Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Can you sit down, please? Question 2 has been withdrawn. We are now at question 3.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

3. What discussions her Department has had with the music industry on taking steps to help reduce ticket prices.

[The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Julia Lopez)]

Our Department speaks regularly to industry stakeholders about how to make sure that live music continues to reach a wide range of audiences. Ultimately, ticket pricing strategies are a matter for event organisers and ticketing platforms, but they have to comply with the relevant laws to ensure price transparency, allowing consumers to make a fair and informed decision.

[Mr Dhesi]

Whether it is on music or other entertainment, this Government have consistently failed to act in the interest of fans when it comes to ticket touting. Last year, they rejected the recommendations and warnings of the Competition and Markets Authority to strengthen legislation and protect consumers from illegal reselling practices in the secondary ticketing market. Will the Minister concede that the problem has got much worse for fans? When will the Government finally put a stop to that?

[Julia Lopez]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The Government brought in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which was strengthened by the Digital Economy Act 2017, which brought in anti-bots regulation that dealt with some of those secondary ticketing issues. It is a tricky problem to solve. We are trying to do so through those regulations, but if there is more that we can do, we will look into that.