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Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill

I congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on bringing forward the Bill. I think we ought to be aware that ticket touts can lose money—on many occasions they do—as well as earn it. I will give an illustration: if a ticket tout had decided to buy up tickets for the Labour Benches today, hoping to sell them on at a profit to the supporters of the Bill, they would be badly out of pocket. What surprised me from the outset is that the hon. Lady, despite making such a passionate speech on how annoyed her constituents are about ticket touting and how passing the Bill was the most important things anyone could do, has spectacularly failed to persuade any of her colleagues to attend. Had they considered it at all important, there would be at least 100 of them here to support a closure motion and guarantee that the Bill went into Committee, which the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) is so anxious to see happen. I am afraid to say that I will not take any lectures on how important the Bill is to people across the country when the hon. Lady cannot even persuade her colleagues of its benefits. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid): it struck me that the hon. Lady's speech was more against capitalism per se than against any kind of ticket touting. She seemed to indicate—she will no doubt correct me if I am wrong—that to sell a ticket at a profit of more than 10% was verging on criminality and that it was completely unacceptable and outrageous. If it is the view of the Labour party that anyone who happens to sell a product at a profit of more than 10% is verging on criminality and is totally undesirable, it seems to me that many people will be interested to know that. If the hon. Lady goes to any clothes shop and asks for the profit margin on the clothes being sold, she will find it is considerably more than 10%. In fact, she will find that the profit margin on anything in any shop will be considerably more than 10%. She seems to be saying she does not believe in the business world or capitalism at all, and the hon. Member for Dudley North, who is pushing for the Bill to go into Committee, seems to be endorsing that approach. I knew that new Labour was dead, but I had not realises it was dead to that extent. This really is old Labour with bells on.