Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Shannon

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

My right hon. Friend represents the New Forest, which, with its great beauty, is a remarkable setting for so many of our British film and TV shows. He is absolutely right that the BFI does a remarkable job. The Select Committee visited its archives to see the collection of British film and TV content going back decades, right from the advent of film production, and to see the remarkable skills it has in being able to bring some of that really old film content back into use. This is part of our heritage. We need to do everything we can to ensure we are protecting it and investing in it, and ensuring that people have the skills to look after our film history in future, so we were really disappointed with that particular aspect of the Government’s response to our recommendations.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady and the Select Committee very much. We are quite excited about what we are doing in Northern Ireland, where the Assembly is promoting the film and TV sectors. They are all doing well, with jobs created and the economy boosted. On working together—we are not in competition with each other; we are trying to work in partnership—has she had the opportunity to speak to the relevant Minister, and perhaps the sector, in Northern Ireland to ascertain what they are doing, because I always believe that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland always works better together and that we can do the same in this sector?

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Northern Ireland film and TV sectors have been hugely successful, notably for “Game of Thrones” and I think that “Line of Duty” was shot there, too. It has had phenomenal success, again based on remarkable skills. I have not had the opportunity to speak to the Northern Ireland Government, but I really would like to because, as he says, there is plenty of work for everyone. We have British stories that are there to be told in every single corner of the British Isles. We need to make sure we are promoting our British film and TV industries, so we can keep telling those stories.

Dynamic Ticket Pricing

Debate between Caroline Dinenage and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to his place and very much look forward to working with him to promote our world-class creative industries, including our music industry and all the other fantastic sectors that his Department promotes.

Today, I want to talk about music ticketing and recognise the remarkable circumstances that have provoked this debate. News of the Oasis reunion has dominated the news cycle for the last week or so, but some might say for all the wrong reasons. What should have been a moment to celebrate one of the UK’s most significant cultural exports—and the chance to revisit the music that, for many, me included, was the soundtrack to our youth—has morphed into a conversation about exploitative practices in the music industry that hurt fans and the grassroots sector. Some of the issues have been rumbling away for years. In fact, earlier this year, the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport published a report on grassroots music that outlined some of the major challenges facing the live music ecosystem and suggested some ways forward.

The Minister knows the facts. On 31 August, some 14 million people from 158 countries logged on to a digital queue to buy tickets to the Oasis Live 25 reunion tour, 15 years after the band broke up and 30 years on from their seminal first album, “Definitely Maybe”. Fans were locked in an online queue for up to 10 hours and, when many of them, it seemed almost at random, made it to the front of the queue, the tickets were in many cases more than double the price that had been advertised. The dynamic pricing mechanism employed by Oasis, their promoters and management via Ticketmaster served to increase the price of tickets in line with demand, but in reality it resulted in a kind of lucky dip game in which the price got worse and worse by no clear mechanism except the secret and opaque rules of a computer algorithm in the hands of Ticketmaster.

I should declare an interest: after four hours of queuing, I had become wistful about the halcyon days of real-life physical box offices, where we queued almost overnight to get our tickets, but at least we could see the queue in front of us and we knew how long we would have to wait.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for bringing this debate. She is right and many of my constituents experienced the issue that she mentions. We understand the economic principles of supply and demand, but we also understand the principle of price gouging. For those who believed they would be charged one price to have just a few moments to decide whether they would be prepared to pay double is unfair pressure. We must always encourage free trade, but we must also be mindful of consumer protection in Strangford, Gosport or any part of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I could not have said it better myself—that is exactly what it is. We understand the laws of supply and demand, but we also understand the laws of transparency and fairness. What is more, once ticket purchasers were through to the payment screen, fans realised that they only had a very limited time to decide whether the hugely inflated prices were worth paying. Someone compared the ticket purchase after such a long wait to the dopamine rush of a gambler. The £150 to £400 price increase meant that the transaction was no longer a choice, but more of an impulse buy.

I have heard many people say that the dynamic pricing method is used effectively in other sectors, and that the technology is a perfect demonstration of the dynamism of a free market. Even within the music industry itself, there is dispute as to whether dynamic pricing has a place and is an acceptable way forward.