Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Slinger and Chris Bryant

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

The bands I played in never quite got to a European tour—[Interruption.] Artists tell me how much they and their teams have suffered in the disastrous post-Brexit landscape for touring artists. We have the best bands and artists in the world and they bring huge joy to us here. They want to share the love abroad and in so doing bring a lot of money to the UK economy. Will my hon. Friend assure me that he is acting with haste? As Shakespeare said,

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances.

Let us open more doors for them.

[Chris Bryant]

And,

“one man in his time plays many parts”.

Clearly, my hon. Friend is one of those people. We are determined to sort this out. I know that there are many of us who fear that we lost many things when Brexit happened. However, there are other wise words from Shakespeare. As Queen Margaret in “Henry VI” said:

“wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms”.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Slinger and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

T2.   There are incredible dividends from digital for government administration and service delivery, but some older and vulnerable constituents tell me that they cannot use smartphones or are not online and are worried about being left behind. I am liaising with Citizens Advice, the local council, Age Concern and others to take action locally to help them. Can the Minister reassure me that sufficient advice, support and funding will be made available to my constituents to ensure digital inclusion as we rightly seek to utilise digital far more effectively?

[The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are older people, and others for that matter, who either have no online access or do not have a smartphone, who would not be able to access things in a digital world. That is why we introduced a digital inclusion plan, and that is one of the key differences between a Labour Government and a Tory Government: they did not have any interest in digital inclusion and they did not have a plan for 10 years, and we brought one in.

United States Film Tariff

Debate between John Slinger and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I think the first text message that I received early on Monday morning was from Pinewood. So, yes, I am on that case as well, but it is not just about Amazon and Disney; it is also about the streamers and a whole series of other such organisations making their product here in the United Kingdom. Of course, Pinewood is the home of Bond, which also makes the point, because historically the distribution rights for Bond were, I think, with an American company, but the production rights were with Barbara Broccoli and her relatives. All of that is now with the US, but let me put it this way: I am very hopeful that Bond will still always be British.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I am glad that the Minister mentioned the phrase “win-win”, because in international trade in the film industry and the creative industries, it has to be about win-win rather than zero sum. When I discussed this industry with Fabien Riggall, the founder of Secret Cinema, it became absolutely clear that we have such incredible innovators in our creative industry, and in the film sector specifically. For them to flourish, we need to retain that sense that it is a win-win situation internationally and for the UK, not zero sum.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. I will, if I might, just leap off the word cinema to make the point that film is not just about production, but about finding audiences. One of my concerns in the UK is about how we make sure that cinemas—or movie theatres as they are known in the US—can flourish as well. They can be a really important part of dignity in a town. A town that has a cinema is likely to be a place that has respect for itself, and I would like to ensure that that continues into the future.

Dynamic Ticket Pricing

Debate between John Slinger and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is a terribly impatient man; I am just coming that. [Interruption.] No, we have until 7.30. He is right that we must take action on the secondary ticketing market, and we committed ourselves to doing so during the general election. We believe that those people are denying true fans the opportunity to buy tickets on the primary market and are pocketing any profit for themselves. As I said, very little of the additional revenue actually goes to artists, venues or anyone working in the live venue sector more generally. The Government are committed to putting fans back at the heart of live events, and to clamping down on unfair practices in the secondary ticketing market.

That is why we have committed to introducing new protections for consumers on ticket resales, and we will be launching a consultation in the autumn to find the best ways to address ongoing problems on the resale market. The consultation will consider a range of options, including revisiting recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s 2021 report, such as putting limitations on the price of tickets listed for resale over the face value; limiting the number of tickets that individual resellers can list to the number of tickets that they can legitimately buy via the original platform; making platforms accountable for the accuracy of information about tickets that they list for sale; and ensuring that the CMA has the powers that it needs to take swift, decisive action against platforms and touts to protect consumers.

We want live events ticketing to work for UK fans. I would say that the market was made for humanity, not humanity for the market, and sometimes Government need to intervene to ensure that the market does indeed work for humanity.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

As an Oasis fan, I too was queuing endlessly, and it proved to me that badly regulated markets have no morality. The conclusion from the dynamic pricing policy in that incident was that people with more money or touts could get those tickets. I speak as someone who played in rock bands when I was a younger man, although none so famous and successful as that of the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart). Live music is universal in that it reaches out to the souls of people of all backgrounds. I would be grateful for the Minister’s view on what he can do to ensure that as many people as possible can get tickets for live music.

[Chris Bryant]

Persuade people to do more gigs, I guess. Obviously, there are only so many tickets for certain events, but what people want to have guaranteed is that the market is not excluding them solely on the basis of price. Sometimes there is a ballot for tickets, as there is for Wimbledon, and I gather that Oasis has now introduced a partial ballot for the next round of gigs that are being advertised, but we want to look at all these issues in the round.

I should say something about the CMA announcement. Like many Members across the House, I know lots of people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) and the Leader of the House, with stories about their process of trying to buy tickets two weekends ago for the Oasis reunion tour—I should point out that Oasis only reunites under a Labour Government. In the light of the concerns expressed by fans about the sales process, we welcome the CMA’s announcement that it has launched a formal investigation into Ticketmaster. The CMA has said that it is

“concerned that fans trying to buy Oasis tickets through Ticketmaster may not have been given clear information about ticket prices”

and has asked fans to share their experiences. Its investigation will look at whether the sale of Oasis tickets by Ticketmaster may have breached consumer protection law.

Others have greater freedom in what they can say than I do as a Minister. This is a live investigation and the CMA is an independent law enforcement body, and it is important to ensure that the independence and integrity of any investigation is protected, so, in order to avoid prejudicing the process, I am not going to comment on that investigation. I look forward to reading the CMA’s findings and I merely note that lots of people have said that they would like their money back. Following recent events, however, the Government will look at issues concerning the transparency and use of dynamic pricing in the live events sector, and we are carefully considering how that is taken forward in the light of the CMA’s announcement.

I want to talk specifically about dynamic pricing for a moment. In general terms, dynamic pricing involves a business adjusting its prices according to changing market conditions such as high and low demand. It is an established pricing strategy and it has been a feature of our live events industry for some time, at least in certain forms. As an example, I am sure that many Members will have managed to snap up cut-price tickets to popular west end shows by purchasing them on the day of the event. We are used to seeing organisers or venues slash their prices in that way in order to fill the few remaining seats.

It is also common to see early-bird tickets released at lower prices—punters essentially receive a discount on full-price tickets for an event by buying their tickets within a certain period after they go on sale or until a limited batch has been sold. Glastonbury does that, Wigmore Hall does that for people who are signed up to its programme, and for that matter, the Rhondda arts festival in Treorchy also does that. I urge people to look online and buy some tickets for next year.

In both of those scenarios, there are fans who benefit from a better deal than they might otherwise have been able to secure had they bought their tickets at another time. Equally, there will be other fans who bought their tickets at another time and had to pay a different, or indeed higher, price. Hon. Members will have their own views on all this, but I suggest it is a trade-off that most people are accustomed to, and one that we can generally accept.