Ian Murray MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2026 · Ticket Price Regulation: Live Events · Hansard source

  More

  As I replied to my hon. Friend at the Select Committee meeting I attended last week, there were 39 Bills in the first Session of this new Government—39 very important Bills—that took us nearly two years to get through. In this Session, through the King’s Speech, we have of course introduced a number of Bills, and this one is a draft Bill. I can only reassure my hon. Friend and the House that we want to get this done as quickly as possible. That means we need to find the parliamentary time, once the draft Bill has been prepared and is ready, which should be imminently—not too many sleeps left; it depends on how many days we want to sleep for. We will then have a draft Bill that we can take forward, but there is a commitment from my Department and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade to getting this done as quickly as possible. My hon. Friend had her private Member’s Bill, which she is waving around, on this topic in the last parliamentary Session. I share her concern for fans. It is worth noting that her Bill was drafted before the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which imposes new requirements around price transparency, came into effect in April last year. Our legislation will be focused on ending the scourge of touting, thereby improving access to live events. Tackling touting, and ensuring that fans are at the heart of live events, cannot be done by Government alone, of course; industry needs to play its part. It is industry-led action, innovation and best practice, alongside the Government’s new measures, that will truly transform the fan experience. The Government recognise that many ticketing platforms, event organisers and venues have devoted a lot of time, energy and resources to this issue in recent years. We know that significant money has been spent combating ticket fraud, touts and bot use, as well as educating fans on what to look out for when they are buying tickets online, all to ensure that buying tickets is as safe and seamless for fans as possible. Nevertheless, the strength of feeling from respondents to our consultation and the call for evidence was clear. In fact, they share our strength of feeling about the touting issue. Industry must build on existing guidance to do more to tackle exploitative practices. This is why we strongly welcome the commitment by the Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers—STAR for short—to convene the sector. It will establish new best practice that ensures that pricing information is clear and up front, and that fans are empowered to make informed purchasing decisions, free from undue pressure. This work is already under way; I attended the inaugural meeting in March this year. The work is organised under four headings, to address some of the key issues in the ticketing sector. First, it will look at pricing transparency. Secondly, the industry will look at how the primary market can continue to be healthy. Thirdly, another workstream will look at accessibility issues. Finally, the industry will look at consumer education. Let us have a look at dynamic pricing. We know this is a subject that many people are concerned about. Businesses should feel free to use whatever pricing strategy meets their needs, but they must comply with the law. Where it appears that this is not happening, the CMA has the powers to enforce that and act upon it, and when businesses fall short of what is expected of them under the law, the CMA has powerful enforcement tools to ensure that businesses can be penalised and brought into line. Drip pricing is another one that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is not right when fans are shown a price for a product, only to find that it has increased by mandatory charges that are added as the transaction proceeds, particularly if they have been waiting all day on a screen to get to the front of the queue to buy tickets. I do not know if my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) has sat in his parliamentary office doing that at any point, but it is a real problem. In June this year, the Competition and Markets Authority fined StubHub International close to £900,000 and ordered it to issue refunds exceeding £590,000 to 50,000 fans for using this illegal practice. The CMA is also investigating Viagogo for similar practices. Lastly, on a related point, I continue to encourage the industry to adopt the voluntary £1 ticket levy for live events to support our grassroots music and grassroots music venues. The industry is doing the levy, but is it doing enough? Is a big question mark, and we just keep encouraging it to do as much as it possibly can. I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate on such an important issue, which affects the dedicated fans who sustain our live events sector. I would like to reassure the House that this Government are tackling industrial-scale ticket touting with urgency and will bring forth the legislation to ensure that fans are not priced out of major cultural and sporting events. That is a priority for this Government, and we will do that. I look forward to returning to this House with the draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny, and I welcome further engagement with my hon. Friend, and many other hon. Friends who have a deep interest in this issue, to help tackle ticket touting once and for all. Question put and agreed to .

• 8 Jul 2026 · Draft Trade (Mobile Roaming) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 · Hansard source

  More

  I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Trade (Mobile Roaming) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. It is great to see a fellow Edinburgher in the Chair, Ms Jardine. [Interruption.] I will not divide the Committee on the pronunciation of “Jardine”. The draft regulations are required in order to amend the Trade (Mobile Roaming) Regulations 2023 by updating the international mobile roaming wholesale rates that they set. Wholesale rates are those that mobile operators charge other mobile operators, as opposed to retail customers. The amendments will give effect in domestic law to a November 2025 decision of the EEA EFTA-UK free trade agreement joint committee, the governing body of the agreement, on which each party has a seat. I note, however, that one EEA EFTA member, Liechtenstein, has opted out of the international mobile roaming provisions in the free trade agreement. The amendments to the international mobile roaming wholesale rates are being made to ensure that they continue to reflect current international benchmarks, which reflect market conditions. This is consistent with and necessary under the terms of the free trade agreement. Let me provide some background for the Committee. In 2021, the UK and the EEA EFTA signed a free trade agreement. Its core terms included provisions on industrial goods, digital trade, services and investment and, of course, fisheries and agriculture. Under digital trade, in a telecoms chapter, it contained provisions on international mobile roaming. These provisions set a wholesale cap, which limits what mobile operators can charge each other. In 2023, the UK introduced the Trade (Mobile Roaming) Regulations to implement these provisions in UK legislation. The draft regulations will amend those regulations. As per the free trade agreement, the Trade (Mobile Roaming) Regulations covered wholesale charges only. The free trade agreement contains a review clause, under which the wholesale rates should be reviewed by all affected parties every two years “with a view to determining whether those rates are still appropriate”. The UK is one of the affected parties, along with Norway and Iceland. The rate set under the agreement has now diverged from the “relevant international benchmarks” that the agreement states should be considered. The benchmark relevant to EEA EFTA-UK is the European Union-set international mobile roaming wholesale rate, called the Euro rate. EEA EFTA adheres to the Euro rate as part of its access to the EU single market. The UK adhered to the Euro rate until 2021, with the end of the Brexit transition period at the end of 2020. The EU benchmark is based on the principle that the wholesale cap must be high enough to allow operators fully to recover reasonably incurred costs involved in building, maintaining and operating their networks. This principle, based on market conditions, is supported by the United Kingdom. In 2025, Norway, supported by Iceland, requested a move to reflect the Euro rate. The reason was that the wholesale cap in the UK-EEA EFTA agreement should reflect international benchmarks and current market conditions. Ministers agreed to proceed with legislation for these new rates to demonstrate the UK’s willingness to align with the provisions of the free trade agreement. In November 2025, the governing body of the agreement, the UK-EEA EFTA joint committee, made Decision No. 1/2025, which agreed that the wholesale rates should be changed. The draft regulations will amend the Trade (Mobile Roaming) Regulations 2023 to give effect in domestic law to the commitments that the UK has made to the joint committee. I should start asking questions, to see whether people are still keeping up with all this. I think I am. The draft regulations are strictly about amending the wholesale rate set out in the Trade (Mobile Roaming) Regulations. It is a very technical amendment. However, I believe that it would be helpful to conclude by setting the context for the wholesale cap in the free trade agreement.