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Ticket Price Regulation: Live Events

My hon. Friend is correct. The most accessed site is YouTube, and it gets not a penny from that. I am guilty of listening to music on YouTube as well, watching old Top of the Pops episodes from the ’80s, and Runaround—that was a good show—and Swap Shop and so on. Anyway, my hon. Friend is right; we need to remunerate. In fact, Scotland has just introduced a universal basic income for musicians, or they are talking about it at least, but anyway, we do not like that Scottish Government—boo! They are not even here today. Where are they? That’s them for you.

Viagogo actually welcomed the delay of the legislation, and it is notorious for selling tickets that people buy only to find when they turn up to the venue that the tickets are fake. Viagogo did a briefing for MPs where it said that it is stopping piracy. That is just nonsense. Very sinisterly, the CEO Eric Baker at an on-stage event at JP Morgan boasted about how he has the Government’s ear. I hope that my good friend the Minister can put a dampener on that. He said that he has been five times to the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport between November and May and has the Government in the palm of his hand. He said that they are listening to him, that he is “educating” them on the complexities of the drawbacks. I ask the Government please not to listen to these people; we should listen to our constituents.

Before the last election, The Guardian obtained footage of a secret meeting of touts somewhere near London Bridge. They were establishing a lobbying group and saying that they would “sabotage” the proposals. One of them is even seen from the stage saying, “Look we can all chip in and get a good lobbyist, because if this change happens we are f***ed.”

Surely that is the point—we want to do those people over, because they have been screwing the public something chronic for ages. The power needs to be rebalanced towards the fans so that we can have arts for all, but these guys are continuing unperturbed and undisturbed. I urge my right hon. Friend the Minister to be bold and stand up to the StubHubs, the Viagogos and all these nasty people.

Zohran Mamdani had a campaign at the world cup called “Game over Greed”, because the tickets there were sky-high and dynamically priced. As a result, 1,000 $50 tickets were ringfenced for residents of New York’s boroughs. He even managed to negotiate free bus travel; in the Brennan review it says that transport is prohibited.

I worry that we risk falling behind other advanced economies on this. The US Justice Department sued Live Nation—Ticketmaster’s parent company—which, after a lawsuit, had to pay up to $280 million in damages for a scandal a bit like the Oasis one, but for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. Ireland has all but banned secondary ticketing since 2021. Australia has done so this year, and its ban covers resale, dynamic pricing and drip pricing, and there are fines of 100 million Australian dollars for offenders. Please scare them with something stiff like that, Minister!

Those hidden fees—what are they for? It should not be the case that “If you go down to the web tonight, you’re sure of a nasty surprise,” but that is what is happening. As we speak, in Wembley, Bon Jovi are taking the stage. Yesterday, tickets were £80, but then there was this service charge fee of £17.06, making the whole thing £97.06. That 21.3% charge is a huge mark-up. It is not just Bon Jovi; for Niall Horan, Pulp and Jay-Z, the fee for processing, handling and administration is at around that 20% mark. Also, why are those fees per ticket, and not per transaction? We have just got rid of the hated two-child limit in recognition of families. These per-person things can add up. Sadly, this is happening with the Royal Opera House; and the National Theatre—it is publicly funded; it is not a charity—is now introducing an element of those fees and dynamic pricing. I long for the days when we could see the queue, and who was in front of us. There was some predictability there.

I am not against dynamic or surge pricing per se. It is seen as exploitative, but it could mean that pricing goes down. I once saw Elvis Costello at Hyde Park for free; the headliner was meant to be Elton John, but he cancelled, which was good for me as I am not an Elton fan. People can understand demand factors—for example, the price at the pumps in Acton being affected by the strait of Hormuz—but when we do not know why these things are being done, it annoys us.

In conclusion, we need to bear in mind ethical considerations; we need transparency; and we need certainty. I welcome the draft Bill in the King’s speech. I love the Minister’s article in the Daily Record, which says, “Time is up for touts”, but the Government seem to be taking their time introducing a Bill in Parliament. I say: hurry up and do it today. The Government have already fixed many things in the cost of living crisis.

Will the Minister please confirm when this will happen? We have been told, “When parliamentary time allows”, but this would be an easy win. As I said, I have a ready-made Bill here that would do it; we could just make that law. Where there is a will, there is a way—we have acted on driving tests—and the Prime Minister is a music fan. We have had four Prime Ministers since the start of the Ukraine war, which is a tragic war, and he is the only one who has strummed a guitar with the troops. Let us do this. Let us not look back in anger; let us make it happen, Minister.

7.17 pm