Memorandum submitted by Lord Tom Pendry
1. Touting creates a range of public order
and public nuisance concerns, from allowing the black market economy
to flourish, to undermining policing and security arrangements.
Lord Justice Taylor, in his final report following the Hillsborough
tragedy, said that, "whatever the policy merits of freedom
to trade and market forces, they must surely yield to the maintenance
of safety and prevention of disorder. Touts and football matches
put both at risk".
2. After prompting from myself and others,
the then Conservative government finally introduced a measure
to make touting at football matches illegal through the Criminal
Justice and Public Order Act 1994. At that time I would have preferred
measures to be taken further to embrace other sports, as they
also face issues of public order associated with touting. In 1994
the Labour Party put forward proposed legislation to make touting
at all major sporting events illegal.
3. Following that line of reasoning, there
was a subsequent Labour Party manifesto commitment in the Labour's
Sporting Nation of 1997, written by myself in my capacity
of Shadow Minister of Sport stating "Labour would legislate
against ticket touting in all sports".
4. I would expect the Government to live
up to that commitment in the near future and would hope the Committee
would recommend the same. The legislation on football ticket touting
had an impact initially, but touting tickets at football matches
still exists. The problem has evolved with criminals bypassing
the original terms of the offence largely due to the advent of
the internet, which was of course not considered when the legislation
was introduced.
5. I commend the Government for taking on
board the views of the Football Association, the Premier League,
UEFA, FIFA, the police and other stakeholders, who have years
of experience of dealing with this legislation but are now looking
to the Government to strengthen its provisions.
6. Ticket touting should be seen as a public
order issue across all ticketed events, especially sports, but
not just in relation to football, which is already covered by
legislation.
7. A clause was drafted into the Criminal
Justice and Public Order Bill to account for the recommendations
of the Taylor report following the Hillsborough disaster but this
should be looked at again, as it was intended to cover all sporting
events, not just football.
8. An amendment was accepted at the time
which provides the Secretary of State with the powers to extend
the provision by statutory instrument (section 166) to cover other
sporting events with a capacity over 600, and this should be brought
into force as there should be no distinction between the public
order nuisances touting at football matches and those that do
so at Wimbledon, Twickenham and Lords.
9. Legislation on football ticket touting
initially prohibited touting of tickets only for domestic football
matches and overseas club or international matches in which the
England or Wales national team is playing. With the World Cup
last year, new measures were introduced by the Home Office extending
the prohibition of touting to include all tournaments and competitions
organised by FIFA or UEFA in which the English and Welsh national
teams or senior club sides are eligible to participate. I commend
the closing of this loophole but would ask the Committee why such
legislation cannot be extended to cover all sports.
10. Some of the more obvious problems around
ticket touting include the diversion of resources away from governing
bodies, the pricing out of fans from events and the obvious public
order and public nuisance issues.
11. The issue of secondary agents, or touts
as they are more widely know, is also something that should be
addressed, particularly from a consumer view point. A recent OFT
study showed that activities of secondary agents resulted in 3
times as many complaints from consumers as from primary agents.
12. There is also the damage that touting
does to the UK reputation for staging major events, sporting and
otherwise. As the nation looks forward to the London 2012 Olympic
and Paralympic Games, the question should be asked as to whether
the UK would have won the right to host the 2012 Games had the
issue of touting not been addressed in legislation.
13. The Department for Culture, Media and
Sport has recognised that touting is a problem but more must be,
and can be, done to combat it. The internet market place Ebay,
where many tickets are currently sold, has already stated that
it would renew its ticket re-sale policy to comply with new regulations.
14. There is currently a petition on the
Downing Street site asking for the re-sale of concert/gig/theatre/sport/events
tickets to be outlawed at the signatories currently stands at
well over two thousand. http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/tickettouts/
15. Obviously such petitions are only a
straw poll but it does highlight the interest in the topic and
the support for making the resale of tickets illegal to stop people
buying extra tickets and selling on the internet at increased
prices. It also suggests that venues should be required to try
and re-sell a ticket at face value if the owner cannot attend.
16. The support for outlawing all ticket
touting is there, the legislation is there, now is the time to
strengthen current powers and stamp out this illegal trade once
and for all.
June 2007
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