Breaching of Limits on Ticket Sales Regulations 2018 — House of Lords, 2018-06-13
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Thomas Ashton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful for all the contributions. It is clear that this is an issue that is close to the heart, or at least the interests, of many of us. I will respond to some of the specific issues that have been raised, although the statutory instrument itself is very narrow. Most of the issues that have been raised are outside its purview. Nevertheless, they are interesting and deserve an answer I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Moynihan. I have spent many happy hours debating the subject with him. Sometimes I have come off best although normally I have come off worst, but we are pleased that he is pleased with this statutory instrument: it is a beginning. I pay tribute to his knowledge and expertise in this; he certainly helped to improve the Digital Economy Act last year The noble Lords, Lord Stevenson, Lord Griffiths and Lord Faulkner, among others, talked a lot about enforcement. Of course, I recognise the need for proper enforcement and therefore I welcome the Competition and Markets Authority’s recent announcement, as part of its enforcement investigation, that it had secured commitments from three of the largest ticketing platforms on additional information to be provided about tickets being resold through their platforms, and that it has notified another, more recalcitrant secondary ticketing platform of its intention to pursue court action if it does not fall into line and address the CMA’s concerns satisfactorily As I think was mentioned, we are giving approximately £15 million annually to National Trading Standards for national and cross-boundary enforcement. I welcome, therefore, its announcement at the end of last year that its officers had conducted raids at a number of properties across the UK, resulting in four people being arrested on suspicion of breaches of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. In addition, the Advertising Standards Authority has recently taken action against the four main secondary ticketing websites, banning the misleading presentation of pricing information on their websites. If the sites fail to comply with this requirement properly, the Advertising Standards Authority will ask trading standards to take further enforcement action on this matter. I think this enforcement work demonstrates that the matter is being taken seriously by the enforcement bodies and that we are prepared to go after those who flout the law or abuse the ticketing market I recognise the issue that my noble friend Lord Moynihan raised of the bots themselves, as opposed to the platforms, being based abroad. Of course, that is an issue that is common to many online crimes: if they are not within our jurisdiction, we have to co-operate with our partners abroad. We will do that where it is possible to do so and, of course, as I said before, if they have entities in this country then we will pursue them through enforcement action. I believe there is a Swiss site I referred to earlier for which that is being contemplated at the moment Lastly, and this applies also to online gambling, if foreign sites or people are committing offences, one of the ways of looking at that is through the payment mechanisms. Payment providers do not like dealing with people who are committing crime, so that is an issue we could look at. My noble friend Lord Moynihan referred specifically to viagogo, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, or it may have been the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, talked about what my honourable friend the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries said about viagogo As I said, the enforcement agencies are committed to investigating breaches of consumer law and we welcome the CMA’s announcement last month that it had secured commitments from three of the top sites, and notified a fourth that it will pursue court action. We should also welcome the Advertising Standards Authority’s announcement at the end of May that it has referred viagogo to National Trading Standards for non-compliance with its rulings. We also welcome FIFA’s decision to file a complaint against viagogo and to protect fans by warning that it will cancel any World Cup tickets identified as having been purchased through the Switzerland-based website. My honourable friend the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries was clear that her advice to fans is not to buy tickets for the World Cup from viagogo.