Ticket Abuse

Debate between Andrew Bingham and Philip Davies

Tuesday 21st January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I did not intend to make a speech, because I just wanted to hear Members’ arguments—both sides of the argument have been put with great passion. My view is that we must take a pragmatic approach. There is a market for secondary tickets. If people cannot go to a concert, they have to get rid of their tickets. We live in a new world in which we have the internet, and we need to harness it. I think that what has been suggested is trying to preserve in aspic for a new world the way in which tickets used to be dealt with. I have looked into the secondary market and how people operate and, quite honestly, I think it works. I think it is a good system. People can offer their tickets for sale for the price that they want, and if other people want them, they can buy them. I hear the argument, “Oh, well, the ticket prices will be inflated,” but as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will know from his days at Asda, if people overprice things, no one will buy them. The market will dictate what price tickets will sell at, and we should let the market do that. I do not think that we need to be wrapping things in legislation at every turn.

Many of us will remember the days when there seemed to be people outside sporting events and musical events with fistfuls of tickets. I have never bought a ticket from a tout and I would not do so, but if someone does buy a ticket from a tout outside a stadium, they do not know whether it is genuine, and if an honest person is trying to get rid of a ticket because a member of their family cannot go to the event, they do not know whether the person buying it is paying them in forged money—we hear tales about forged £5 and £10 notes.

The secondary ticketing market, of which I was unaware until I looked into the issue in greater depth, provides a secure way for people to dispose of a ticket that they cannot use. There is a guarantee that they will be paid for the ticket and that the person buying it will get the ticket that they want. With regard to the price being driven up, let us say that there is a surplus of tickets to see the Rolling Stones, Motörhead or whoever my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) would like to go and watch. I do not know what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley likes to watch, but we will have a punt on Barbra Streisand or someone like that. If there is a market for the tickets, that will dictate the price. As has been said, many tickets go for a price below their face value, because that is what the market will allow.

[Philip Davies]

I will not go through my tastes in music with my hon. Friend, but I just want to point something out. Does he agree that many events do not even allow people to get a refund, and that if we do not allow people who cannot go to events to sell their tickets, we are in a completely ludicrous situation? If event organisers are so busy, perhaps a good place to start would be to force them all to allow people to receive full cash refunds if they cannot go to an event, which does not happen at the moment.

[Andrew Bingham]

Yes, and that practice has a knock-on effect because people think, “Actually, I’m not going to buy a ticket, because I don’t know whether I can go. I don’t want to pay out however much for a ticket because if I can’t use it, I’ve lost the money.” My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) made a point about corporate responsibility. I think that legitimate companies with secondary ticket websites will be concerned about their corporate responsibility. I have looked into the issue and held discussions with them. I have talked about the internet and how the world is different, and there is a different way of dealing with tickets. I hear the argument about bots—roomfuls of computers just harvesting tickets. As far as I can see, however, such legitimate companies are aware of their corporate reputation and, as a result, are making every effort to prevent that sort of thing from happening. That is the way in which the secondary market and the systems seem to work. We are in a brave new world in which we are dealing with the internet. When tickets came out many years ago, I remember that we would sit there on the phone, pressing redial, redial, redial. Now we are on the internet, although sometimes it seems somewhat the same—we just hit refresh, refresh, refresh. Learning to deal with the secondary market is about using the internet, not abusing it.

I heard what was said about previous inquiries. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) said that the all-party group had made its mind up, but I am a vice-chairman of that group and I can assure him that I might not fit the template that he seems to imagine for the group, although that might disappoint one or two people. Let us carry out an open and honest inquiry. I have my views, and I will listen to all aspects of the argument, as I am sure that we all will. However, I note that the inquiries in previous Parliaments found nothing wrong with the current system, and I do not think that Government legislation is especially necessary at the moment. The system seems to work, but by all means let us have another look at it. The world has moved on but, as I said, my view is that at the moment it seems okay.