. She would have said, “Why on earth are you not down in Westminster putting on your pads, your gloves and picking up your bat, and going into the centre of the parliamentary wicket to hit those bots for six?”. I will do my best, captain. I will do my best. In paying tribute to her, because she was absolutely instrumental in the work that we undertook during the passage of that Bill, I must also pay tribute to Nigel Adams, Member of Parliament in another place, who has taken this to his heart and has done so much good work.

The whole issue of bots goes right to the heart of the disappointment of thousands of music and sporting fans who have on occasion faced the reality of having their credit card ready in their hand with minutes to go before the sale of tickets for a particular gig or match but no sooner do they go on sale than they sell out. Minutes later, tickets can be spotted on reselling websites. The new, hidden threat that is snatching tickets from under the noses of genuine fans is ticketing bots.

Music and sports fans have always battled against touts buying up tickets to make a quick buck by selling them on again at inflated prices. But now touts have a new cyberweapon that allows them to step up their game. These ticketing bots are software; they buy up huge numbers of tickets for events as soon as they go on sale. Buyers then use the secondary websites to sell them on. Reg Walker, who has done an enormous amount of good work on this at the O2, stated:

“They then harvest tickets at high speed and that effectively blocks out genuine fans from being able to purchase tickets at face value. These tickets are then immediately resold on secondary ticketing platforms”.


What then happens is that those who are sitting in their garages using bots programmed with all this information press the button immediately and get their 200 tickets, and sell them on to one of the four secondary platforms where nearly 80% to 90% of resale now takes place. In so doing, they do not necessarily always get all the tickets they want. Their preferred status and good relationship with the platform is critical to their next sale. So, if necessary, they will have the income on a very high-price ticket with a high margin to go out and counterfeit tickets to make up the gap between those they have committed to supply and the actual number that they have. That is why the wholesale harvesting of tickets by touts not only incentivises these individuals to create relationships with the main providers of the secondary market tickets, the providers even develop power-seller programmes to encourage the delivery of mass tickets.

This is all at the same time that you are trying to type in your name in order to get a couple of tickets, as the true fan of a music show at the O2 or a sporting event. The reality is that you have no chance. We have all tried it; I have tried it on many occasions and cannot believe that they have sold out before I have got down my name, address, credit card number and so on. It is no surprise, though, when bots are available purely for the benefit of the profit of the individual. No artists, no sportsmen and no fans benefit. That mark- up goes straight into the pocket of the individual who has got the ticket and the secondary sales platforms that provide those tickets at inflated prices to consumers.

Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2015

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Monday 7th September 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for referring specifically to Chapter 5 of Part 3 of the Act and for the interest shown, both in Committee and in the House, in the subject of the secondary market for tickets. As I understand it, the powers that are proposed should be seen as complementary and, indeed, supplementary, because there will be greater information sharing as a result of the order, which is narrow in scope.

I would like to ask my noble friend whether the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 apply to the secondary ticketing market as well. If they do, they stand well alongside the proposals before the Committee and, indeed, the powers in the CRA 2015.

Before I may appear a little concerned about and critical of the pace at which a number of commitments that were given to the House seem to be progressing, I say straightaway that I could not be more grateful to the Minister personally for her commitment and the level of interest, time and diligence that she showed on this subject. However, as I hope she will be the first to agree, while investigative powers are clear, a prerequisite for those investigative powers to be effective is enforcement. If there is a lack of clarity over exactly what needs to be enforced, we have a problem. One reason why the review was due to be set up was to provide clarity over enforcement and how it would be implemented. As long ago as May, the Minister was hopeful that we would have that review. Many of us who are interested in the subject have waited with bated breath during the Summer Recess, week by week and month by month—May, June, July, August and now into September—and we are still hoping that the review will come very soon.

Under normal circumstances in Parliament, this might not be a major concern. The reason why it is such a concern is because this review was placed in the Act and was time-limited to a year. It concerns me that we are now into September and we do not have a chair for the review or terms of reference for it, nor do we have details of the expert committee that would support that review. All that is absolutely essential. One reason why the measure was pressed so rapidly and given such importance and prominence in Parliament was that having a chair in place to see exactly how the ticket-touting market or secondary ticket market worked during the Rugby World Cup was clearly going to be advantageous. It was going to be able to help that committee to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of the legislation that had been passed in Parliament, and it was also going to provide a good deal of detailed information so that recommendations could be made in the light of direct hands-on involvement with those organising the Rugby World Cup, which already, as we have read in the papers only in the last week, is a matter of great concern to the consumers, many of whom feel that they are being fleeced. In addition to that, we were looking for a strategy for monitoring compliance. The Competition and Markets Authority is clearly important in that context, but we have heard nothing. There is no information on how best to provide requirements for sellers, advice to buyers or recourse to consumers. I understand that the police numbers specifically to tackle touting and associated criminality are very low.

Many rugby fans feel that they are currently being fleeced for tickets, which is a result of the lack of enforcement. The position that they face today is bleak, to say the least. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give us a little more clarity on when this review is going to be established. I hope that there will be an announcement very soon of a chair for the review; it is imperative that that is done and that the review is set up as a matter of urgency. At the Rugby World Cup, so many fans have been unable to get tickets because those who have managed to sweep the market have immediately put those tickets back on at a massive multiple of their face value. When that is directly in contravention to the regulations and rules stated by the organisers of the Rugby World Cup, we have a serious problem, compounded when Parliament has spoken about this issue and when the Government came back with amendments to lead on this issue so that we could protect consumers and not see sports fans fleeced.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it was very good of the Minister to pay tribute to my hirsute appearance. I like to bask in the idea that I am fashionable at all, let alone fashionably bearded. Of course, it is entirely a summer beard, one of those that grow simply because one is too bored and lazy to take the trouble to shave it off. In my case I had an ulterior motive—I am sorry to bore the Committee in this way—because my son has just reached the age of 20 and fancies himself as a bit of a lad around town, and felt that it would enhance his appearance and approach to the wider world if he was to grow a beard, and we agreed to do it together. I shall not say who has won yet, but it is a fine bonding environment. Also it proves that you do not have to be a former Labour leader or indeed standing to be a Labour leader to wear a beard of some distinction. I hope that does not get too widely circulated by Hansard.

I thank the Minister for giving us a very interesting overview of where things stand with the Bill. For those of us who sweated through the long stages of this issue, it is nice to be refreshed again as to where we have got to on some of these key issues—not least the digital area, which is my particular responsibility, but also in the wider context on which my noble friend Lady Hayter led for us with great skill and expertise. It is her birthday today, and perhaps the Minister might in a spirited moment refer to that.

I have three points. I was intrigued by the announcement that there was to be a review of trading standards. I had not noticed that in earlier statements. When the Minister comes to respond, perhaps she could give us a little more on that. We made a point throughout discussions on the Bill that, while we admired the way in which the Bill set out to draw together and reshape our overall consumer protection, it was heavily dependent on the ability to police and exercise the powers that were being given. There were some doubts expressed by those who spoke in Committee and on Report who had knowledge and expertise in these areas of the difficulties being caused in local government as a result of cuts and changes there. I am interested in the broader approach taken by the review, in particular whether it will deal with the difficulties that have been caused by the reductions in manning levels and resources available, and by changes in local government, which are very complicated. That might take time to get together, but it would repay considerably on the success of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moynihan]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that comment because that is the first time we have heard formally that there will be an expert group supporting the chair of the review. Can she take on board—I do not expect her to respond today—and come back later to confirm that the expert group reflects the key interested parties? That means that the arts promoters and event promoters, who have been particularly concerned for many years about abuse within the secondary market, as well as the leading spectator sports that are keenly interested in this issue, will be represented on the expert group.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

To continue that point, it would be helpful to know how this is to be shaped and organised. I agree that there is a lot of expertise out there but it has not always been brought in. It would be useful if we could be reassured that the range of representation on the expert group will be sufficient to make sure that all the points are picked up.

I am grateful to the Minister for what she has said about the CMA. It is perfectly appropriate for it to carry on its work independently. However, it is the lack of transparency about where it is in the game that causes us the most concern. We were completely unaware that negotiations were taking place between the CMA, or its predecessor body—probably the OFT—and the secondary ticket market. That meant that everything we thought we were hearing needed to be refocused because it was untrammelled by other people’s considerations. The point that I was trying to make was, without in any sense trespassing on the independence of the CMA, it would have been helpful to know whether a programme of work was going on at the same time. The fact that the CMA will be an adviser to the expert group, which presumably will report to the Secretary of State, will make matters a lot easier. I suspect that that is where the matter should lie but I should like confirmation from the Minister.