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Mr. Fabricant: I am genuinely confused on this issue. I can understand that ticket touting outside a stadium should perhaps not be encouraged. As I understand it from my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), people turn up at a match, do not get a ticket and then cause disorder. If people buy a ticket in advance from the internet, what is the problem? They then have a ticket and will go to the match. If they do not have a ticket, they do not go. I do not see a problem in buying a ticket from the internet.
Mr. Jones: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. If he is a member of the Committee that considers the Bill--I hope that he will be--he will be able to advance that point of view. It is an issue that we shall need to discuss in some detail in Committee. My view is that any sort of ticket touting is to be deplored and prevented.
Mr. Forth: It is entrepreneurship.
Mr. Jones: The right hon. Gentleman talks about entrepreneurship--
Mr. Burns: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the problems associated with ticket touting is that it breaks down the segregation rules and causes problems in the stadium?
Mr. Jones: That is the answer to the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). While there is the potential for violence and other disorder at football matches, segregation will have to continue. In future, in an ideal world, we might be able to overcome the problems of violence and other forms of disorder, in which case the internet entrepreneurship about which we have heard may be permissible. When the Bill is considered in Committee, I think that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford will have to allow some time for the entire issue of internet touting to be discussed.
Mr. Maclean: Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on the point that I am about to make and tell me whether I am
entirely wrong? Most right hon. and hon. Members heap opprobrium on ticket touts but we seem to forget the people who supply tickets to them. Will they not often be directors and other members of clubs who have a ticket allocation? If ticket touting is to be such a vile offence, does the hon. Gentleman believe that action should be taken against those who have supplied the touts in addition to the touts who are reselling the tickets?
Mr. Jones: We need to examine the chain, from where tickets come from to where they go. Ticket touting is not, of course, confined to football. For example, there is a fine racecourse at Cheltenham. Disgracefully it is just outside my constituency. In effect, the Boundary Commission moved it out after the general election. Dozens and dozens of people are selling and buying tickets on the day of a meeting. That is the entrepreneurship of which the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) spoke. I think that they are genuine tickets. However, I do not think that they are supplied through the racecourse company. I know that there are allocations of tickets for football matches to directors and even to players, which sometimes find their way on to the black market. We need to consider that in Committee.
Ms Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent, North): I am glad to have the opportunity to take part in the debate and congratulate the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on introducing the Bill.
Like other hon. Members who have spoken today, I cannot contribute to the debate without first referring to the 10th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. We must remember that disaster, as we did in the minute's silence yesterday. We must understand that there are deep-seated concerns about the policing on that day, and that they are relevant to our consideration of the Bill. The issue has still not gone away. I realise that there is a continuing sense of unfinished business among all those who lost loved ones in that terrible disaster.
The House has a responsibility to those football fans and fans everywhere; we must do all that is in our power to make safety our number one concern in the nation's number one sport. Above all, we owe that to football fans; although the players perform on the pitch, the fans are the mainstay of the game and we are concerned about them in this debate.
As other hon. Members have pointed out, it is now right to pay tribute to the huge progress that has been made in improving safety at football matches--progress that we
would not have dreamed was possible 10 years ago. We have improved the safety of football stadiums and made football more family friendly--that is especially important. Football is an important game for all fans, but we should not lose sight of the fact that many people go with their families--mothers, fathers and children. More women now go to games and it is essential that we make football safer.
I am proud to be a vice-chair of the all-party group on football, like the hon. Member for Ryedale(Mr. Greenway). That group has played more than its part in the improvements that have taken place. I had to get in a plug for the group; it is the largest all-party parliamentary group and makes the widest possible contribution to the debate on all football-related issues.
In considering the merits of the Bill, we should take stock of those improvements. Lord Justice Taylor's report did much to address safety concerns inside grounds. As the consultation document on the most welcome review of football-related legislation pointed out, legislation introduced in the early 1990s has helped to make football hooliganism inside domestic grounds largely a thing of the past. Here, I must congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) on her role in keeping up the momentum on that important review. I want to emphasise the word "largely", because there have been some worrying incidents recently. Although we heard from the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) earlier that football hooliganism is decreasing, that does not mean that we should not deal with it when it does occur. The incidents that we have seen this week should serve as a stark and timely reminder that we can never afford to be complacent about the changes that have been made. Of course, it is true that events in France at the world cup last year acted as a catalyst for the consensus on the Bill.
One of the changes that Hillsborough forced us to make was the introduction of new policing arrangements at football matches. Like many hon. Members who have referred to that matter, I, too, have been privileged to attend briefings and debriefings, and have observed policing arrangements throughout matches. I went with the football group to see the arrangements that were made during Euro 96 and the changes that were made at that time--for example, the use of closed circuit television. I regularly attend police briefings in my own constituency at Port Vale and am aware of the progress made by the police, who are working alongside stewards and clubs throughout the country to maintain higher safety standards so that football matches are safer for fans.
There are many lessons to be learned from the policing of Euro 96 that should stand us in good stead if we continue with our bid to host the world cup in 2006. It is clear that a tremendous effort is being made by everyone connected with football to ensure that in 2006 the world cup takes place in this country. We must address the remaining problems relating to hooliganism if we are to have the best possible chance of success in that bid.
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has made welcome adjustments to the pools levy to contribute more money to the essential financing of the ground and safety improvement work undertaken by the Football Trust. That work could not have been afforded by those clubs that are outside the winner-takes-all Premier League. Many clubs are grateful to the trust for the grants that have been
awarded. In my constituency, we recently received a grant of £2.5 million to build a new stand. That is one example of many large amounts that have been spent. Those improvements have not come about by accident; they have resulted from sustained work and the vision of a large number of people and organisations, including the football authorities. I pay tribute to the work of the Football Trust--to its past chairmen, its present chairman and its officers. That includes my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), who is in the Chamber today to contribute to the debate, as he always does when football is discussed.
We have come a long way, but we have not yet come far enough. The Bill is an important step along the road. In a sense, it is a return fixture in the debate on new clause 10 of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Bill. That debate took place on 22 June last year in the aftermath of the events in France. I realise that Opposition Members wanted to make improvements. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary acknowledged various proposals that were made at that time, but felt that it was not right to introduce legislation for a quick fix and that there should be proper consultation. That consultation has now taken place and 500 responses have been returned. The detailed proposals that we are debating have arisen from that. It is right to proceed by building that form of consensus to ensure that when we make changes, those changes will properly address the continuing concerns about hooliganism.
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