Sharon Hodgson, Co-Chair of the APPG on Ticket Abuse welcomes recommendation for an investigation by Police and National Trading Standards into compliance of the law by the secondary ticketing market.
Following the publication of the independent review into the secondary ticketing market, the APPG on Ticket Abuse welcomes the recommendation of an investigation by Police and National Trading Standards into the failures to abide by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 by the secondary ticketing market.
The review by Professor Michael Waterson of Warwick University was commissioned by the Government following the passing of the Consumer Rights Act, where Section 94 of the Act called for a review to be undertaken. The review’s report was published today.
The review clearly highlights the dysfunctionality and lack of consumer protection by the secondary ticketing platforms, along with the primary markets, and the need for action to be taken by both platforms and the Government to ensure what the APPG has been calling for: that fans are put first.
This also comes after over 40,000 fans have signed a Parliamentary Petition calling for enforcement of the transparency measures in the Consumer Rights Act and for the identity of sellers to be known when buying tickets.
The call for an investigation by the Police and National Trading Standards is an action that the APPG on Ticket Abuse has called for previously and the APPG welcomes the recommendation from Professor Waterson calling for this to happen, and that the resources for this are found by Government.
Other recommendations in the review include:
- enforcement action to be taken regarding breaches of the transparency measures in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, including an onus on secondary platforms to ensure these measures are being met by sellers;
- that identification of “traders”, or more commonly-known as “power-sellers”, by secondary ticketing markets to be actioned and if action is not taken that the Government should consider a licensing system, and;
- action to be taken by both primary markets to address the issue of ‘bots’.
The review also found that genuine fans are not the main source of business to the resale platforms, which has been the main argument of the four main secondary resale websites.
Sharon Hodgson, MP for Washington and Sunderland West and Co-Chair of the APPG on Ticket Abuse, said:
“It is welcome that we have seen some solid recommendations come out of the Waterson review today, which clearly is calling for fans to be put first within the market, and not be an afterthought. This is a step in the right direction in our cross-party campaign."
“For too long, fans have lacked consumer protections which would reduce the underhand actions of profiteering and fraudulence in the secondary market which sees fans ripped off, that is why it is welcome that Professor Waterson has called for the enforcement of the Consumer Rights Act – which we know has been continuously flouted since it was enacted last year – and for the onus to be on the secondary sites to ensure sellers comply with the transparency measures, instead of washing their hands of this responsibility."
“Now that Professor Waterson has presented his findings to the Government and Parliament, it is time for the Business Secretary and Culture Secretary to ensure these actions are taken forward, and our group of cross-party Parliamentarians will be pushing the Government to make good on these recommendations in the coming months and years.”
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Notes
To read Professor Waterson’s Review’s report, you can find it at this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/consumer-protection-measures-applying-to-ticket-resale-waterson-review%20
The APPG on Ticket Abuse is Co-chaired by Sharon Hodgson, Labour MP for Washington and Sunderland West, and Lord Moynihan, Conservative Member of the House of Lords. The other officers of the APPG include: Kerry McCarthy MP (Labour), Stephen McPartland MP (Conservative), Nick Smith MP (Labour). For further information about the APPG, please visit its website here: https://appgticketabuse.wordpress.com/news-2
The Parliament Petition can be found here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/128969