Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend for all her work over a very long period on this important issue. It is important to support the Lords amendment because so many of our constituents are deprived of even the chance of getting a ticket for a sports match, pop concert or whatever, as they cannot beat the bots. Is that not the inherent unfairness?

[Mrs Hodgson]

It absolutely is. It is not a level playing field at all. I was going to come to the bots, and the fact that nobody has yet been put behind bars for having used bots, even though they are illegal, and are the tool that touts use to harvest tickets, so that they can scam the rest of the population and all our constituents. I am happy to stand here and crowd-please—I will do it until my dying breath—because that is what we are here to do. We should do the right thing for the public, and they are calling for us to regulate this market.

--- Later in debate ---

However, convictions are extremely few and far between, despite thousands of professional touts operating. It is important for the Minister that I clarify the numbers. There have been only two major cases, involving six convictions, against touts. When I spoke of two cases, that is two court cases with six convictions. It is not six cases. I just want to make sure that that is clear on the record.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is making a really important point. She rightly points out the degree of criminality at the highest end of the organisations that are responsible for the touting industry, and the lack of prosecutions. It is actually quite a good business proposition for them, is it not? It is relatively risk-free. They are probably more likely to get sentenced for being an international drug dealer than for selling the tickets.

[Mrs Hodgson]

It is very interesting that my hon. Friend has come to the same conclusion I have. I have made that exact point in many interviews over the years: why would anybody go out and rob banks or do any sort of crime for which they might get caught, when they could just be a ticket tout? They’ll make a fortune and nobody will come after them, not even the taxman. There will be no hand of the law on their shoulder. There have been only two cases and six prosecutions in all the time I have been campaigning on this issue. So yes, it is time we sorted it out. It is just not acceptable.

The recent case that I think the Minister referred to earlier involved individuals being convicted for buying and reselling tickets worth £6.5 million—£6.5 million. They have been caught, but that is because they are right up at the top end. There will be people making £1 million, half a million pounds, £2 million or £3 million who have not been caught. There are so many touts. The case involved using multiple, often fake, identities to buy large numbers of tickets with multiple credit cards. However, convictions are extremely few and far between, despite thousands of professional touts operating.

Finally, those who trade in the UK must be subject to UK laws—surely we all agree with that. Subsection (5) of proposed new section 92A states:

“A secondary ticketing facility must make it clear to traders and businesses based overseas that sell tickets to UK consumers and target UK consumers through paid or sponsored advertisements”—

in some cases using Google and trusted publications, or even sponsoring podcasts by trusted influencers—

“or paid infomercials that they are subject to UK legislation.”

The vast majority of suppliers to Viagogo and other secondary platforms are commercial businesses. A significant proportion are based outside the UK, as I said, but they target UK events to derive the highest possible profit. Likewise, none of the websites have offices in the UK. There are no UK jobs at stake, apart from a handful. It has been quite hard for me and my team to check and be sure of the numbers, as these companies are all registered in tax havens and overseas. However, the damage and exploitation occur in the UK at the expense of artists, athletes and fans, without any fear of the current toothless UK law.

Viagogo has already had its wings clipped, partially, by CMA orders over the years, but in my opinion it is nowhere near enough. It has repeatedly shown that it cannot be trusted to mark its own homework. For instance, elsewhere Viagogo was fined 7 million Australian dollars for misleading consumers, €20 million for breaking the law in Italy and €400,000 in France for breaking the law around rugby world cup tickets. Yet we heard the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries, spouting the Viagogo lines of defence from the Dispatch Box just a couple of weeks ago—go figure! This is all on the record, because my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South raised it in a point of order a couple of weeks ago, just after the Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries did it.

Unless legislative action is taken to stop this black market, it will continue to grow and cause further damage. This modest amendment effectively plugs loopholes in legislation, and ensures that music and sport fans of all ages have the information that they need before they make that purchase. I implore everyone here today to please support Lords amendment 104 and start putting fans first—or else move aside so that we can do so.

--- Later in debate ---

This Bill and many of the Lords amendments make welcome progress on some of these issues. I will start with ticket touting, which, as we know, is one of the most egregiously exploitative practices. I think we can all agree that it is simply wrong to buy tickets in bulk and then charge a huge mark-up fee for resale. It creates massive barriers to accessing culture, particularly for people on lower incomes, and the revenues go not to our hard-pressed musicians and venues, but to grifters who add absolutely no value of their own.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It comes back to the point about bots. Even the most tech-savvy person cannot beat the bots, and once those bots get going, they sweep away all the tickets and genuine fans cannot get them. That is so unfair—almost as unfair as the extortionate prices that these companies charge for the tickets they have swept up using those bots.

[Ms Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have families struggling to buy tickets for their children who are desperate to go and see x band or y band, and then they find themselves ripped off and unable to have that treat, which was massively looked forward to.

I give huge credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for her years of dedicated campaigning in this area. Her work has helped to bring this issue to the forefront of debate, and to make it clear that legal change is necessary to protect our cultural industries and consumers from the touts. We on the Opposition Benches have a clear policy to stamp out ticket touting so that no one is able to charge a large mark-up on resold tickets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Yes, I have just googled sellers of tickets in Dublin, and people can buy tickets well in excess of face value on the platform. I could not find them on Viagogo, but other platforms are selling those tickets. We are trying to do something that is effective. I am very happy to continue to engage with the hon. Lady, as she makes a very compelling case. I shall continue to look at what she says and continue to engage with her. I am very keen to ensure that we get to the right place, so that we protect consumers, but allow a fair, free market to work properly.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. I want to take him back to his comment that what was needed was not new legislation, but better enforcement. The enforcement authorities would presumably be trading standards. What is the reason there are not the prosecutions that we would all like to see? Is it because trading standards has been run into the ground and does not have the capacity to do the job that he is expecting it to do? Is it because of the complexity of the market? And which trading standards is responsible: the one where the platforms are based, the one where the person who bought the ticked is based, or the one where the concert is being held? That makes enforcing this measure really difficult.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Member for his points. I said not that legislation was not needed, but that there was no point in having legislation without enforcement. There have been six successful prosecutions by trading standards, but is he saying that he wants to fund trading standards to a greater degree? I understand some of the pressures on local authorities across the country; there are pressures on the public finances generally. If he has a solution to that and can provide lots more money to local authorities, he should have a word with his Front-Bench team, because that has not been Labour’s policy.