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Ticket Touting

My hon. Friend's intervention is incredibly helpful. I will come to the points that he makes in a bit more detail later. He is absolutely right. The solution to the perceived problem of ticket touting is often in the hands of the event organisers and promoters themselves. They should not be looking to the Government to take action that they could reasonably take themselves if they put their mind to it. The imaginative solution that my hon. Friend describes is one such way in which it can be done. I am sure that the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West is a great believer in the redistribution of wealth. I think that he would agree with me when I say that if somebody buys a ticket for £25 and it is sold on for £7,000, the likelihood is that the person who bought it for £25 will be much poorer than the person who bought it for £7,000. Therefore, if one believes in the redistribution of wealth, it strikes me that ticket touting is a particularly good way for somebody who is less well off to get a lot of income from a wealthy person who is prepared to pay over the odds. I am rather curious to know why he wants to stop that kind of redistribution of wealth. The other point that is made is that if I buy a ticket and sell it on to somebody else, that has prevented the next person down the line from purchasing that ticket. Let us say that Mrs. Bloggs is one place behind me in the queue. I snap up the last ticket and sell it on to someone else. That prevented Mrs. Bloggs from getting a ticket and access to an event that she would otherwise have been able to go to. It might be that I am buying a ticket for the Test match—I am a big cricket fan and quite happy to go to the Test match—and as far as I am concerned, I am going. Lo and behold, in the pub a week before the game, somebody comes along and says, ““I have always wanted to go to a Test match. I am only here for a few weeks and I have never had the opportunity to go. I would love to go but I cannot get a ticket. I am prepared to pay £1,000 for that ticket.”” It may be that I think to myself, ““I would like to go to the Test match, but this is an opportunity that I cannot give up. If it means that much to him and he is prepared to give £1,000 for that ticket and I am quite happy not to go on that basis, I will happily sell my ticket to him.”” Now, Mrs. Bloggs, who was one place behind me in the queue, is not going to the Test match one way or the other. If the person who is offering me £1,000 for the ticket does not go, I am going to go. Mrs. Bloggs is not missing out at all. This is a private matter between me and the person who wants to pay a fantastic amount of money for the ticket. No one else is involved; it does not affect anyone else.