Waterson Review
Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe(8 years ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Act has of course come into force and there have been prosecutions on ticketing, although they are often made through fraud law rather than consumer law. The advice I would give to consumers is to get in touch with the excellent Citizens Advice service. If they have evidence of fraud they should contact Action Fraud, and there is also the possibility of trading standards taking action. One of Professor Waterson’s recommendations is that more work should be done on that.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that modern-day touts who use bots in the form of software that stores hundreds of credit card accounts and can instantly sweep the market of tickets the moment they go on sale, only to reappear half an hour later through their colleagues on the secondary market at highly inflated prices, corrupts the market and denies the true fans of sport and musical events the opportunity to buy tickets? These touts should be subject to legislative action by the Government through the Digital Economy Bill.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
As always, my noble friend makes some powerful points. He will be glad to know that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has asked for a round table to be held with the industry on this matter next week, on 30 November, in order to bring together all the interested parties to look at the issue of bots following very useful discussions on the Digital Economy Bill.
Consumer Protection: Online Ticketing
Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
As I said, the Government will respond shortly to the report and Professor Waterson recognised the positive aspects of secondary ticketing. There are issues of transparency and enforcement, which he highlighted and which will obviously come out in our response.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I declare my co-chairmanship of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse. Does my noble friend agree with Professor Waterson that while the voluntary implementation of his recommendations is the best way forward, if the secondary market continues to flout the law, we should look on an all-party basis to strengthen the law to protect sport fans and concertgoers?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend for all he has done to make this legislation exist and Professor Waterson’s report to be tabled. We have certainly taken note of his recommendation that the primary and secondary ticketing markets should act, on a voluntary basis, on the issues that the professor has identified. I look forward to that being pushed forward. Clearly, we should try to ensure that these changes happen, because it is in the markets’ interest that they act before we look to legislate further.
Olympics 2012: Regeneration Legacy
Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for initiating this debate, for his thoughtful and fascinating speech this afternoon, and for his magnificent work on East London regeneration. I also thank my noble friend Lord Moynihan in the same way; the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, bringing her perspective; the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the others involved on the Olympic and Paralympic Legacy Committee. It is a typical example of something that this House does very well indeed. I also thank the other noble Lords who have contributed to this fascinating and wide-ranging debate.
I will try to answer some of the points that have been raised, but if I am not able to do so, I will write to noble Lords. I also share in the tributes that have been made to some outside the Chamber. In particular, I include Sir John Armitt and his team, who factored long-term, lasting regeneration into the Olympic project. That is one of the lessons. At the end I will try to respond to the A-level set for me only an hour or two ago by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson.
The 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which took place in east London, were a huge success. It was a euphoric summer, not only because of the incredible atmosphere and the best ever performance by our British athletes, as inspiring as those were. The Games were delivered jointly by a range of agencies, national and local, public and private. The delivery of the Games was only a success because of the spirit of partnership that prevailed.
The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, of Limehouse, took us on an amazing journey via Theatre Royal Stratford East, which I also like very much. I add that Canary Wharf, close to the Olympic park, is perhaps now the most vibrant financial centre in the world. I have visited an awful lot of them in my business career. I was there recently, at 8.15 in the morning, to speak at the launch of the report by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, on women on boards. The numbers coming off the Jubilee line were extraordinary. They were buying poppies from a British Legion band playing that morning to all of us as we arrived. It is an amazing centre, a biscuit-toss from the park.
I was also very interested in the points made on health, on obesity, on jobs, and on the whole issue of convergence in the east London area. I am not sure that I have an answer to all those points today, but it is very good that the debate widened into some of those areas.
The 2012 Games’ legacy has been acclaimed by Jacques Rogge, the former president of the International Olympic Committee, as a blueprint for future Games. Some 1.4 million more people are playing sport than when we won the bid in 2005 and the UK has benefited to the tune of more than £14 billion in trade and investment. All eight permanent venues on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park have a secure future. As the noble Lord, Lord Mawson said, millions and millions of visitors have enjoyed the park since it was reopened after the Games. Other Olympic parks elsewhere do not have nearly such an impressive record.
Government and other public sector investment has been the catalyst for the development of this corner of east London. The private sector is taking up the opportunities and driving further development. New communities are now growing in and around Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. More than 4,500 people live at East Village, in the former athletes’ village. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, said, half of this housing is affordable. There is a new school, Chobham Academy, and a medical centre, the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health and Wellbeing Centre, in the park. People will start moving into the first new housing in the park at Chobham Manor later this year, to be followed by other new neighbourhoods in the years and decades to come.
There are employment opportunities. In all, it is expected that 15,000 jobs will be created in the park by 2025. Here East, the media centre during the Games, was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey. It is being transformed into a huge digital campus, bringing together business, technology, media, education and data. It will deliver more than 7,500 jobs, including 5,300 directly onsite and a further 2,200 in the local community. Here East is more than 40% let and BT Sport is already operating from the venue. Tenants, including Loughborough University and Hackney Community College, are moving on to the site and Here East will fully open in Spring 2016.
As the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said, Westfield Stratford City is the biggest urban shopping mall in northern Europe, with 40 million visitors a year. It has provided around 10,500 permanent jobs. There will be more employment opportunities with Olympicopolis, which, as has been said, is bigger than the Pompidou Centre in Paris. That is the cultural and academic quarter of the park—which we should emphasise: this is not just about sport. The Government have committed funding to catalyse this new and exciting development, providing £141 million. The Victoria and Albert Museum —a great favourite of mine—Sadler’s Wells and, I hope, the Smithsonian will all have a presence there, as will academic institutions including University College London and University of the Arts London. Stratford has been turned into one of the best-connected areas of London thanks to the investment in the run-up to the Games, with the Jubilee line, the Javelin service to St Pancras and the Docklands Light Railway.
The first question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, was indeed about Stratford International station. Noble Lords piled in behind—everyone mentioned this. I shall not name everyone since it was a common theme. The great wish is that Eurostar services should call there as part of their cross-channel routes, bringing more business, more tourists and more convenience. As has been said, this is a matter for Eurostar as a commercial company. However, today’s debate has provided an opportunity to publicise the desirability of that—the power of amplification, as I call it. I shall report to ministerial colleagues in the Department for Transport on the strength of feeling in the House on this issue and on the opportunities that have been described, especially once Crossrail arrives at Stratford in, I think, 2018 or 2019.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan waxed lyrical on the subject and on a host of other points. I shall take up his suggestion of a letter to respond to most of them. My noble friend is an expert parliamentarian. I think that it is the discipline of the cox—every time, he finds an amazing way to move things forward. He makes a virtue of a long shopping list by suggesting a letter—another elegant parliamentary device that we can add to the annals. I agree with him that the Active People survey needs substantial change. Sport England has this in hand and a new methodology will be introduced in 2016. Polling based on landlines is bound to understate participation in sport. Young people mainly use mobiles and the internet, so it is not right that our data derive from landline polling.
My noble friend also expressed regret at the absence of a GB women’s football team in Rio in 2016. I share his disappointment. However, FIFA requires agreement of all the home nations for a British team to compete. The other home nations remain concerned that FIFA could see a British team at the Games as a reason to question the validity of having separate national teams in world competitions.
Lord Moynihan
I thank the Minister very much for giving way. It would be helpful to the House if the Minister could ask the British Olympic Association to publish the letter from FIFA that set out those requirements, given that the International Olympic Committee does not require home nation agreement for the national Olympic committee to select a team for Team GB. If that letter could be published it would be helpful.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, it is not my letter but I will certainly take that point away. The time to look at this again—2016 is nearly upon us—is ahead of the 2020 Games, by which time I think we all hope that FIFA will have been reformed. I make a strategic pause here. But, obviously, that is my greatest wish and, I think, the greatest wish of many others in the House.
Returning to today’s debate, I think we can be rightly proud of the investment made by successive Governments and the subsequent effects this has had. It was rightly lauded by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. UK Trade & Investment figures covering the whole of London, which were boosted by the British Business Embassy at Lancaster House, show that there were 796 investment projects in London in 2014-15, creating more than 21,000 new jobs and safeguarding a further 2,500.
The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, asked about the lessons learned for the wider area of east London and for projects elsewhere such as the northern powerhouse. Major events, sporting or otherwise, provide a catalyst for regeneration of deprived areas and wider economic growth, including through trade and investment. We have seen this not only in the East End of London but also in Manchester and Glasgow, with their staging of the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and 2014 respectively.
What else have we concluded from our debate today? We have a dedicated legacy body, high-quality personnel, leaders, management, support for local stakeholders, work on jobs and skills and apprentices so that the employment opportunities, some of which I have described, take off and are sustained. Partnership working, involving local communities through consultation and end-users, is important. My noble friend Lord Moynihan talked of the disability legacy of the Paralympics in terms of both vision and design. That is another lesson that we have learned from this great project.
The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, talked about—if I may summarise him—focus and being joined-up. I think that we can all agree with that objective. There are obviously differences of detail. He suggested a single Minister and a single unit in the mayor’s office and talked about the role of local government. But I think that the theme—I am not putting words in his mouth—of focus and being joined-up is important. As he said, ensuring that the legacy extends beyond the area and beyond the Parliament is very important. These are long-term things, which is why cross-party working is so important. We had this over the Olympics. I think it was one of the reasons for its success and I am sorry that today’s debate drifted at times too far into party politics.
That brings me to housing, which is another area where we need to learn lessons from these projects. The Government have done their bit in relation to the former athletes’ village, as I mentioned. I accept that the proportion of affordable housing in other developments and in other areas, including some in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, is lower. The latter issue is a matter for the mayor and the London Legacy Development Corporation. The Government remain keen to see vibrant new communities in east London with a healthy mix of housing. I will reflect on the comments and look into the specific points, including those made by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, of Limehouse, because that was helpful feedback. I will talk to the Department for Communities and Local Government. I thank him for his comments.
I am delighted that the park is supporting the Government’s apprenticeship programme. The numbers are not huge—124 apprenticeships since the Games, including at the stadium, Here East, Chobham Manor and the venues, but 88% of these have gone to local people. That is how it should be. Last year, more than 600 local residents received specialist construction training as part of the wider construction programme taking place on the park.
Rugby World Cup 2015
Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank the noble Lord for his comment and will pass it on.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, declaring my interest as a co-chair of the All-Party Group on Ticket Abuse, will my noble friend agree that apart from a home nation—preferably England—winning the World Cup, a good way of maximising the grass-roots impact is to back the RFU and England 2015 in their campaign to stop online operators of secondary markets illegally fleecing supporters of the game? I hope my noble friend will also congratulate the RFU on its patience in waiting on the touchline for the Government to launch their statutory review, which was in the Consumer Rights Act, and has to report by May of next year. When will that inquiry be launched?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend for his comments about the RFU. Certainly a lot of professional work has been done, which has focused also on fraud, which is important. As I explained to him earlier this week in another part of the House, we are very much on track to start this review, and we hope to make an announcement very soon about the chair and the terms of reference. It will be an important review, which will be able to take into account the successes and the problems that are found with ticketing for this very important Rugby World Cup.
Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2015
Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak also to the Enterprise Act 2002 (Part 8 Domestic Infringements) Order 2015. These orders form part of the implementation of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and, with the leave of the Committee, I will take them together. Most of the Act comes into force on 1 October.
Before turning to the orders, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to our debates and to ensuring that the Act is in good shape. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, who has just left us, for her help in steering the Act through the House, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and, if I may say so, to the newly fashionably bearded noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for their well-informed contributions to our lively debates.
The Act is part of a wider package of consumer law that will boost the economy by £4 billion over the next 10 years. It may be helpful if I remind your Lordships of what the Act does and if I say a little about what we are doing to ensure that consumers and businesses are aware of their rights and obligations under the Act.
The Consumer Rights Act is a major part of the reform and simplification of UK consumer law. It provides clear consumer remedies for goods, services and digital content so that consumers know what their rights are and what they are entitled to if something goes wrong. This will help increase consumer confidence so that people try new products and services and also shop around. It will also help businesses more readily to understand their responsibilities.
It is crucial that consumers and businesses know about their rights and obligations. We have therefore been working closely with trading standards to help businesses prepare for the changes, including the provision of clear guidance on the Act on its Business Companion website and the development of a consumer rights summary which businesses can voluntarily display in their shops at the point of sale. To help consumers better understand their rights, we have also been working closely with Citizens Advice, MoneySavingExpert and Which?. The consumer rights summary will be published on the TSI website before 1 October.
Alongside the Act, on 1 October, when the business information requirements of the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes Regulations 2015 come into force, we will also complete implementation of the alternative dispute resolution directive. By ensuring that ADR is available in every sector, we will make it easier to resolve disputes between consumers and traders. This will help reduce costs for businesses by reducing the number of these disputes being brought before a court.
I would also like to update your Lordships on our review of product safety. In March this year, because of concerns about the effectiveness of consumer product recalls raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and others during the passage of the Consumer Rights Bill in this House, the Government launched an independent review led by consumer campaigner Lynn Faulds Wood. This is looking at how we can make the product recall system more effective, with a proper understanding of what a good recall system looks like. A small stakeholder focus group met on 4 December to discuss 10 recommendations and we anticipate publishing the review’s findings later this year.
As a result of amendments made in this House, the Consumer Rights Act includes new rules on the regulation of the online secondary ticketing market, which came into force in May. The first order enables the enforcement bodies to share information and work together more effectively to complement the investigatory powers that came in in May. BIS and the DCMS are still committed to reviewing the secondary ticketing market and we anticipate announcing the chair very soon. Given the level of interest in this matter and the presence of my noble friend Lord Moynihan, I thought that I should make that clear. The launch of the review will follow shortly, along with an invitation for interested parties to provide evidence on the market and consumer protection measures.
As part of our productivity plan, the Government are reviewing trading standards to ensure that our consumer enforcement capability effectively supports competition and better regulation goals. We have, however, decided to delay the coming into force only of the services provisions of the Act in relation to mainline rail, aviation and maritime consumer services until 6 April 2016. The DfT is rightly concerned about the interplay between the new Act and specific provisions, such as the arrangements for a refund due to train delays. Therefore, we will be consulting with businesses and consumers shortly to determine whether the detailed sector-specific consumer remedies should be retained and how the new Act might apply. The other chapters of the Act, including provisions on competition, will come into effect for these sectors on 1 October.
I now turn to the two orders themselves. As I mentioned, these orders form part of the implementation of the Consumer Rights Act. They simply make consequential amendments to the existing legal framework. First, the draft Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Consequential Amendments) Order adds the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 to the list of legislation in Schedule 5 to the Act. This will mean that public enforcers of those regulations have access to the investigatory powers that they need.
The order also amends the Uniform Laws on International Sales Act 1967. That Act implemented the convention on international sale of goods, which enables parties from different countries to decide that the standard terms set out in the convention apply to their contract. This means that, where the contract is for the sale of goods to a consumer, provisions of the Consumer Rights Act, such as the right that goods must be fit for purpose, will be treated as mandatory elements of the contract.
The order also amends Schedules 14 and 15 to the Enterprise Act 2002 so that public bodies have the power to disclose and share information obtained through, or for the purposes of, enforcing the unfair terms and secondary ticketing provisions contained in the Consumer Rights Act, as I mentioned. Lastly, the order amends Schedule 3 to the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 to enable a local authority to be a “primary authority” and take a role in co-ordinating enforcement of provisions of the Act.
The second order, the draft Enterprise Act 2002 (Part 8 Domestic Infringements) Order, amends the Enterprise Act 2002. This enables enforcers, such as trading standards, to use civil enforcement powers for certain breaches of the Consumer Rights Act where such breaches affect the collective interests of consumers. For example, trading standards could seek an enforcement order when a business refuses to give refunds to a number of customers where faulty goods are supplied.
I commend the draft orders to the Committee.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for referring specifically to Chapter 5 of Part 3 of the Act and for the interest shown, both in Committee and in the House, in the subject of the secondary market for tickets. As I understand it, the powers that are proposed should be seen as complementary and, indeed, supplementary, because there will be greater information sharing as a result of the order, which is narrow in scope.
I would like to ask my noble friend whether the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 apply to the secondary ticketing market as well. If they do, they stand well alongside the proposals before the Committee and, indeed, the powers in the CRA 2015.
Before I may appear a little concerned about and critical of the pace at which a number of commitments that were given to the House seem to be progressing, I say straightaway that I could not be more grateful to the Minister personally for her commitment and the level of interest, time and diligence that she showed on this subject. However, as I hope she will be the first to agree, while investigative powers are clear, a prerequisite for those investigative powers to be effective is enforcement. If there is a lack of clarity over exactly what needs to be enforced, we have a problem. One reason why the review was due to be set up was to provide clarity over enforcement and how it would be implemented. As long ago as May, the Minister was hopeful that we would have that review. Many of us who are interested in the subject have waited with bated breath during the Summer Recess, week by week and month by month—May, June, July, August and now into September—and we are still hoping that the review will come very soon.
Under normal circumstances in Parliament, this might not be a major concern. The reason why it is such a concern is because this review was placed in the Act and was time-limited to a year. It concerns me that we are now into September and we do not have a chair for the review or terms of reference for it, nor do we have details of the expert committee that would support that review. All that is absolutely essential. One reason why the measure was pressed so rapidly and given such importance and prominence in Parliament was that having a chair in place to see exactly how the ticket-touting market or secondary ticket market worked during the Rugby World Cup was clearly going to be advantageous. It was going to be able to help that committee to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of the legislation that had been passed in Parliament, and it was also going to provide a good deal of detailed information so that recommendations could be made in the light of direct hands-on involvement with those organising the Rugby World Cup, which already, as we have read in the papers only in the last week, is a matter of great concern to the consumers, many of whom feel that they are being fleeced. In addition to that, we were looking for a strategy for monitoring compliance. The Competition and Markets Authority is clearly important in that context, but we have heard nothing. There is no information on how best to provide requirements for sellers, advice to buyers or recourse to consumers. I understand that the police numbers specifically to tackle touting and associated criminality are very low.
Many rugby fans feel that they are currently being fleeced for tickets, which is a result of the lack of enforcement. The position that they face today is bleak, to say the least. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to give us a little more clarity on when this review is going to be established. I hope that there will be an announcement very soon of a chair for the review; it is imperative that that is done and that the review is set up as a matter of urgency. At the Rugby World Cup, so many fans have been unable to get tickets because those who have managed to sweep the market have immediately put those tickets back on at a massive multiple of their face value. When that is directly in contravention to the regulations and rules stated by the organisers of the Rugby World Cup, we have a serious problem, compounded when Parliament has spoken about this issue and when the Government came back with amendments to lead on this issue so that we could protect consumers and not see sports fans fleeced.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that intervention. I think that before the election we sent an outline to some of the noble Lords who have been involved in the debate. If those did not come their way, I will make sure that they do. As I am sure noble Lords agree, it will be important that the chair looks at the terms of reference, but a working document was prepared and I can certainly arrange for your Lordships to receive it. We have been making progress in establishing the terms of reference so that we are ready to roll.
I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it has been important to find an appropriately skilled chair and, obviously, the necessary support, on which I think there is more detail to follow. I can confirm that the review will report to both Secretaries of State. As I said, we expect an announcement soon. The review will take evidence from the Rugby World Cup, as it should do, and we remain confident—this is perhaps the most important point—that it will report on time. As my noble friend explained, there is a time-limited window. We have legislated already and we will be responding to the concerns that have been expressed particularly vociferously in this House and elsewhere.
On the CMA, the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said that this was history. However, the CMA, which is an independent organisation, will be contributing to the expert group, will provide evidence for the review, and consider its conclusions alongside the Government and other enforcers when considering action in this sector.
Lord Moynihan
I am grateful to my noble friend for that comment because that is the first time we have heard formally that there will be an expert group supporting the chair of the review. Can she take on board—I do not expect her to respond today—and come back later to confirm that the expert group reflects the key interested parties? That means that the arts promoters and event promoters, who have been particularly concerned for many years about abuse within the secondary market, as well as the leading spectator sports that are keenly interested in this issue, will be represented on the expert group.
Consumer Protection: Secondary Ticketing
Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, as I have said, we will publish details of the review shortly. I share the noble Lord’s disappointment on the enforcement side and, prompted by his Question, I spoke to the City of London Police only last week. I was reassured about some of the actions it is taking, both on its own and with the cultural and sporting bodies, for the important events of this summer. As the noble Lord will know, May through to July is the peak period so there will be more cases, but Action Fraud is on to the job.
Lord Moynihan (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the work that she has undertaken on this subject. Can she assure the House that the review committee members will be provided with a clear legal opinion as to exactly what information can be included on tickets to sport and musical events, within the interpretation of the EU consumer rights directive?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I thank my noble friend for all he has done to move forward the consumer offer in this important area. I can confirm that the review will assess the current law, including changes we made in the Consumer Rights Act as a result of work in this House, and any surrounding law, which would rightly include any EU provisions.