Consumer Rights Bill

Mike Weatherley Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

As many in the House are aware, I have been interested in the secondary ticketing market for many years now, and, alongside the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley), I have co-chaired the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse, the report of which spearheaded the former amendments to those we are debating today.

It is my long-standing belief that for a long time things have needed to change in the sector, as more and more fans are being ripped off and exploited by unscrupulous touts, and ordinary people are being priced out of seeing the artists, shows, or teams that they love. The full extent of the problem was clear last week when the Competition and Markets Authority, after consulting the major ticket re-sellers, published a new code of conduct—an agreement for which the CMA was happy to take all the credit, somewhat ignoring all the hard work and campaigning over many years of Members, peers and other industry bodies, and on which we are now legislating.

However, that small gripe aside, on the very same day that the new code of conduct was announced, a person could go on some of those companies’ websites and find tickets, guaranteed, for the upcoming boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas. On one site, the cheapest came in at just under £4,000, and the most expensive floor seats at more than £32,000. That was despite the fact that last week there were no official tickets yet on sale and original ticket prices had not even been agreed. That is a ludicrous situation which leaves the public totally misinformed about the marketplace and serves only further to inflate prices when the tickets become available.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it was bizarre that the CMA came out with guidance only days before Parliament was debating the issue and passing laws in this House? It seemed almost to usurp what we are doing.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I totally agree. As I have mentioned, I was surprised that in the press coverage the CMA was taking all the credit for the new measures given that Parliament has been pushing for this in both Houses. As the new authority, which is replacing the OFT, has now agreed with Parliament, the CMA should perhaps have mentioned that fact in some of its press coverage.

Sadly, the example I have given is one of many hundreds of thousands that routinely happen every day. It is only through measures such as the Lords amendment that we can hope to tackle the worst excesses of the industry and put the genuine fans first.

Let me be clear that the argument and the fight have never been about stopping the resale of tickets. The legitimate resale of tickets is not the problem and those who have claimed that clamping down on ticket touts and increasing transparency will harm true fans know very little about the problems and even less about what needs to be done to address them. Greater transparency is never a problem for a market operating properly and it is only in the interests of illegal ticket touts to sit back and do nothing to change the law. Others say that this is a licence for event organisers to cancel tickets, but the amendment clearly sets out that event organisers cannot cancel tickets simply because they have been resold, and can do so only in very specific circumstances. I am glad that that safeguard is in the Bill.

The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has tabled a characteristically unhelpful amendment that would insert a sunset clause for the provision—an act that is as misguided as it is obstructive. I know that the Opposition will vote against it and I am sure that the Government will too, as it is our intention to work on behalf of the fans and not the touts. Any further debate on that point gives it merit that it simply does not deserve.

Before I consider the specifics of the amendments proposed in the other place, let me praise Lord Moynihan for his diligent cross-party work and for succeeding in achieving such an important step towards strengthening the regulations in the sector. As a former Sports Minister, he knew first hand how pernicious the practice is. It has been an extremely productive experience working with him, as it has been with many other colleagues in both Houses who care just as passionately about the rights of fans as he, the hon. Member for Hove as my co-chair on the all-party group, the members of the all-party group and I do. I know that Lord Moynihan worked tirelessly over the last recess to secure a compromise with Ministers across two Departments—a feat few could accomplish—and event goers and fans across the country owe him a debt of gratitude for the amendment.

As has been said, the amendment will do three key things to help stop the exploitation of fans. First, it will boost transparency, as from the time the Bill is enacted, ticket resellers will have to provide a seat number, any restrictions or limits on the ticket and the original face value of the ticket to all those they hope to sell it to. That will give fans far more knowledge about what they are buying and will give event managers more information about the tickets that are being resold.

Secondly, the amendment will place a duty on ticket resellers to report criminal activity if they suspect it, making the enforcement of the law much more proactive and effective and discouraging the secondary market platforms from turning a blind eye and letting the worst excesses of these practices continue.

Finally and crucially, the amendment compels the Secretary of State to review measures relating to the industry in a report to Parliament after 12 months, and that is what I would like to use the remaining time to speak about. The improvements in the amendment are a crucial first step, but they do not solve all the problems we can see in the sector. The review process will be absolutely vital in taking representations from the industry and making proposals that can build on the legislation and get to the heart of what is wrong with how things operate.

There is much that needs to be considered in the review, but I shall limit myself to a couple of key points that must be investigated if we are ever properly to understand why the problem is so persistent and deep-rooted. The first is the speed at which secondary ticketing sites get access to tickets in the first place. Secondary ticketing platforms can have hundreds if not thousands of tickets on their sites and ready to be sold within minutes of their first going on general release and in some cases even before they have gone on sale. How can that happen without sophisticated software, such as bots, harvesting them, without certain so-called power sellers working alongside the platforms to get tickets on their behalf or without inside trading, such as behind-the-scenes deals in which premium tickets are not sold on the primary market but given straight to the secondary market to be sold at huge mark-ups?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree. Sometimes they are following through on a fraudulent transaction and sometimes the listing is speculative, as they might try to get a ticket later and want to see how much they can sell it for.

Given that there is no lawful way to harvest large numbers of tickets and that behind-the-scenes deals are at best duplicitous and immoral, we must ask just how the situation can take place and continue. Further to that point, if the tickets showing on the system have not been acquired, how can the sellers guarantee their sale on their sites? An investigation of those guarantees must be central to the review, because if that approach is found to be misleading, it would directly go against consumer rights, which are of course the entire purpose of the Bill. One way the all-party group on ticket abuse thought of to solve that would be to publish the seller’s identity when reselling tickets. I am sure that that will also be considered in the review.

The duty under the new amendment to report criminal activity is welcome, but we must also ask why past instances of criminality have been so largely unreported in the sector, even when the secondary platforms have been the victims and have had to pay out large sums in compensation. Has that been seen simply as collateral damage? It cannot be a continued coincidence and questions must be asked in the review.

In conclusion, the review is crucial and much needed and will have to be handled carefully and expertly so that we understand how best further to protect the public. That is why the choice of chair is so important. The marketplace is so complicated that it will need somebody who understands it but who is fair minded enough to listen and engage with all parties while keeping the rights of the fans at the heart of the entire process. If I may be so bold as to venture a suggestion, I think that my all-party group co-chair, the hon. Member for Hove, would be an ideal candidate to take up the challenge after he leaves Parliament. I do not know what his plans are—he might be hoping to travel the world and have a normal life for a while—but I can think of no one better. Whoever is chosen, however, I am confident that they will ensure that the right questions are asked, the right leads are pursued and the right outcome is achieved so that at last we can be sure that the market will put fans first.

[Mike Weatherley]

It is an honour to follow my co-chair on the all-party group, the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). The amendment is the culmination of four years of hard campaigning and it is a little ironic that we have only about two minutes to squeeze in all our comments. I will not go through all the points that have been made so admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West, as there is no point in doing so, other than to say that the bots have made the free market untenable and something needs to change.

I want to make two particular points. The first is about the review, which is crucial. I thought at first that that would be like kicking the issue into the long grass, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, but it is an essential part of the reforms. The critics of the reforms are screaming about the potential problems, as we have heard, whereas those who want more action are screaming that more should be done. That is a lot of shouting, but time will tell and the review, which will report in a relatively short period of time in parliamentary terms, will closely consider both claims and at last come up with a proper analysis and recommendations.

The legislation specifically states that terms and conditions need to be fair, and making sure that they are fair must be part of the review. The terms and conditions that event organisers attach to tickets are there to protect fans—not to take advantage of them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley indicated they might be. Where fans have bought tickets for genuine use, and have a genuine reason for resale—that is, where they have bought tickets not just to make a profit—I am fully behind their ability to resell. I will make sure that that is a fundamental principle in the review. Equally, I will make sure that the insertion of “fair terms” in the amendment is not the secondary ticketing industry’s way of undermining all these changes to the law. I am pleased that groups such as the Sport and Recreation Alliance, the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Rugby Football Union are fully behind the amendments.

As with all compromises, neither side is fully happy with the solution, but on balance, this is a good step in the right direction. The review will be key. With this review, the UK, with its rich cultural heritage and world-leading position, will once again be the focus of world attention. I suspect that the review will act as a blueprint for many countries around the world—both those that have enacted secondary ticketing legislation, and those considering doing so.

[Ian Murray]

The hon. Gentleman has put so much effort into ensuring that we got to this point today. Will he, with his experience of the industry, say what he would like the conclusions of the review to look like? What questions should be asked to make sure that the secondary ticketing market works best for both consumers and businesses?

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank the shadow Minister for his intervention. The review must be balanced. Obviously, I am pushing for more regulation, because I feel that the free market has fallen down, but we should consider experiences around the world. There are states in America that have repealed secondary ticketing laws, and we need to look at why. Was it because the legislation was badly drafted? Norway and Denmark have laws under which tickets cannot be sold above face value, but they have never been enacted. Is that because, as someone mentioned, trading standards teams do not have enough teeth to implement such measures? All of that needs to be in the review; that is absolutely essential. There are so many aspects to the review that it will be quite an exciting one.

To summarise, and to misquote E.M. Forster on democracy, two cheers for the amendment, but not quite three. However, I am really pleased that we will enact this law before the end of this Parliament, and before I step down. This is very much a good step forward.

[Jo Swinson]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) on their tireless work on this issue. They should be pleased with the outcome that they have managed to achieve. I want to address two points that came up in the debate. The first was the question, “Why now?”, and the second was about the CMA.

On the question of why now, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) seemed to suggest that we had voted for something and will now be voting against it, or some such thing. The amendments that we are considering differ in two respects from the ones that we considered in January. First, on privacy, the amendments in January stipulated that the name of those selling tickets would have to be a piece of information that was made transparent. We thought that there were privacy concerns about that. Secondly, there were concerns about compliance with EU law—the technical standards directive—and that could unfortunately have rendered all the provisions unenforceable. That was because of the de facto price cap in the amendment put forward by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. For those reasons, although we understood the concerns brought forward, we could not accept the amendments in January. Of course, those concerns have now been addressed; that is why we are able to accept the Lords amendments today.

Last week’s announcement by the CMA has been mentioned. The CMA in no way sought to usurp the work done in this House. It had done a long-running piece of enforcement work against four sites. The announcement covered the transparency elements of amendment 12J, but the amendment puts things on a statutory footing and should be very welcome.

The CMA does, of course, have significant power. To address the concern raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, it would be able to stop an organiser cancelling tickets. The CMA has shown that it is willing to act in this market should there be any concern that tickets were being cancelled, and I am sure that it would be happy to do so in future. On the international point, as the provisions apply to marketplaces and sellers targeting the UK, enforcement action can take place elsewhere. Indeed, the CMA recently pursued successful enforcement action against several websites, including viagogo, which is of course based in Switzerland. That shows that we have the enforcement to back up these consumer protections, which are proportionate, and which do not give rise to the privacy concerns that we had before. They will help to make sure that the secondary market can genuinely thrive and work better for consumers.

Question put, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 12J.