Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make it her policy to ban ticket touting.

HM Government is committed to supporting fair and transparent ticket pricing and tackling unacceptable behaviour in this market.

We have strengthened the law in relation to ticketing information requirements and have introduced a criminal offence of using automated software to buy more tickets online than is allowed. We also support the work of enforcement agencies in this area, such as the Competition and Markets Authority, National Trading Standards, and the advertising industry's own regulator the Advertising Standards Authority.

We believe there is a role for a responsible secondary ticketing market, and ultimately, ticket pricing strategies are a matter for event organisers and ticketing platforms, providing they comply with relevant legislation, particularly regarding transparency to customers on how tickets are priced, in order to help consumers make a fair and informed decision.

Policy on secondary ticketing is jointly owned within Government by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Department for Business & Trade (DBT). DBT has lead responsibility for policy on consumer protection and its enforcement, in partnership with National Trading Standards and the Competition and Markets Authority, whilst DCMS leads on the specific area of secondary ticketing for DCMS-related events (sport, live music, theatre, etc.).

Our joint overarching policy aim has been to address abuses in the ticketing market and improve consumers’ opportunities to buy tickets for recreational, sporting, and cultural events, whilst ensuring there are no unintentional consequences for the operations of the events sector and primary and secondary ticketing market.

Our policy aims are delivered through a mixture of targeted legislation (primarily the Consumer Rights Act 2015), backed up by robust action by enforcement agencies, and encouraging industry-led approaches, largely through the exploitation of technological developments (e.g. use of blockchain and ‘ticketless tickets’ on mobiles). Our approach is underpinned by the findings of an independent review of consumer protection measures in the market, undertaken by Professor Michael Waterson, published in May 2016.

Professor Waterson specifically considered the idea of banning the secondary ticketing market entirely. His conclusions, with which we agreed in our response to the review, are that:

i) a ban would not lead to the absence of secondary ticketing, but would simply drive it underground/offshore, with implications for raised levels of fraud;

ii) several primary operators have chosen to link up with secondary agencies suggesting their implicit approval of such activities;

iii) a significant proportion of tickets on secondary sites are priced below face value, offering a useful service to consumers and allowing more people to attend the event.