Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill

Debate between Sajid Javid and Mike Weatherley

Friday 21st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point. In some cases, that can be advantageous, but I accept that where there is clearly very high demand, there are sometimes good reasons to restrict the number of tickets that an individual can buy.

[Mike Weatherley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the people who should be making that judgment are the music promoters and managers, who almost unanimously say that the point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is totally inappropriate, and that they do not like that way of selling? They prefer to sell directly to the fans, rather than to those intermediaries who distort the market for the type of person they want to come to the concert.

[Sajid Javid]

It is a varied market, and different promoters and creative acts will wish to sell their tickets in different ways. It could well be the case that they do not like selling tickets in bulk—that is their choice; no one is forcing them to do so—and if they wish to sell individual buyers a maximum of two or three a time, that is their choice. Equally, the price at which tickets are sold is their choice, and if a company or creative act is genuinely concerned about that, they always have the option to increase or reduce the price. That is how the free market operates.

[Mike Weatherley]

Is that not exactly the point? The copyright holder themselves can make that judgment. Many promoters restrict ticket sales to four or six at a time, only to find that 100 are on display through the software programmes that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) mentioned and that offer multiple ticket buying in different formats. If the promoter wants to offer a maximum of six to an individual, he should be allowed to do so.