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Ticket Touting

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the secondary market is an important part of the market. There were 46 different organisations at the last count. They need to be drawn into the process and effective ways of working with them found. We also have to recognise that even since the Committee started examining this issue, the whole market—the secondary market in particular—has changed quite dramatically with the advent of many of the new websites developing their own ways of working. We have heard reference to Seatwave, viagogo, Get Me In! and the like. In addition, the primary market and the secondary market are increasingly coming together, as the purchase by Ticketmaster of Get Me In! illustrates. That is why it is so important to bring these bodies together. I hope that it will be possible to consider ways of getting all those bodies to develop a trade body that has, for the whole lot, agreed terms and conditions. We could then examine the possibility of allowing only organisations that had membership of that body to be involved in the legitimate secondary sales market. It is important to recognise that the situation has changed. We have moved away from the people in flasher macs referred to by the Chairman of the Select Committee, although at big games that I go to there are still far too many of them selling tickets, as others have said, right in front of the police. Quite a lot of changes are also being made by the organisers of events themselves. I praise the work that many of them have been doing to develop their own terms and conditions and to consider some of the problems. The Rugby Football Union has been considering the fact that some of the tickets that went to clubs were being sold to packaged event organisers and is now finding a legitimate way for clubs to be able to do that and make a bit of money while at the same time ensuring that fans can go. A great deal of work has been done by the organisers, who increasingly are willing to spend their own money in taking prosecutions against people who are in breach of their terms and conditions. We should welcome the work that they do in that area. Let me describe the third problem that we have failed to grapple with. The Committee does not have a real solution to it and the Government have not got there yet, either. How do we deal with event organisers who legitimately, for whatever reason, want to have their own pricing structure so that ticket prices can be kept reasonable in order to allow legitimate fans to come? That is about providing a reward to people from the grass roots of the sport, who keep it flourishing—providing some recompense to people who have volunteered their services to protect the sport. The most obvious example that we have heard about relates to major sporting events. Protection of such a pricing policy is where we have to find a way forward. That is why, although I am uncomfortable with thinking in detail about the operation of such a scheme, we could at least consider the possibility of a crown jewels approach. I would not necessarily agree with what is included in the list and I take the point about England World cup games and so on, but that may have to be the way forward. For me, it is critical that we are not considering the issue from the point of view of a legislative approach. I hope very much that we will adhere to what both the Committee and the Government have said and that legislation will be introduced only as a last resort. We have to get the members of the industry working effectively together to find solutions to the problems. I end where I began—with legislation. Many of the fears and concerns of people outside the House are about people who are breaking the law. We must have much better and tougher enforcement of existing legislation before we start looking for new legislation.