Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Barbara Keeley and Chris Bryant

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 30th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I completely agree, and that is Labour party policy. I am used to fallacies being written about me, and I have seen many written about my hon. Friend as well. I am sure we will all get over it. Incidentally, that is why, as I shall come on to say later, it is very important that we have a free press that is able to say what it wants, free from the intervention of state owners from other countries.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, it is perfectly legitimate for somebody who has bought a couple of tickets for Saturday night and who suddenly finds that they are ill, that they have to go to a family engagement or that they have bought tickets for the wrong night to be able to sell them on at face value, or perhaps for a little bit more simply to cover the cost of administration and things like that. However, this is a market that is not working. It is an example of market failure, not an example of market success.

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I feel more fingernails.

[Barbara Keeley]

My fingernails are nothing like as bad. Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is actually worse than just the prices he quoted, of which he gave some really good and powerful examples, because of the selling of tickets that do not actually exist—fraudulent tickets? I have heard from a number of venues about the selling of tickets that should go to carers or young people. People are turning up at events such as those at the O2 and other venues with these tickets and being turned away, often when they have travelled to London and paid for hotels. So there is all the disappointment and the financial loss of that on top of the ticket prices.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I completely agree, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are terrible instances of all sorts of different scams, and—this is the honest truth—remarkably few prosecutions. Whether the number is two, four or five, it should be in the hundreds. [Interruption.] Six—half a dozen—great!

The truth is that we all know instances from our constituencies of people who have faced precisely these problems. I have had constituents say to me, “I feel too embarrassed to own up to having bought these tickets.” I remember going past the Millennium stadium in Cardiff, or Arms Park in the old days, and we all despised the ticket touts, just as we did outside a Kate Bush concert or whatever. Sometimes, however, we were just so desperate that we bought the tickets, and they of course turned out to be fraudulent or non-existent, or they were allocated to specific kinds of people that did not include us. All those points are worth making, and I would add this one: all local authorities have trading standards offices but many are now so depleted because of the state of local government finances that it is very difficult for anybody to get proper recompense and a deal.