argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (Conservative, Centre-right): I will resist the temptation to be drawn by the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) into discussing his new clause 8 covering the funding of free television licences. We have already debated the issue at some length. Instead, in the spirit of consensus, I would like to concentrate on some of his other amendments, with which I have greater sympathy The first is new clause 15. On Second Reading, we discussed complaints by the creative industries that, when content is sought, the majority of sites produced by search engines such as Google and others are illegal. That has been the subject of discussion among the search companies, the rights owners and the Government for a long time, and progress has been glacial Since that discussion on Second Reading, I have had the advantage of talking to Google. I suspect the hon. Gentleman will have had that advantage, too. Google makes the point that if we put into its search engine the name of the artist and the name of the track, the overwhelming majority are legal results. That is progress. There is no doubt that it is better than it used to be. That deals with the problem of people who do not necessarily want to break the law but just find themselves directed to illegal sites, even when they are not looking for them. That is a step forward, but it does not deal with the problem of people who do not want to pay for music. If we put an additional few terms into the search box, such as "MP3 free download", the position is completely different and the overwhelming majority of results from that search are illegal. That remains a big problem.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend mentioned earlier that there are possible industry-based solutions. I am reminded of the way the Government handled the 2012 Olympics, when it was not possible to get tickets without providing photo ID, and it was an end-user sale in the first place, which effectively meant the bots could not buy large numbers of tickets in the way he has just described for the V Festival, or indeed for a Paul Simon concert. Does he believe that the solution therefore lies with the sporting and entertainment industries, and that they could have done this several years ago, and it is peculiar that they have elected to come to this place asking for a legislation-based solution when there is a software answer out there right now?
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a lot of sympathy with my hon. Friend on that. I was fortunate enough to attend one of the greatest concerts of all time—the Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2—where exactly that system was introduced. People had to produce the credit card used to purchase the ticket in order to get the ticket; they did not get the ticket until they arrived at the venue. There are ways around this problem, but that imposes quite a considerable additional burden on the ticket purchaser, either to supply a photograph or to take a credit card. Of course, it does not then assist when there is a legitimate reason why somebody might want to transfer their ticket to another person because for some reason they are not able to attend. We do not want to stop the secondary market working in a way that is wholly legitimate, which is the case in such circumstances.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree, and that was my experience, and indeed my right hon. Friend the Minister’s, despite our different musical tastes, when we sought to purchase tickets. For that reason, I am interested in the suggestion in new clause 31 to target specifically the bot problem, or the electronic purchasing in a short period of almost the entire ticket allocation—hundreds of tickets in a matter of seconds bought up by these bots—which prevents ordinary fans from accessing the tickets. I cannot believe that that is what the promoters want, so looking specifically at this problem as the new clause does is an interesting approach, and certainly one worth exploring further.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): Order. We have one hour and one minute left in this debate and many Members want to speak—and I suspect they will also wish to have answers from the Minister and would not like to truncate his contribution to the debate. I cannot impose a time limit; I can only ask for courtesy from one Member to another and short speeches. I am not suggesting speeches so far have been too long, but I ask Members to speak as quickly as they possibly can.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Damian Noel Thomas Collins (Conservative, Centre-right): I will try to adhere to your guidelines, Madam Deputy Speaker I would like to speak to new clause 31, but first I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on her campaigning over many years to deal with the abuses in the secondary ticketing market. I also want to congratulate my Select Committee colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), who took up this issue strongly in the Bill Committee. In fact, the new clause that we are discussing tonight is exactly the same as the one he tabled for discussion in Committee. Such was the power of his argument that he persuaded the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) to pursue this matter on Report, and I am grateful to the shadow Minister for agreeing that the Select Committee could table this new clause for discussion on Report.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to ask the Chair of the Select Committee whether, in among the penetrating questioning that we have heard about, anyone on the Select Committee asked the people they were interviewing why they were not installing any of the safeguards that are already available. They are already being successfully used in sporting and entertainment events. If those safeguards already exist, why should we be expected to introduce a red tape-heavy legislative solution to a problem that the industry could solve for itself? Indeed, it could have solved it several years ago had it cared to do so.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Damian Noel Thomas Collins (Conservative, Centre-right): Those issues were covered in the Select Committee hearing; they are there in the transcript for all to see. Some venues have introduced direct selling technology, and it can work. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon said, it would be unacceptable to many consumers if our blanket response to this crisis in the ticketing industry was to say to the industry, "Solve it yourself." That would place large costs and burdens on the venues, and it would be particularly unfair on the smaller ones. This problem affects not only the blockbuster events at the O2 or the Royal Albert Hall but events at small venues all around the country. I even saw tickets for a comedy event next year at the Winter Gardens in Margate being sold at three or four times their face value on the secondary market. This is affecting all sorts of venues More seriously, however, it is not in the interests of some of the primary ticketing sites to report the problem, because they own the secondary sites that are making the massive profits. The profit growth in the secondary market stands at between 30% and 40% a year. It is true that at the moment more tickets are sold through the primary market—through companies such as Ticketmaster —but very large profits are being made in the secondary market.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with my hon. Friend on the diagnosis of the problem. I think everyone here shares the sense of injustice and iniquity that he is describing. My concern, however, is that it is not just the punters who go to see these events who are being affected. The talent—the musicians, the actors and the sportsmen and women—are also losing out because they are getting less money from the initial ticket sale when the ticket is sold on at an inflated price. They and the punters could all win if more of that value could be captured for the talent and if the punters were able to pay less. Both sides therefore have a huge interest in cutting out the middle man, and I do not understand why they are not doing it.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Damian Noel Thomas Collins (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to say that it is in the interests of many different stakeholders in the industry to do that, but at the moment it is not happening across the board. Some of the bigger artists and events have been able to introduce these measures, but it has been difficult to do it uniformly We must ask ourselves why the primary ticketing sites do not report the mass use of bots to the authorities. Why did they not report it as suspicious behaviour? It would be easy for them to do so. We heard in evidence to the Committee that it is so easy to do that the primary sites’ biggest customers often have favourable terms of trade. Their own secondary ticketing sites certainly have favourable terms of trade with people who are bulk selling vast numbers of tickets. It is easy to identify who they are, and it would be easy for a primary site to report them if it became suspicious because they were selling thousands of tickets only minutes after they had gone on sale on the primary ticketing site. If they are able to do that so quickly, they must be using bot technology to pervert the market. It does not get reported, however, and we must ask ourselves why that is. Is it because they are making too much money?
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to answer the points made so far, but I hope there will be time afterwards for others who still want to speak. We have had a broad debate on the amendments relating to copyright, broadcasting, ticketing, data and intellectual property, and I will speak as quickly as I can and take as many interventions as I can. There are a total of 36 proposed new clauses and amendments, and I propose to address each in turn in broadly the same order On copyright, new clause 15 proposes that the Government take a power to have a code of conduct on search engines to dictate how they should work to prevent copyright infringement. This new clause was also proposed in Committee, and I would like to update the House on the progress. Since then, the Intellectual Property Minister, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, has chaired a further round-table among search engine and creative industries representatives. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) said, that group is now making some progress towards agreeing an outline code of practice, but much more needs to be done. Following the round-table, a revised draft code will be prepared by the IPO for consideration by the group before its next meeting on 10 January. Our position on online platforms is that they must act responsibly and work with rights holders to help enforce IP rights. We are clear on the importance of getting things right and do not rule out legislation, but given the progress being made it is not necessarily the right time for legislative intervention We also discussed new clause 30 in Committee, where I set out the range of criminal provisions that apply to the sale and use of devices that infringe copyright. This matter relates to the IPTV devices that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, the former Secretary of State, spoke about so powerfully. Following a number of investigations across the country, there are pending prosecutions relying on a number of offences. I am sympathetic to the intent behind the new clause, but it does not in and of itself offer any greater legislative protection to rights owners than the existing offences that target this type of behaviour. If the existing legal provisions are shown to be deficient when the pending prosecutions have concluded, we will bring forward proposals for legislation New clause 16 is another of the helpful proposals from the shadow Front-Bench team to deliver on a Conservative party manifesto commitment—this time on e-book lending. I am grateful for the degree of support that our manifesto has received from all parts of the House during the Bill’s passage.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not normally reassured by the advent of a roundtable, but I am enormously reassured in this case because the Minister is a very persuasive man and I am sure that he will have around that table representatives from the sportsmen’s agents groups, from Equity, the actors’ union, and from all sorts of UK music organisations and various others. I am talking about the people who represent the talent, who are currently being ripped off because they are getting only the face value when these things go on sale, when they are bought by the bots, and not the eventual secondary market value. They are the people with a huge interest in getting this done so that they get a larger proportion of the eventual value and customers are not getting ripped off, too.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, we have representatives of all sides coming to the roundtable, including my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty—I am not sure that that will reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare. Although we would not want to close down the secondary market for tickets altogether, clearly the automatic harvesting of tickets sold below market price—so that fans can afford them—for resale at a higher value is wrong. I want to build a bridge over troubled waters, listen to the points made at the round table and bring forward legislation in this Bill if this is found to be necessary On digital government, amendment 3 and new clause 19 concern data-sharing powers in education and health. They address the same issue from the opposite end, and it is a bit of a surprise to find that they have been submitted by the same people. Not only can people’s health and education data be incredibly powerful in improving lives, but they are very sensitive and need to be carefully handled. These two proposals from the Opposition represent amendments both to open up data sharing and to close it down. This is a slightly confused approach, but neither of the proposals is necessary, because the concerns expressed at the root of each are already addressed in the Bill. New clause 19 would open up more data sharing in education, and it is good to see this direction of travel supported by the Opposition Front-Bench team, because data sharing can improve people’s lives, for instance by making sure that we better identify eligibility for free school meals. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has made this argument strongly. This is a laudable aim, but it is already provided for in the Department for Education’s electronic eligibility checking system. Indeed, the Bill sets out how aspects of data sharing can be expanded through secondary legislation in due course.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nigel Adams (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to talk to new clause 31, which is incredibly important, and I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for the incredible amount of work she has done on the issue. I would also like to thank the hon. Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) and for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for allowing the Select Committee to table the new clause I would also like to thank the Minister, whose words a few moments ago—that the Government are prepared to take action to outlaw bots, if necessary following the meeting later this week—are incredibly encouraging. I shall be at that meeting, and I am grateful for the invitation—hopefully, I will be allowed my two penn’orth. It is incredibly important that we get all the players involved We have heard countless examples of where this racket is going on. In the music business, there is Iron Maiden, The 1975 and Black Sabbath. We have heard about Phil Collins and KT Tunstall. My own example—of trying to buy tickets for Green Day—even made it to Prime Minister’s questions. I am not sure whether the Prime Minister is a fan of Green Day, but I am sure that, if she did go to a concert, she would have the time of her life However, the problem also affects all sorts of other marketplaces, including the theatre. Today, my colleagues and I met Sonia Friedman, the producer of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child", who told me that 60,000 tickets were released last week, and thousands of those tickets ended up on the secondary market at hugely inflated prices because of bots. That is clearly unacceptable To conclude, I hope we can get somewhere following the meeting on Wednesday. We are also keen to see the Government’s response to the Waterson report, and I am sure that their response will follow that meeting. It was interesting to note that, at our Select Committee inquiry, Professor Waterson agreed that action to outlaw ticket bots could be a solution, which is very encouraging I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for arranging the meeting. [Interruption.] It seems that I am being wound up, so hopefully everybody else will get a chance to chip in.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Other
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): Since the Secretary of State will open the Third Reading debate, may I take this opportunity to thank the House for all the comments we have heard, especially those from Opposition Front Benchers? It has been a very collaborative effort, especially on this group of provisions, but also more broadly. I hope that the Bill leaves the House in better shape than it entered it, as it goes off to be considered in the other place. I thank everybody involved, from the officials in the Box to all the stakeholders more broadly. I ask the House to support the Government’s proposals Question put and negatived.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Other
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall not detain the House for long. All I can say is that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) had an opportunity to talk about clause 85 on Second Reading. Did he do so? No, he did not. There was spare time during the Committee stage. The hon. Gentleman could have joined the Committee, enjoyed our company, and talked about clause 85. Did he do so? No, he did not. On Report, he could have tabled any sort of amendment to clause 85, or, indeed, tried to vote against it, but he chose not to. I think we can see through all his bluster Question put and 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. Third Reading Queen’s and Prince of Wales’s consent signified.
Digital Economy Bill — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nigel Adams (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall speak only briefly on Third Reading. I enjoyed being a member of the Public Bill Committee, which was only the second such Committee that I have served on—[Interruption.] I notice the Whips looking at me, but this is by no means an application to be involved in more any time soon The team in the Bill Committee was very constructive, and we have just had an encouraging debate on Report, but I want to touch on one issue that is worth pressing home: ticketing, bots and touts. People have said to me that this is free-market issue—rightly so—but a principle of any truly free market is that there is a willing buyer and a willing seller. We cannot forget the second part of that equation. While some fans might be willing to spend, perhaps through gritted teeth, many thousands of pounds on tickets—dozens of times over the face value—to see a favourite artist, not many artists are willing to sell their tickets to parasitical touts. Touts rob artists of their right to set prices that might be more accessible to their fans. If Adele, for example, wanted to charge £10,000 or £20,000 for a ticket to one of her shows, she would, but she does not. As a seller, that is absolutely her right. We should support a free market in which a seller’s right to make such choices to develop their fan bases is respected. I was pleased that the Minister committed on Report to act against bots if necessary, following his meeting with the Secretary of State and the industry. I have no doubt that all involved would like to work together as the Bill progresses, and I stand ready to play a small part if possible. The fundamental point is that we have now achieved broad cross-party consensus. Other countries have brought in similar laws to outlaw bots, and now is the time for this House to take action. This is a technical area that is not simple to resolve. While this is not the only measure that will tackle ticketing problems, it has cross-party support, as well as support outside the House, including from ticketing companies, which want action and bots to be outlawed. I look forward to the Minister’s response to the Waterson report and hope that any action that the Government take in the other place will give consumers the confidence that this Government are on everyone’s side, not just the side of a privileged few.
Children’s Funeral Costs — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Other
Marcus Charles Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for her work in bringing this sensitive and important issue to national attention. It is always difficult to know how others feel in such circumstances—
Children’s Funeral Costs — House of Commons, 2016-11-28
Topic: Mixed Topics
Marcus Charles Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I fully understand what the hon. Gentleman says. I represent many Muslim constituents and I know that when they have a bereavement in the community, they seek to deal with the burial as soon as possible, quite often within 24 hours. He makes a very good point, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has just nodded to me to confirm that she would be more than happy to include the groups that the hon. Gentleman mentions As I have said several times, I know that the assurances that I have been able to give tonight will not go as far as the hon. Member for Swansea East would like. I recognise the difficulty and the trouble that she has gone to in bringing the matter to the House tonight. I hope that bringing this matter to the wider attention of the House and of the public will mean that local authorities will consider their approach to charging and take their local residents’ views into account. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby), who is here on the Treasury Bench, has heard what the hon. Lady said. I am sure that as a result of tonight’s debate, we will all reflect on what she has suggested the Government do Question put and agreed to.