Online Safety Bill

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I speak in this debate as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse, which I set up over 10 years ago. The APPG shines a light on ticket abuse and campaigns to protect fans who are purchasing event tickets from being scammed and ripped off, often by the large-scale ticket touts that dominate resale sites such as Viagogo and StubHub. The APPG works with experts in the field such as FanFair Alliance, a music industry campaign, and the Iridium Consultancy to tackle industrial-scale ticket touting. I hope that when this legislation is reviewed in Committee, those organisations will be called on to share their expertise in this area.

Sadly, online ticket fraud is absolutely rife. Despite some regulatory and legislative improvements, not least in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, too many fans are still being scammed on a regular basis. The Bill, as it stands, includes a major loophole that means people will not be properly protected from online fraud. Search engines such as Google are not currently covered by the requirements on fraudulent advertising. A key issue in the ticketing market is how websites that allow fraudulent tickets to be sold often take out paid ads with Google that appear at the top of the search results. This gives the false impression to consumers that these sites are official ticket outlets. People mistakenly believe that only authorised ticket outlets can advertise on Google—people trust Google—and they are scammed as a result.

The Times reported last year that Google was taking advertising money from scam websites selling Premier League football tickets, even though the matches were taking place behind closed doors during lockdown—you couldn’t make it up. The Online Safety Bill needs to ensure that consumers are provided with much greater protection and that Google is forced to take greater responsibility for who it allows to advertise. If the Bill took action, online ticket fraud would be drastically reduced. With £2.3 billion lost to online fraud in the UK last year, it is very much needed.

It is also important to remember the human side of online fraud. Victims go through intense stress, as they are not only scammed out of their money but feel duped, stupid and humiliated. There cannot be a Member of this House who has not had to support a constituent devastated by online fraud. I have come across many stories, including one of an elderly couple who bought two tickets to see their favourite artist to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. When they arrived at the venue, they were turned away and told that they had been sold fake tickets. I have a lot more to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think you get the drift.

Legacy of Jo Cox

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

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

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi), and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) and the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for securing this important debate. I congratulate my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater)—as others have said, it is fantastic to be able to say that—on her excellent, indeed sublime, maiden speech. I have no doubt that she will go on to do great things and I am excited to be able to watch and, I hope, help her in any way I can. No one knew Jo better, and that love and admiration shone through today. I know Jo would have been very proud, as indeed her whole family rightly are.

Sadly, we all remember hearing the news on that horrific day in June 2016, as well as the conversations that followed with friends, family and, particularly for MPs, our children. Jo’s children, Cuillin and Lejla, were much younger than mine, but I have no doubt that children of MPs, like my Joseph and Emily, who kiss goodbye to their mam or their dad when they head off for a regular constituency day, were united that day, both in fear for their parent’s safety, but also in heartbreak, love and understanding for Jo’s children.

I have always reassured my family, as I am sure we all do, that I am safe in my work. Although the weeks and months after Jo’s murder were difficult for everyone who knew her in so many ways, we have all been comforted by Jo’s words that we all know so well:

“we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]

Jo put those words into action and, like me, as we have heard she was a pragmatic idealist. Also like me, she believed in cross-party working—for any advice on setting up all-party groups, I’m your girl! I truly believe that in order for something to succeed, it must be done with the support of colleagues across the political spectrum and across the House. Anyone who knows me in this place will know that I stand by that.

Soon after becoming an MP Jo set up the cross-party loneliness commission, together with the former Member for South Ribble. I am proud of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) who was able to continue Jo’s work on that important issue. Loneliness is not just a problem for the elderly, as the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said in her excellent contribution. As I discovered when my daughter went to university, although surrounded by many young people, she was desperately lonely and felt very isolated for the first few months, so I would add students to the list that the hon. Lady gave earlier.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness found evidence that loneliness can adversely affect a person’s health, so it is indeed a public health issue that we all need to take seriously. I am sure that Jo would have been working throughout the pandemic, among other things, to keep people connected and help tackle loneliness, as I know the Jo Cox Foundation has been doing.

Last December, as the then shadow Minister for Veterans, I asked the then Veterans Minister, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), to support and promote the Jo Cox Foundation’s Great Winter Get Together for veterans. I am pleased to say that we were both able to attend a very large virtual roundtable discussion with hundreds of veterans, hosted by the fabulous Jo Cox Foundation and the Royal British Legion. That was just at the beginning of this year—in February, I recall—and it was excellent.

As we have heard, Jo achieved so much in such a short space of time as an MP. We will never know what might have been, but I am confident that it would have been magnificent. Jo’s legacy lives on in the organisations, charities and work that continue in her name. Through the Jo Cox women in leadership programme, we are seeing more women who love and act like Jo enter politics, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) and my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield). We are all the better for it.

It is an honour, as well as heartbreaking, to sit under the Jo Cox memorial plaque, a reminder of the impact that she had across the Chamber and, indeed, the world. It is our duty to ensure that Jo is remembered and that her legacy lives on. On days like today, I am confident that it will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

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

If he will make it his policy to support the Charity Commission’s request to refer the Royal Albert Hall to the charity tribunal.

[The Attorney General (Michael Ellis)]

The disagreement between the Charity Commission and the Royal Albert Hall is long-running and raises complex issues of charity law. The parties have been asked to try to resolve these issues without recourse to potentially costly litigation. That process is ongoing. My officials are continuing to engage with the parties to assist them in working through the contentious matters raised by this case.

[Mrs Hodgson [V]]

A face-value ticket for an Eric Clapton concert in May next year at the Royal Albert Hall costs £175, yet tickets are on sale on Viagogo at a 577% mark-up, at £1,185 per ticket. The seats in question are owned by a party related to a vice-president of the corporation. The Attorney General wrote to me last week to say that he wishes to

“move this matter towards a satisfactory resolution as swiftly as possible.”

Will he therefore take immediate action on this serious and clear conflict of interest at a British institution and permit the Charity Commission to take this to a tribunal?

[Mr Speaker]

Eric Clapton is a rock star, just to help the Attorney General!

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

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

Treasury data shows that transport infrastructure spending in London is 2.5 times more per person than in the whole of the north of England. If the Chancellor is serious about levelling up, we need to see spending on our vital infrastructure in all parts of the north-east too. That is why, on Wednesday last week, I presented a petition to Parliament calling for the Leamside line to be reopened in full, and the Restoring Your Railway Fund bid calling for that was submitted on Friday. Reopening the line in full would bring rail back to Washington, which is the largest town in England without a rail link, but the line would also bring remarkable economic and connectivity benefits to the entire region. After more than a decade of neglect from Conservative Governments, with the added impact of the pandemic on top, the north-east needs that.

Some businesses in my constituency have had to close due to the coronavirus restrictions, without any access to financial support. They include driving instructors, mobile hairdressers and other businesses that do not have premises. The Government should not be putting local authorities on the line and making them the fall guys for a conscious decision that the national Government made. It is this Government who are hitting an estimated 6,500 key workers across my constituency with a real-terms pay cut. They include the NHS heroes we all clapped for, but clapping does not put food on their tables. This also hits our teachers, police officers and all public sector workers, who we all rely on day in, day out. After working on the frontline throughout the pandemic, our key workers really do deserve better.

My constituents all need assurances and certainty, but the Government have failed to do that in this Budget. The Government have made it clear that they are happy to stick to the status quo of the same unfair economy and unequal country that has been so cruelly exposed by this deadly virus.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to tackle covid-19 on the prison estate.

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

What assessment he has made of the preparedness of prisons to respond to the covid-19 outbreak.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the preparedness of prisons to respond to the covid-19 outbreak.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend can be assured that my officials work closely with the Prison Officers Association. The restricted regimes we have put in place mean that prisoners are spending more of their time in their cells, to support social distancing. When they are allowed out of their cells—for example, for exercise, association or showering—it is on a rota basis, in small, manageable groups supervised by officers, allowing for social distancing to be maintained. The message to stick to the guidance is being reinforced through gold command as part of the command and control structures that now operate right across our prison estate, and we are reinforcing that message through a range of activity—for example, via posters and prison radio.

[Mrs Hodgson [V]]

While most prisons are taking every precaution to prevent the spread of covid-19, union sources report that some rogue governors are attempting to return to business-as-usual practices, such as unlocking large numbers of prisoners and restarting training courses. Does the Secretary of State condemn that reckless behaviour and agree that all governors should be following official guidance, without exception?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady is right to point out the danger of over-enthusiasm going ahead of the guidance. It is clear that the work that has been done by governors, staff and, indeed, the prisoners themselves in our institutions has helped to minimise the sort of explosive outbreak that we were quite rightly worried about. My advice—my instruction—to everybody involved in this is to stick to the guidelines. We are not in a position yet to change that regime. Please follow the guidelines that have been set out clearly by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [Lords]

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. The integration of transport and the co-operation of all stakeholders in the run-up to the games, as well as during and after, is being considered by the organising committee and other stakeholders, including the Department for Transport. That is a key factor that we hope will ensure the legacy of the games.

The Bill will also set a statutory basis for a games transport plan and provide the Secretary of State with a power of direction to safeguard the delivery of essential road regulation measures. I can assure the House that any road regulation measures will be kept to a minimum, so we can run a safe and efficient games. Local residents and businesses will be consulted and kept informed of the proposals.

Secondly, the Bill will work to protect the commercial rights of those who invest in the games as sponsors. Securing commercial sponsorship is critical to staging a world-class event and maintaining investment in the games. That can be achieved only when the rights of sponsors are protected. The Bill introduces measures, similar to those for the Olympic games in London and the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, to protect against unauthorised association. That is not designed to stop the many local residents and community groups who will want to show their support for the games; in fact, the organising committee wants to make it easier for them. Last week, it launched its new community programme, United by Birmingham 2022. Community projects that share the vision and mission of the games can apply to join.

The provisions are instead aimed at stopping commercial infringements, where a business is claiming an association with the games without making the commitments required of an authorised business. The Bill places a duty on the organising committee to produce guidance to ensure that everyone is clear about what activity may constitute an infringement. It introduces restrictions to advertising and trading in and around games locations. Again, they are in line with the approach of previous games. The restrictions will ensure that trading does not obstruct easy movement in the vicinity of games locations and will provide a consistent approach at each venue.

Regulations will set out the detail of when and where the temporary and proportionate restrictions will apply. They will be driven by the particular usage of each games location. The organising committee will be required to produce guidance on the effect of the advertising and trading restrictions, which local authorities will share with traders that may be affected. That will help to ensure that traders likely to be affected will be aware of what they need to do.

Thirdly, there are provisions on ticket touting. There is a role for a responsible secondary ticketing market for those who are genuinely no longer able to attend events, but professional touts are a scourge on any major event. They make tickets more expensive and make it harder for fans to see the events they love. We have already legislated to ensure there is a responsible market, from strengthening requirements on secondary platforms to banning touts from using bots to dodge security measures. Those measures received the support of both sides of the House. These are robust powers that stop online touts hoovering up large numbers of tickets for profit and help consumers to make informed choices when buying tickets on the secondary market. However, these games are a global, multi-sport event underpinned by significant public investment, so we want to go even further so that fans can buy tickets, confident that they will not be funding unscrupulous touts. That is vital if we are to act as a powerful deterrent to touts and protect the integrity of the games. Only those vendors authorised to sell tickets by the Birmingham 2022 organising committee will be permitted to do so, meaning that buying tickets will be clear, simple and affordable for genuine fans.

The Bill will create an offence that will apply to any unauthorised attempt to sell tickets for profit in the course of business or in a public place. Over 1 million tickets will be available for games events.

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

The measures that the Minister is announcing sound as though they will go some way towards achieving what we all want: to ensure that tickets end up in the hands of the fans at the price intended, not at vastly inflated prices. To ensure the enforcement of what he hopes to achieve, will he consider extra funding for National Trading Standards so that it has the resources to enforce what he has put in the Bill?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Member for that point and praise her for the work that she has done on unscrupulous secondary ticket sales. She makes a fair point. The dynamics and details of sales and enforcement relating to tickets have still to be determined, and I am sure that everybody has heard her comments.

The organising committee’s ticketing strategy will be underpinned by the values of fairness, affordability and accessibility. That will help to ensure that everyone who wants to experience the games will have an opportunity to do so.

Finally, the Bill contains measures on the funding of, and reporting on, the games. The organising committee has been established as a non-departmental public body. It is subject to standard controls on public bodies and will provide regular budgetary and financial updates to Parliament over the life cycle of the games. Indeed, the organising committee’s first annual report and accounts were laid in Parliament in September last year, and the report for the year 2019-20 is due to be published this coming July.

The Bill contains a technical measure that makes sure that financial assistance given to the organising committee continues to comply with financial propriety rules. Alongside that, the Bill also requires the organising committee to produce an annual report on its delivery of the games. However, those interested in the delivery of the games will not need to wait for a statutory report. The organising committee already produces quarterly updates on its delivery; the next one will be available shortly and will be published on its website. Indeed, I met the CEO of the organising committee, Ian Reid, during my recent visit to Birmingham and came away with a really strong sense of confidence that the games will be a huge success.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Gary Sambrook) and to have listened to some excellent maiden speeches. I am pleased to take part in this debate, not least because I had an important statutory instrument Committee on coronavirus at 6 pm, so had to slip seamlessly out of and back into the Chamber. I am grateful for your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I welcome the fact that the 2022 Commonwealth games will be held in Birmingham. It is a brilliant opportunity for the country, especially the west midlands—which, I am sure hon. Members have noticed, I am not from. I wish to focus my remarks on part 3 of the Bill, specifically with regard to ticket touting. As the House will know, I have campaigned against abuses in the secondary ticketing market for over a decade, and it can rest assured that I will not stop until fans stop being ripped off. We have had some notable achievements, in the last 18 months especially, but we are not there yet. The Bill provides the Government with an opportunity to address some of the issues relating to the secondary ticketing market. The Minister outlined some of those in his opening speech and I will be excited to see the detail when it works its way through the House.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent point about ticket touts. Does she agree that it is very important that people across the UK can attend the games, no matter their socioeconomic class or how much money they have in their pocket, and that the organisers take ticket pricing extremely seriously?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I totally agree, and I shall say more about that shortly. I know that the Minister and, in particular, my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State share our passion for fairness in this regard, and I hope that the Bill will be a strong instrument in sorting out some of the worst aspects of touting in the ticket marketplace.

Part 3 says that touting tickets for the games will be prohibited. Hear, hear: that is excellent news. It will help the organising committee to ensure that tickets are both accessible and affordable for genuine fans, and I welcome that aim. The ethos of the sporting industry is to give people who will not necessarily ever have attended a sporting event—people who are typically young, or from a low socioeconomic background—access to affordable tickets, so that they can attend events and engage with, and potentially take up, the sport involved. They may then become the grassroots that can keep a sport alive. It is outrageous that ticket touts, operating outside the law, can take that opportunity away from people who might need it and sell tickets, many times above their face value, for personal profit.

Ticket touting does not benefit the sport, the players, the organisers or the venue; it only benefits the tout. Tickets for the games will be rightly sought after and I am sure that we will all try to get hold of some, so how will the Government enforce the regulations? What support will Birmingham Trading Standards be given to enforce them, in the form of finance and resources, and will West Midlands Police be given additional funds to support Trading Standards? Given that much of the touting activity targeting the games will be online, will the National Trading Standards e-Crime Team receive additional funds to tackle online breaches of the legislation?

Birmingham Trading Standards does not have the expertise or, currently, the trained staff that are needed in this highly specialised area. A Minister in the other place, Baroness Barran, said:

“Enforcement officers already have a suite of investigatory powers available to them through schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 February 2020; Vol. 802, c. 200.]

However, enforcement officers do not have the funding and resources that they need to implement these powers, and the “deterrent” in the Consumer Rights Act 2015 does not work. I hope that the convictions, just two weeks ago, and the sentencing of two ticket touts in Leeds will deter ticket touts; but they, too, will know that enforcement agencies do not have the necessary resources to do anything about their illegal behaviour. There are simply too many touts for an under-resourced agency to deal with.

Touts have been able to get away with it scot free for far too long, and the Bill must ensure that that is a thing of the past. According to the Department’s press release about the Bill last year,

“buying tickets will be clear, simple and affordable.”

However, the Minister will be aware that Google has allowed Viagogo to have “paid-for ads” for most events at the top of its search engine. Will the Government ensure that Google does not take sponsored ads for games tickets from secondary sites such as those of Viagogo and StubHub? As the Minister knows, ads for Viagogo that appear at the top of Google searches give consumers the impression that this a trusted and verified website, but that could not be further from the truth. Will he please tell us who, if the ads do appear and tickets are found on the secondary ticket websites, will be responsible for reporting the existence of those tickets? The games organisers will have enough to do without having to search and check that there are no fraudulent tickets for sale online. What guidance and support will the organising committee be given to establish a mechanism to reassure those who buy tickets that they are buying them from official ticketing platforms for the games?

London 2012 showed that we can protect tickets for events. That worked really well, and the Commonwealth games, or any other ticketed event, should not be any different. As we saw in 2012, ticketing regulations must be supranational, and ticket touting must be made an offence anywhere in the world. People operating abroad or using servers that are abroad, and selling tickets to the games, must be subjected to these regulations if we are to protect consumers and the reputation of the games. It should not matter where a person is, or where the server that that person is using is: ticket touting must be an offence anywhere in the world.

The Government can and should protect consumers from the abuses of the secondary ticket market. The Commonwealth games need not have a special status; the Government can use the points that I have briefly made as a blueprint for other high-demand music, sporting and theatre events that attract visitors to the UK. I urge the Minister to look into this issue as a matter of urgency. The Government need to fund enforcement agencies properly, so that we can stamp out ticket abuse once and for all.

TV Licences for Over-75s

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

I did, but this is a debating Chamber—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) does not agree. I hope that she makes some original points when she comes to speak. I simply say that there will probably be a general election at some point in the next few years, and possibly before 2022. In this Chamber, we should debate policy; that is what we are put here to do.

I happen to think that one of the biggest questions we face concerns the fact that people who are going into work today will not receive an occupational pension, because such pensions have disappeared. Many retired people—good luck to them; my parents are in this category —receive good occupational pensions. Some of those people, although not most, would be regarded by many as relatively wealthy. In my view, therefore, we must look at the principle of taxing benefits that are paid out as so-called freebies—of course, the money has to come from somewhere—according to the recipients’ means.

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

I want to expand on the point about the difference between the welfare state as originally devised by the 1945 Government, and what we have now. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is a moveable feast? Things have been added and taken away over the years. For example, dentistry was included at first, and it is not now. We added the free TV licences in 2000, and David Cameron added universal infant free school meals—heaven forbid that anyone would try to take them away now. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the welfare state has changed and evolved over the years, and that is a good thing?

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Lady makes a perfectly fair point. The welfare state has always evolved. At heart, however, it is about the contributory system. I think most people would expect that when they pay into the system, they will get what they were told they would receive. Obviously, anyone who was over 75 in 2000 and went on to receive a free TV licence cannot conceivably have been told, when they began paying contributions at the start of their working life, that that was one of the benefits that they would receive.

Of course, the obvious point to be made is this: does that mean that I think we should not have free TV licences for the over-75s? The short answer is that I do not think there should be a TV licence. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon that it is not remotely sustainable as a solution. In my office in Parliament, I have three young members of staff. We worked out that we have three subscriptions to Netflix, two to Amazon Prime and one to Now TV. The whole world of TV viewing in this country is changing very rapidly and the licence fee is deeply anachronistic. It is levied on people without any reference to their ability to pay and without reference to whether they even watch the BBC. It does not seem to fit the era in which we live or the direction in which communications is heading.

How should we pay for it? I do not imagine that I am the world’s foremost expert on this point, but I think that—taking the principle of public service broadcasting, which I do believe in—everyone should contribute to some degree, based on their ability to pay. We should look at a core service for the BBC funded by, for example, a supplement on subscriptions to Netflix, to ensure that everyone who benefits from having a public broadcaster contributes to some degree.

In this Chamber, we could all stand up at any time and say the easiest thing. The easiest thing here is to say how wrong it is to take away this responsibility from the Government and put it on the BBC. The easy point to make would be to suggest that we as Conservatives are somehow taking benefits away from people or doing something harsh. The reality is that the welfare contract I have referred to throughout my speech is changing fundamentally.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I welcome the opportunity to debate free TV licences for over-75s. My mam, who I know will be watching, as a lot of pensioners do—I am sure lots of people besides our mams will be watching the Parliament channel—is very passionate about this issue because she is turning 75 in January. To her, this is personal, as she keeps telling me. She feels it has been done deliberately to give her a hard time. It is also personal to the thousands of pensioners who will be worse off if the free TV licence for over-75s is revoked, curtailed or means-tested.

In March, I hosted and addressed the National Pensioners Convention in Parliament for its rally on the BBC’s consultation. I share all of their frustrations about these proposed changes, because I know—I heard this at the rally, from the pensioners—how important their TVs are to their everyday lives. That is why I contributed to the BBC’s consultation in February this year. I have received notification that my letter will be included in the consultation document, so I hope all my points will be taken on board by the BBC and, in turn, listened to by the Government.

The introduction of free TV licences in 2000 for those aged over 75 was one of the many great achievements of the last Labour Government. That is why I and many of my colleagues opposed the Conservative Government’s outsourcing of this social benefit to the BBC as part of its 2015 royal charter. As we have heard, the cost to the BBC is roughly equivalent to the total it currently spends on all of BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, the BBC news channel, CBBC and CBeebies, so I strongly disagree with what the Prime Minister said at last week’s Prime Minister’s questions in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). She said that

“there is no reason why the BBC, with the money made available to it, is not able to continue that.”—[Official Report, 1 May 2019; Vol. 659, c. 203.]

I am incredulous that the Prime Minister really believes the BBC can fund all of this without detriment. Even to try to do so would be extremely detrimental to the content the BBC is able to offer, and risks causing immense damage to the quality of the service that we all currently enjoy.

I agree with BECTU—the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union—which has said, in opposing the proposals to scrap or limit free TV licences:

“as a welfare benefit, meeting the cost of free licence fees should be the duty of the government”.

It is a disgrace that the Government not only feel able to wash their hands of the responsibility for providing this welfare policy, but are now refusing to rule out breaking the commitment they made in the 2017 Conservative manifesto to maintain free TV licences for the over-75s up to 2022. More than 5,000 households in my constituency are eligible for a free TV licence as they have someone over the age of 75. I am sure that those households will feel let down and unable to trust the Conservative Government if their free TV licence is taken away.

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The BBC is under a lot of pressure in respect of new services, and has introduced BBC Sounds, on-demand services and social media services. These services are less likely to be used by the over-75s, but the Government expect the BBC to introduce these services and take away the benefit for over-75s or take the costs. This cannot stand. Does she not agree that the Government need to pay for this, because the BBC needs to continue to innovate?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Hodgson]

Exactly. I am pleased that my hon. Friend has made that intervention to make that point. The BBC needs to innovate, move forward and get better. This move would be to its detriment. It would be a huge backward step in terms of what the BBC would be able to provide in the future, and it just makes no sense.

As we have heard over and over again from Members in all parts of the House, the BBC is much more than just entertainment. Loneliness is blighting the lives of people across the country, with four in 10 people saying that their television is their main source of company. If the Government were serious about tackling the issue of social isolation, they would not be continuing their devastating programme of austerity cuts that affect the most vulnerable in our society. If free TV licences are ended, curtailed or means-tested, millions of older people, who suffer disproportionately from social isolation, will have to pay to keep the little company they have. I feel as though the Minister, his Parliamentary Private Secretary and the Whip are suffering social isolation today in this Chamber, because, as you will notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, they are the only ones here—here because of their roles. I do not think we could have any fewer Conservatives in the Chamber and be allowed to continue!

As with so many of the Government’s policies, this is yet another cruel attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. The Government must be honest with the country: austerity is not over. That is proved by the fact that the Minister said in her opening remarks that this policy change was dreamed up under the original austerity plans of Osborne—or rather, the former Chancellor—and it is just being implemented now. If austerity is really over, why can the Government not just drop this hugely unpopular and unfair cut?

As we have heard, the licence fee concession was guaranteed to be safe until at least 2022 in the Conservative manifesto. The Government are shirking their responsibility, breaking their promises and punishing pensioners. They must stop passing the buck, accept their basic moral duty, and stick by the manifesto commitment on which all Government Members were elected. That is probably why the majority of them are not present to front this up—because they cannot. The Government need to properly fund TV licences for the over-75s, and they need to do it now.

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[Kevin Brennan]

As I said, the hon. Gentleman is entitled to make that argument but is not entitled to palm the decision off on the BBC. That is the essence of our point.

My old university friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (John Grogan)—who is still, I think, the distinguished chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the BBC—said that George Osborne is the villain of the piece. I think that many of us can agree with that, in many ways. I am looking forward to the rapturous coverage of my hon. Friend’s speech in the Evening Standard tomorrow. He said that his majority is currently 249, I think. I am sure that he is going to romp home after his speech today when his older constituents read how he so ably supported them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) pointed out that for over-75s living alone, TV can literally be a lifeline. She mentioned the amount of money that will be taken out of the pockets of people in her constituency. That is the essential point. If this concession is ended, people in an already hard-pressed community will have to pay in full for their TV licence. That is money that should not be taken out of communities that are struggling at the moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Faisal Rashid) read out some of the quotes from constituents who had written to him and pointed out that they understand what the Government are up to and will not be fooled by the approach they are taking.

My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) knows a lot about TV. Like my brother, she has appeared as an actor on “Coronation Street”, and she knows what she is talking about when she says that TV is a friend to the lonely. The work that she has continued with the Jo Cox Foundation, which she mentioned, is to be commended. It is a pity that the Government are not rethinking their approach in the light of all the evidence about loneliness and older people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) accused the Government of devolving their political responsibility for the cuts, and she is absolutely right—that is exactly what they are doing. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) pointed out that 7,000 people in her constituency receive this welfare provision, as she rightly called it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) correctly pointed out that this policy has two effects—on the BBC through the hospital pass that it has been given, and on pensioners in the form of the stealth tax that it will represent if the Government do not act. He also pointed out that 40% of people entitled to pension credit do not receive it, so there will be a double whammy for them. He mentioned the Government’s claim that austerity is over and gave them some political advice. I knew him when he was a political adviser to the former Labour Government, so I would advise the Minister to listen very carefully to what he said, because the Government will pay a political price if they do not.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) quoted “Flower of Scotland” when referring to the fact that I pointed out that his Scottish Conservative colleagues had been completely wrong when they said that we—his party and my party—had not opposed this measure during the passage through this place of the Digital Economy Act. I can add to what I said about the Committee stage. On 28 November 2016, my colleagues and I tabled an amendment on Report in which we also opposed this measure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) told us about her own representations to the BBC’s consultation. I hope that it will listen to what she said, but more importantly, I hope that the Government will listen, because ultimately that is where the responsibility lies. My hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) rightly said that this was a “Let’s blame the BBC” policy, and that his constituents would pay the price for the Government’s cynical breach of their promise.

I remind the House that we have consistently opposed this underhand stealth tax on older people and the creative sector. We strongly support the excellent campaign that has been run on this by many of my hon. Friends, but also by publications such as the Daily Mirror. It is wrong to outsource social policy to an unelected organisation whose historical mission is to entertain, educate and inform the country, not to decide who should be the beneficiaries of Government social policy. But if the Government believe that that should be part of the BBC’s role, they should have argued for it. They could have put in their manifesto—

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

Not for the moment.

The Government could have put in their manifesto that they intended to outsource to the BBC—an organisation that is not democratically accountable—a concession intended to help older citizens. They did not do that. They could have consulted civic society, such as the National Pensioners Convention, which my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) mentioned—I am sorry that I cannot give way to her at this point—or Age UK, which said in its briefing for the debate:

“Age UK firmly believes it is the Government’s responsibility to look after vulnerable older people, not the BBC’s.”

Did they do that? No. Did they have the courage to make the argument for cutting the money that pays for free TV licences for the over-75s? No. Instead, they took the craven path of taking BBC management into a dark room, with the cynical intention of offloading their responsibility for helping older people on to our national broadcaster. The sheer brazenness of it is something to behold, even for the Tories. When combined with a promise in the party’s manifesto to maintain a concession that it has already offloaded to a reluctant third party, it is even more brazen. You cannot pass the parcel with social policy like this and call yourself a responsible Government.

The Government say that this is now a matter for the BBC, but they hope and expect the concession to stay. That is cynical. They say that the BBC willingly agreed to take over responsibility for the licence fee concession, but only in the same way that the victim of a robbery agrees to hand over their wallet with a gun pressed against their head. The Government’s whole approach to this has been underhand, aggressive and based on bullying. Many Members here today have been involved in trade unions as members, representatives or officials, so we know what a negotiation looks like, and this was not a negotiation. It is the kind of politics that gives politicians a bad name. If the Conservatives want to rid themselves of the cost of free TV licences, they should have the courage to say so and say that they are doing it.

This is a point of principle for us. We cannot accept a policy that takes responsibility for even a small part of our social security system away from Government and palms it off on an organisation with no accountability to the electorate. That is not principled political leadership. It is craven and cynical political opportunism, made worse by the false promises in the manifesto. Older people are not stupid. They will see this for what it is: a Tory stealth tax on the elderly, and a cynical, despicable ruse to pickpocket our older citizens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise the sad connection with gang offending. Sadly, corrosive substances are sometimes used as weapons by gangs in retribution and as a means of enforcement. The CPS guidance identifies that phenomenon and encourages prosecutors to apply for criminal behaviour orders to prevent such gang-related offending.

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

10. If he will support the Charity Commission’s request to refer the Royal Albert Hall to the charity tribunal.

[The Solicitor General (Robert Buckland)]

Earlier this year, the Charity Commission wrote to the former Attorney General requesting consent to refer five questions to the first-tier tribunal concerning the registered charity that runs the Royal Albert Hall. Although the Charity Commission has the power to refer questions to the tribunal, it may only do so with the consent of the Attorney General, as set out in section 325 of the Charities Act 2011.

[Mrs Hodgson]

The Attorney General promised that he would make a decision on this matter by the end of the autumn. I am sure we are now in winter, so that decision is overdue. The majority of the Royal Albert Hall’s ruling body own a quarter of all the seats. Those seats are valued at up to £25 million, and they are allowed to sell tickets for the seats on the secondary market, making huge profits. Does the Attorney General not consider that a conflict of interest, and will he allow the Charity Commission to refer it to the tribunal?

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Lady has identified the core of the concern in this case. Before assessing whether I or the Attorney General should consent to the Charity Commission’s request, we invited both the corporation of the Royal Albert Hall and the Charity Commission to make further representations. We have received those representations, and we are in the process of considering them with a view to issuing a decision in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

We are in close discussions with our colleagues in the Home Office about that, and my hon. Friend can be assured, as can the whole House, that I am representing the tourism sector and all its interests.

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

3. What recent discussions he has had with internet service providers on the occurrence of secondary ticketing websites in search rankings.

[The Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries (Margot James)]

I take this issue very seriously, and I know that the hon. Lady has done fantastic work on it over the years. Ticketing website advertisements must comply with the Advertising Standards Authority code, and those using advertising facilities attached to search engines must also comply with their terms of service to prevent misleading ads and to protect consumers. I am in touch with internet service providers, and they assure me that they are prepared to take action where necessary.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I thank the Minister for her work on this issue and her support for my work on it. According to research by the FanFair Alliance in a study carried out earlier this year, Viagogo was in the top two results on Google in 80 out of 100 searches. Time and again, victims of Viagogo tell me that they have been directed to Viagogo by a Google search. Does the Minister think it is appropriate that Viagogo is still able to buy itself to the top of the Google search rankings while it is facing court action by the Competition and Markets Authority?

[Margot James]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Viagogo is the subject of legal action by the CMA. However, she might be interested to know that the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that consumers would not assume that Viagogo was the primary ticketing agent for an event, and that there was therefore nothing in the ad to claim that it was the primary—[Interruption.] If you will permit me, Mr Speaker, I will just say that Google’s conditions state that resellers must prominently disclose themselves as resellers. The hon. Lady can therefore draw her own conclusions from that—

Secondary Ticketing

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

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

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that in the cases he outlines, with regard to how much the tickets should be sold for and whether face value is below market value, artists such as Ed Sheeran, Adele, Kate Bush and others should be able to set that price on the basis of what they deem their fan base can afford and what would be fair for the majority of their fans?

[Mr Bacon]

I do agree. Of course, there are a variety of other considerations that also help to set the price. Some artists only do a small number of shows. A Korean boy band is coming over to the UK shortly. I would tell you its name if I could remember it, Madam Deputy Speaker, but to be honest when I was told, I had to admit I had never heard of it and I cannot now remember its name, but apparently the band is very popular—God, I sound like Sir Bufton, don’t I? There are people flying in from Korea to hear this boy band and the official ticket price has been set at £165. That is an indication of the importance of this extremely successful sector to the UK economy, given all the flights and hotels, and the tourism that will take place while people are here. It is therefore very important that there is probity and regularity in the sale of tickets, and that the artist and promoter can set the price.

There are other considerations. If the performer is a bloke with a guitar—yes, I have heard of Ed Sheeran—the cost of putting on a simple show may be much lower than that for a very sophisticated show that, while still a rock concert, may be more akin to a west end or Broadway show, with the concomitant costs. That will also influence a promoter’s decision about the ticket price, as will how much the artist wishes to get or how much the promoter is willing to pay the artist. The hon. Lady is quite right that those are decisions for the promoter and the artist, but they cannot be taken in isolation.

As for the other issue, this is where people sometimes struggle with the argument from those who think that there should be no secondary market at all. I remember when I first tried to buy an iPad. I knew, because I had been past the shop, that there was a big Apple store on Regent Street. I foolishly thought that by going to the Apple store, I would be able to buy one, only to discover when I got there that the fervour that often occurs was such that there was either the actuality or the illusion of great scarcity. I was told after wandering around the store for some time that there was absolutely no possibility of my buying an iPad from the store, and that I had to do that online and it would take several days before I could possibly get my hands on one. This was of course because of the excessive demand for iPads compared with Apple’s ability, even working at full tilt, to manufacture them through its plants. Again, that is a nice problem to have, but when that sort of thing happens, we cannot be surprised that it ends up pushing up prices.

I had the opportunity to discuss some of these issues briefly with the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West yesterday. I pointed out that tickets for the 100 metres final at the London 2012 Olympics were going for £2,000. I do not mean that they were being traded on the secondary market for £2,000. If someone wanted to sit at the finishing tape for the final of the 100 metres—the blue-riband event, which is watched by billions all over the world—that was the price that LOCOG, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, was charging them. Of course, people could sit elsewhere in the stadium and still get a reasonable view. I had the pleasure of selling souvenir programmes for the 1978 Commonwealth games, which was an alarmingly long time ago, and had the chance to see some very exciting live athletics. I can understand why people want to do that—it is a very exciting thing to watch—but the point is that many people thought that it was worth paying a lot of money. I am sure that many of the people did not spend the £2,000 personally—perhaps wealthy corporations paid for them—but the fact is that the promoter decided to set the price at that level, and I think that we need to have some regard for that.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that the organiser set that price for all the reasons that he cited and was confident that tickets would not be touted? The tickets were protected, which was a proviso of the International Olympic Committee, although that was not extended to the Rugby Football Union for the Rugby world cup, for example. Those tickets could probably have gone for £20,000 on the open market, but they were protected at the price that the event organiser decided. Does he agree that that should be the way that this goes forward?

[Mr Bacon]

I would like to see a regular and orderly market. In a moment, I will say something about the analogy with the stock market made by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, because for different reasons from the ones that I think he meant, it has some interesting things to tell us. The regulation of the stock market is very concerned with an orderly market. I am sure that the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West is right that those tickets could have gone for considerably more, and I do not understand why the provisions that were extended to the Olympics—that was mainly because the contract that our country had to sign with the International Olympic Committee in order to get the Olympics to come here absolutely required us to put in those provisions—were not also extended to the Rugby world cup, particularly when we know that the Rugby Football Union was begging for that to happen. I do not personally understand that at all. I think it was a mistake.

I was talking about the IEA paper and, as it were, the IEA view of the world. Although I do not necessarily subscribe to every jot and tittle of what is in the paper, I found it interesting to read. As I said, it did not necessarily focus on the consumer protection issues as much as I would have wished, but it is certainly true that many consumers have been seriously ripped off by secondary sites and have found huge difficulty in obtaining redress. There is a need for proper consumer protection and the right regulatory environment.

I think it is probably fair to say, as a generality, that I might be a little more interested in the papers produced by the Institute of Economic Affairs than the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, but the reason why I like his stock market analogy is that there are a number of areas of read-across. The stock market of publicly traded securities is subject to very tight regulation and strict rules. Participants in the market must all be treated fairly. Information conveyed to the marketplace must be conveyed to all participants simultaneously. There are strict rules about how minority shareholders must be treated. For the issuing and trading of Government securities, it is normal to have a primary dealer, or a set of primary dealers, who are allowed to buy Government securities directly from the Government, or Governments, and in return for the Government’s conferring these privileges on primary dealers, the dealers also have to agree to specific responsibilities.



When I left university and started work in an investment bank, I had to pass an examination in order to become what was then known as a registered representative. It was binary: either you were a registered representative or you were not, and if you were not, there were certain activities that you could not undertake. I do not want to stretch the analogy too far, but it seems to me that in the area of secondary ticketing, consumers and campaigners are looking for clarity and simplicity. They want strong rules that are fair, enforced, and easy for everyone to understand. I believe it is possible that part of the solution would be registered ticket dealers—a solution that is analogous to what I have just said about the stock market. At the moment it feels like the wild west, and people are getting hurt.

I might add that some who have been in the business of offering tickets to events for many years, and who have great knowledge and experience of the sector, also feel that they are getting hurt. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 allowed for the freezing and seizure of assets by administrative fiat, without the process of going through a court trial of a prosecution. That legislation, which was designed to deal with international money launderers and drug dealers,

“undermines the very foundation of our freedoms, which is that people are innocent until they are proved guilty, that the state cannot merely seize the property of the individual but must establish that the individual has forfeited his liberties under the rule of law… The new power of civil forfeiture is born of an understandable frustration at our inability to pin things on certain individuals, but it is a sloppy and dangerous short cut to improving our criminal law.”—[Official Report, 30 October 2001; Vol. 373, c. 814.]

Those are not my words, but the words of George Osborne during the passage of the legislation on 30 October 2001. I believe it is at least possible that that legislation is now being misused and misinterpreted.

Let me return to the question of what a suitable regulatory framework would look like. I think it is obvious that self-regulation through the assorted trade bodies that have cropped up from time to time in recent years has failed, and that the consumer rip-offs have been continuously getting worse—even in recent years, during the very period in which parliamentarians, the Government and the competition authorities have been paying more and more attention to the subject.

We need firm and clear rules, including, where appropriate, adjustments to the statutory framework, as well as vigorous enforcement, for which the required resources could be found quite easily. For example, a 1% levy on all tickets sold on websites for events in the UK would produce tens of millions of pounds to pay for consumer protection. It would not be very difficult. Many industries pay part of the cost of their own regulation: Ofwat is an example of that. The system could be revenue neutral, or—I think my hon. Friend the Minister would like this even more if she were trying to persuade the Chancellor—it might even make a profit.

A prime area for attention are the massive conflicts of interest that exist within the events industry. One company, Live Nation, is a venue owner, a promoter of events, an artist management company, and an operator in the primary ticketing business through its ownership of Ticketmaster. It also owns two of the leading secondary websites, Get Me In! and Seatwave, which have attracted so much controversy. That is a very obvious source of conflicts of interest.

The most common complaint is that when tickets for a very popular and oversubscribed event such as a rock concert are sold out at their face value within a few minutes of going on sale, the same tickets appear only a few minutes later on the secondary sites at a much higher price. The old question “cui bono?” applies: who benefits? Well, plainly the holders of the tickets purchased at face value, who have now sold those tickets at a much higher price, benefit considerably; but so does the secondary trading website through which the exchange takes place, because the website charges a commission for facilitating the transaction. The commission can easily be 20%, 30% or even 40% of the new sale price. If, say, a £55 ticket is resold at an inflated price of £250, which is perfectly plausible, the commission alone on the resale of the ticket, at just 20%, will be £50, and could easily be £75 or £100—more than the total original face value of the ticket.

If the secondary trading website is owned by the primary providers of the tickets—the concert promoters—they may make more money from the resale of the ticket than by having originally issued it, although in the second transaction they are acting only as brokers; provided, of course, that the secondary trading websites have enough tickets to sell. There is, then, a massive incentive for any primary provider that owns a secondary platform to ensure that the secondary platform has enough tickets. That type of conflict of interest is very clear and should be dealt with firmly. There is also, of course, a massive incentive for secondary platforms to encourage other ticket holders to engage in dubious behaviour to make sure they have enough tickets to sell on the platforms. There should be an investigation into firms such as Live Nation and whether their vertically integrated ownership structure is harming consumers and leading directly to abuse. My personal opinion is that it is.

There is even controversy—the Lord alone knows why—about whether the secondary trading platforms are brokers. They plainly are—they make promises and offer guarantees—and if they were correctly seen as brokers taking money in payments, they would fall under the supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority. As brokers, they routinely lie. They offer for sale tickets that they purport to have access to but which they do not have access to—what are called specs, or speculative tickets—in the hope that they will find the required ticket in time. If they were treated and regulated as brokers, this would be much easier to stop.

I would like to offer the Minister some propositions that I think command widespread consent and which should inform the Government’s thinking as they reform this area. First, the promoter or vendor should have the right to choose to whom it wishes to sell its tickets. Secondly, the promoter of an event should have the right to decide at what price the tickets should sell and to impose terms and conditions, so long as they are not unreasonable. The prices for those tickets will vary considerably depending on the nature of the event, and it should be perfectly in order for there to be massive price variations that reflect the desirability of the event.

As a constituent told me this morning—he was a Chelsea season ticket holder so had access to the tickets—he paid £140 to go to the FA Cup final, in which Chelsea were victorious. He would expect to pay on average £20 per normal premier league game, having paid £940 for a season ticket. Somebody attending a game against Accrington Stanley would expect to pay considerably less. I mentioned the £2,000 charged for the best seats at the Olympics for the 100-metre final. That price was set by the promoter. There is nothing wrong with such massive variations; it reflects the reality.

Fourthly—this goes back to the first point—it should be entirely in order for the promoter to operate a discriminatory pricing policy for favoured customers for a wide number of different reasons, which may include assisting activists in the sport, as happens often in rugby, assisting supporters clubs or exposing an event to young people, as theatres and opera houses often do. It may, of course, be a more expensive package for corporate clients that helps the event make more money.

If a promoter sold every ticket at £40, it is possible that, in the case of many shows, if they were of the elaborate variety, it would not cover its costs. Promoters need to be able to discriminate in their pricing and to offer packages to favoured customers. A few years ago, Wimbledon had a people’s Sunday—it was not expecting to have games on the Sunday, the rest day, but it did because of rain—for which unreserved seats were readily available at low prices, which allowed those of more limited means to sit on the best show courts and see the best tennis. That sort of thing ought to be within the gift of the promoter to decide.

Fifthly, it should not be possible for a promoter to cancel a ticket because it has been resold, unless it has been acquired unlawfully or in breach of the promoter’s reasonable terms and conditions. Sixthly, one should not be able to oblige a vendor to repurchase a ticket, but equally, and seventhly, a ticket holder who can no longer use a ticket should, at the ticket holder’s own choice, have the clear right in law to sell it either back to the vendor, at the vendor’s discretion, or to another party. From that, it follows that there should be registered ticket dealers that can have different classes of licence—rather like different classes of drivers licences—depending on whether they are operating online or outside venues. Anyone doing business with the public should also have liability insurance, which should be visible to the customer. That is not a complete list, but I hope it is a useful contribution for the Minister.

There is one area of considerable importance that I have not had time to mention so far but would like to touch on before I sit down. Some of the worst offenders in harvesting tickets for immediate resale using sophisticated software are to be found in the organisations with the most up-to-date IT infrastructure—the fastest fibre links and the mainframes with the fastest processing speeds—such as the big banks in the City and big accounting firms, and certain people in the NHS and even in one or two police organisations. I hope the Minister will reflect on that because sometimes Government investment in IT is assisting this pernicious trade. Members who have read the book “Flash Boys” about high frequency trading will immediately get the point.

I hope my remarks have given the Minister a little food for thought and I look forward to hearing her reply.