Creative Industries
Debate between Pete Wishart and Chris Bryant(1 week ago)
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Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman used to be a Treasury Minister, so perhaps he can give us some tips on how we can secure that funding. I note that since July last year, Conservative MPs have developed a tendency to call for more expenditure and less taxation on things. I gently suggest to him that those two things do not meet together. If he gives me tips on how I can get more money out of the Treasury, I will give him tips on how to talk about demanding more money.
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the sector: some of our biggest creative industries are completely commercially focused, including publishing, architecture, advertising and video games. However, I have tried to make the argument that the sector is a whole ecosystem; we do not get Great British films and a Great British film industry without a Great British theatre industry, and we do not get a Great British commercial theatre industry without having a subsidised theatre industry as well. We need to foster a combination of broadcasters, subsidised performing arts and commercially centred creative industries, and build on that.
The right hon. Gentleman refers to Arts Council England. As he knows, we have initiated a full review of how Arts Council England works, to ensure that the money does what it is intended to do around the whole of England. The review will be led by Baroness Margaret Hodge, who will be doughty—I think that is the best word—and I look forward to seeing what she comes up with.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman talks about the ecosystem, but he has done something that we have not seen for a long time: he has united every creative sector in opposition to his plans to water down copyright. Copyright has underpinned the success of our creative industries and made them global powerhouses. Yesterday, Sir Paul McCartney warned against those plans, and spoke about what could happen to all creative industries. Does the hon. Gentleman take on board what he says, and will he revisit the plans?
Chris Bryant
As I have said to the hon. Gentleman privately, and am happy to say again in public, I do not believe for a single instant that the legislation that we will eventually put to the House will undermine or water down our copyright regime in this country. It has been absolutely essential to the creative industries that they own their intellectual property and can control their right to it, and we will not change that. However, we face a real problem in this country, as do many countries around the world, which is that there is legal uncertainty around—
Chris Bryant
There is such legal uncertainty that the matter is being contested in different court cases around the world. This afternoon, I met Getty Images, which has brought one such case. We cannot simply wait for the court cases to resolve the matter for us somehow. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would endorse elements of the consultation—for instance, those around transparency. Let us have that conversation. It is a genuine consultation. Earlier this afternoon, I said to my office that I am very happy for Sir Paul McCartney to come in; we can talk it all through with him.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It has been a long time since we have had the Floor of the House of Commons for a debate on the creative industries, and it is always a fantastic debate.
Pete Wishart
I see the Minister nodding along. We find out about all the dynamic enterprises and cultural activity in Members’ constituencies but, more than that, we find out about our colleagues’ hidden talents. I was as surprised as anybody to hear that we have a veteran of the punk days at the Roxy, as well as singers and film writers. We have an abundance of talent in the House, so I feel a bit more confident now: I lost my colleagues in MP4 when they stood down at the last election, so I am actively recruiting, and my door is open to any aspiring musician who wants to perform in MP4.
As usual in these debates, there has been a chorus of approval, support and satisfaction—as there should be—when it comes to the quality of the UK creative industries. We just do these things so well, and that quality has been ingrained in our cultural output. There is something that we do across the whole of these isles that just produces this conveyor belt of talent, imagination and creativity. We have successful creative industries because of the imagination of the people of this country. Is it not great that we can turn around and say that we could power our economy based on the creativity, invention and imagination of the people who inhabit these isles? But we need more than that to be successful. These things are mostly down to the creativity of the people who work in our creative industries, but we also need the right conditions: we need to provide the context and the environment for these creative industries to survive, develop and thrive.
For the last 60 years, we have been quite good at doing that. We have intervened when necessary. We have had conversations and debates about investment, what sort of support should go into the creative industries and whether we get the balance right. Of course, there have been political debates about Budgets and national insurance contributions, but we have basically had the right conditions for art and creativity, and the industry that comes with them, to develop and thrive. We have those things because we have an IP system embedded in UK law that is the envy of the world. It is the bedrock of our creative industries and the foundation of our success. Part of that is our wonderful copyright regime, which, again, is the envy of the world. It makes sure that artists are properly compensated for the wonderful works they produce, and ensures that they get recognised for the works they deliver.
We tamper with all of that at our peril. We have been here before. Back in the 2010s, when copyright exceptions were quite the fashion, the threat to so many of our creative industries was not from AI companies; it was from the internet service providers, the pirates and digitisation. Isn’t it funny that it is always the creative industries that are on the frontline when there are technical innovations? It is always the creative industries that seem to have to suffer because of what we are trying to achieve through technological innovation.
Looking around the Chamber, I think that only the Minister and the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) are veterans of the Digital Economy Act 2017. That was probably the high point of the interest in copyright exceptions. Then, of course, the general philosophical debate was all around an unfettered internet that was to be free at the point of use for everybody. There was this absurd business model that we could somehow have all this high-quality content, and we would not have to pay for any of it. Of course, that was quickly knocked on its head, but we have its legacy with the arrival of the huge tech platforms, with tech brothers getting together and developing their own companies. We have massive tech companies that provide nothing other than platforms and that create very little of the content, and they are growing rich and fat off the creativity and invention of the people who actually provide that content—the artists and musicians themselves. The value gap between the musician, or the artist, and these big platforms and companies is something that we will have to address.
However, I do not think that we have ever had such a threat as generative AI; that is what we are looking at now. It says in my notes that I should have a go at the Minister now for having already made up his mind, but I am actually a bit reassured by what he said, and I think all of us should be encouraged. I really did think that the Government had made up their mind; I thought that they were going to go down the opt-out route without qualification. All the things they have said up to this point certainly seemed to confirm that, and the Minister’s grumpy tone during the statement on these issues did not help matters much, particularly when he had a go at the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It is good to have that reassurance, but what we now have to do—I am looking at colleagues who have contributed to the debate and expressed their concerns—is encourage the Minister gently, through persuasion. He knows the view of the industry and the sector, and I think he knows that it is overwhelmingly negative. He will not be able to find anybody in any creative sector who is telling him that what he proposes with the opt-out will work or is good for the creative industries or even for AI.
We have heard from several colleagues about this idea of a model breakdown, where AI starts to feed on itself. That is what we can expect, and I think the analogy with “Blade Runner” was fantastic. That is exactly where we will be going if we allow unfettered AI development to continue along the same lines. We have reached a really interesting point tonight. I think the Government are probably going to reconsider their position. They are going to take on board what Members have said—
Pete Wishart
I see the Minister shaking his head, but perhaps he will clarify all this when he gets to his feet. I know that the Government think they have a solution that somehow supports both the AI sector and the creative industries sector, but nobody actually believes that. I am sorry, Minister, but no one could go along with the idea that somehow, opening up the nation’s creative works to be scraped and mined would ever get us to a situation that could possibly be useful for the creative industries. I do not think it would be useful for the AI sector, either. That is a really important point when it comes to all of this, and we need to look at it properly.
Lastly, we have heard a few myths, including the idea that there is somehow unclarity about the laws that embed our copyright regime. That is just nonsense—nobody actually believes that. I do not think that even AI companies would say that there is any question about the legality of the copyright regime; it is just something that Ministers trawl out to try to create uncertainty in the sector, and it does not work. The one thing that is absolutely certain is that if we do allow AI companies to engage in unfettered text and data mining, there will be real difficulties. Some of the scenarios that have been painted by other Members who have spoken will be realised, and that will be very damaging for this Government.
We know that the Government are invested in AI. They are in an economic mess, and they are looking to grab at anything that will give them some sort of comfort. AI is obviously one of the areas they have identified that might bring this promised growth, giving them some sort of confidence and reassurance that what they are trying to do with the economy might get it to where they are seeking to take it, but we cannot be obsessively fixated on AI at the cost of so much of our heritage and culture. Where it is right that this Government proceed with AI, they have to take a balanced approach, one that looks after the interests of our nation’s creators, inventors and artists. So far, they have not been able to do so, but there are encouraging signs, so I am looking forward to the Minister’s response this evening. I hope that what he says will encourage us further.
Chris Bryant
I completely agree. One of my colleagues—I cannot remember which—made a point about freelancers. One of the problems in the creative industries is that so many people today are freelancers, and it is very difficult for them to enjoy a regular income, take out a mortgage and so on. My mother was a make-up artist at the BBC in the 1950s—she looked after Shirley Bassey’s wigs, among other things—and in those days that was a full-time paid role, but hardly a single make-up artist is afforded that today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins) made a point about the Hatters, but also about music and games in her constituency, and the importance of enabling emerging artists to prosper. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) likewise made the point that we have to get beyond London and the south-east. That is sometimes a major issue in trying to attract commercial money into the creative industries, on which we are very focused.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) made a point about the importance of devolution, because we want to be able to make sure that this extends across the whole United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) made points—different cultural points—about books in Scots and the Gaelic song sung by Runrig. It is hardly ever mentioned that the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) used to play in Runrig. [Laughter.]
Another subject that was predominant in the debate was about creative education and skills. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), who I think is in every debate I ever take part in, was absolutely right about the need to provide for greater skills in film. That is one of the things international companies come to the UK for, because we have such great film skills. In the past, such people were often trained by the BBC, but there is now very a different structure.
The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) told us about his musical past, but he clarified for us the difference between correlation and causation: I think the Roxy closed on the day he sang there or played there, not because he played there. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) made a very important point about Falmouth School of Art, where Tacita Dean, among others, trained. Of course, being able to have those centres of excellence spread across the whole of the United Kingdom—whether down in Falmouth or in Margate in Thanet—is really important.
In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) made the point about the next generation and the inequality of access to the arts for many people. She also made a really important point about neurodivergent people. An interesting fact I came across when working with people in the jewellery industry is that more than 50% of people who work in jewellery are neurodivergent, and that is enabled by the Responsible Jewellery Council. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) made an important point about the drop in A-levels and other exams. We need those skills not just for the arts themselves, but for all other industries, because those skills are needed by everybody.
I will come back to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), but I notice that they want to bulldoze barriers. The hon. and learned Member almost persuaded me that Brexit was not a very good idea—I am probably not meant to have said that.
On financial burdens—a couple of Conservative Members mentioned the issue of national insurance contributions—I understand the political points that are being made. However, I would just point out that 50% of businesses will pay less in national insurance contributions or the same under the new scheme. Considering that most businesses in the creative sector are smaller than in the wider economy, that probably means there is a higher percentage in the creative industries. I do not want to diminish the concerns of many in this sector, but I do want to get this right.
I think my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane) referred to the problem of people not paying for content and, for that matter, not paying artists when they come and perform. How often is it that everybody says, “Oh, we’ll get a singer along—I’m sure they’ll do it for free”? That is one of the things we need to put an end to, because in the end it should be possible for people to be able to make a living properly in the creative industries.
Several Members referred to the issue of music venues, including the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who also spoke about financial backing in her own constituency, and the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), to whom I have to say that I was really not convinced by the idea of curtailing the period of copyright to 10 years. I think that would destroy the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people in the creative industries in the UK, but if she wants to put it to the electorate, then good luck with that.
I do not know how to refer to them—the Waldorf and Statler over there—but it is great that the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) both talked about the Soft Power Council, and I am glad we have got that up and running. I would be interested to hear whether they have specific ideas about what we should do. Good points were made by several Members about the British Council. I thought it was an act of vandalism a few years ago when it was effectively cut into ribbons, and it is a job of work for us to put it back together.
The hon. Member for Gosport is right about the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority. We are committed to that, and I do not think that work is yet completed. I praise Jen Smith and Baroness Helena Kennedy for the work they are doing, and anything that we can do to help, we will. The hon. Lady is also right about British stories. We want a mixed economy. We will talk about this more at the Select Committee tomorrow morning, but we want a mixed economy in film and for everybody to come and make their films here—American movies, Korean movies, Spanish movies, whatever—but we also want to make British stories in Britain that reflect the Britian that we live in, keeping some of that British IP in the UK so that the value remains here. The right hon. Member for Maldon rightly referred to the cultural protection fund, which of course we are committed to. That is important, not least in relation to our work in Ukraine.
Many Members mentioned artificial intelligence, and I fully understand the levels of concern, so let me say a few things. First, intellectual property is central to the viability of the creative industries, both individuals and the industries themselves. What are they selling, other than intellectual property?
Secondly, many creative industries of course use AI— my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) referred to this in his very good speech—including Paul McCartney in the last year. I do not for one minute suggest that the creative industries are luddites—people seem to think that I have said that, but I certainly have not and it is not what I believe.
Thirdly, good generative AI needs good quality data, and that means licensing—paying for and getting permission for good quality data that is embodied in creative intellectual property. Mike Gross of Data Conversion Laboratory has made that point, and he knows his stuff. I suspect that in future the really good successful generative AI companies will be ones that go down that route.
Fourthly, we seek more licensing—in other words, more remuneration—greater control of rights, and legal clarity for all, and we are seeking to achieve those three things combined. As I said earlier, this is a genuine consultation. All of us are listening. I am doing most of the meetings with the creative industries. I know my counterpart in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Feryal Clark) is doing lots of meetings with the creative industries and people in AI, but most meetings with the creative industries are my job.
Doing nothing is not an option for us, as that would simply mean that we would have to wait for the courts to do their work. In truth, several court cases are already going on. Some of them have come to mutually contradictory views in different jurisdictions, and they do not necessarily provide the clarity of precedent that we might want. It is surely wrong that the only people who can enforce their rights are those with the deepest pockets who can afford to go through long, protracted and expensive court cases. I do not think doing nothing is an option. I am very much in the business of listening to what people think we should do. I have heard quite a lot of the things that people think we should not do, but I would love to hear things that people think we should do.
Quite a lot of people from the creative industries have knocked on my door. We have had meetings. Indeed, we have had very open meetings, and people have expressed their concerns. They have expressed support for some elements, including some that have not even been mentioned in this debate. I am determined to keep on listening to the debate, and to try to find a solution that delivers for the creative industries and for artificial intelligence. It cannot be beyond the wit of humanity to be able to deliver that.
Pete Wishart
It is encouraging that there is real positivity to the Minister’s comments, and I understand that he is trying his hardest to resolve a tricky question. He has heard the creative industries, and he knows that this idea of an opt-out does not work for them. It is all good telling us what we are not supporting and what we would support, but what does he support? If the opt-out is not going to happen, what would he do?
Chris Bryant
I support securing more licensing, greater control of rights and legal clarity for all. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As I said to the right hon. Member for Maldon, there is not a version of rights reservation that works at the moment and is simple and easy. As an author, I know that if someone wants to register for the public lending right, they have to go online and register each of their works. That is relatively simple and straightforward for someone who writes books, because they have only two or three or four. For a photographer, it is a completely different business. We have to come to a technical answer that works for everybody. If there is not a technical answer, we will have to think again. That is the sum total of where we are at. Everybody has supported the transparency measures that have been referred to. It might be that Members would also want to support some of the rights to a personality that have been exercised in some parts of the United States and other parts of Europe that have not been referred to.
I am sure everybody wants me to stop by now. The hon. Member for Gosport referred to several songs that she thought I should adopt as my motto. I think one was “Respect”. I am not sure whether she meant Aretha Franklin’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”, or Erasure’s “A Little Respect”, which I prefer:
I try to discover
A little something to make me sweeter.
I am not sure which of those two she prefers, but I think I will rely on Depeche Mode in the end. When it comes to the creative industries,
I just can’t get enough.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the creative industries.
Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices
Debate between Pete Wishart and Chris Bryant(3 weeks ago)
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Chris Bryant
Yes, I do. Incidentally, there is another point on which we want to make real progress. We must have not only the massive gigs that everybody loves going to—where you can celebrate with thousands—but very intimate gigs. One of the most special moments is seeing a band perform first in a tiny venue of just 100 or 150 people, and then seeing them in a massive venue, performing at Glastonbury or whatever it might be. We need to look at the whole of the music system in the UK. That means a creative education for every single child—wouldn’t it be good if every child had the opportunity to go to live music at least once a year, as well as the opportunity to learn a musical instrument or learn how to sing? Those are all parts of the whole-of-music approach that we need in this country.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I warmly congratulate the Government on bringing forward these measures, which I wholeheartedly support. I was very surprised by the response from the Conservative Front Bench; I think they have got caught up in some garbled, ill-informed nonsense, but I really hope that in time, they come on board with these proposals, because they are important. For too long, music fans have been ripped off and abused by the touts and scalpers, who have been nothing other than parasites on our live music sector, so I wholeheartedly welcome these proposals.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), as well as the FanFair Alliance—which has been campaigning on this issue for such a long time—and campaigning newspapers such as the Daily Record that regularly feature large articles on it. While we have this in place, I would like to hear more about the proposals on dynamic pricing, which I think is the issue that perplexed music fans more than anything else over the summer. We now have some sort of routeway towards resolving ticket touting, but we need to hear more about exactly what the Minister will do about dynamic pricing, because that is something that needs fixed.
Chris Bryant
It is always a delight to be able to please the hon. Gentleman—as I think he would confess, that is not an event that happens very often on the Government Benches. I am not sure whether any tickets are available for his music gigs, or whether they are selling at multiple prices, but he has been a doughty campaigner for the creative industries over the years, and I welcome that.
We were very clear in the general election about what we were going to do in relation to the primary issue. We did not make any commitments around dynamic pricing, which is why we are offering a much more tentative approach to that issue. We also know that there are forms of dynamic pricing that work extremely well; when a person buys a last-minute theatre ticket, that is a form of dynamic pricing, because you want to get the theatre full at the end of the day. We want to tread a bit more carefully in that area, which is why we are launching a call for evidence, rather than presenting our proposals at this stage. If the hon. Gentleman has got good ideas about what we should do, my door is open—do come and talk to us.
Dynamic Ticket Pricing
Debate between Pete Wishart and Chris Bryant(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
It is a particular delight to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have not had an opportunity to congratulate you on your election—hurrah!
It is also a great delight to see the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and to congratulate her on her election. Not many Tories have been elected to many things this year, but it is a great delight to see that she is returning as the Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. She knows a lot about this subject and has devoted a lot of her time and energy to it, and I look forward to working with her. I am sure there will be times when she has cross words with me, but sometimes cross words make Governments better. That was certainly my policy when I was sitting on the Opposition side of the House, so I am sure that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Live events are really important to the British creative economy, and to the whole economy in the UK. It is the joy that they bring. I am sorry to start with a Kylie reference—well, actually I am not—but I would defy anybody to have gone to the Kylie concert in Hyde Park this summer and not come away bouncing with joy and full of the joys of spring. It was beautiful. It was amazing. It was thousands and thousands of people in a royal park enjoying themselves and celebrating. For others who went the night before, it was Stevie Nicks, in a completely different vein, but none the less providing that same sense of joy. That is an important part of what live events can do—that sense of being part of an enormous crowd of people enjoying either singing along or listening and that special sense of being together.
Live music is really important to our economy. I remember, it must be a year ago now, being in Newcastle: Sam Fender was performing at St James’ Park and we went to see P!nk, who was on at the Stadium of Light. That must have brought millions of pounds into the local economy. It was certainly an awful lot of money for the local hotels. Down in Cardiff we have lots of concerts, which many people from the south Wales valleys go to, and people come from all over the world. When Springsteen was there earlier this year, Cardiff basically had to be closed off, but the knock-on for the hotels, the bars and the hospitality industry was really significant. It was also significant for tourism, for which I am also the Minister.
It was reckoned that 200,000 people in the UK worked in the live events industry last year and it is an important part of what we do. It is part of the reason many people want to come to the UK. If I may gently say so, one of the things we would like to sort out is British acts being able to tour elsewhere in Europe, but it is good that Europeans are able to come here to see some of our acts.
The hon. Lady makes a really important point that this issue is not just about very big venues; it is about small venues as well, and I do have anxiety about the state of play for many of them. Some of those problems are shared with the whole of the hospitality industry, incidentally—skills, staffing, the costs of fuel, security and so on—but it is a simple fact, as she points out and as her Select Committee has pointed out, that there have been far too many closures over recent years. We stand ready to do what we possibly can to try to slow down, if not halt, that process of closure, because she is right: if an act does not have somewhere to start with a capacity of 250 or 300 or 500, how will they ever grow to end up filling Wembley or any of the arenas we have been talking about? The value in live events is created by the artist, the fans and the venue—it is a combination of the three; it is not created by ticket touts—and it is that combination that we really have to work on.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that ticketing has changed. I remember once when I was in Saint Petersburg, or Leningrad as it was then—that is how old I am—I went to buy tickets for the opera and we bought tickets that were rolled up in a little peg hole. That is what a ticketing system used to be. That is what theatres used to have in the UK. Then we changed over to a system of having a physical ticket that we presented. Many of us have kept all our tickets for all the shows we have ever been to; I know friends who have collections of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark tickets through the years and so on. Now, of course, we have a completely online, digital system. That is great in many ways. It can be easier and enhance security, but it can also be much more difficult, and has produced a whole set of new challenges for fans, artists and venues to make the market work effectively: barcodes, QR codes and all the rest of it; transferring a ticket from one person to another; different apps developed by different venues, and so on.
There are very new challenges. First, there is security, to which the hon. Lady referred, and someone getting the ticket that they actually paid for, rather than a ticket that did not exist in the first place. We have all heard hideous examples of that, and it is an embarrassment for us all that over recent years we have seen so few prosecutions in that area, despite the fact that nearly all of us can cite instances of constituents falling prey to those who are effectively selling tickets that they thought they might be able to buy online but do not possess. People then turn up to the venue and find that their tickets are not being honoured because they were not tickets in the first place. That is a security issue in the modern market.
There is also a fairness issue. The hon. Lady points out the experience of people logging on at 9 o’clock and sitting there for hours and hours. It is a system in which we have no idea how somebody gets to be number 1,273 rather than 1,884 in the queue. It seems completely and utterly random, but one suspects that there might be clever means by which people who have deep pockets and know how to navigate the system are able to manipulate it. It is clear that there are many instances of bots effectively hoovering up a large number of tickets using lots of different IDs, credit cards and the rest of it. That is an issue of fairness. Is everybody queuing fairly or not?
Then, there is the question of transparency. Online sites are not as open as they might be about the real or original cost—the face-value cost—of the ticket that they then sell for a different price. Some people say to me, “Well, it says ‘FV’, and all you have to do is click on the FV,” but why do sites not make the face value immediately obvious? Let me give the House one instance of inflated pricing, which is much more excessive in the secondary market than the hon. Lady said.
If someone who wants to see Dua Lipa at the Royal Albert Hall on 17 October visits the Viagogo site, they can either buy a ticket with a face value of €63 for £912— I do not know why it is cited in euros—or they can buy a ticket with a face value of £70 for £1,000. Or—and this is my favourite—they can buy for £9,444 a ticket that has a face value of £126.38. As the hon. Lady rightly said, not a single penny of the difference between £126 and £9,444 will go to the artist, the venue, the cleaner or lighting expert in the venue, the person who wrote the songs that Dua Lipa will sing, or the fans. It is simply going to Viagogo, and I think that that is unfair. It is not right; it is inappropriate. I know dozens and dozens of artists who are utterly embarrassed about the situation in which they find themselves, and they want us to act in this sphere.
Pete Wishart
We are delighted that the Minister is on top of this and knows about the issues and difficulties, but we are more interested to hear, in the time that he has left, about what he will do to resolve it. There have been reports from the Competition and Markets Authority and the Select Committee of the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). Will the Government look at them constructively and bring in legislation so that this is no longer a feature of live ticket sales?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman is a terribly impatient man; I am just coming that. [Interruption.] No, we have until 7.30. He is right that we must take action on the secondary ticketing market, and we committed ourselves to doing so during the general election. We believe that those people are denying true fans the opportunity to buy tickets on the primary market and are pocketing any profit for themselves. As I said, very little of the additional revenue actually goes to artists, venues or anyone working in the live venue sector more generally. The Government are committed to putting fans back at the heart of live events, and to clamping down on unfair practices in the secondary ticketing market.
That is why we have committed to introducing new protections for consumers on ticket resales, and we will be launching a consultation in the autumn to find the best ways to address ongoing problems on the resale market. The consultation will consider a range of options, including revisiting recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s 2021 report, such as putting limitations on the price of tickets listed for resale over the face value; limiting the number of tickets that individual resellers can list to the number of tickets that they can legitimately buy via the original platform; making platforms accountable for the accuracy of information about tickets that they list for sale; and ensuring that the CMA has the powers that it needs to take swift, decisive action against platforms and touts to protect consumers.
We want live events ticketing to work for UK fans. I would say that the market was made for humanity, not humanity for the market, and sometimes Government need to intervene to ensure that the market does indeed work for humanity.