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Ticket Touting

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Joan Walley). Earlier in the debate, questions were asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) about the cultural life in and around her constituency. I have no recent experience of the cultural life of her constituency, but many years ago I spent four years at university near Stoke-on-Trent, and it certainly had a vibrant cultural life then. As she said, it also has some excellent pubs and clubs, although my favourite, the Bridge Inn, has recently been knocked down. The hon. Lady began her remarks by, in a sense, praising the Committee. I shall go a stage further and praise the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale). From the debate so far, it is clear that he has done an excellent job in holding the ring between some divergent views, and he has done so by dealing with colleagues who have very differing views with excellent and continuing good humour. I suggest to the Committee Chairman in particular that, as well as differences of opinion between members of the Committee, many Committee members themselves hold somewhat conflicting views. That has been reflected in many of the speeches so far and it will also be reflected in my contribution. I, too, have some difficulty in coming to terms with how to marry the belief in the benefit of a free market and the market finding solutions to the problems, with the need for further legislation and regulation. It would be dishonest if we did not admit that there was a very clear tension. I genuinely believe that there is an important role for a well-organised secondary market that has proper consumer protection built into it. As has been discussed, that would enable the genuine fan with a genuine reason for not being able to go to an event, concert or sporting activity to recoup the cost of their ticket and allow someone else, who is perhaps prepared to pay more than the face value of the ticket, to go to that event. Anyone who says that there is not a legitimate need for such a market is deluding themselves and disadvantaging many members of the public. What are the problems to which we are seeking to find solutions? All sorts of quotes have been taken from the report, but I would like to read a quote from the report that has not been given. The report states:"““More work needs to be done on quantifying the core problem…The case for intervention would be strengthened if it were demonstrated that there were real problems affecting more than a small minority of events.””" We have not yet been entirely clear about the nature of the problems that we are seeking to overcome. After listening to the debate, the problems seem to fall into three categories, which perhaps need to be articulated more clearly than we have done today. First, a series of problems surround the issue of what we might call illegal activity. We know that there is a problem with street trading, which is illegal under street trading legislation, but we also know that the ticket touts are getting cleverer. Only yesterday, I heard about a particular case in which, to avoid the relevant legislation, street traders hired a youth club just off the street and operated from within the premises that they had hired. There are lots of issues in relation to rogue traders, many of which have already been referred to. The hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford mentioned the 6,500 people who were out of pocket as a result of the activities of Ticket Touts Ltd, which was selling ““tickets”” that it did not have. There are many other examples of such activities. Illegal activity is the problem and we should surely be considering proper enforcement of the law in relation to that. We know that that is what the Government are also saying. Over a year ago, in a debate on ticket touting introduced by the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West, the then Under-Secretary, who is now the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said that the first problem is"““when people outside venues, who probably are not licensed, try to sell tickets at hugely inflated prices. There is legislation to deal with that problem, but the issue is enforcement. How do we ensure that legislation is being effectively enforced? That needs to be addressed.””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 27 March 2007; Vol. 458, c. 409WH.]" That was said more than a year ago and I am now repeating it. The real question is what are we doing about the issue of enforcement? Government figures provided as a result of parliamentary questions that I have tabled show that between 2001-07 there were fewer than 150 convictions for ticket touting offences. Research done by my office alone shows that hundreds of tickets for international football and the football friendly between England and Switzerland were readily available at the click of a button. Being concerned about enforcement, I contacted the relevant authorities to ask what they were doing about it. I then produced a dossier of all of my concerns, which included clear evidence of many examples of people quite clearly behaving illegally. I sent my dossier to the UK Football Policing Unit. A reply I received from the director of the unit admitted that resources simply are not targeted at touts, even when their illegal activity is clear for all to see. I shall quote from the reply I received:"““It is a decision for the Police Match Commander of each operation as to whether it is appropriate to direct resources to deal with ticket touts. It is however a fact that the majority of Police Match Commanders do not deem it appropriate or necessary for police resources to be deployed to deal with tickets touts where no risk is present. After discussing this matter with the Crown Prosecution Service neither would it be in the public interest to pursue such a prosecution.””" That is one of the biggest problems of all. We already have quite a lot of legislation to deal with many of the problems that concern our constituents, yet there is no proper enforcement. I have talked to many of the sporting bodies that have reported cases to the relevant organisations, but action is simply not being taken. I tabled a parliamentary question to discover the size of the organisation that is meant to be dealing with this important issue. The answer was that there are just"““six police officers seconded to the unit in addition to a British Transport police liaison officer.””—[Official Report, 19 February 2008; Vol. 472, c. 590W.]" One of the biggest issues is the enforcement of existing legislation. For those who want to go down the route of existing legislation, it is critical that we are clear about how that legislation will be pursued in the future. The second problem is questionable behaviour, of which we have heard many examples, including selling tickets without precise and clear information about what they entail—restricted views, children-only areas or areas for wheelchairs. Clearly, that issue needs to be addressed to provide transparency so that if we are to use largely a market-based solution, people can make informed choices when they decide to purchase a ticket.