Digital Economy Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st November 2016 Public Bill Committees

The Secretary of State is keen to see action, and she has told me herself that the existing Computer Misuse Act 1990 does not work. The new clause is supported by every secondary and primary ticketing site that I have spoken to, artists and, most importantly, genuine music fans, many of whom will be watching our sitting today and listening to what the Minister has to say. I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister, who has promised to govern for the many and not for the privileged few. My amendment will allow that to happen.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I rise briefly to support the new clause and to pay tribute to my good friend and fellow Select Committee member, the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty, who has form on campaigning in this area. He is known as a music fan, and the new clause is the culmination of a long campaign on behalf of music fans everywhere.

Moreover, I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman will damage the credibility of Green Day, because he has a track record of supporting live music—this is certainly nothing like David Cameron suggesting that he was a Smiths fan and having Johnny Marr tweeting him to back off. While I am on the subject, I remind the Committee that I was at the last concert of The Smiths, which was in Brixton Academy, probably in December 1986 or ’87.

In those days, ticket touts were blokes in long macs shouting, “Any spare tickets?”, which was a problem, but manageable. The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty has been outlining industrial-scale, mechanical touting, which is way beyond my experience of those days 20, 30 or even 40 years ago. The problem absolutely needs to be addressed and the new clause does so. I am pleased to support it and, if the Minister is planning to accept it in principle, I suggest that he could do worse than recognise the work of the hon. Gentleman, give him the credit for the new clause, along with my hon. Friends on the Front Bench, and the chance he so richly deserves to make a mark.

[Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (SNP)]

I could not possibly be as glowing about the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty as the hon. Member for City of Chester has been. There is a love-in across the Benches this morning.

I, too, rise briefly to support the new clause. To paraphrase a well-known quote by Eric Hoffer, the American moral philosopher, every good idea begins as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket. That is what we have here. Online sales and fan-to-fan ticket sites are fantastic at enabling people to get access to the music events they want to go to, but because of the evolution of technology, software and bots, we now have a distorted market, about which we absolutely need to do something.

I want the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty to be able to go to see his favourite band, Green Day—as he was mentioning them, it occurred to me that one of their songs, and the name of their 2004 album, seemed appropriate for a gentleman who might yet end up in the White House. I must also add that my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) suggests that MP4 tickets are very easy to get hold of—he is determined that they are stopped from selling below ticket value.

I commend the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty on his new clause and I am happy to support it.

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As the hon. Lady will have seen in recent announcements, we have decided to take an overall approach to looking at this challenging area. She mentioned the review we are having, which is led by the former head of the No. 10 policy unit under the Labour Government: Matthew Taylor, now chief executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts. We have taken a cross-party, broad approach and he is incredibly well placed to undertake the review.

[Christian Matheson]

Will the Minister tell us which trade unions are actively involved in the review?

[Matt Hancock]

I have no doubt that Matthew Taylor will get in contact with lots of trade unions. It is a good idea to take a cross-party approach. The review will last for about six months and among other things it will consider security, pay and rights, skills and progression, and specifically the appropriate balance of rights and responsibilities of new business models and whether the definitions of employment status need to be updated to reflect new forms of working such as on-demand platforms. It will tackle some of those issues. With that explanation, I hope that the hon. Lady will see that we are taking a sensible, reasonable approach and will withdraw her new clause.