Today in the House of Commons Sharon Hodgson welcomed the Lords amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill, that will boost greater transparency in the secondary ticketing market, and will help make sure genuine fans are not ripped off and stopped from seeing the sports, shows or bands that they love.
Sharon is the Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse and has led the fight in Parliament to make changes to the law in order to put fans first.
The amendment, put forward in the House of Lords last month by the former Sports Minister Lord Moynihan, will mean that when tickets are re-sold the actual seat number must be divulged, as well as any restrictions on the ticket and its original face value. Alongside this, it will be the duty of secondary platforms to report criminal activity, and a review is to be set up to look into this issue in greater detail, with a report published to Parliament after 12 months.
Speaking after the debate Sharon said:
"This is an issue I have campaigned on for a very long time now, and today we finally saw the amendment accepted in the House of Commons. It may have taken longer than I had hoped, but the Government finally backed down from its total opposition and accepted these new measures that will do so much to clean up the secondary ticket market, and today certainly marks a real success in this fight."
"Now that this has been accepted the crucial next step is to conduct the review, which will hopefully highlight even more ways to protect fans and make the culture of exploitation a thing of the past."
"The review needs to have strong leadership in order to tackle the scope of the problems, but as long as whoever leads it has the best interests of fans as their key consideration then I am confident it will bring about even more ways to improve the secondary ticketing market in order that it works in the interests of fans, not touts."
Read Sharon Hodgson's speech here in Hansard >
Read article on Consumer Rights Bill debate - Secondary Ticketing - 12.01.2015 >
Link to Hansard of Sharon Hodgson's private members bill
Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill - Second Reading
Fin