Sport: Women on Governing Bodies

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Moynihan

Thursday 6th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, Sport England is developing its future leadership programme, which will be launched later this year. Women are a priority group identified by Sport England for the scheme. It will identify suitable female candidates who will be given the chance to develop their leadership potential in sports organisations and succeed in senior leadership roles.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Women’s Sport and Fitness. I congratulate the Government on the progress which has been made on this issue, but does my noble friend the Minister agree that we should give equal priority to those from BME and disability backgrounds to become members of British governing bodies of sport? At present they are severely and unacceptably underrepresented.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. The figure of 30% for women is one thing, but the Sporting Future strategy also outlines the requirement for diversity in all areas and expects the sports national governing bodies to produce diversity programmes which should be published annually in order to report on progress.

Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Lord Moynihan

Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for adding his name to this government amendment.

For many years this House has rightly been concerned about the operation of the secondary ticketing market. In 2015, as well as placing new rules in the Consumer Rights Act, noble Lords acknowledged the complexity of online ticketing by requiring a review of consumer protection measures relating to online secondary ticketing. Professor Michael Waterson conducted that review, which was published last year, and two weeks ago the Government published their response, accepting his recommendations in full. The report was warmly welcomed by both Houses, by industry and by consumer representatives, so we should not rush to lightly dismiss the specific recommendations it makes.

Since the review was published, the Competition and Markets Authority has launched an enforcement investigation into suspected breaches of consumer protection law in the online secondary ticket market. The Government have also encouraged the event ticketing industry to set up a project group to take forward the review’s recommendations, and have facilitated the sector’s participation in the joint industry-government Cyber-security Information Sharing Partnership. In addition, we will ensure that resources are made available to National Trading Standards and Trading Standards Scotland to support the upcoming enforcement work on secondary ticketing. We are also working with industry to raise consumer understanding of the ticketing market.

Government Amendment 33ZL forms a key element of our response to the Waterson review, and is intended to address an issue within the ticketing market about which there is widespread support for further action, including from Professor Waterson. The amendment will provide the power for government to introduce a criminal offence to address the use of bots to purchase tickets for a recreational, sporting or cultural event in excess of the maximum specified. The intended offence will apply only to tickets for events in the UK, although it will cover activity to obtain tickets that occurs outside the UK. We believe that the amendment is needed to clarify the law and put beyond doubt the illegality of this practice and the need to report it.

Further, with the new offence on the statute book, the Government will work with industry to enforce it. An offence is only worth having if criminal acts are reported. We have industry groups in place that are now willing and able to take action in partnership with our law enforcement agencies. I hope that this amendment will find favour with the House, and I beg to move.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 33ZLZA, 33ZLZB, and 33ZLZC, which stand in my name.

I immediately thank the Minister for responding to a long-running campaign on the question of bots. I will say nothing further on that except that I am looking forward to the secondary legislation. His and the Government’s decision to bring forward action against bots is important and necessary. These are the modern-day ticket touts which sweep the market by using software when the likes of noble Lords and their families are trying to obtain tickets to go to an event. That is unethical and should be illegal, and I welcome the Government’s action on that. We need to make sure that we have good secondary legislation, and we look forward to it coming before the House.

On Amendment 33ZLZC, I will simply say that the reason I tabled this amendment is that it is important to respond to what the Minister said about the lack of enforcement. One way of dealing with the lack of enforcement in this area is to give event organisers the right to enforce the Act through civil action in the courts. This has the benefit of reducing the resources call on the police and/or trading standards, and it should be welcomed. It has certainly been called for by governing bodies of sport and promoters so that they can take action—because it is not in their interest, either, for people to be turned away because they have bought through the secondary market tickets that are counterfeit or illegal. I am unlikely to press that amendment to a vote, but I will be interested to see what the Minister says in response, because it seems to be a helpful suggestion by the governing bodies of sport to respond to this heinous issue.

The most important amendment that I am speaking to is Amendment 33ZLZA, which is fairly straightforward and common sense. Ed Sheeran’s manager appeared before the DCMS Select Committee last week, in the absence of one of the four major secondary market platforms, viagogo, which just did not show. He made the clear and important point that neither Ed Sheeran nor any of the top artists, nor any of the major sports events, all of which are heavily in demand, want to see their tickets counterfeited and people turned away at the door.

We did work on the Consumer Rights Bill to make sure that you got a ticket number, a row number, and a seat number, and to make sure that there were clear terms of reference on the face of the ticket. That should have been achieved and should be deliverable. We fought for but failed to get the ticket number—at the time we got the seat number, the row number and the block. The tickets for Ed Sheeran at the front do not have a block, a seat number or a row, because they are for the standing areas at the front of the concert. But if you have come down a long way and have brought your family down for this one event, you may be turned away at the door because you have no way of checking as a consumer that a ticket is valid.

The only way you can do it is to make sure that there is a unique reference number, which was originally printed on the ticket but has to be on the secondary market platform. It is not an unreasonable request—it does not say that the Horsham Dramatic Society has to put a unique reference number on the ticket. It simply says that where there originally was one, and where Ed Sheeran’s management team wanted one to protect loyal fans of Ed Sheeran who turn up, they should have the ability either to go online or to phone up and say, “Does this reference number accurately relate to a proper ticket and not a counterfeit ticket?”.

A number of these mass, modern-day touts sweep the market and say, as they do online for Ed Sheeran, “Your seat number is between 1 and 20”, and therefore they think that they have answered the question about the seat number. But the one thing they do not want is the honest supporter of a sporting event or a music fan having the ability to check whether their ticket is valid. This is the one amendment that would achieve that—and there would be no cost or difficulty. As far as the promoter of a sporting or music event is concerned, they are putting the seat number, the row number, the date and the event on the ticket. If there is an original, unique reference number, why not put that on as well to allow the true fan to check that it is not a counterfeit ticket before he spends a lot of money travelling to London with his family, for the sake of argument, to go to the O2?

The Minister said that he was concerned about this on three very simple grounds—but I think that there are answers to all three points. First, we obviously welcome the Waterson report, but Waterson stated, as did my noble friend, that he does not support any further significant changes to legislation at this time. However, by his own definition, these amendments are not significant. They do not ban or impose controls on the price; they merely tidy up gaps in the Consumer Rights Act regime, which Waterson endorses. So I believe it would be reasonable to suggest that the Government do, too, with their proposals for greater enforcement.

Secondly, the CMA review is under way but it is not about what might happen in this House tonight or in another place next week. The review and its inquiries are about the enforcement of existing legislation; they are not about possible changes in the future. If there were problems in the future, no doubt the CMA would consider having a further review. It is interesting that it would, by implication, support the measure this evening because it states:

“We also think that it is essential that those consumers who buy tickets from the secondary market are made aware if there is a risk that they will be turned away at the door”.


So, by implication, the CMA is in any event supportive of this proposal. However, that is not the point; the point is that, under statute and under its terms of reference, it is looking at existing legislation and not at new legislation.

Thirdly, when we debated this issue before, the European Union directive was much quoted as a reason for not being able to move forward—because we would be outside the scope of the European Union directive on consumer rights. I wrote to Brussels—not a usual habit of mine—in the following terms:

“Whether it would be in accordance with the EU Consumer Rights Directive for both primary and secondary market ticket sellers to have to provide a unique reference number on the tickets so that event organisers could track sales of tickets”.


The response was:

“Providing a unique reference number on the tickets is not regulated under the Consumer Rights Directive; therefore the Directive does not prevent this practice. National legislation could be relevant to this regard”.


Therefore, on all three grounds, I believe that common sense should prevail. We should look after the interests of the many people who are being ripped off by modern-day ticket touts and enable those individuals to have the right to enjoy a concert because they love either the music they want to listen to or the sporting event that they want to go to.