Consumer Protection: Secondary Ticketing

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, further to that response, which I welcome, can the Minister spell out a little more how the review will operate, as information on that is still not available? It will presumably receive evidence. If it does, will it take oral and well as written testimony and, if that evidence is provided, will it be published so that we can all look at it?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions. We have debated some of these points before. The chair will need to take a view on exactly how they run things. Clearly, the idea of a review is to have a wide range of evidence, and I think we will come back to the House on exactly how we organise that once we announce the review and the precise terms of reference. We have a short time for this, but it is good to have a focused review with an end date. We also need experience of how the new arrangements are working, as they only came into effect on 27 May. The review will be able to look at the summer of joy—the Ashes, the World Cup and Wimbledon, which is on at the moment—and see how the arrangements are working.