Consumer Rights Bill

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree that people should abide by terms and conditions. The fact that the lack of transparency allows platforms to resell against terms and conditions is certainly not in the interest of consumers.

If the Minister does not want to take my word or that of Members in the other place on why we need transparency, perhaps she will listen to those who are actually involved in our crucial cultural and live sector. As she may know, more than 85 prominent organisations and individuals signed a letter to The Independent on Sunday yesterday calling on her and the Government to adopt the proposal. Those signatories included UK Music, the voice of the live and recorded industry; the Sport and Recreation Alliance, the voice of sporting governing bodies in the UK; the Rugby Football Union; the Lawn Tennis Association; and the England and Wales Cricket Board. They have all gone to great lengths over the years to try to ensure that tickets reach the hands of grass-roots fans.

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

May I congratulate the hon. Lady on the diligent way in which she has approached the issue and her determination to get justice for music fans, which is what we are talking about? UK Music’s music tourism forum found that live music generates £2.2 billion. Surely we have a right to expect that live music fans are protected and not ripped off.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman and thank him for that valuable contribution. He is not only a creator of music—he remains one to this day—but a huge supporter of the music industry.

Other signatories to the letter included probably the world’s most pre-eminent promoter, Harvey Goldsmith CBE; the operators of west end and regional theatres; a host of individual music managers who look after some the country’s leading performers, including Iron Maiden, Muse, Arctic Monkeys and even One Direction; and most other industry umbrella bodies, which represent countless businesses contributing to the vitality of our creative sector, such as the Association of Independent Festivals and the Event Services Association.

All those bodies, and more, joined together to call on the Government to make one simple change. Would the Government rather listen to that collective call from the live event sector: the people whose hard work, talents and investment create the demand that the touts exploit? Alternatively, would they rather listen to the four companies that have been lobbying so intensely—I have with me reams of letters they have been sending out lately—against opening themselves and their relationships with big-time touts up to scrutiny?

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[Philip Davies]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. For a genuine fan who does not belong to a rugby union club but wants to watch a rugby international, the secondary ticketing market is one of the best ways of indulging their interest.

The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West and my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) found that every report on the secondary ticketing market went against them, so they decided in the all-party group on ticket abuse to produce their own report, because they knew that it could come to a conclusion with which they agreed. It was a sort of desperate measure—no one else would agree with them, so they produced their own report. As I understand it, in their report they argued against capping prices, yet the amendment is in effect a price cap. The amendment states that tickets can be resold, as long as they are not resold above their face value, and that is a price cap—[Interruption.] Of course it is. If someone can resell a ticket but that resale is limited to its price value, there is a price cap on that ticket. We have the extraordinary situation where the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend have come up with their own report, and now they have tabled an amendment that argues against that report. They argued against price caps, but the amendment would introduce one.

There are many arguments against a price cap. First, we do not have price caps on other things. If I buy a ticket to an event, as far as I am concerned that is my ticket and if I want to sell it on to somebody else—for whatever price I can command—that should be my choice. Similarly, if I buy a house and want to sell it on at a later date to somebody at a much higher price, and someone is prepared to pay that price, why should the Government interfere in that legitimate transaction between a willing seller and a willing buyer?

People say that the market in tickets does not work properly because there is a dearth of supply and a lot of demand, and it is the same with houses. There are currently few houses for sale and a lot of people want to buy one, and the price of houses has rocketed as a consequence. Exactly the same arguments apply to housing as to tickets, yet who argues that we should have a price cap on houses and that someone cannot sell their house for more than they paid for it? It would be ridiculous for anybody to argue that, but it is exactly the same principle.

[Pete Wishart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

In a moment, if the hon. Gentleman calms himself down. The only difference is that people think it is populist to say that we should have a cap on tickets, and they know that it would be grotesquely unpopular to say we should have a cap on house prices.

[Pete Wishart]

To take the hon. Gentleman’s analogy to its logical conclusion, it would be like someone coming to a street, buying all the houses in that street, and selling them back at an inflated price. Would he be happy with that?

[Philip Davies]

As far as I understand, that is exactly what the son of John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister, did in Hull. As I recall, he bought a whole street of houses in Hull for a ridiculously low price and sold them on at a higher price afterwards. That is what happens. I know the hon. Gentleman is a socialist too, so I would not expect him to believe in the free market. However, Members on the Conservative Benches are supposed at least to consider themselves believers in the free market. If they agree with the Lords, and in particular with the hon. Lady’s amendment, I do not really see how they can justify that.

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[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.

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[John Robertson]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I like to think that the small venues are for new bands—people who are up and coming and do not have a great following. I have bought a ticket to see AC/DC at Hampden Park, which I had no problem doing because it holds 50,000 people. That was easy, but there is a genuine problem in respect of the small venues. We have a new venue in Glasgow called the Hydro, which holds 13,000 people. I have been there and it is fantastic, but even there, depending on who is coming, the ticket touts are out selling the tickets.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fine speech and covering a range of new issues. One thing we have not thought about is that because the Government have failed to do anything about this, it has been left to the big festivals such as Glastonbury and T in the Park to try to put in place some sort of inventive, creative measure to protect their own audience. Why should it be left up to large festivals to deal with the problem? Surely it is the Government’s responsibility to protect fans.

[John Robertson]

The hon. Gentleman is right about that. I have met various promoters for T in the Park and they have done their level best to try to stop the touts, but even they admit that they cannot do it completely. If we make this illegal, that puts a different front on it. If we tell everybody it is illegal to do something and someone does it, they know it is illegal. If we do not tell them it is illegal, they will continue to do it. As we have already said, they will continue to use all the new technologies that are coming online and they will rip people off. There will be people who are so desperate to buy a ticket to see somebody that they will pay these prices, and as long as somebody is willing to pay them, the problem will continue and prices will keep increasing.