Secondary Ticketing

Hugh Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Sport and the Olympics (Hugh Robertson)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and acknowledge, as other hon. Members have done, his expertise in this subject since he first came to Parliament and beforehand. Given that his speech was mainly about the music industry, I apologise for not being my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), who is normally the Minister responsible for matters musical. For some reason—I suspect because of the Olympics—the responsibility for such matters lies in my portfolio.

I will deal with various points that my hon. Friend has made. First, I am aware that there has been a spike of interest about secondary market issues, following the recent edition of the “Dispatches” programme, which he mentioned. I take the points that he made. I gather that the Office of Fair Trading has been asked to investigate a number of allegations made in that programme. As a result, I am told that I am not in a position to comment further on those allegations at the moment.

Secondly, my hon. Friend mentioned the Olympics. Let us be clear that we did not introduce a ban on secondary ticketing because we in this country thought that the Olympics needed such protection. To be brutally honest with my hon. Friend, we did it because it was a requirement of the bid. The International Olympic Committee requires that. A country has to sign up to a number of things in that regard, not all of which are universally popular in this country—from Olympic-specific lanes onwards. The commitment to introduce the ban was made quite correctly by the previous Government, precisely because it was a requirement of the bid.

To be clear about the quote from the Home Secretary, which my hon. Friend quoted correctly, the fine was raised to that level and not a great deal higher—the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) was a member of the Committee that dealt with this matter—although an amendment was tabled to do just that, in response to specific police advice about the appropriate fine and the seriousness of the threat. The Home Secretary did not dream it up for policy reasons; she was responding to a recommendation from the police.

[Mrs Hodgson]

As the Minister mentioned, I was a member of the Committee that considered that matter. We took evidence from the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who, when I questioned him, said that he had evidence that the criminal activity that he was citing with regard to the fine having to be quadrupled to £20,000 also existed across the whole ticketing market. I pressed him to give his thoughts on whether the legislation should be extended, but obviously he said that it was not his place to say so. However, he gave evidence that this was rife across the whole ticketing world.

[Hugh Robertson]

After the hon. Lady’s private Member’s Bill was introduced, I undertook some checks with both the Home Office and the wider security services. I have checked with both the Metropolitan Police and the wider security services, and without going into too much detail about the information that they have given me, I regret to say that those organisations have told me that they think that we have the balance about right. They have said that this is a moving threat.

It is fair to say—it came across clearly in Assistant Commissioner Allison’s evidence to the Committee—that this is a new and growing threat. It is reasonably easy, through Operation Podium, to nail that down for the Olympics. However, the organisations that I mentioned do not feel—I really have asked them about this—that there is sufficient evidence at the moment for them to tell the Home Office, “Our legislative offer is deficient in this regard; we want a ban across the piece.” The police have not said that and neither, yet, have the security services.

I have asked the security services this specific question every time that we receive a briefing about intelligence behind a large range of threats to the Olympic games. We always ask about Operation Podium and the influence of large-scale criminal gangs, and the rest, on the games. The security services are happy that the current fine is sufficient to deter that activity. They are making good progress in targeting those who have offended and taking down dummy websites that have sprung up all around the place offering tickets that they cannot supply—people send off money out of misguided enthusiasm, but find that the thing is a complete sham.

At no stage, however, has anyone said that the threat is sufficient to support a more general ban. I shall come on to that in a minute, but I have an open mind. When that Rubicon is crossed, we will need to look at the matter very carefully, but I think that I have covered the Olympic-specific points, about the bid requirement and last year’s London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Amendment) Act 2011 being a response to a specific threat identified by the police and to a need for a higher penalty than the existing £5,000.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hove went through the range of opportunities open to event organisers, but I suspect that we are on slightly different sides of the argument. The Government are keen for event organisers to look at all the options currently available to them before we legislate, whether paperless tickets or photo IDs, although I recognise what he said about some of the shortcomings in given situations.

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank the Minister for a detailed reply. On that specific point, have the Government initiated any inquiries into alternatives, or are they waiting for the industry to come back to them?

[Hugh Robertson]

The short answer, following on from the meeting that my hon. Friend had with the Secretary of State a month or so ago, is that we are very much waiting for the industry to come back to us. It will not surprise my hon. Friend or the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, who are assiduous campaigners on the issue, to know that every time that they campaign there is a counterblast from the other side—the secondary ticketing organisations, which do not want legislation for a number of reasons. Every time the matter is highlighted, we inevitably get a blast from the other side; but, as I say, we are keeping everything under review. We would like to explore the point made by another of my hon. Friends about whether the internet can be used more effectively to provide extra protection before we move to legislation.

Where does all that leave us? Personally, I have an open mind, but it is worth recording that the previous Government asked the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to conduct an inquiry. The Committee included a wide range of different views but concluded, in about 2009, that there was no need for legislation at that stage. The previous Government also considered the matter and came back to it a number of times, because I think that it was a manifesto commitment of the new Labour Government back in 1997, as acknowledged by a number of my predecessors, with whom I have discussed the subject. They thought that the argument could be cut either way and that extra evidence would be needed to prove that large-scale criminality was taking place as a result of secondary ticketing.

The current Government have agreed with that approach until now, but I have an open mind. Purely in my own opinion, the moment that the security services or the police say that the activity is becoming a proxy for large-scale criminal activity and that large amounts of money are being laundered through the system, the case for legislation will become much easier to make. At the moment, the Government are satisfied to follow the recommendations of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the approach of the previous Government, and not to advocate a more general ban.

[Mike Weatherley]

I understand the point about criminality, but what about the ownership of the performance? There has been no mention of that. Surely, performers owning their product is at the heart of our creative industries.

[Hugh Robertson]

Indeed it is, and intellectual property and all the rest are a hot topic at the moment. There is no point in my pretending that there is anything other than a range of views. Both parties include people who believe that secondary ticketing and exchange are a perfectly reasonable way for individuals to buy tickets. It is an open market and people should be allowed to do that. There are a range of views; but, for myself, although I always have to defend the Government’s line, I have a very open mind. I am perfectly happy for us to give guarantees to events with such a bid requirement—I have no ideological problem with that at all.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Following on from the point made by the hon. Member for Hove, I have had representations from people who consider that a ticket is nothing more than a receipt for access to an event. Some very clever people, including some studying law in university, are researching whether there is a case in law to find that selling on such a receipt is illegal. It is a ticket, but it is actually a receipt, to take part in an experience, and it is not something in and of itself.

[Hugh Robertson]

I am dangerously close to being out of my depth. I studied a little law at university, getting close to 30 years ago now, a bit more military law when I joined the Army and a little banking law 15 years or whatever ago, but I am not an expert. That is the first I have heard of that idea, but if someone is able to prove such a case legally, clearly the terms of the whole debate will be changed.

At the moment, I have an open mind and am happy to grant the necessary exemptions if required by a bid, but as a Government we are not yet ready to move beyond that. If the case can be proved and a particularly strong one can be made about criminality, we are open to that.

[Mike Weatherley]

Will the Minister commit the Government to look at the French example to see why it was put into statute—going live today—and what the benefits or problems will be once it has gone live?

[Hugh Robertson]

I most certainly give my hon. Friend that undertaking. I had better tread carefully, but there are a lot of things that the French do differently throughout sport and the wider entertainment industry. For example, they have a betting law around image rights, so that sports bodies can gain money from the betting industry that they can reinvest in grass-roots sports—many of the bodies are keen on that. Other things they do not do: they do not have a national lottery, which keeps many of our sports and arts events going. I will, absolutely, look at the French example, although that is not to say that, if it is a success, we will necessarily incorporate it directly into practice.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way again, and I realise that we are operating a pincer movement on him at the moment. One of the responses that the Secretary of State gave at the meeting the hon. Member for Hove and I had with him was that the issue could be looked at again if market failure, and not only criminality, was demonstrated. The Minister mentioned the investigation by the OFT, which I wrote to following the “Dispatches” programme to ask it to look at market failure. He cannot go into such details perhaps, but I think that the OFT will find demonstrable market failure, so would the Government then look at this again?

[Hugh Robertson]

Absolutely. Personally, as the Minister responsible, I have an open mind, as I said. The OFT is another good example, because if its investigation were to demonstrate market failure, we would clearly have to look at the market, to analyse the failure and to see what can be done, if appropriate, to put things right. That would most certainly change the debate, as would a firm police or security services commitment that large amounts of money were now being laundered through the secondary market and that not having legislation was helping criminal gangs.

I shall try to wrap up my comments, given the time. The position remains that we have an open mind on secondary ticketing. We are happy to legislate for events with a bid requirement, but we do not think that there is yet an absolutely sound case for a more general ban. We will keep an open mind, however, and look at the case as the months progress.