Chris Bryant MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 19 Nov 2024 · Tourism: Northumberland · Hansard source

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  Try being Welsh and liking rugby at the moment.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Tourism: Bedfordshire · Hansard source

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  You can remember some things still, Sir Roger. By the time “Blake’s 7” ended, it did not have seven people in it, and it did not have a character called Blake in it, which was a bit rum. I agreed above all with a point that the hon. Member made in his very first paragraph. He talked about Bedfordshire not just being a place that people pass through. I am very conscious of that. My brother lives in St Albans and I am endlessly getting on trains that say the final destination is Bedford, but I never go to Bedford, because I get off at St Albans. There is a key aspect to what we need to achieve in our tourism and visitor economy strategy over the next few years. It is all very well people coming for a day or half a day and going out with the kids or whatever, but we need to make sure that there is the right kind of accommodation and accommodation mix at different price points in a whole series of different places around the country. Matching the accommodation with the needs and desires of both domestic and international tourists is a key part of what we need to secure in our tourism strategy. The hon. Member gave us the Cook’s tour, but when he was talking about Wrest Park, which is run by English Heritage, he did not mention that 194,693 people visited in 2023. It has a great Narnia event, which starts, I think, next week or at the end of this week, and that is why parts of it are closed at the moment. He also referred to Houghton House, Woburn Abbey and the safari park. Some 489,751 people visited the safari park, and that was in 2015, so it is likely that the numbers have gone up since then. The hon. Member focused on what is in his constituency, but we should look at the whole county—of course, tourists and visitors do not say, “I wonder whose constituency I am going to visit today”; they think about the whole offer in an area, including transport links and whether they will be able to park. One of my ambitions in life is to have one parking app for the whole United Kingdom, so that people do not have to use a phone to download a new app every time they go to park somewhere. It is especially irritating when the local council has just changed the app to another app, and people cannot remember the passcode and all the rest of it. Those are the aspects of someone’s journey—every bit, end to end—that we need to think about when we try to create an effective tourism strategy for the United Kingdom. I would add to the hon. Member’s list the John Bunyan museum in Bedford and, for that matter, the Panacea museum. That is something that politicians have been seeking forever: if only there were a panacea that could cure all ills—although the danger with a panacea is that it is a mirage, and does not really offer what it proposes. Let me talk about some of the things we are already doing for the visitor economy across the whole United Kingdom. From representations that were made to me immediately after the Government came into office in July, I know that a lot of people in the visitor economy and hospitality industry were particularly worried about the cliff edge that they saw coming at the end of this year in relation to business rates. I am glad that we could take forward the 40% relief. I know that it is not 70%, but placing it on a permanent footing is important, because it allows hospitality businesses to make investments for the future and have a secure financial footing. One issue in Bedfordshire and many other parts of the country is short-term lets, whether through Airbnb, individual people renting out a room or whatever it may be. In areas with heavy concentrations of visitors at particular times of the year, the art is to come up with a scheme so that we get the benefits of the visitor economy—all the footfall and added money that that brings to a local area—without the danger of ending up with a completely vacated town or village when the tourism period has ended. That is why, following the previous Government’s legislation on short-term lets, we will soon consult on precisely how to implement the legislation, so that we can, at the very least, have a clear understanding of what short-term lets there are across the whole country and then, if necessary, take further action. The hon. Member rightly referred to local visitor economy partnerships and the fact that there is not one in Bedfordshire at the moment. That is an issue of concern. As he knows, the local visitor economy partnership programme was part of a new vision for England’s tourism management landscape and was recommended by the independent destination management organisations review. In February 2023, VisitEngland launched the LVEP accreditation programme, which will continue through 2024-25 and which seeks to accredit high-performing, strategic and financially resilient organisations that can lead visitor economy development in their areas, working with businesses and local authorities. As I understand it, VisitEngland is working closely with Experience Bedfordshire and other local stakeholders in Bedfordshire to support their progress in building capacity and moving towards local visitor economy partnership status. Over the coming months, I will ensure that I keep in touch with my officials about how that progresses. I am sure that if it does not progress to the hon. Member’s satisfaction, he will call for another of these debates and I will have to answer to him. In the Budget, the Chancellor confirmed the Government’s support to deliver the East West Rail scheme in full, which is good news; the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire referred to it. It will strengthen the region’s thriving life science, technology and innovation sectors, but it will also facilitate journeys for tourists and locals throughout the Bedford area. East West Rail is set to bring billions of pounds-worth of growth to the Oxford-Cambridge region, along with tens of thousands of new homes and jobs. I note that the hon. Member was not quite so happy about the tens of thousands of new homes. For what it is worth, my personal view is that the most important thing when developing large numbers of new homes, which we all know this country needs, is to ensure that we have all the infrastructure to be able to cope with them. If there is going to be a significant expansion of the tourism industry, or the visitor economy industry in Bedfordshire, the people who are going to work in that industry will need houses to live in. All those things have to come together. The hon. Member referred to the prospect of a major development with Universal UK, which is a new theme park. Obviously, I cannot enter into the specifics of the ongoing discussions—that would be unhelpful to everybody —but I am hopeful that we will get to the significant and dramatic change that it would make, not only to visitor numbers in Bedfordshire but to the whole of the United Kingdom. That takes me to my final point. Of course we should be ambitious for the whole of the United Kingdom in our tourism strategy, but it would be counterproductive if every single person who came from overseas to this country—and we still do not have the numbers that we reached before covid—decided that they were going to visit only London and did not even get to Bedfordshire, let alone farther-flung parts of the United Kingdom. That is why, in all the work we do on behalf of VisitBritain and VisitEngland, we need to ensure that our tourism strategy is genuinely sustainable. It should take people to see not just the historic sites in the capital city of London, or, for that matter, Bath, Stratford, Oxford, Cambridge or Edinburgh, but the full diversity of what we have to offer in this country. We are a country with extraordinary things to see. There are enormous adventures to take part in across the whole country. The hon. Member has highlighted some of those in his own constituency. I am keen to ensure that many more people come to the United Kingdom, including Bedfordshire, and, as he said, they do not just pass through but stay the night. Question put and agreed to.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Tourism: Bedfordshire · Hansard source

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  Sir Roger, you are not Jurassic. You are a mere slip of a boy, in parliamentary terms anyway. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) on securing this debate. I think one of his first parliamentary questions was on this subject. He is obviously very determined to make sure that tourism and the expansion of the tourism offer in his constituency is a key part of securing economic development in his area. I guarantee that if he comes up with any good ideas that we can steal off him, we will be like the proverbial magpie—we will pick it up and run with it. If he ever wants to have a meeting with officials in my Department to discuss specific issues around tourism in Mid Bedfordshire—perhaps we might do that with all the Bedfordshire MPs—I would be more than happy to arrange that. It is good to have an MP called Blake. The hon. Member might be the first MP in the history of Parliament to be called Blake. I noted the other day that “Blake’s 7” is back—Sir Roger, you can probably remember “Blake’s 7”.

• 19 Nov 2024 · Tourism: Bedfordshire · Hansard source

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  I knew that was coming.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  I will give way to the hon. Lady because her request to intervene is timely.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  Another new Member wants to make a contribution.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  That may be the case, and that is one of the specific things we can take up with BDUK. I should explain the whole process first. Of course the Government do not want to have to pay for the roll-out of broadband across the whole of the UK. That would be an enormous big-ticket item. Nor, for that matter, do we want to pay for the roll-out of 5G. We are therefore trying to ensure that where commercial operators can do that roll-out, they are able to do so as cost-effectively as possible. Where it is not commercially viable, the Government will step in. That is what the whole BDUK programme is, both through Project Gigabit, which relates to broadband, and the shared rural network, which applies to mobile telephony. That is the plan. The hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton mentioned very hard-to-reach places. The truth is that there will probably be 1% of places where it will be extremely difficult—for either a commercial operation or for the taxpayer—to take a fibre to every single property. That could be so prohibitively expensive for the taxpayer that we will have to look at alternative means. That goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) that we will have to look at alternatives, and some of those may relate to satellite or wireless delivery of broadband.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  That is an interesting intervention from the Chair! I think that Portcullis House is a matter for the Speaker and the Administration Committee. But there is a serious point here: in many cases if we could get to 5G standalone universally, some of these issues would not apply, because we would be able to do lots of things. The police, for instance, could have fully streamed services available through their 5G, and broadband might not be so immediately significant. I am painfully aware that this is an issue I raised as a Back-Bench MP and baby MP all the time. Sometimes Ofcom’s reporting does not match people’s lived experience. It will say, for instance, that somewhere has 98% coverage from all four operators on mobile, but when people get there they cannot get a signal for love nor money. Often that is because of the way Ofcom has been reporting, which relies on 2 megabits per second. But with 2 megabits per second people cannot do anything. That goes back to the original point made by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton—I will think of her as the hon. Member for Glastonbury Tor now, because it is shorter in my head.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  I hope that I might be able to help the hon. Gentleman a little here. I know the highlands of Scotland very well: I spent many of my childhood summers in Aviemore, and I know the Cairngorms well. It seems to me illogical simply to put big masts in places of extreme natural beauty just for the sake of saying that we have covered geographical mass. It is much more important to have masts in places where there are actually people and a connection that will be used, so that is very much the direction of travel that I hope we can go in. I am not sure that it will save the amount of money that he talks about, because, for all the reasons raised by other hon. Members, people still need connectivity in lots of places that are fairly out of the way, but broadly speaking he makes a fair point. I cannot remember if he has written to me about this issue, but I know that several Scottish MPs have. If he writes to me, he will get the same response as the others, which broadly speaking is the point that I have just made. Incidentally, if Members want, they can go to thinkbroadband.com for the most up-to-date figures on broadband roll-out. I mentioned the figures raised by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton. I think the figures in the south-west are that 97% of premises can now access superfast broadband and 77% can access gigabit-capable broadband. However, that is lower than in the rest of the UK, and our aspiration is to get to the same levels across the whole of the United Kingdom, although there are obviously geographical difficulties; I know that from the south Wales valleys, where this issue is also difficult. There is a difference between “have access to” and “have”. For instance, in many parts of the UK—not rural, but urban—gigabit-capable broadband has gone down the street, but not into the building, so there are sets of issues for urban areas. I know that the hon. Lady and others have written to me or asked me questions about how much of the BDUK budget is being spent on rural areas. It is more than 90%, but we need to address some urban issues as well. I am trying not to see this as urban versus rural, as there are different issues in different areas, and we need to address all of them. I have referred to areas that are very hard to reach, and we are looking at alternatives. The hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton also raised the issue of the electronic communications code, and I rather agree with her that the process is cumbersome. There has obviously been a new electronic communications code, and I can confirm that we are looking at implementing the provisions under the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 that have not yet been implemented in fairly short order. I hope that we can make further announcements about that fairly soon, and that should deal with some of the issues that the hon. Lady is concerned about. The truth of the matter is that broadband, mobile connectivity and connectivity in general are as important as water, electricity and any of the other services on which we have all come to rely, whether it is for the issues that the hon. Lady relates in particular about farms, to do with running the Government or to do with being a member of society. One of the other areas in which we must do far more—it is a shame that less has been done over the last 12 years by the Government—is digital inclusion. We can map areas of digital deprivation in parts of the country, including in the south-west, and we need to tackle that. We need to have a whole-Government approach, part of which is about access, part of which is about skills and part of which is about tackling poverty. There is a whole series of different issues, but if we really want to take the whole country forward into a digital and prosperous future, we can do so only if we have included every single part of it. As I said, part of that is about connectivity and the affordability of connectivity. Part of it is about people understanding that they need the high speeds talked about by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton, and part of it is about having the skills and understanding to take those issues on. I am very happy to give an audience to anyone who wants one; they should approach me as soon as possible, because we have quite a long list of people who do. However, I see this issue as an essential part of our delivering an economic future that we can all be proud of in this country. Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10( 6 )).

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  Wait a second! Because I fully accept the fundamental point that was made right at the beginning by the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton: broadband is essential to nearly every form of engagement in modern life—finding out where you are, finding out which is the nearest chemist that is still open, logging on to a Government website, the Government trying to do their business, or someone trying to set up a local business. All those things are absolutely vital. Broadband is greedy. Every year, more and more speed and capacity is needed. That is why we need to make sure that we get to full gigabit capable broadband for every single set of premises as soon as we possibly can. That is not a difficult thing to achieve.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  I do not want Opposition Members to think that I have had an audience with a Labour Member and not with others. There is a universal service obligation on the Minister here. For most of the issues that have been raised, I think the most useful thing would be to book in a time for officials from Building Digital UK to go through both the mobile and broadband issues that relate to Members’ specific constituencies. We do have more precise maps, and we are able to talk all those issues through. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Luke Myer) is right. One of the first things I did when I became the Minister with responsibility for telecoms was to write to Ofcom to say, “You have to review the way that you look at these issues of reporting.” I am glad to say that Ofcom replied recently, and I am happy to put a copy of that letter in the Library so that everybody can see the correspondence we have had. But it is a good point; apart from anything else, mobile operators would quite like to know where there is good coverage—and good coverage should mean coverage that is actually any use to anybody, rather than something that theoretically says 4G but does not feel like 4G at all.

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  It is a delight to be here, Dame Siobhain, and I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing this debate. I am not sure I will be able to answer the questions of all the Members who have come to this debate in my speech. Some Members have raised concerns at DSIT questions as well, and I note that one Member said that I was prepared to have an audience with people, which makes me sound like the Pope. I am not the pontifex maximus— I am not even the pontifex minimus—but my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham and Bletchley (Callum Anderson), who is my Parliamentary Private Secretary, and I are happy to organise meetings with officials to go through the specific issues in individual constituencies. Some of the statistics that have been thrown out are different from the statistics I have, and it may be that mine are a little more up to date, because we have a whole Department to look up statistics for us. That offer is available to all hon. Members. I want to be as helpful a Minister as possible, because—

• 13 Nov 2024 · Rural Broadband · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I am the Minister for Telecoms, and that includes—

• 5 Nov 2024 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  As I said, I welcome the hon. Gentleman. I hope he stays in his place—I do not mean that I hope he stays in the room for the rest of the day, though. It is good when people actually know something about the subject they are talking about in debates in the House, so it is good to have him still in his place. [ Interruption. ] I hope that is not a note from the Leader of the Opposition saying that he is no longer responsible for this area. My speaking brief says: “I thank the members of the Committee for their valuable contributions to this debate”, but—well, anyway. The hon. Member made an important point about the protection of children. That is not precisely what this statutory instrument is about; it is about the requirements on platforms and search services to deal with intimate image abuse. That is the very specific thing we are tackling this afternoon. The pornography review is not what we are debating this afternoon either, but I am happy to write to him about that and hope to provide him with the assurances he seeks. The hon. Member makes the most important point of all when he says that platforms do not have to wait until next March to take action in this field. I am sure that any parent or anybody else watching this part of society with even the slightest interest will know about the significant damage done to our whole social sphere in this area over the last few years. Platforms need to take their responsibilities seriously. They do not need to wait for Ofcom to tell them how to do it; they should be taking action now. They certainly need to make an assessment now, before next March or April, of where any risks are, because otherwise there is a danger that Ofcom will immediately take action against them, because it will say, “Sorry, you haven’t even done the basic minimum that you need to be able to make people safe.” Everybody wants the online world to be as safe as the world that we all inhabit. The only way to do that is by making sure that the legislation is constantly updated. There are Members who often ask whether we want to update the Online Safety Act, because there are perhaps things that we might need to take further action on in future. We are very focused in the Department on trying to ensure that it is fully implemented in the shape that it is in now, before looking at new versions of the legislation in this field. But where, as in this case, we can take small, sensible measures that will make a significant difference, we are prepared to do that. That is the attitude that we are trying to adopt. I hope the Committee agrees with me on the importance of updating the priority offences in the Online Safety Act as swiftly as possible, and I therefore commend the regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.

• 5 Nov 2024 · Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024 · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024. As ever, Mr Dowd, it is a joy to see you in your seat and, as usual, in a very fine suit. The regulations we are discussing today were laid before the House on 12 September. In our manifesto, the Labour party stated that we would use every Government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence, in order to achieve our landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. I am sure the whole Committee would agree with that. Through this statutory instrument, we are broadening the responsibilities of online platforms and search services to tackle image abuse under the Online Safety Act 2023. As I am sure all members of the Committee will know, the Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023. It places strong new duties on online user-to-user platforms and on search engines and search services to protect their users from harm. As part of that, the Act gives service providers new illegal content duties. Under these duties, online platforms need to assess the risk that their services will allow users to encounter illegal content or be used for the commission or facilitation of so-called priority offences. They then need to take steps to mitigate any identified risks. These will include implementing safety-by-design measures to reduce risks, and content moderation systems to remove illegal content where it does appear. The Online Safety Act sets out a list of priority offences for the purposes of providers’ illegal content duties. These offences reflect the most serious and prevalent online illegal content and activity. The priority offences are set out in schedule 7 to the Act. Platforms will need to take additional steps to tackle these kinds of illegal activity under their illegal content duties. Sections 66B, 66C and 66D of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, as amended by the Online Safety Act 2023, introduce a series of intimate image abuse offences. Today’s statutory instrument will add the offences to which I have just referred to the list of priority offences—the ones that the organisations must take action on. These offences include the sharing of manufactured or manipulated images, including deepfakes, and sharing images where the intent was to cause distress. This statutory instrument means that online platforms will be required to tackle more intimate image abuse. I hope that the Committee will support what we are doing here. The new duties will come into force next spring, as the Act provides that Ofcom needs to be able to implement them within 18 months of Royal Assent. Ofcom will set out the specific steps that providers can take to fulfil their illegal content duties for intimate image abuse and other illegal content in codes of practice and guidance documentation. Ofcom is currently producing this documentation. The new duties will start to be enforced from spring next year, as soon as Ofcom has issued the codes of practice and they have come into force, because of the 18 months having passed. Providers will need to have done their risk assessment for illegal content by then. In other words, the work starts now. We anticipate that Ofcom will recommend that providers should take action in a number of areas. These include content moderation, reporting and complaints procedures, and safety-by-design steps, such as testing their algorithm systems to see whether illegal content is being recommended to users. I am sure that all members of the Committee will be able to think of instances we have read about in the press that would be tackled by precisely this piece of legislation. I would say, because the shadow Minister will speak shortly, that we welcome the work of the previous Government on this. Where we can co-operate across the House to secure strong regulation that ensures that everybody is protected in this sphere, we will work together. I hope that is the tenor of the comments that the shadow Minister will make in a few moments. Where companies are not removing and proactively stopping that vile material from appearing on their platforms, Ofcom has robust powers to take enforcement action against them, including the possibility of imposing fines of up to £18 million, or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue—whichever is highest. Although this statutory instrument looks short, it is significant. We are broadening providers’ duties for intimate image abuse content. Service providers will need to take proactive steps to search for, remove and limit people’s exposure to that harmful illegal content, including where it has been manufactured or manipulated and is in effect a deepfake. I therefore commend these regulations to the Committee.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Secondary Ticketing Market · Hansard source

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  Absolutely; that is a well-made point. Indeed, several other artists are moving in the same direction and I encourage more artists to go down that route. In the end, we need to get to a place where the face value is the face value and where other people are not racketeering on the back of that. Sometimes, the artist gets it in the neck because people think they have enabled it to happen, but that is profoundly unfair. Incidentally, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South also referred to Sam Fender. I am afraid that when Sam Fender was on at St James’s Park, I was watching P!nk at the Stadium of Light. Interestingly, having two massive gigs on at the same time had a dramatic effect on the local economy in the north-east, which is really important. There are issues for the whole visitor economy that need to be looked at, and I had an interesting conversation with all the local authorities and the new mayor, thinking about how we can make sure that the visitor economy works for everybody when such big events are going on at the same time. Part of that has to be about making sure that the money that is currently going out of the door and never ending up in the local economy does end up there. My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley)—she is a great friend and we have known each other a long time—spoke about going to see Cliff Richard. I once saw Cliff Richard live, but it was at a wedding and we did not have to pay. He did not sing “Congratulations”, which we thought was going to come along at any moment. My hon. Friend made a point about sudden changes in prices just as we get to the checkout. Of course, we would be absolutely furious if that happened in Sainsbury’s, Tesco or Morrisons. Why should we be any less furious when it happens on a website? I was looking at tickets on StubHub earlier, when suddenly it said, “Your price is locked in.” Well, I thought that was the price. What do they mean when they say it is locked in? This is crazy; it is a deliberate attempt to make us stick and keep on buying the ticket, even when we have realised that we are buying something for 5,146% of its original face-value price, because that is the point at which we learn that that is the face value. This is completely wrong; it is not the market working in the interests of humanity, but humanity having to serve the market in an inappropriate way. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) made some really significant points. Many of us are making identical points, but that strengthens the argument that we need to take action in this space, and we are absolutely determined to do so. We will do it in a responsible way, and we want to make sure that every single element of the legislation that we eventually bring forward works, does what it says on the tin and is able to be enforced. That is why we will launch a consultation in the very near future, and I very much hope that many hon. Members will want to take part in the discussion about precisely how that consultation ends up being framed. I think this debate is the second or third outing the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) and I have had against each other. One cannot just blame one’s partner for one’s musical choices. That is like the moment in Genesis when Adam says, “The woman beguiled me and I did eat” after eating the forbidden fruit. I am not sure that Jason Donovan is the forbidden fruit, but if the hon. Member likes Jason Donovan, he should just own up to it. It is fine; we will not think any the less of him for going to see Jason Donovan all the time. The hon. Member basically read out the list of things from the last debate that I said we wanted to do, so I am delighted that he agrees with me or that we agree with him. When it comes to the legislation and the consultation process, I very much hope that he will want to feed in. If there are things that we need to amend, just to make sure that we have got them right, we will do that. The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth started off extremely badly, because he basically dissed Tom Jones, who is from Pontypridd—it’s not unusual, but I do not think it is very well advised. He asked a series of questions. He asked, “When?” I have already said that it will be soon. It will be in the autumn, and I reckon that the autumn is already upon us, so it will be soon or imminent—he can choose any word he likes, but it will be soon. Patience is a virtue. The hon. Member asked whether the private Member’s Bill being advanced by one of my colleagues is a handout Bill. No, it is not a handout Bill; it is a Bill advanced by a private Member. He also asked whether there will be a cap on prices. We already said during the general election that that is our intended direction of travel. It is a moot point precisely what level that cap should be set at, because I do not want to completely ban people from selling tickets. If someone has bought four tickets but suddenly only two people can go, because somebody is ill or they have to change the dates, it is perfectly legitimate that they should be able to sell the tickets on. They might also want to be able to recoup not only the cost of the tickets themselves but some additional costs. That is one of the things we want to consult on, and what would be a suitable cap. I note the point that has been made about a level of 20%, which some people think is too high. Some people think that 10% would be too high; some people think that it would be too low. We need to make sure we get the level right. And of course we will analyse the situation in Ireland. As we have all been announcing what gigs we have been to this year, let me say that, in addition to P!nk, who I have been to see three times now: “What about us? What about all the plans that ended in disaster?” I went to see Depeche Mode in Cologne—the Germans just couldn’t get enough. And on Saturday night, I went to see Bronski Beat, on the 40th anniversary of the album “Age of Consent” coming out. That goes to the heart of why music can be so important: there must be hundreds of thousands of people in this country who remember when “Age of Consent” came out 40 years ago and how it completely transformed their understanding of themselves and who they could be in life. Being able to go to a live gig to celebrate that with lots of other people is completely transformative, and that is what I want to be available for as many people in this country as possible at a sensible, safe and sane price, rather than people being excluded because some people have much deeper pockets than others. For me, to use a Welsh term—if it is okay with the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth for me to use a Welsh term and to refer to Welsh artists—this is about chwarae teg, or fair play. Fair play is all I am looking for in this market. First, we need transparency on price along the whole process. When a ticket comes up in the secondary market, people should be able to know what the face value of that ticket is from the beginning and what the deal is. Secondly, we need genuine equality at that 9 o’clock moment when everybody goes online to start bidding for tickets. The hoovering-up of tickets brings the word “hoover” into disrepute. It was striking that all the Coldplay tickets had gone in 40 minutes and yet, even before all of them had gone, tickets were being sold for £2,916 on the secondary market. That is clear evidence that something is awry with the way the system works. Also, where there is an excessive increase in the secondary market, as we have referred to, that is just wholly inappropriate. It prices people out and, as many Members have said, it does not mean that any of the money goes back into the creative industries or the local economy, which is highly problematic. I want openness in dynamic pricing. People should be able to understand from the very beginning if that is the process they are entering into. Originally, we were going to consult only on what precise measures we should bring forward in relation to the secondary market, but we are now looking at dynamic pricing. As several Members have said, there are versions of dynamic pricing that do work, and we do not want to ban those. I would argue that the early-bird tickets available for the Rhondda arts festival in my constituency—I suppose I should declare an interest—are a perfectly legitimate part of the whole equation. They sometimes bring money into venues early on, and we do not want to ban that. We are not looking at dynamic pricing in the whole of the economy, but simply in relation to live events. Because that was not a manifesto commitment before the general election, we will be doing a call for evidence. If people have evidence of where the dynamic pricing model is not working and is counterproductive to the market, please get in touch. I praise some of the action taken by some of the artists in the industry, which has been referred to. It looks like that is everything—no, there is one thing more I want to say.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Secondary Ticketing Market · Hansard source

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  Hang on. In the words of Shania Twain, “That don’t impress me much”. My hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth asked what we can do under the current legislation. It is a frustration, certainly for this Minister—I am not sure that previous Ministers felt it—that although several different bodies could bring forward prosecutions, the number of prosecutions has been so few. I fully understand why trading standards has struggled, because for the last 14 years, local authorities have had difficult budgets and sometimes it has not had the resources that it needs to take forward these issues. It is not for me to directly tell trading standards or the CMA when to take action— we believe in the separation of powers, so that would be completely inappropriate —but the more that the prosecuting authorities feel able to act in this sphere, the better. If they want to come to me and say that they do not have the powers or the resources that they need, I am happy to hear that and we can act on that basis, but it is frustrating that I cannot tell them to act in individual cases.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Secondary Ticketing Market · Hansard source

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  It is a great delight to see you in your seat, Mr Rosindell, not least because we have been knocking around these parts as MPs for about the same time. It pays to hang on in there, doesn’t it? It is a great delight to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody) on securing this debate. This is an innovation that I have started in the last few debates that we have had here: I am going to try to answer the questions that hon. Members have put to the Minister as much as I possibly can.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Secondary Ticketing Market · Hansard source

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  And yet so far. Change is coming. I say to all the people I have referred to—Gigsberg, Viagogo, StubHub, Ticketmaster and all the rest—that change is coming, so they should start getting ready for it, because that is what we are determined to deliver.

• 24 Oct 2024 · Secondary Ticketing Market · Hansard source

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  I will not, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind, because I will try to answer all the questions. I will come on to his questions later. One key matter that we will have to get right—if and when we bring forward legislation in this field—is enforcement, because there is no point bringing forward new lews if we cannot enforce them. We made manifesto commitments during the general election that we are absolutely determined to implement. As for when they will be implemented in legislation, we have had one King’s Speech; there will be another one coming along. I do not want to tell the Leader of the House precisely who will have what Bills at what time, because I might not stay in my post if I keep doing that, but if there is a Bill at some point, we will have to ensure that we sort out the enforcement issue. That is one element on which we will be consulting. My hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth said that this issue is not at the top of the list of Government priorities. Whenever I post about it on X, people say, “Bryant, get on with doing the things that really matter to your constituents.” Well, this is one of those issues. The Government can do more than one thing at the same time. This is part of a panoply of measures that we need to implement to ensure that we put fans back at the heart of music, live events and sport. It is part of a wider Government strategy to rejig the economy so that it works for all of us. As my hon. Friend quoted: “What is a club in any case?...It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging”. It is fundamentally about the fans. They are the people who have created the value, and it is despicable that they are not able to benefit from it. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) made the point that things have got worse since 2012. I think she is right, which is why it was a bit cheeky of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), to pretend that they had not been in government for 14 years, and to actually praise the previous Government for taking no action in this area. We are determined to take the necessary action, and I hope that the hon. Member for Chelmsford and her party will support those measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) used the word “parasite” at one point. On the “Today” programme, someone was saying that leeches have had great difficulty reproducing of late, but that they have discovered a new way. I do not want to overstate this metaphor, but we could argue that what we see in the secondary market is a form of leeching off the creative endeavours and the fan-led passion of so many others. I will give some more examples. “Vampire” is my favourite of Olivia Rodrigo’s songs. We can get tickets for her concert in Manchester on 1 July next year on StubHub for £1,506, with a face value of £200. If we go to Viagogo, the price is £2,573 for exactly the same event—almost identical tickets, just a few rows in. That ticket’s face value, which we find only once we have gone two thirds of the way through the process with Viagogo, is £50. That is a shocking 5,146% increase. We can buy tickets for James Blunt—everybody knows I am not a great fan of his and he is no great fan of mine—that have a face value of £105 for £327 on StubHub. It is not just about music: the England versus South Africa autumn international rugby tickets for 16 November, with a face value of £145, cost £889 on Viagogo. We should tell the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who I think is the world’s greatest Bruce Springsteen fan, that tickets with a face value of £150 are selling on Gigsberg for £1,044.08. Tickets for the world darts championship being held at Alexandra Palace on 30 December this year, with a face value of £55, are £248 on Gigsberg. I could go on, because this is an endless daily source of—frankly—racketeering based on a fundamental unfairness, and that is what we want to put right. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) and I have talked about several issues in relation to the creative industries in his constituency. He made the point about Ed Sheeran, whom I think has made Framlingham castle more famous for him than for Queen Mary, which is quite an accomplishment after so many hundreds of years. That is also part of our tourism industry, as people want to go to Framlingham castle to see the place that “Castle on the Hill” was written about, so we need to capitalise on that. But we cannot if none of the money ends up going back into the creative industries or even into the local economy, and simply goes off into a black hole.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I think my hon. Friend may be getting me again. It is a great delight that the arches will be sorted, not least because we launched his election campaign at that very site. Our heritage is a key reason why so many international visitors come to this country. If we can get the mix of historical and modern right, I am sure that we can challenge France for international visitor numbers.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that spending review issues are a matter for the Treasury—let us see what comes out of that review. I have had lots of representations, and he makes a good point.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is great to see my hon. Friend here. First, we want to ensure that more international movies and blockbusters are made in the UK, and we want to increase investment. With more sound stages, we should be able to challenge Hollywood. I also want to ensure that every single child in this country can consider a career in the creative industries, whatever background they come from.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I will happily meet the hon. Member, who makes a very good point. We have hundreds of museums and galleries across the country. Some of them receive funding directly from Arts Council England. We want to talk to Arts Council England about how we can ensure that there is more support for our museums and galleries. Some of the funding comes directly from our Department. I am happy to meet him to discuss that.

• 17 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I completely agree with what my hon. Friend was about to say.