Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Pete Wishart Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I remind hon. Members that if there is a Division, only Members representing constituencies in England and Wales may vote. As the knife has fallen, there can be no debate.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83M(5)),

That the Committee consents to the following certified clauses of the Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Clauses certified under SO No. 83L(2) as relating exclusively to England and Wales and being within devolved legislative competence

Clause 190 of the Bill, as amended in Public Bill Committee (Bill 190).—(Margot James.)

Question agreed to.

The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decision of the Committee (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decision reported.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope the House takes the time to consider very seriously the fact that once again English Members have not had the opportunity to debate the critical issues in clause 190, which has been certified. What can you do, Madam Deputy Speaker, to ensure that English Members in the English Parliament get the opportunity to debate those critical English-only issues?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

That is not a point of order.

Third Reading

Queen’s and Prince of Wales’s consent signified.

Ticket Touting: Musical Events

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered ticket touting and musical events.

Thank you very much, Sir Christopher, for calling me to speak. It is really good to renew our acquaintance after all the years we spent together on the Scottish Affairs Committee, and I congratulate you on your recent knighthood. I also refer people to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It should be the easiest thing in the world: simply buying a ticket to go and see a rock concert—I have you down, Sir Christopher, as a grime fan. When you try to secure your Stormzy ticket, it should be straightforward, but swimming through shark-infested waters would probably be an easier and safer thing to do than trying to buy a ticket for a popular musical show.

From the first click of the mouse in their quest to secure a ticket, customers are exposed to any number of touts, profiteers and spivs, who are determined to exploit them and maximise their own return at the customer’s expense. Customers will come into contact with an out-of-control, all-consuming, rip-off machine, which operates from the artist’s management and promoter all the way down to the venue and ticketing agency, and then all the way down to the tout and the unsuspecting fan. It is a business model designed to maximise profits and exploit its consumer base, and it has become one of the biggest consumer crises that we face in this country today. Quite simply, our ticketing infrastructure is irredeemably broken and beyond repair.

Let us have a cursory look at how this system has been created and designed. Touting has always gone on; it was probably going on in the Colosseum in the Roman empire. As a young lad trying to secure my Clash tickets, I certainly saw touts outside the venues, selling tickets for a few pounds extra. So touting has always happened, but the way it is designed just now is almost on an industrial scale, and it is riddled with all sorts of pernicious arrangements and invidious relationships.

The situation was probably defined in 2010, when the largest live music promoter in the world, Live Nation, bought the largest ticket agency in the world, Ticketmaster, creating something close to a monopoly on the live music scene. In addition, Ticketmaster just so happens to own two out of “the big four” secondary sites, Get Me In! and Seatwave; the touts like to do most of their business on those four sites.

What has been created, therefore, is a vertically integrated model that works in almost perfect partnership and symbiosis, whereby everybody gets their cut and their share. I will try to describe it as best I can. Live Nation, which is the largest music promoter in the world, ensures that venues employ Ticketmaster to sell the tickets for the artists that it represents. Tickets then go on sale, but they are hoovered up on an industrial scale by the touts and the scalpers. They are then put up for sale by the touts on the secondary sites owned by Ticketmaster, at hugely inflated prices.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that I have a long-standing interest in this issue. Does he agree that the measures announced by the UK Government to outlaw the so-called ticket-bots cannot come soon enough and have been too long in the waiting?

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she is absolutely and utterly right. Last week, I listened to the presentation by the Competition and Markets Authority at the meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse, which was hosted by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). These measures have been far too slow in coming; the Government need to get a move on with them. I will come back to that point later, because what the Government are doing is important, but there is lethargy at the heart of their response.

I was trying to describe how all this works. We have Live Nation putting on the shows and Ticketmaster selling the tickets at the venues, which are all hoovered up by the touts. The tickets then go on sale on the secondary sites owned by Ticketmaster. Google is then incentivised to promote those secondary sites by placing them at the top of their searches. So what happens in this perfect model is that the touts get their hit on the secondary sites and Google gets a share, but critically Ticketmaster and Live Nation secure their secondary cut from their secondary sites.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this important debate. We have had numerous debates on this issue over the years, but this one is extremely timely, with the “bot law” coming in just last week, and following the meeting that we had with the CMA. He mentioned Google. Does he agree that most people are driven to these sites by Google? If he does, does he also agree that Google has a role to play—by not giving these sites top billing and by ensuring that consumers realise that these markets are secondary markets and not primary ones?

[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely, and what Google actually does is breach its own certification rules, which suggest that it must ensure that such sites are designated as secondary sites. Google has a big role to play in this, and the hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention it.

This business model is almost elegant in its exploitative design. Last year, Live Nation made over £1 billion just from its secondary sites. There is also good anecdotal evidence, which I will try to relay under parliamentary privilege, suggesting that the players at the very top of the music business tree—at management level and at promoter level—have a working relationship with some of the biggest touts in the world, to ensure that the wheels and the cogs of this huge, exploitative machine are properly oiled and working at maximum efficiency.

Everywhere throughout this broken infrastructure, relationships and models of exploitation such as those I have mentioned are the norm. StubHub is another one of the “big four” secondary sites. It is owned by eBay, which purchased it in 2007. StubHub now has a global partnership with AEG, which just so happens to operate the O2 and Wembley Arena. That means that, by default, the parasite-infested StubHub is the official resale partner of the O2 and Wembley Arena, which are two of the most prestigious venues in the United Kingdom.

However, the daddy of them all is the truly appalling and exploitative Viagogo. I do not know what arrangement Viagogo has with Google, but if you were to look online for your Stormzy ticket, Sir Christopher, you would be directed to Viagogo to try and purchase it.

Our ticketing infrastructure, therefore, is a broken monolith of misery, where tech giants are in cahoots with touts, who are in cahoots with the promoters and managers. But I will spend just a couple of minutes on Viagogo. How a company that exists exclusively to exploit people and to rip them off is allowed to continue operating is simply beyond me. If anybody is watching this debate at home, I say to them, “Do not buy tickets from Viagogo! Go nowhere near them! You will be ripped off totally! Do not touch them!”

At the all-party group meeting last week, I listened to some of the unfortunate victims of Viagogo. Viagogo is so exploitative that a self-help group has emerged among its customers—that group has thousands and thousands of members, who are ordinary, honest people just trying to secure a ticket for a friend or a grandchild, or as a rare treat for themselves. They had no reason to believe that the simple fact of trying to buy a ticket would expose them to such shark-infested waters and such danger. Why would they? Here was “nice Mr Google” directing them to these sites, so that they could find tickets. But that is where the horror starts, as the victims of Viagogo are exposed to all sorts of hard sells, tricks and exploitative practices.

[Mrs Hodgson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I will give way one last time to the hon. Lady.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am intervening because I want the hon. Gentleman to join me in congratulating Claire Turnham for her amazing work. She set up Victims of Viagogo, originally because she was a victim herself and wanted to try to get her money back. After that long fight, however, she put out the information she had gathered, in order to help others. She has now helped thousands of people to receive hundreds of thousands of pounds in refunds. So will he join me in welcoming Claire’s work?

[Pete Wishart]

I have no hesitation in doing so, and I also commend the hon. Lady herself for her diligent work over the years in chairing the all-party parliamentary group on ticket abuse. In fact, it is in my speech to congratulate Claire Turnham, whom I met last week and who has done a fantastic job. She has managed to reclaim thousands and thousands of pounds for the Victims of Viagogo, but why should she have to do that? It is not the job of individuals—drummers, guitarists and singers—to protect the public; it is the Minister’s job. That is your job, Minister. It should be you who is protecting people—not individuals such as Claire Turnham, who are having to do that difficult job.

I heard about the emotional impact of being ripped off and realised how stressful and difficult it is for people to try to reclaim the money they have been swindled out of. I heard that health, relationships and work have all seriously suffered. As a musician, I heard about people being put off attending gigs for the rest of their lives because of the experience they have suffered from these parasites and companies that exist solely to rip people off.

[Patricia Gibson]

My hon. Friend has been very generous with his time. He talks about the vast number of people who are exploited by these big businesses moving in and hoovering up tickets. Does he agree that it looks like the only way to stop this practice is to legally cap the price of resale tickets?

[Pete Wishart]

I have got an even better and more elegant solution than my hon. Friend’s, and I beg her to be patient; I will get to it. The issue has to be tackled properly. There is no point mucking around, doing things tentatively. We have to grab the bull by the horns. If she gives me a few minutes, I will get to that point.

I want to explain my renewed interest in the matter, Sir Christopher, because I know you will be absolutely fascinated. My former band, Runrig, put tickets on sale for their last ever concert, which will be at Stirling castle later this year. As the last ever concert, it was obviously going to be popular. There was no way that supply would ever satisfy demand, so it was going to be a target for the touts. Within minutes of tickets going on sale, I was inundated with Runrig fans angry, frustrated and disappointed with the experience of trying to secure a ticket. I was provided with screengrabs of tickets available on the secondary site, Get Me In!, at four times the face value of the tickets that the secondary site owner, the official agent Ticketmaster, had just put on sale 12 minutes earlier.

Runrig did everything possible to spare their fans from the touts, but it is almost impossible to evade their parasitic reach. Since then, I have watched through disbelieving eyes the misery extended to other live music events scheduled to take place this summer. Probably the biggest ticket of the year will be the Rolling Stones. They are playing at Murrayfield in Edinburgh. It will be a really popular show, and it is another huge opportunity for the touts. I saw tickets on sale for 480% above face value, even though face-value tickets were still available. People were directed through Google to the sites and encouraged to buy from them.

I pay credit to the Rolling Stones and the Daily Record, which has been absolutely fantastic—particularly the journalist Mark McGivern, who has pursued this matter resolutely. The Daily Record reported that the Stones were offered a cash incentive to put their tickets on sale to an agency that has pretty invidious relationships with secondary sites. It is to their immense credit that Sir Mick Jagger and Keith Richards turned that down, but does that not demonstrate how far up the chain the issue reaches that such matters are discussed in band meetings? It shows the callous disregard for music fans from those at the very top of the music business. Given Government inaction, it has been left to the artists and musicians to try to develop solutions to protect their fans. It should not be the job of singers, musicians and guitarists to protect ordinary people from consumer affairs issues. That is the Government’s job. Ministers should be doing that.

Bands have attempted to put all sorts of tough terms and conditions on their tickets to try to keep them out of the secondary market, and artists are looking at ever more innovative solutions to protect their fans. I pay tribute to artists including Adele, Ed Sheeran, Noel Gallagher, Bastille and in particular the Arctic Monkeys, who have deployed a number of anti-touting strategies, but we need Government to take the lead.

I do not know which hon. Member or hon. Friend suggested banning bots, but the Government are starting to do something. They are in the process of banning those anonymous bots that hoover up tickets, and they are now starting to ensure that recalcitrant secondary companies comply with existing law. At last the CMA has given notice to Seatwave, Get Me In! and StubHub, but they have been given nine months to comply. The biggest culprit of them all, Viagogo, has not even responded to the Government, but they still allow it to do business. We have had the Waterson report and the Consumer Rights Act 2015, but that is regularly broken and ignored. It has failed to protect people and it is tentatively enforced. Much stronger action is required.

In response to my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), I question the need for a secondary market at all. Why is there one? If someone cannot go to a concert they have a ticket for, they should give it back to the venue, which can then resell it to someone who can go. What is wrong with a simple arrangement such as that?

We usually hear from people—we have seen it in a couple of articles—that this is all about tickets finding their natural value, as if there is a sort of stock market where tickets find their real value at the hands of the touts reselling them. What utter tosh and rubbish! Since I secured this debate, I have even had touts getting in touch with me who say that they are some sort of misunderstood public servants. They have even set up their own self-help group called the Fair Ticketing Alliance. Someone will have to patiently explain to me how snapping up hundreds of tickets, then selling them back at twice, three or four times the price is really in the consumer interest. That is the thing about the touts: they will never stop, and they will always remain one step ahead of any measures to deal with them.

Touting is a hugely profitable business that will not be given up lightly, but it is what it is doing to live music that concerns me most. It is now threatening the whole music industry. The anti-tout campaign group FanFair Alliance—I pay tribute to the excellent work it is doing through Mark and Adam—conducted an opinion poll. Two thirds of respondents who paid more than face value for a ticket on a resale site said they would attend fewer concerts in future, while half would spend less on recorded music. The FanFair Alliance is spot on in concluding that touting is doing considerable damage to one of our great export industries, in which we lead the world and which supports 150,000 jobs.

The Government have been reluctant and slow to legislate on behalf of music fans and artists, but they cannot continue to ignore the damage being done by a dysfunctional infrastructure that is broken beyond repair.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I am lucky to have venues in my constituency from the Barrowland right across to the Hydro, but does my hon. Friend agree that if people are paying more money for their tickets, there will be less money to spend in the neighbouring venues? Cities will lose out as a result.

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a dynamic hit on all associated industries and businesses. If money is put into the hands of the touts and agencies, it is taken out of the hands of the music industry and those in it. Come on, Minister! Let us reclaim the music. Let us make going to a live show a safe environment. Let us make buying a ticket a reasonable experience, where we will not be exposed to profiteers, touts and spivs.

This is an exploitative marketplace. It is one of the biggest crises we have in consumer affairs, and it is destroying our music industry. It is no good pussyfooting around any longer; it is time to act. Join the rest of us, Minister. Let us reclaim the music and make it safe for fans to buy tickets online.

Leaving the EU: Tourism and the Creative Industries

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Bone, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey). He and I are veterans of long standing of such debates, and we still bear the scars of the Digital Economy Act 2017, in which we both took a great interest. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) on securing this important debate. I was intrigued to see how she would combine tourism and the creative industries, but she did it in such an elegant way that we can all forgive her for bringing together those awkward-sitting issues.

I will confine my remarks to the creative industries. I want to be as blunt as I can. Leaving the European Union will be an absolute and utter disaster for our creative industries. We cannot start to comprehend the predicament that we will soon find ourselves in. The sharing, collaboration and enjoyment of creativity is practically the antithesis of the central tenets of withdrawal, isolationism and the ending of free movement that are at the heart of the Government’s Brexit.

The creative industries are quite particular—they are industries like no other—because they are fired by imagination, talent, creativity and invention. They exist to be appreciated, enjoyed and transferred across audiences worldwide without regard to border or territory. For success, they require the maximum conditions for international exchange and co-operation, which will allow them to develop and continue to thrive.

When it comes to supporting creative endeavour, our job as legislators is simple; indeed, it is only one thing. It is to try to create the maximal and optimal conditions for creativity to continue to develop, thrive and succeed. Pursuing Brexit is almost the opposite of that objective and that endeavour.

Let us just have a little, casual look at what is at risk here. The hon. Member for Edinburgh West said it—£92 billion is now generated by the creative industries for the UK economy. That is more than the automotive, life sciences, aerospace, and oil and gas industries combined. The creative industries are perhaps the fastest growing sector of our economy and I always like to say that these industries, and the growth we see from them, are like growing our economy on the imagination, the invention and the creativity of the British people.

[Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

Is it not the case that the UK is a world leader in intellectual property and will remain so after Brexit? If we choose to, we can join the European Patent Organisation, which already has non-EU countries as members.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning that point, and I will come on to discuss it, because I chair the all-party parliamentary group on intellectual property and I have a few choice words to say about where we are going with all this.

I want to say first, however, because it is important, that we are in the top three of all recognised sectors worldwide when it comes to the creative economy and creative industries. The hon. Lady is right that that has been achieved because we have a huge reservoir of talent and ability in these islands. However, we are not unique in that respect; the UK is not exceptional in having large swathes of talent. Lots of other nations have that, too, but we have harnessed that creativity, to ensure that it is supported, developed and allowed to thrive. We have created the conditions that have allowed creative endeavour to succeed.

As the hon. Lady suggested, one of those conditions is the environment that we have created. We have intellectual property arrangements, ensuring that copyright is protected and that our artists are able to secure a return for their endeavour, their ingenuity and their ability. We have created an effective business and support environment that has allowed our artists to develop and flourish. We have innovated, we have developed international relationships, we have collaborated and we have recognised and valued the international dimension of creativity. Brexit? It could make you cry, with the damage that it will do to all that.

The creative sector is very concerned about the impact of Brexit on our creative economy. The Creative Industries Federation has found that 96%—I repeat, 96%—of its members believe that Brexit is a fundamentally bad thing that will critically impact on the sector.

I listened to the Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech. There were lots and lots of things that I deplored in what she said, but the thing that sickened me most was the casual way she dismissed the digital single market, as if it was some sort of Brussels wheeze that got in the way of our national liberation. The digital single market is all about harmonising arrangements across the European Union. As the largest creator of content in the whole of the European Union, we designed the digital single market for goodness’ sake, and now we are joyfully leaving it. We will now be a third party when it comes to European arrangements, which is a profoundly bad position to be in, and we will not be looked at favourably by a European Union that we have so recently rejected.

Already, European nations are rubbing their hands and carving up all the institutions that they will acquire. The French are at it; the Germans are at it; and the eastern Europeans are practically gleeful about the opportunities that their content markets will now have, because we are leaving the European Union.

However, the biggest issue and the biggest threat that this ridiculous, chaotic Brexit will pose for our creative industries is the ending of freedom of movement. The creative industries probably need freedom of movement more than any other sector within our economy; the Department for Exiting the European Union itself found that, when it looked at all this sort of thing. For investment, harmonisation and collaboration in developing markets, we require the type of arrangements that exist within the EU, and to casually walk away as if the digital single market did not matter a fig is something that we should be appallingly ashamed at.

I believe there is only one thing we can do. We will never get back to the optimal arrangements of the European Union, of the digital single market, of harmonising across Europe and creating the conditions in which our creative industries can develop, thrive and grow markets. But what we have to do, Minister, is to stay as closely aligned as possible to the European Union. Even though we are now a third party, and it is likely that we will be rejected and treated poorly, the Minister must ensure that whatever the EU does in the digital single market is replicated within the United Kingdom, because if he does not, we will be in some serious trouble.

The Minister must also ensure that the creative industries and intellectual property are at the heart of any bilateral trade arrangement that is put in place. As I said, I chair the all-party parliamentary group on intellectual property and I have seen the report from the Alliance for Intellectual Property that warns, once again, of a “cliff-edge” Brexit and the impact that it would have on IP rights, reciprocity and all the things to do with our audio-visual sector, with portability and all the good things that we have been able to secure. We will lose all that. It is not going to come back, but we have to make sure that we are properly aligned.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

I want to put a question to the hon. Gentleman, not on IP but in his capacity as a well-known musician. Here, I am not talking about Runrig or Big Country, but—obviously—MP4. As a musician, he will probably know that only 2% of the music industry workforce has said that it feels Brexit will have a positive impact on their chances of work; 50% feared that it would have a negative impact. Does he agree that the Government should listen to their concerns and consider seeking a live music touring passport, which is one of several measures being discussed by the industry?

[Pete Wishart]

What we are now in the business of doing is finding solutions to mitigate the damage. The Minister will have to try and find ways to mitigate the loss of the optimal arrangements that we have in place now as members of the European Union. The touring passport is an example of how we can mitigate it. We are not going to get back to the ideal conditions. They have gone; for some reason, this Government are determined to pull us out of what is working for us, and is fundamentally and profoundly good for this sector. So arrangements will have to be put in place.

The hon. Lady will have seen the reports from UK Music, the Musicians’ Union and the Performers’ Alliance, which are all telling us that we are now in the position of trying to redress some of the damage.

[Kerry McCarthy]

What is important to consider when it comes to musicians and other creatives is that not everyone is from a huge money-making enterprise that can afford agents, lawyers and managers. It is the smaller musicians and, I would argue, the musicians in the better bands—rather than the Coldplays, Mumfords and Adeles of this world—who will really struggle with this extra bureaucracy, any extra cost and any difficulty that is put in their way.

There is also a particular concern about the European Health Insurance Card and people’s access to healthcare when they are travelling around Europe, which may also go out of the window. That is something else that may not be the most obvious thing for musicians, or actors, to worry about, but it will affect them.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The ending of freedom of movement will not impact that harshly on some of the bigger, multinational companies—the big tech giants that dominate the sector now. What it will impact on are the small and medium-sized enterprises within our creative sector. It will also have an impact on start-up businesses and it could result in impeding risk and innovation in the medium and long term, thereby hobbling the very drivers of our creativity.

It is profoundly disappointing that we are leaving the European Union. We will have to look for measures that will mitigate that, and that will ensure that we are aligned as closely as possible with EU partners. The thing that depresses me most is that we have carefully crafted and created this environment that lets our artists, creators, inventors and musicians succeed worldwide, and be the best in the world, and how we can so casually throw that away for nothing—absolutely nothing—disappoints me. It is something that I still hope we will have the opportunity to consider once again.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

It might help the remaining two Members who wish to catch my eye to know that we have to start the wind-ups at 3.30. By my calculation that is about 10 minutes each. If there is a Division at 3.45, do not worry because we can add time.

Perth’s Cultural Contribution to the UK

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to debate the cultural contribution of the city of Perth to the United Kingdom’s national life. As we await with bated breath the shortlist for the 2021 UK city of culture, our cultural contribution to this nation is vast, overwhelming and ever evolving. Nevertheless, we are not a city that rests on its laurels. We are a city that is rich in heritage and culture, oozing confidence and simply dripping with ambition. With our dramatic riverside setting in the heart of Scotland, where highland meets lowland, in the middle of a hybrid cultural melting pot, we are by far the most beautiful and attractive of all the city of culture candidates.

[Sir Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that support for the city of Perth goes beyond his party and his country? There are Government Members, whom he would no doubt refer to as Sassenachs, who think that Perth is a great city.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend—I call him that because, as I think you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, he is my colleague in the rock band MP4—for that contribution. I do, of course, recognise the fact that Perth’s bid is supported in constituencies throughout the United Kingdom.

Our plan is to make Perth one of Europe’s great small cities and, in achieving that, give confidence to the other small cities and large towns throughout the United Kingdom. Let me tell you a little about the city of Perth, Mr Deputy Speaker, because our story is utterly unique and like no other, and I know that you are a student of the civic attributes of so many of the communities represented in this House.

Perth is the ancient capital of Scotland. In the 9th century, Kenneth MacAlpin forged the Kingdom of Alba from the Picts and the Scots and was crowned Scotland’s first King at Scone. From then on, every King of Scotland was crowned on the stone of destiny in Scone, which is now part of the Perth city region. I shall say more on that artefact later.

Perth became a royal burgh in 1210, and by the early 14th century it was the most fortified settlement in the whole of Scotland. In the 16th century, the Scottish reformation was sparked in Perth, when John Knox preached in the wonderful surrounds of St John’s kirk in the heart of the city. Our place in Scotland’s pre-industrial history was secured and cemented with a pre-eminent place in the Jacobite struggles and the idea and creation of the modern nation of Scotland.

With industrialisation, Perth’s contribution was matched only by our contribution to the concurrent Scottish enlightenment. Our whisky, dyeing and linen, and our industry powered by the mills along the River Tay, were matched by the cultural contributions from John Duncan Fergusson and Patrick Geddes.

In the 20th century, the city of Perth became the administrative centre for much of the Scottish whisky industry and for Scottish agriculture. It offered fantastic financial services, particularly insurance, which is still a feature of the city today. From the 1940s, hydro-electric dams shaped communities and landscapes right across highland Perthshire, signalling the coming of the renewable energy revolution.

To bring things right up to date, five years ago we were awarded full city status by Her Majesty the Queen during her diamond jubilee celebrations, in recognition of Perth’s contribution to the civic, cultural and national life of not just Scotland but the whole United Kingdom.

We simply overflow with cultural activities. We have four nationally recognised arts organisations: Horsecross Arts, Culture Perth and Kinross, Pitlochry Festival theatre and the Perth festival of the arts. We have 20 dedicated cultural venues, including the wonderful Perth concert hall, which is celebrating its 12th year this year and is the largest concert-hall venue outside the Scottish central belt and, in my view, the finest concert hall in Scotland.

We are in the process of renovating our existing cultural estate with the creation of a new cultural quarter in the Mill Street area of the city and the multi-million pound redevelopment of the wonderful Perth theatre, which is one of the oldest and best-established theatres in not just Scotland but the whole United Kingdom.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making excellent points about why Perth should be the city of culture. Does he agree that Perth is the ideal location, not least because some of the areas nearby, such as North East Fife, would benefit hugely from Perth’s city of culture statue?

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is a son of Perth and knows the city particularly well. We are of course partners in the Tay cities deal, and I am pretty certain that the energy and activity sparked by Perth being the city of culture will be reflected in his constituency, too.

We are the only one of the bidding cities that has a premier league football team that is still competing in European competition, though that might be short-lived as the mighty St Johnstone take to the fields of Lithuania tomorrow night to try to get a goal back.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing tonight’s Adjournment debate. He will be aware of how fond I am of Perth, particularly of the mighty St Johnstone—good luck to them tomorrow night in Lithuania. What does it say about the cultural impact of Perth when the title of tonight’s debate is Perth’s cultural contribution to the UK? The debate I held on Paisley’s merits was about Paisley’s cultural contribution to the world, so there is a serious lack of ambition from Perth. Seriously, I wish Perth all the very best. Here is to a Scottish winner of the competition.

[Pete Wishart]

I think I am grateful for that contribution. It was a cunning plan to get the city and culture into the one title, which we have just about achieved. I say to my hon. Friend that I know that we are rivals in trying to be shortlisted for this competition, but the city of Perth will fall right behind the large town of Paisley if it is shortlisted. I am pretty certain that the large town of Paisley will fall behind the city of Perth if it is us who are successful in this bid. With all our particular cultural attributes, we are more than able and willing to carry with distinction the badge of UK city of culture.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter tonight. Obviously, I look forward to working with him to help to secure the city of culture bid for Perth. Hopefully, he will agree that it is not just Perth that will benefit directly, but wider Perthshire—the 12 towns and the more than 100 settlements that feed in and further enrich Perth and that are enriched by Perth. We should also look back at Perthshire’s cultural contribution to the UK, which started not in the middle ages, but goes right back to Roman settlements. There were Roman roads and trading with the Roman Empire. A contribution was made by taking artefacts from Scotland and throughout the rest of the UK to the wider Roman Empire. In Perthshire, we have Innerpeffray Library, which was established in 1680 and was the first lending library in Scotland. I hope that he will consider the wider Perthshire area and its benefits in his proposal for the city of culture bid.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Can I just say that Members should make interventions, not speeches? I am sure that the hon. Gentleman wants to save that speech for another occasion.

[Pete Wishart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I was coming on to mention the big hinterland issues that support this particular bid. May I also congratulate him on what he said? I thought that I was doing well going as far back as Kenneth MacAlpin, but he has managed to beat me by going back to Roman settlement times. I thank him for that and look forward to working with a fellow Perthshire MP to ensure that this bid will be progressed.

This bid is truly inspired, innovative and creative. It fully captures the spirit and the idea of the UK city of culture. At the heart of our bid is a determination to tackle the quiet crisis faced by cities such as Perth and the 30 million people in the UK who live outside our big cities. It is a bid that speaks for the small cities and large towns where so many of our fellow citizens live; that recognises our particular issues, challenges and agendas; and that looks beyond the veneer of scale and rurality—where rural beauty can sometimes mask rural poverty and social isolation. I am talking about small cities where the lack of high-value jobs drives talent elsewhere, particularly among our young people. It is in this setting where culture could make a real difference in connecting people and places. In reply to the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham), we believe that an outstanding city of culture is as meaningful for the people living in its hinterland as it is for those living in the city itself. We want Perth to lead the way in defining these issues and that agenda.

The quiet crisis that I mentioned is characterised in Perthshire by three big challenges, which is our dependency on tourism, hospitality and agriculture where wages are 9% below the Scottish average.

Perth is often seen as a prosperous city. I concede that it is, but sometimes the veneer of prosperity masks real defining issues such as a low-wage and low-skill economy, which is depressingly still a feature of so much of Perth’s community. Some 38% of neighbourhoods are classed as financially stretched, one in five children live in poverty and cultural participation among the 20% most deprived communities is limited in its opportunity. It is the quiet crisis of 150,000 people living across a massive 5,000 square miles with the associated social isolation and low cultural participation levels. These challenges are no less urgent and real than those faced by the big cities, but they are less recognised. We hope to change that in the course of the bid.

Our bid will focus on the contribution of small cities and large towns to the UK economy, alongside the large-scale cultural regeneration programmes that are a transforming feature of our big cities. Different approaches are needed for different types of cities to unlock the potential of places such as Perth and tackle the quiet crisis that they face.

We will use UK city of culture to make real step changes, using culture as a transformative tool and raising the bar for great small cities with imagination, joy, wonder, emotion and surprise. Since Sir Walter Scott’s time, Perth has been known as the fair city. It is a name with which we are very familiar and one that has become intimately associated with the city of Perth, but we want to move beyond the fair city. We will celebrate Perth’s beauty and place at the heart of Scotland’s story, but we will do so by jump-starting our future. We will honour Perth’s heart and our extraordinary history, including a mass celebration of our bid for the stone of destiny to be rightly returned to Perthshire. We will have that tick-box attraction that will drive new generations of tourists to our wonderful city.

We want it to be wild, taking outstanding creative work into the extraordinary landscape surrounding Perth—our wild places, hillsides, lochs and rivers—and giving a voice to the new tribes of the 21st century. We want it to be beyond, starting in our medieval city vennels, the ancient but clogged arteries that criss-cross Perth, flowing through the rivers connecting the city to its hinterland. And it will be connected, both physically and digitally. We are looking to democratise access to culture in a world where people can create and access it across many different and varied platforms. As the infrastructure to deliver this improves and becomes more accessible, we want to ensure that visitor experiences are improved and enhanced. Technology can enable togetherness. We will use it as such.

All this will be created with the participation of the 150,000 citizens living in the Perth city region. We expect more than 740,000 people to take part in person during 2021, and around 650,000 via our ambitious digital platform projects. We can deliver this. Our plans are fully costed and our bid is built on solid roots of delivery, bringing public services and communities together to plan and deliver these priorities across our city region.

We are looking for a solid legacy. By 2022, Perth can be the place that has led the way for other small cities and large towns by reconnecting with its huge hinterland through culture. We hope to create 1,500 jobs in the creative industries by 2021 and an extra 60 additional creative industry start-ups by 2025, to grow our creative sector by 25% to £58 million gross value added by 2021 and to £72 million by 2025, to increase our annual tourism visitors to 2.6 million in 2021, to recruit 2,500 volunteers for Perth 2021 and have 40,000 people volunteering annually by 2025. We hope to increase cultural participation in our most deprived communities by 16% by 2025. We will use the city of culture title to leave a profound legacy and kick-start our future beyond the fair city.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

All these targets are undoubtedly achievable not just by the city that wins the title, but by all the bidding cities. If they want an example of that, they have to look no further than Glasgow, whose cultural renaissance began with its award of European city of culture in 1990. I wish all the cities competing for the title the best of luck.

[Pete Wishart]

I do, too. I actually performed on the evening when Glasgow was granted its European city of culture status. It was in Glasgow Square, on the eve of 1989 to 1990. I am pretty sure my hon. Friend was not there, but he is absolutely right: even just the process of bidding is transformative for these large towns and cities. I have a particular vested interest in the city of Perth, and I hope we are successful, but I do wish all the other cities well.

I believe in this bid. The time is right for the voice of the small cities to be heard; for us to be held in the same regard as the big cities of the United Kingdom and to have our agendas addressed; for new cultural regeneration models to emerge in small cities, alongside what works in the large cites; and for us to speak for the 30 million people who live in communities such as Perth.

We are a unique and beautiful small city, and our cultural and heritage assets reflect Perth as the place where ancient Scotland was forged and modern Scotland was shaped. In Perth we have the capacity, the potential, the passion, the imagination and the means to do this. Perth is simply the place.