argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): Amendment (a) was tabled by the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and me. It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of the new clause as inserted in the other place; it follows on from new clauses 18 to 21, which I, the hon. Member for Hove and others tried to add to the Bill on Report. Those new clauses were based on the report produced by the all-party group on ticket abuse after our inquiry into the secondary market and what needs to change within it It is worth pointing out that all these interventions—the all-party group’s report, the new clauses in the Commons and, latterly, the new clause passed in the other place—have been completely cross-party. I would like to place on the record my thanks not only to Opposition Members, but to other hon. Members—in particular the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) and the hon. Members for Hove, for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay). They have been big supporters in the all-party group and in working on the Bill during its passage through the House In the other place, the push was very ably led by former sports Minister Lord Moynihan and by Baroness Heyhoe Flint, both Conservative Members, as well as by Lord Clement-Jones, the Minister’s party colleague, who has been one of Parliament’s foremost campaigners for our live music sector. It was also strongly supported by my noble Friend Lord Stevenson and by many others from all parties and none, including Baroness Grey-Thompson. It is safe to say that the Minister’s counterpart in the Lords had a pretty rough time in those debates. If the Government had any doubt in their mind that they were on the wrong side of the argument when they rejected these amendments in the Commons last summer, their defeat in the Lords should have confirmed that for them.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Other
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly will not give way to the hon. Gentleman at this stage. I am sure that he plans to speak, and we have debated this so often that I cannot think that there is anything he would add to the argument today that I have not heard already. He will get his chance and I will listen to him then.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman can debate when his time comes The concession that the Minister offered in this place—tweaking the guidance to a set of regulations to make it clear that secondary ticketing platforms should abide by them—has proved completely ineffective. Those regulations have been in place for more than six months, and the secondary websites have completely ignored them. It is time for real action, and that is what proposed new clause 33 would provide What we are asking for is not exactly radical. Any consumer in any market would expect to know who they were buying from, exactly what they were buying and whether a product came with a risk that they would not be able or allowed to enjoy it.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): Not at the moment What we are asking for would not put secondary ticketing platforms out of business; if anything, it would increase consumer confidence in them. What we are asking for would not drive legitimate resale underground, but it might drive some illegitimate resale underground. Why would the Government and this House want to take decisions that benefited illegitimate enterprise? If that part of touting is driven underground, then it will be nowhere near as successful as it is now, given that it is able to hide behind the legitimate veneer of platforms that are supposed to be about fans selling unusable tickets to fellow fans. What we are asking for would not leave consumers who bought a ticket they can no longer use out of pocket if the event organiser does not allow refunds; there are sometimes very good reasons for many of them not doing so.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): If the ticket clearly states that it is not for resale—that it is non-transferable—then that is part of the terms and conditions that it was sold under. In the new model that we are hoping to create, with a new level of transparency, there would be less need for that The reason event holders put it on their tickets is to try to do something about the murkiness and market failure that we see at the moment with the resale of tickets on the secondary market. Under our proposal, that need would not be there because there would be full transparency and people would be able to see who was reselling the tickets. There would be fewer abuses of the system so there would be less need to put "Not for resale" on tickets, because genuine fans would be able to resell to other genuine fans tickets for events they could no longer attend.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): May I also praise my hon. Friend’s leadership? She has done a cracking job raising this important point. Does she agree that we need to get at the touts? Those internet spivs are ripping off fans across the country, rigging the market and preventing real fans from going to gigs by exploiting them through the hugely overpriced tickets that they have harvested.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): What that example demonstrates—Conservative Members refuse to see this for some reason—is complete market failure. A Select Committee and the Office of Fair Trading looked into the matter, but what Conservative Members fail to mention is that they did so 10 years ago, and because they did not act then, the market is now skewed to the extent that my hon. Friend has described. Is that not exactly why, 10 years later, we need to do something, and would not the amendment solve the problem that he has highlighted?
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): With the benefit of her knowledge of this matter, my hon. Friend has made her point extremely well. As she says, what we are seeing is market failure, and it is interesting to note that the main evidence base that was drawn on by the hon. Member for Shipley is many years old.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): I must move on, as other Members want to speak Points made by Members on both sides of the House have reinforced what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson). We should be focusing on market failure, and the need to make the market operate well in the interests of performers, venues and consumers. I did not expect to speak in this debate, but I am doing so because constituents have knocked on my door and said that they consider the present system to be unfair and not in their interests, and I tend to agree with them. However, it is not only my constituents and me—and other Members—who take that view. In a letter that it sent to Members, UK Music says: "UK Music's position is that we would prefer there was no secondary ticketing market as it is often understood as it does a disservice to our customers. Profiteering undermines the enterprise, endeavours and investment of those whose livelihoods depend on the future sustainability of the music industry." We should focus on customers and on those whose livelihoods depend on the music industry, and the same applies to sporting and other events I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West when she said, in simple terms, that at the heart of the debate, the amendment and consideration of the Lords amendment was the question of whose side we were on. Are we on the side of consumers, or are we on the side of ticket touts? That is the choice before the House, and I hope that we bear it in mind later when we vote.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Other
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): It was tickets for the Take That reunion tour that garnered my interest in this topic. I want to place on the record my gratitude to my hon. Friend for the leadership that he showed on this issue before anyone else in the House did. Others have picked up the reins now that he has led the way in getting us to where we are today.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Kerry Gillian McCarthy (Labour, Centre-left): I had exactly the same experience, albeit not with Foo Fighters. I was trying to get tickets for the Jesus and Mary Chain recently, and there seemed to be a lot of sites advertising the tickets as being available. Those sites lure us in, but eventually we get transferred to other sites. By that time, we have wasted a huge amount of time and end up buying the more expensive tickets. Sometimes we try to hunt for the original tickets, but I suspect that that offer no longer exists by that stage.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Robertson (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is absolutely right This is not a free market; it is what I call a con market. I believe in a fair market. I believe that people should be treated fairly and given a chance to buy something at the advertised price. If 100,000 people want to go to a concert and they get to the tickets before I do, that is fine, as long as there are really 100,000 people. I do not expect the machines that the hon. Member for Hove mentioned to buy up all those tickets in a matter of seconds so that I cannot get one. That is not a free market, and it is certainly not a fair one The previous Labour Government, with whom I had lots of arguments, could not quite see this my way. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), will listen to these points, because she now has a chance to do something that my Government never did—put the situation right. Things are getting worse and as technology becomes more advanced, people use it for the wrong ends. They used it to prevent my kids from getting those Take That tickets all those years ago—my kids are still looking for those tickets, even though they are parents themselves now—and they are preventing me from getting the tickets I want We just want to be treated fairly. I do not mind paying the going rate of £68 or whatever, but I do mind someone buying up 100,000 tickets at £68 each and then selling them for £100 each. That is not right, and it should be against the law—it is taking ticket touting to an extreme. I am not talking about the happy chappie who sells tickets for a game of football before the match, although that used to upset me as well. We cannot allow people to do this on a large scale We can allow someone who has bought a ticket to pass it on to a family member or a friend, and I do not have a problem with them making a profit on it, provided it is not too much. However, I do have a problem with the guy with £500 getting ripped off by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) with his Lord’s ticket. Why anybody would want to pay that kind of money to watch a game of cricket I do not know! Having said that, if someone really wanted to see the event, I can understand them paying it, but I do not understand why some people should be able to corner the market and then resell tickets to others at a vast profit. That undermines our music industry. At the end of the day, the issue comes back to the people who are trying to give us a service and the benefit of their life’s work.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Robertson (Labour, Centre-left): Therein lies a problem, because sometimes the tickets being sold are not even proper tickets—someone might just have made a very good copy. The person with the £500 would be taking that chance. I do not believe that is right—that is probably why the hon. Gentleman is sat on the other side of the Chamber and I am sat here. If the ticket says £25, £60 or £100—whatever the figure is—I expect to pay that. I do not have a problem if I have to pay a wee bit extra, but I would not be paying £500 or £1,000. The worst case I ever heard of was when two tickets for Wimbledon finals day, which were for disabled people, were being sold on eBay for £2,000 each, and the buyer had to buy the pair. That is not right, and I am talking about only a couple of tickets.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Robertson (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is right about that. I have met various promoters for T in the Park and they have done their level best to try to stop the touts, but even they admit that they cannot do it completely. If we make this illegal, that puts a different front on it. If we tell everybody it is illegal to do something and someone does it, they know it is illegal. If we do not tell them it is illegal, they will continue to do it. As we have already said, they will continue to use all the new technologies that are coming online and they will rip people off. There will be people who are so desperate to buy a ticket to see somebody that they will pay these prices, and as long as somebody is willing to pay them, the problem will continue and prices will keep increasing.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Robertson (Labour, Centre-left): I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, but what is the difference between that person making a forgery and other people having a machine that can buy up 100,000 tickets for a venue? Is that not illegal? Is it not outrageous? Would you not want to do something about it? I am not talking about you, Mr Speaker; I am talking about the right hon. Gentleman I feel very strongly about this issue, as you can probably tell, Mr Speaker. Sometimes it is difficult to put things into words, but as politicians and Members of Parliament we should be putting our constituents first, not big business. We should not be hindering big business, but we should not be putting it before our constituents. Some in the Chamber tonight would rather put big business before their constituents.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): The information that the hon. Gentleman has just read out would surely be available at the point of sale, so if anyone wanted to use it in the way he is suggesting, they would merely need to go on the website originally offering the tickets or ring up the venue in order to get it. It is at the point of resale in the secondary ticketing market that we are asking for that same information to be made available. What can be wrong with that?
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): That is utter rubbish and so not true. People involved in cricket, rugby, tennis and music have written to the Minister and made this case. It is not the case that they are not bothered as long as they are sold out. They set the price for a variety of reasons, including making it affordable for the genuine fan. It is so disingenuous of the hon. Gentleman to say that the clubs do not care as long as the tickets are sold out.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): If they can afford £8,000 for a ticket, I do not think they need my sympathy. The point is that we put pressure on people such as the organisers of the rugby world cup to make tickets affordable through a progressive ticketing policy so that people who genuinely love the sport but might not have the funds to pay that price for the ticket can go to the games.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Mixed Topics
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): I am delighted that those tickets are on sale at very sensible prices, which is why I am in the Chamber to support the ECB, the RFU, the FA and others in asking for the sensible ticketing policies they apply to be protected. All they are asking is to have the information available when a ticket is offered for resale so that they can see whether that ticket is being sold according to the original terms and conditions for the sale. We should not be allowing organised gangs to exploit the consumer by hoovering up these tickets and forcing people to pay much higher prices on the secondary ticketing market.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): The point is that the governing body of the sport wants that information so that it can police it. It went to court to try to get the information, so we should be saying that it is not unreasonable for the information available at the original time of purchase of the tickets to be made available when the tickets are being resold—
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): I am not going to give way again, because I want to end my remarks I have one question for the Minister before I sit down. She wrote on 8 January to the Trading Standards Institute and to the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland. Our argument is clearly getting through, because she has raised concerns about consumer protection and has asked for the organisations’ advice. When she responds, will she say whether she has had that advice? We have been debating the issue for a very long time and for the Minister to be writing on 8 January to find out this information is a little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we still have time, because the Bill will obviously go back to the Lords where there will be an opportunity for common sense to prevail with the Government, even if they will not concede the point tonight. I hope that the Minister can tell us how she got on with her letter.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister clarify two things? First, does she think that the amendment applies to individual-to-individual sales? It is actually aimed at the marketplace that secondary ticket sites create. Secondly, if she is worried about resales and tickets being cancelled, will she accept the amendment proposed by the all-party group, which would specifically deal with that to ensure that it does not happen?
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): This proposal is in no way about making 14-year-olds vulnerable online if they want to sell their ticket. On eBay, people who buy and sell have an identity: we know who we are buying from in the sense of whether they have sold one of something or 1,000 of something. All sorts of mechanisms could be in place to keep the person who is selling on the ticket safe. The Minister is wrong to suggest that this is about allowing event organisers to cancel tickets—that is not the intention at all. It is about transparency. Very few event organisers put "Not for resale" or "Non-transferable" on their tickets. The reason why some do is to try to protect the tickets, but they would not need to if we had this transparency.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicholas Desmond John Smith (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister says that the amendment is too prescriptive. Does she not recognise that the internet spivs who use these botnets are rigging the market and putting up prices for consumers? What is she going to do about these internet spivs who are harvesting tickets against the interests of consumers?
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): It is interesting that the Minister raises the EU directive, which talks about the importance of providing the characteristics of an item that is being sold. If the characteristics of a ticket are not to say where the event is, what time it is, and which seat it is, what does she think would be included under the directive?
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Sharon Hodgson (Labour, Centre-left): We have had a wide-ranging debate. If we were to apply the law of averages to the question of which side of the argument the coin would fall, I think it would fall on the side of the Opposition and the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) who tabled amendment (a). The debate has been strongly in favour of transparency, apart from the contributions of two hon. Gentleman in the back row—the hon. Members for Shipley (Philip Davies) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) —who have been the only Members to put up any argument against that, albeit unconvincingly I have listened to what the Minister has had to say and I have seen the lobbying from the four secondary marketing companies. They have obviously spent a fortune on lobbying and I am sad to say that I heard a lot of their arguments in the Minister’s speech. From their point of view, all the money they have spent on lobbying has worked, but the House is not convinced There is demonstrable market failure. When the House, the Select Committee and the then Minister looked at the issue 10 years ago, they said we would need to see such failure before requiring legislation. We have now demonstrated that that market failure exists. I know that the Minister has written, very late in the day, to trading standards. I wrote to trading standards years ago and the response I received was that there was no evidence. Transparency would provide the evidence of what is happening The four letters from the secondary marketing companies say, at long last, that they will abide by the regulations that the Minister’s colleague, the right hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott), announced last year, but they have already had more than six months to abide by those regulations. I wrote to them to point out that the regulations are now on the statute book, but they have carried on regardless. I have no faith that they will do anything different. That is why we need to legislate. There is cross-party support for that and I hope that Members on both sides of the House will support us in the Lobby. I know that when the Bill goes back to the House of Lords our proposal will have cross-party support, ably led by Lord Moynihan, Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Grey-Thompson, as well as our own Lord Stevenson. I will push the amendment to the vote Question put.
Consumer Rights Bill — House of Commons, 2015-01-12
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): In the short time available let me say that I think we are looking at a form of alternative dispute resolution this evening, so let me first flag up the positive in terms of the customer service feedback we would like to give to the Government on these Lords amendments: we will be supporting all the Lords amendments. In particular, there are three that are worthy of consideration, following the rule about the six in 10 Britons who believe that politicians should do more in the coming years to help them stay out of financial difficulty.