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Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill

I would like to move on. I have a long speech, and I would like to get through the details. I am, of course, aware that the issue has been considered on a number of occasions over the past five years. To be honest, the fact that it has been revisited so many times is testament to the fact that those who look at it keep coming to the wrong conclusions. Although I have read some of the contributions to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee's inquiry, I still cannot understand how it arrived at its conclusion. The Select Committee and the then Government both concluded that fans wanted a forum in which they could buy tickets closer to the date of an event or sell them if they could not make it. I absolutely agree with that statement, but I disagree that that conclusion should allow the secondary market to carry on unregulated. The key thing that both the Government and the Select Committee missed is that consumers also want a fair chance to get tickets at face value, and they do not want to be ripped off. I have a quote from a letter that my right hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Mr Woodward) sent in his capacity as the then Minister with responsibility for the creative industries in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (John Robertson), who is not in his place today, when he was campaigning on the issue way back in 2007. My right hon. Friend said:"““While consumers want a secondary market, they do not want to be exploited by individuals or businesses at their personal expense.””" But he then suggested that it was not in the public interest to legislate. I know my right hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston; he is an intelligent man, so I can only think that once one becomes a Minister, there is sometimes a tendency to trust what the civil servants are saying a little too much.