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Ticket Touting

Indeed, but we are being told that the aim is to protect the ordinary supporter who wants to buy a ticket and go to a match, and my point is that, for some sporting events, those opportunities simply do not exist to ordinary supporters without the secondary ticket market. If we are so concerned about the ordinary punter's access, as we keep being told is the case, why are not we preventing so many tickets being given away to corporate sponsors? What chance does the average punter have of accessing those tickets? Virtually zero. The majority of people who turn up to those things might have only a fleeting interest in the sport that they are going to see. Indeed, they might have no interest in it whatever, and simply think that it might be a decent bash with a bit of free drink. If we are so bothered about opening up access to the ordinary punter, I am surprised that people have not pointed out that sporting organisations and event promoters could use those tickets to give access to ordinary, decent punters. Saying that someone who buys a ticket for £7,000 is not a genuine fan strikes me as perverse. I should think that if someone is prepared to splash out so much for a ticket to an event, the chances are that they are about as passionate a supporter of that event as one could find, so I do not see how ticket touting stops genuine fans from going. Some of the amounts that people are prepared to pay indicate that there are some very genuine fans making use of the secondary market to go to such events. I come back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford raised about what should be done to deal with ticket touting. If ticket touting is such a big problem for concert promoters and organisers of sporting events, much of the solution is in their own hands. There are many things that they could do to remove the secondary market from their events. My hon. Friend himself gave an example of what they could do. Promoters could also have ticket lines open 24 hours a day. Often, some people are not able to get tickets during working hours because they have no opportunity to ring up and buy a ticket when they are at work. If there were 24-hour ticket lines to allow people to ring up at any point and get a ticket, that might open up access to tickets for ordinary, decent people. Also, promoters could stop selling all the tickets in one go at the start of an event's promotion. Often, every single ticket for an event or international sporting match will go on sale on day one, which encourages ticket touts to buy up tickets and sell them on when they have all been sold. If sporting bodies and event promoters are so concerned about touts, why do they not sell a few tickets at a time so that tickets are still available to buy on the open market even in the last week or few days before the event? That would take away the secondary market, because why on earth would someone pay thousands of pounds for a ticket from a tout on the secondary market if there were still tickets available at face value from the event organiser? Of course, the key point is refunds. If the organisers of sporting events and other events will not agree to give people refunds, I do not see any option but a secondary market. If somebody buys a ticket for an event and they cannot go, they should be entitled, one way or another, to retrieve their money, whether that is through a refund or by selling it on the secondary market. It is perverse that we would stop the secondary market without forcing event organisers to give refunds. Many event organisers have clearly said that they will not agree to give refunds to people under any circumstances whatsoever, which is ridiculous. The point about the secondary market is that if someone does not know whether they can turn up to an event or not, they can still buy a ticket in confidence. If somebody wants to go to a big sporting event, they can buy a ticket in confidence knowing that, if they cannot go for some reason, they will be able to sell it on. Restricting the secondary market and stopping so-called ticket touting would stop those ordinary people from being able to buy a ticket for something with confidence; they would simply have to pass the opportunity by, even if they found at a later date that they would have been able to go to that event. Where are the Government on this issue? To be honest, they are all over the place. I await the Minister's comments with interest to find out how far down this ridiculous route they are prepared to go. If they try to restrict the secondary market, I assure the Minister that they will come to regret it. The Minister ought to have a close word with the Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), who very helpfully gave our Committee lots of evidence—I might add that she gave us some very sensible evidence. It is worth reminding hon. Members of some of the points that she made. She was subjected to ferocious questioning by the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders), and I am sorry that he is not here today because I am sure that he would have been interested in the Under-Secretary's response. When the hon. Member for Torbay suggested that the Government should introduce some kind of restriction on the secondary market and ticket sales, the Minister of State said:"““I am somewhat astounded by the direction of your questioning. And what we need to do is ensure that they get the appropriate and full information and transparency so that they can make an informed choice and that there should not be a mechanism imposed by the state which would restrict their choice on the basis of a false definition of consumer protection.””" It strikes me that was a pretty clear statement from the Minister of State, who is in the Under-Secretary's own Department.