EU Budget (Surcharge)

David Nuttall Excerpts

Monday 10th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I take it as a win for Britain. Again, I do not want to follow lessons from Labour MPs about how to negotiate in Europe when they gave up much of the rebate, signed us into the eurozone bail-outs, gave up many of our vetoes over many years and refused to give the British people a say in referendums in key treaties.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend know who my constituents believe is most in need of this money, the UK or the EU?

[Mr Osborne]

At a time when budgets are tough, I completely understand why people want the maximum amount of money possible to be spent at home, but the truth is that we have been able to get a reduction in the EU budget because of the tough negotiations of the British Prime Minister. That is what we are able to achieve by standing up for Britain’s interests in Europe.

School Admissions Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 7th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is a very small Bill. It consists of two clauses, the second of which merely deals with the extent, commencement and short title, and the first of which is also very short. Gaps, anomalies, inconsistencies and injustices in the law or regulations are often brought to our attention as a result of constituency cases, which is what happened in this instance.

The Bill deals with the very narrow issue of whether

“pupils with a parent with a terminal or seriously disabling illness”

should

“receive priority in the admissions process to maintained schools”

in the same way as, for instance, looked-after children. It arises from the case of my constituents Mr and Mrs Amey. Mrs Amey is extremely unwell: she suffers from what is thought to be a terminal condition. She was distraught when her son George was unable to join his sibling at Mudeford infant school, which said that it had no space for him. An appeal was made through the county council system, and was rejected.

I took the view, on behalf of my constituents, that that was absurd. I was able to secure the support of the then Secretary of State for Education, who very helpfully wrote to the county council saying that he agreed with me that the situation was wholly unsatisfactory, and hoped that the council would do something about it. The council set up another appeal hearing, the outcome of which was that George Amey was able to go to that school. However, a similar problem arose earlier this year, when George wanted to move to Mudeford junior school. I will not go into all the details, but ultimately, after an enormous amount of anguish, he has obtained a place there.

Looked-after children are given special priority when it comes to school admissions, and I do not criticise that at all. They are given special priority because they live with foster parents or are in the process of being adopted, which means that they may need to move to a different catchment area. If the adoptive parents of a looked-after child are unable to get the child into the local school, all sorts of additional problems will be created as attempts are made to ensure that the child can have as normal a life as possible.

I think that giving such children priority is perfectly sensible, but I think that it is also sensible to take account of the circumstances of children whose parents are terminally ill or suffer from a seriously disabling illness. The journey to school may be much more burdensome for such a parent, and the child will be under a lot of pressure because of the parent’s illness. A parent with a disability may have to move away from the catchment area of a school that is already attended by his or her child’s elder sibling in order to live in specialist housing such as a bungalow, so that there is no need to climb stairs. Accommodation of that kind may not be available in the catchment area. As a consequence, the child will lose its priority in the system.

I know that the principle of my short Bill has been accepted by the former Secretary of State for Education, because it was on the basis of the very narrow anomaly with which it seeks to deal that he intervened so helpfully in the case of Mr and Mrs Amey and their son George. It seems to me that one way of resolving that anomaly would be to ensure that, as clause 1 proposes,

“Any reference to a looked after child in the Schools Admission Code issued under Section 84 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 shall be taken to include a reference to a child with a parent or guardian who is terminally ill or suffering a seriously disabling illness.”

I do not think that there is any need to elaborate on that.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that one way of resolving the problem would be to clarify the existing code by ensuring that it includes those crucial words when it is next issued? Perhaps the Minister could give such an assurance.

[Mr Chope]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his intervention.

I have a great deal of respect for my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), who I see is sitting in the Minister’s place. I am not sure whether she is, in fact, now a schools Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's Treasury (Harriett Baldwin)]

It is a great honour for me to respond to the Bill on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education, who specifically requested that I do so. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) for raising what is a very important issue. His constituents in Christchurch and Mudeford are fortunate to have as their MP someone who is a doughty champion of local issues on their behalf. We heard evidence of that in his opening remarks; he has already achieved a fantastic result for his constituents, Mr and Mrs Amey. I am sure they are delighted that their son, George, has been able to join his sibling at the Mudeford junior school, and I am pleased to hear that that constituency case was resolved on appeal.

I must also pay tribute to my hon. Friend for being legendary in this House for using the vehicles available to all Back Benchers in the form of private Members’ Bills to raise substantial and important issues on behalf of his constituents. Even today he has demonstrated his ingenuity in this regard by having not just this Bill on the Order Paper, but several further Bills: the Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill, whose Second Reading debate was adjourned on 24 October; the House of Lords (Maximum Membership) Bill, which he hopes will have its Second Reading today; and the EU Membership (Audit of Costs and Benefits) Bill, which is also due its Second Reading. That is just a small sample of the various different Bills on important issues he has been able to raise on behalf of his constituents through his great knowledge and understanding of parliamentary methodology.

As my hon. Friend said, the Bill before us is fairly short even by the standards of brevity we often see with private Members’ business. In its two short clauses it makes

“provision to ensure that pupils with a parent with a terminal or seriously disabling illness receive priority in the admissions process to maintained schools in England.”

The word “England” is used because my hon. Friend makes very clear in his Bill that his proposed changes would extend to England only. It is important to highlight that, as it shows how much proposed legislation, particularly on education, now comes forward that covers only England. I know he shares my enthusiasm for ensuring that we as a Parliament are in future able to ensure that those who represent English constituencies, such as Christchurch, can carry forward legislation that applies to England only.

I would like now to set out the Government’s views on the Bill before us. We believe my hon. Friend’s proposals are already covered by the existing provisions in the statutory schools admissions code and its supporting legislation. I have with me a copy of that code, published in February 2012, and I would like to draw his attention to paragraph 1.16, as it is important that we look at exactly what the code currently says. This effectively gives some discretion to local authorities but encourages them to take into account social and medical need in a situation such as the one he so eloquently described, where a particular set of circumstances needs to be taken into account.

Paragraph 1.16 of the school admissions code states that, if admission authorities decide to use social and medical need as an oversubscription criterion, they

“must set out in their arrangements the criteria against which places will be allocated at the school”.

They must state how they will define the need and give clear details of any supporting evidence that will be required, such as a letter from a doctor or social worker. They must then make consistent decisions based on the evidence provided. In the example given by my hon. Friend, I believe it would have been possible for Mr and Mrs Amey to provide that level of medical detail in order to support the case of their son, George.

As I have said, the school admissions code was published in February 2012, and the Government consulted on further, limited revisions to the code this summer. I note that one of the respondents to the consultation was my hon. Friend’s own county council. He did not respond to the consultation in person, however, and I regret to tell him that it closed on 29 September. I confess I do not have a copy of the response of Dorset county council children’s services in front of me, but evidence will be available on the Department for Education’s website. I would be happy to let my hon. Friend know what his county council’s response was, if it did not send him a copy at the time, in order to reassure him that it is engaging fully with the Department and is keen to ensure, as he is, that his constituents are able to access their preferred school.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend mentioned the fact that the Government carried out a consultation on the content of a revised code between 22 July and 29 September. Given that the Bill was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 7 July, which I think would have been the date of its First Reading, will she tell us whether the consultation took its content into account?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his pertinent question. I understand that the Bill received its First Reading earlier this year. One would like to think that, although the views expressed in the Bill were not formally a part of the 444 responses to the consultation, they would none the less be taken into account by the Department. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch will also have sent a letter on behalf of his constituents under the previous Secretary of State. The 444 responses are listed in the back of the Government document. I looked through it earlier to see whether the Bill was included in the responses, and I can confirm that it is not specifically mentioned in the Government’s documentation. However, he has used the mechanism of this proposed legislative change to make his views known.

I can summarise the results of the consultation for my hon. Friend. They have resulted in the Government proposing specific, limited revisions to the admissions code. As I have said, 444 written responses were received by 29 September, and the Government have held discussions with interested groups. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) asked whether discussions had taken place with people with specific caring responsibilities. Having looked through the list of 444 responses, I note that none of the organisations stood out as the kind of organisation that he would put into that category. I can assure him, however, that discussions are ongoing with all the interested groups with a view to meeting their needs for the admission code. I hope that that answers his question.

The overriding aim of the code is to ensure that admission authorities have clear, objective and fair oversubscription criteria. It is for the authorities themselves to decide which criteria to adopt, but the code sets out the most common ones, including giving priority based on social and medical need. I have drawn the House’s attention to the fact that that is set out in paragraph 1.16 of the code.

The Government want children to be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice whenever possible but, when a school receives more applications than it has places available, we believe that those places must be allocated in accordance with the school’s published oversubscription criteria. I am pleased to say that the vast majority of parents are offered a place for their child at their preferred school. In the most recent entry year, 2014, 86.5% of parents in England were offered a place at their first preference school. In addition, 95.6% of children—so nearly 97%—were offered a place at one of their top three preferences, and 96.6% were offered a place at any of their preferred schools.

The Government have just agreed to some specific, limited revisions to the code. They are designed to improve the fair and open allocation of places and, it is worth emphasising, to support fair access for the most disadvantaged children and provide additional clarity to some provisions that had not been found to be completely clear. The limited time scale did prevent more substantial changes from being considered but, subject to parliamentary approval, which we hope is imminent, the revised code will come into force on 19 December.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

The whole point of the rural broadband programme is to help the areas she speaks about. Local councils are in charge of the roll-out, so they should know best where the money should go first for the most impact. As I say, we have had phase 1 to get to 90%; we now have phase 2 to get to 95%; and the money we have allocated for new technologies will give us the figure we need to get to 100%.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

In some cases, the only way to improve broadband speeds is to install a new cabinet. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the cost of such installation is within the scope of the Government’s assistance scheme?

[Mr Vaizey]

My understanding is that, where appropriate, new cabinets can be installed under the scheme. Much of the scheme will be for funding the upgrade of existing cabinets, but occasionally it can be for a new cabinet.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Can the Minister explain what impact assessment was made of how many small and independent betting shops will close and how many jobs will be lost as a result of the measures she announced yesterday, coming on top of the increase in tax announced in the Budget?

[Mrs Grant]

As I have said previously, these are sensible measures taken by a responsive Government and they will assist local communities and protect vulnerable people. They are balanced, proportionate and have business in mind too. Nothing more or less would have been appropriate.

Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Nicky Morgan)]

I beg to move,

That this House approves, for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment as set out in Budget 2014 and Autumn Statement 2013, combined with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook (2014) and Fiscal Sustainability Report (2013), which forms the basis of the United Kingdom’s Convergence Programme.

I welcome this opportunity to listen to Members’ views on the information that will be provided to the Commission this year under section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993. As in previous years, the Government will inform the Commission of the UK’s economic and budgetary position in line with our commitments under the European Union’s stability and growth pact. The Government plan to submit their convergence programme today, with the approval of both Houses.

The convergence programme explains the Government’s medium-term fiscal policies, as set out in the 2013 autumn statement.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way so early in her speech. As she will know, today is the last day for the convergence programme to be submitted under the economic governance pact. As she said, it requires the approval of both Houses. The other place is not sitting today. Has its approval already been obtained and why have we waited until the last day?

[Nicky Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend is an assiduous follower of these matters, and he is right. The other place had a short debate on the convergence programme on 9 April. He will know, and I am learning, about the vagaries of timetabling debates, which have meant that this was the earliest day that we could debate the convergence programme in the House. I am told that in previous years the convergence programme has been sent in draft to the Commission, but we were keen that we should debate and send the final document. The convergence programme document was put before both Houses in a written ministerial statement dated 3 April, and placed in the Libraries on the same date. Members have therefore had an opportunity to consider the draft document since that date, although I appreciate that the recess has intervened.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow my near neighbour from Greater Manchester, the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). As he and the House are aware, I agree with him on the issue of our membership of the European Union.

I want to bring the debate back to the motion, which states specifically:

“That this House approves, for the purposes of Section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government’s assessment”—

and so on. I will not read out the whole motion. It is purely for the purposes of complying with section 5 that we are being asked to approve the motion today—purely to comply with our obligations under European Union rules and regulations. I oppose the motion for that reason, as I have in previous years. I oppose it, but not because I oppose the Government’s financial policies—indeed, barely a week goes by without further evidence to prove that the policies are working. We could debate, as we have earlier this afternoon, whether things are going fast enough, and whether they are going as quickly as someone previously predicted, but I think all that is irrelevant. What is relevant is the fact that the economy, by any stretch of the imagination, is growing. Things are going in the right direction.

I welcome the fact that we have the opportunity to say that, but I regret the fact that we are having to do it in the context of submitting documents to the European Union. As has been said, this is the very last day for submission of the documents. I am not sure what would happen if—as I very much doubt would be the case—the House refused to support the Government’s motion. I will be voting against it and I would be interested to know what would happen. In last year’s debate, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) mentioned that if the EU does not agree that we are carrying out the policies to its satisfaction, it can send a surveillance mission to the country, or even an enhanced surveillance mission. If so, I am sure that we would have great delight in meeting them, because they have a lot to learn from what this country is doing.

I do not agree that we, as a sovereign nation, should have to submit our economic policies to the bureaucrats in Brussels like some naughty schoolboy having to report to the headmaster with school work. There is no reason why we should have to go through this annual charade. It is an annual occasion when we have to approve, purely for the purposes of section 5, these documents. I see no reason why we cannot tag the motion on to the end of the Budget motions, for example, if we want to comply with this ridiculous law.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

For once, I disagree with my hon. Friend. I think it is of immeasurable importance that this debate remain a specific debate on the Floor of the House, because there may come a time when the House wants to refuse to report to Brussels and we need to preserve that right.

[Mr Nuttall]

I entirely agree on that point with my hon. Friend. If I had my way, we would disagree with Europe quite a bit more often than we do. I oppose the motion for that reason and no other, because I do not think we should send these documents to Europe. As I have said in previous years, and will probably repeat later in my speech, if the European officials are so interested in our documents, they are all available online. There is no reason why we need to produce this document.

For all that has been said about the fact that we have not spent any time on this subject, we do have before us a new document entitled “2013-14 Convergence Programme for the United Kingdom.” It is 247 pages long—slightly larger than last year’s document. It has been produced by Her Majesty’s Treasury specifically for this purpose and no other. So somewhere along the line the requirement to produce the document is costing the British taxpayer money.

We must be clear that the sole reason why the UK is making this submission—I quote from the treaty on the functioning of the European Union—is:

“In order to ensure closer coordination of economic policies and sustained convergence of the economic performances of the Member States”.

Why does the treaty require that? Simply because it is all part of their grand plan to forge together a single country called the European Union. That is what they want to see. That is why they want to have these documents sent in to them.

We are fortunate in this country that the UK electorate—the British people—had the good sense at the last general election to elect a Conservative-led Government with a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was prepared to take the difficult decisions necessary to put our country back on the path of economic recovery, which means living within our means.

It is instructive to compare the progress that we have made, and continue to make, with that of the European Union. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset mentioned, the European Union’s own official statistics body—interestingly named EUROSTAT— reported that the United Kingdom economy grew by 1.7% last year, compared with a minuscule 0.1% in the rest of the European Union. Even worse, there was a 0.4% contraction in the economies of the countries within the eurozone. And even that performance figure is flattered by the fact that it includes the figures for Germany and France, whose economies, EUROSTAT reported, grew by 0.4% and 0.1% respectively.

The situation is the same for the respective unemployment rates. EUROSTAT reports that the unemployment rate for the European Union as a whole was 10.8% last year, and the latest figures show that unemployment in the UK for the three months to February was 6.9%. That is reflected in my constituency. The latest figures show that in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington there are 451 fewer unemployed people than there were a year ago, which means 451 more families have the security of a regular wage coming in each week. More new businesses are being started, business confidence is growing and all the signs indicate that the plan is working and we are on the road to recovery.

The rest of Europe ought to be looking at what the UK is doing and working out how they can adopt our Government’s policies and increase their growth rates. As the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton said, we want our European neighbours’ economies to grow, because they are important trading nations, as I never fail to accept. The fact that I want us to leave the European Union does not mean that I do not want us to trade with it; I just do not think that we should have to pay a net contribution of £9 billion to have the privilege of doing so. It is simply unnecessary, because we trade with many other countries around the world without having to pay a membership fee to enable us to do so. Therefore, I do not believe that submitting a 247-page convergence programme document is necessary.

In conclusion, let me put two simple questions to my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), whom I warmly welcome to her new role as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. First, what response has the Government received from the European Union on last year’s submission? Did we receive any acknowledgement from the bureaucrats in Brussels? Did they tell us that we were doing a good job and that they would use our document as a model for economic success? Did they say that they would encourage our partners to accept some of the policies set out in our convergence programme document?

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly—in view of the Prime Minister’s declared aim of putting an end to the commitment, which we are presently signed up to, to ever-closer union with the rest of Europe—will my hon. Friend confirm that, as part of any renegotiation of the United Kingdom’s obligations to the rest of Europe, the obligation to submit this annual convergence programme document will be removed? Does she agree that not removing that obligation will be seen as clear proof that those renegotiations have failed?

Charter for Budget Responsibility

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way in a moment.

It was not fair that many out-of-work families received more as an income in welfare than the average family got from going out to work, so we capped the total benefits that one family can receive at £26,000. Thirty-six thousand households are now subject to the cap.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

rose—

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

Consumer Rights Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Colleagues who remember my speech during the debate on the Queen’s Speech at the start of this Session will know that I see this Consumer Rights Bill as an opportunity to address the serious failings in the secondary ticketing market. I want to explore that opportunity in my speech today. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) agree with my views on this in her excellent speech, and I am pleased that she is drafting amendments to the Bill accordingly. I know that a growing number of Government Members also agree with me.

Many colleagues will know that I have campaigned on this issue for a long time. I secured a Westminster Hall debate on the subject only last week. I see that one of my sparring partners, the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall)—who is often on the opposite side to me on this issue—is in the Chamber today. That debate was intended as a curtain-raiser for an inquiry that is being undertaken by the newly-formed all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse, which I am pleased to co-chair with the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley). He is also a long-term campaigner on this issue. That inquiry is intended to inform the thinking on amendments to the Bill that could be tabled in order to enhance the rights of consumers in a market that has had precious little scrutiny thus far, despite being worth around £1 billion a year.

I hope that the Government’s timetable for the Bill will allow us to conclude our evidence-gathering in time to present that evidence to Ministers for Report stage, although, for my money, there is plenty already out there that makes the case for intervention, some of which I will skim over in my speech today. If Ministers want a more detailed case, I would be happy to send them the Official Report of the debates on my Private Member’s Bill in 2011 and of last Tuesday’s Westminster Hall debate.

Like all markets, the secondary ticketing market serves a purpose. It meets a need, and that need is for people who have bought tickets for an event they can no longer attend to sell on those tickets, and for people who decide late that they want to go to an event to purchase tickets nearer the time. However, the refusal of successive Governments to get involved in this issue means that the market has moved far beyond simply performing that role, and it is now fundamentally failing consumers.

If anyone needs proof that these secondary ticketing websites are not about legitimate fans selling tickets they cannot use, they need only watch what happens on the day that tickets for a major sporting event, concert, or stage show go on sale. Within minutes—sometimes even seconds—an event or series of events for which there are thousands of tickets completely sells out on the official market, only for thousands of tickets to appear instantaneously on the secondary market at a significant mark-up. Nobody buys a ticket at 9 o’clock in the morning, only to realise at 9.5 am that they cannot go to the event. Those are tickets that are harvested in vast quantities, by fair means or foul—the foul means involve the misuse of computers or back-channel dealing—and then either dumped or drip-fed on to the secondary market for profit by industrial touts.

Just last week, the BBC highlighted the resale of state-subsidised theatre tickets at the Donmar Warehouse and the National Theatre for up to 10 times their face value. Those tickets are rightly subsidised to increase access to the arts, but those arrangements are being exploited by faceless individuals who are pricing out the very people the tickets are supposed to be for. The same happens with art tickets—the Da Vinci exhibition in 2012 and the David Bowie exhibition last year are prime examples. This applies to more commercial enterprises as well. The last big example of that was tickets for the Monty Python reunion being snapped up and resold at eye-watering mark-ups within minutes.

I do not know whether the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is a fan of the Arctic Monkeys—it is not exactly ballroom dancing music—but that band has done more than most to try to stop touts cashing in on its hard work. Even it cannot stop the practice, however, despite trying to do so and despite doing nothing to encourage it, as some bands and promoters are accused of doing. If the Secretary of State wanted to see the Arctic Monkeys at Finsbury park in May, the minimum he would have to pay for a ticket on the secondary market would be double its face value. On one of the websites, I counted seven pages of listings, with some entries allowing up to 10 tickets per applicant.

This is not about random gig-goers; this is large-scale manipulation of a market, and an exploitation of copyright and intellectual property by individuals who put nothing into the industry that they are capitalising on. It is a parasitic market that is now out of control. In many cases, the practice severely undermines the strategic objectives that are factored into ticket pricing decisions, such as the need for artists or sports to develop long-standing relationships with fans or, as in the case of National Theatre and exhibition tickets, access to the arts.

More importantly for me, this practice is obviously bad for consumers. Many never get a chance to buy a ticket at face value, and if they can bear the cost of going to the secondary market, they do not know who they are buying from or whether the ticket will be genuine or still valid, as event holders have the right to cancel tickets they identify as having been resold. They cannot even be sure whether the ticket was ever available on the primary market at the face value printed on it, as more and more event-holders try to cash in on the secondary market by directly allocating tickets to it, passing themselves off as fans selling to fans so as not to damage their reputation with fans.

The report from Operation Podium, the Metropolitan police unit set up to monitor crime related to the Olympic games, shows that the complete and intentional lack of transparency in the market creates a front for fraud and large-scale money-laundering. The market is therefore attractive to organised criminal networks, which are of course more likely to use illegal means such as botnets to harvest genuine tickets, making it even harder for consumers to buy tickets at face value. The report, “Ticket Crime: Problem Profile”, clearly states:

“The lack of legislation outlawing the unauthorised resale of tickets and the absence of regulation of the primary and secondary ticket market encourages unscrupulous practices, a lack of transparency and fraud.”

Those are not my words but those of the Metropolitan police report.

I hope that the Government will have heard the excellent exposé that Radio 4’s “You and Yours” produced in conjunction with ticketing expert Reg Walker last summer, which uncovered a large-scale fraud perpetrated through the main secondary websites by their so-called power sellers, whose privileged status allowed them to do that. This was able to happen precisely because of the opaque nature of the market and the way in which those websites operate.

What better way of addressing this kind of problem than through the Consumer Rights Bill? At the very least, the Government need to ensure that there is a right to transparency. After all, there are very few markets in which we think that it is fine not to have at least some basic knowledge about who we are buying from. To ensure that consumers have the information they need to make an informed choice, these websites must ensure three things. First, they must ensure that all ticket listings display the face value, and seat number where appropriate, of the tickets being purchased. That would prove that it was a real ticket that was already in existence.

Secondly, websites selling tickets that they have acquired themselves, or that have been directly allocated to them by an event-holder, must disclose that clearly to buyers, instead of passing the tickets off as being sold by fellow fans. Thirdly, individuals selling tickets via the websites must be able to provide proof that they actually own the ticket. When we buy from eBay or Amazon, we are at least able to see a profile of the individual or company we are buying from. We can see what they have sold in the past, and what other consumers are saying about them. The secondary ticket market could learn a lot from that approach.

Those measures would cover the right to information, but there must also be a right to recourse when the market lets consumers down. As I demonstrated earlier, the way in which the market works at the moment is allowing fraud to be perpetrated under the anonymity that the secondary websites offer to sellers. When someone turns up at a venue and finds that they cannot get in because they have been sold a fraudulent or invalidated ticket—or a ticket that has rightly been cancelled because it has been resold without permission, in contravention of its terms and conditions—it is not just the price of the ticket that that person loses.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has mentioned the word “fraud” twice now. If a fraud has been committed, does she not agree that a crime will have been committed and is therefore actionable by the police as a crime?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I do agree, but people who report fraud or illegal activities to Action Fraud are finding that the offence is not being taken forward. Perhaps it is because it is seen as a minor fraud or a minor criminal offence. The Metropolitan Police have recommended that we pass legislation to ensure that we take forward such offences as criminal activity. We need to put such a measure in the Bill so that we can follow their recommendations.

A new report by UK Music on music tourism and its value in our economy calls on the Government to tackle the problems of the secondary market. It says that people who travel from one country to another or from one end of the country to another for the sole purpose of going to a gig or seeing a show incur substantial costs, such as those for travel, airfares, accommodation and subsistence. Consumers who are sold fake or invalid tickets should not expect to have just the cost of the ticket refunded promptly. That guarantee, which they actually pay for as part of the service charge that is slapped on the tickets when they buy from these sites, is not always honoured judging by some of the stories that people have sent me over the years. Consumers should also have the right to be able to reclaim all of the associated costs they have incurred where they can be proven with receipts.

Such measures would not prevent the secondary market from functioning, but it would ensure that it is focused on the rights of consumers, rather than on the rights of a handful of industrial touts who want to make unlimited amounts of money off the hard work and investment of others. Personally I would like to go even further, and allow rights holders properly to protect their tickets from being resold without authorisation. I hope that a future Government would look more favourably on such a measure than the current Government do.

It is ludicrous that the Government have ignored the calls of the Rugby Football Union and England Rugby 2015 to ban the unauthorised resale of world cup tickets as they did for the Olympics. I hope that when the world cup comes around, our streets are not littered with those who have, in all innocence, bought counterfeit tickets, because they are being sold all over the place and are available from unofficial outlets, and fans have not been able to tell the difference.

Given that two of the four secondary ticketing platforms are already listing tickets for the final and for numerous other games and were doing so as far back as December, despite the fact they do not go on general sale until October, there is clearly a question about whether every ticket that is listed on those sites actually exists. However, the best should never be the enemy of the good. The measures I propose are very much in keeping with the spirit and intentions of this Bill, and will be widely supported by the live events industry and consumers alike. I hope that Ministers and other Members will look on them favourably—perhaps they can be incorporated into the Bill before its later stages—and take action to put consumers of live ticketed sporting and cultural events first and to tackle once and for all the parasitical ticket touts who prey upon them.

National Infrastructure Plan

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

Let me start by paying tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who until recently performed a fantastic service to Northern Ireland in his role as Finance Minister in the Northern Ireland Government. He and I worked closely together in that regard. I would have thought that that work alone gave him confidence in the plans that I have set out. I do not think that his claim about the £18 billion for Northern Ireland is factually accurate, for reasons that he and I have discussed many times and, I am sure, will continue to discuss long into the future. As for the rest of the plan, he can be confident in it for the reasons set out in the document, which I very much encourage him to read and support.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Why do the Government still need to own Channel 4?

[Danny Alexander]

That is a good question, and I suggest that the hon. Gentleman raise it at Culture, Media and Sport questions.

Interest Rate Swap Derivatives

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the sterling work of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) who secured this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it time to take place.

The sale of interest rate hedging products to small and medium-sized businesses that simply wanted a loan from one of our high street banks is nothing less than a national scandal. Let me say straight away that I know there are many hard-working, decent and honest people involved in our banking industry, who will be as horrified as everyone else at what happened with the sale of these products. With the sale of interest rate hedging products, however, banks allowed their desire to make a profit to override the need to be open and transparent with their customers. The sellers of those financial instruments blinded customers with a snowstorm of financial gobbledegook. They presented a complex and risky financial product as something that, if people signed up to it, would be to their benefit. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Small companies in my Bury North constituency have been affected, and I want to outline briefly one particular case—understandably, and for obvious reasons, many constituents are reluctant to allow their cases to be made public. Lavender Hotels owns and runs a small chain of hotels in north-west England. In January 2007, it took out a loan from Barclays to finance the purchase of another hotel. A couple of months later, the bank—which Lavender Hotels had banked with for more than two decades—suggested that it fix its interest rates on the grounds that no one could predict where interest rates were heading.

The bank mentioned rate fixing, collars and caps, and stressed that those were not a profit earner for the bank but merely designed to give the customer protection. The bank told the customer that the agreement could be transferred to another bank, and that it would not create any obstacle to changing banks. Although the term “rate swap” was initially used, it was quickly replaced by the term “fixing”, suggesting that the bank was fixing the interest rate, rather like a fixed-rate mortgage. The term “fixing” certainly suggests certainty, not risk, which I submit was misleading.

That initial meeting with the relationship manager was followed by a further meeting with a salesman—although he was never described as such—who amplified the fears of rising interest rates. At no point was any explanation given of the penalties that would be payable if the customer wanted to terminate the agreement. The bank did say, however, that to fix a cap or collar an upfront fee would have to be paid, which could be as much as £20,000. Since most customers thought that such charges were excessive, they decided to go with an interest rate swap agreement that meant that if interest rates went up, no charges would be paid at all. The salesman never explained that he would be earning commission on the deal. Indeed, it was stressed that it was just a service that Barclays was providing for the benefit of its customers.

The managing director of the company agreed to fix—as he thought—the interest rate of around 40% of the company’s total loans. When interest rates started to reduce, what should have been good news turned into a nightmare and the amount that had to be paid back to Barclays rose dramatically. When the company sought a loan to purchase another hotel the following year, it was forced to enter into a 10-year rate swap. The managing director said:

“I was put in no doubt that had I not agreed the rate swap I would not have been granted the loan.”

By 2010 the customer had discovered that the interest rate swap agreement did indeed create a problem if they wanted to change banks, and the company was told it would cost over £95,000 to exit the agreement. The company had no alternative but to agree to its loans being re-priced. It had been misled into being tied unnecessarily to Barclays by a financial product that was inappropriate and that I believe had been mis-sold.

The managing director told me:

“Since the publicity surrounding the mis-selling of rate swaps, and my further investigation into the practice, I feel cheated. What has angered me the most is that my trusted manager, with whom I had developed such a strong relationship, lied in respect of the potential profitability of these rate swap deals to Barclays.”

As a result of those agreements, my constituents have lost hundreds of thousands of pounds, but despite the problems caused by interest rate swap agreements, Lavender Hotels is surviving and progressing well. The company is ahead of target and continues to trade profitably. It would, of course, be doing even better had it been able to trust its bank, and not been penalised by it because of a totally unsuitable financial product.

These companies are suffering and need help now. The redress scheme is progressing too slowly and must be speeded up. Livelihoods are at stake; those companies need action and they need it now.

Investing in Britain’s Future

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the fact that the north-east is the only region in the country that is a net contributor to the UK’s exports. The infrastructure investment announced today, for roads, broadband and so on, will help those industries. I cannot give her a precise breakdown, but I urge her to encourage the local enterprise partnerships in the area to take a full part in the local growth fund, which is a huge opportunity for the north-east.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the announcement of further investment in high-speed broadband. Nearly two years ago almost £1 million was awarded to the Labour-controlled Greater Manchester authorities to procure improved broadband. Today, thousands of my constituents in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington are still waiting and have seen no improvement whatsoever in broadband speeds. Will the Chief Secretary please undertake to speak to whoever it is, whether in Broadband Delivery UK or local government, to ensure that my constituents will at last see a real improvement in broadband speeds?

[Danny Alexander]

I am sorry to hear about the experience of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority is actually one of the most innovative in the country. The earn-back deal, which we have confirmed agreement on today, will give those authorities a real incentive to invest in the local economy. I will certainly pass on his specific concerns to BDUK.