Consumer Rights Bill

Debate between Mike Weatherley and Pete Wishart

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Weatherley]

Absolutely, and there is no doubt that merchandising plays a significant part in allowing bands to continue touring.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful point, which I recognise from my experience of touring with a band. It is uneconomic to go out with two trucks and all the equipment to play in front of fans. Bands rely on their merchandise and on being able to sell other products to enable them to continue to work and make the fantastic records they do, and ensure that people of any age group can watch them play live. Distortion caused by these appalling ticket prices threatens the industry.

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I would like to thank him for his contributions over the years; we have had good debates in this Chamber.

It is probably true that my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North and for Shipley have unlimited budgets, but most people have a finite budget and they have to make decisions on how to spend their money. If they spend it all on ticketing, they will not spend it on other things.

As has been mentioned, different methods have been tried to control secondary ticketing and to protect purchasers, such as named ticketing. It has been proved, however, that this will not work for every event. It works in some situations, but not others. The industry would like to take other steps to control these abuses but it cannot do so. It has been argued by the ticketing organisations that the measures already in place are enough. If that was the case, why are we still seeing cases where fans or performers are not protected from exploitation and revenue loss?

These amendments do not restrict the buying and resale of tickets. All they ask is that the process is transparent so that buyers have information such as where the seat is, who the seller is, and what the original price of the ticket was, and whether the resale of the ticket is against the terms and conditions of the original purchase. It does not expose the seller to data protection problems. Only those sellers whose job is related to the live entertainment sector will need to provide employment details. This means that an informed decision can be made whether or not to buy a ticket. Similarly, it would mean that in cases where tickets were resold by industry insiders for a profit, it was out in the open.

Creating such transparency means that it will be easier to prevent and detect ticket fraud, expose and reduce insider dealing of tickets, and assist event-holders in protecting their customers from the worst excesses of ticket touting. It will also assist the artists in ensuring that they are able to deliver tickets to the intended market at the intended price. In my view, these amendments provide the right balance to avoid full legislation criminalising the activity by implementing sensible, reasonable information requests. To quote Steve Parker, managing editor of Audience and Live UK:

“The proposed amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill simply requires transparency and the restoration of fairness to the market. It is not a threat, restriction or burden to anyone operating honestly in this sector—it is a threat to those that seek to secretly manipulate the market for their own greedy ends.”

Only the operators who want to hide this information could possibly object to a request for the system to be transparent. The proposed measures have been formally supported by a wide range of stakeholders from the live event sector, promoters including Harvey Goldsmith, the Lawn Tennis Association, the National Theatre, the Musicians Union, the England and Wales Cricket Board, UK Music, the premier music booking agencies, managers of major British bands like One Direction, Iron Maiden, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Radiohead and Mumford and Sons, and over 50 more in a letter issued over the weekend. These amendments are only opposed by those profiteering from the confusion and technological shortcomings of event ticketing.

Intellectual Property Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mike Weatherley and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Weatherley]

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. Nevertheless, I do not intend to support his amendment which would harmonise unregistered and registered designs, at this time. The Bill is a step in the right direction and I merely put down the marker that should evidence be provided that the law is failing in this regard, we should come back to this issue and consider it again. I am prepared to see where the legislation as it stands takes us, rather than supporting the amendment now. All I ask now is that the Minister acknowledges the potential and agrees to return to the point in a future Bill.

The hon. Gentleman should be aware that an IPO conference is coming up in June, which will address some of the IP issues that he was talking about. I will return to the issue on Third Reading, but it is important that the Prime Minister and No. 10 make a clear declaration about intellectual property being a property right. If that is done, it is not necessary to add new clause 1 to the Bill.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am glad to have caught your eye, Mr Speaker, in this not so crowded Chamber. I presume that everybody is paying great attention to the debate on their television screens. It goes to show the lack of interest in intellectual property issues, which disappoints me very much. As I have said before, we need a Minister who is answerable for intellectual property in this House, so that we can raise these very important questions, and so that an IP Minister can respond to these critical debates on this very important issue.

Amendment 1 stands in my name. We have discussed the issue before—on Second Reading and in Committee—and we have had assurances from the Minister, but now is the time for a cast-iron commitment. He knows the anxieties and concerns about this issue, not just from the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, but from the whole legal community in Scotland, which remains very concerned that Scotland will lose the right to judge, assess and hear cases to do with patents.

The Minister may have his views about me as a Member of Parliament, but the Faculty of Advocates and the Court of Session in Edinburgh could hardly be described as hotbeds of nationalist militancy. If even the Faculty of Advocates could write to the Minister in such graphic terms about its concerns, surely those concerns should be taken into account and treated seriously. We have heard enough warm words from the Minister; we must now start to hear him express a commitment to Scotland.

It is possible that, after centuries, we will lose the right to consider patent issues in the Scottish courts. Clause 17 makes provision

“to confer…remove… or vary the jurisdiction of a court”

in relation to the new unified patent court, thus effectively allowing the United Kingdom to decide how to approach the whole issue of divisional courts. The UK can have up to three or four of them. Why can it not accept the Court of Session as one of those courts? My amendments would simply ensure that Scotland was once more a jurisdiction with the ability to rule on important patent cases.

We all support the arrival of the new unified patent court. Of course it makes sense for patent hearings to be unified across all the jurisdictions in the European Union, and many of us have argued long and hard to that effect. It will make life so much easier for our inventors, creators and artists. However, it cannot come at a price for Scotland’s legal establishment. For Scotland, with its history of invention and creation, to be denied the ability to consider the issue of patents is—patently—absurd. For decades, if not centuries, the Court of Session in Edinburgh has had the power to consider patent issues in Scotland. We have built up experience and skills that may be lost if we are denied access to a divisional court.

Scotland has a distinct legal establishment. For the last 300 years, as members of the United Kingdom, we have been able to keep our own Scots law when it comes to matters such as this, and people have acquired the necessary experience of that law—and, of course, we in Scotland have a history and culture of creativity that goes back for centuries. As you know, Mr Speaker, Scotland practically invented the modern world: everything from tarmacadam to television was invented by Scotsmen, and today we are still achieving things through our biotechnologies and biosciences. There has been Dolly the sheep, for instance, and—I recall that the Minister rebuked me when I mentioned this in Committee—our contribution to the Higgs boson. Scotland has a culture of being able to invent and create, and we must be allowed to consider issues relating to that culture in our own courts.

Yesterday, in advance of today’s debate, a programme on BBC Scotland showed some of our fantastic new creators and inventors, who are coming up with wonderful new products. They were discussing the importance of allowing these matters to be considered in Scotland. Our Scots law is a totem, an important centre. Some fantastic examples were shown during that BBC Scotland programme—and, I should add, there were some particularly good comments from me. The programme demonstrated the degree of interest in these issues that exists in Scotland, as indeed it should, because the creative industries are important to Scotland. Indeed, they are probably more important to Scotland than they are to the rest of the United Kingdom: we invest more in them, and they play a dynamic and important role in the overall Scottish economy.

Our history of invention and creation makes it plain that Scotland is more than adequately equipped to be a successful independent nation. We know that we could be one of the wealthiest nations in the world because of the resources and skill of our people. If we were independent, this would not be an issue, because, as a member state of the European Union, we would be allowed direct access to the unified patent court. There is an especially important reason why that should happen. It is important to the legal establishment, and it is important to all the individuals who are involved in business. Why should Scottish business men have to bear the extra costs of going to a different jurisdiction to have their day in court and secure justice in relation to important patent issues? We have some incredible new industries in Scotland, not least in the renewable sector and particularly in oil and gas. Our businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises, need to be able to come to Edinburgh for this purpose. Not being able to do so is an inconvenience that small businesses in Scotland can ill afford.

This is in the Government’s gift. All the Minister need do is say “Yes, the court in Edinburgh will be one of the divisional courts.” London, of course, will have one of the central divisional courts, as will Paris and Munich. As I said in Committee, all that we need is New York: then we could have “Pop Muzik” by M. So London will be looked after, but what about the other capitals in the United Kingdom? We are always being told that Scotland has a part to play in the UK—indeed, that is what the debate that we shall continue to have over the next few months is all about—so why has it been overlooked?