My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, has spoken extremely eloquently in support of his amendments, I wish to add very little to what he had to say.
On these Benches we strongly welcome government Amendment 33ZL banning the bulk purchase of tickets, but we believe that it will not solve the problems entirely by itself. There are certain questions about enforcement, which the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, raised. The Minister used the expression “partnership with law enforcement agencies”. Perhaps when he responds, he could say in a little more detail how that will work. As the Computer Misuse Act has not been effectively enforced by the police to date, the question is: who will enforce it and what budget will they have to enforce it with?
We strongly support Amendment 33ZLZA, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan. We believe it is very important to include the booking reference where one exists. It is important as many tickets do not have a seat or row number because they are standing tickets or for unreserved seating. Some venues have 100% standing or unreserved places, while others sometimes have a significant number of standing areas. Other events, such as major golf, horseracing and motor sports
events, as well as festivals, may also have unseated areas, and that has consequences. If there is no seat number, that enables secondary ticket websites to declare, “The full seat information is not available” or is “not applicable”, so sellers may be able to avoid identification and undermine the existing provisions, which were pretty hard fought for under Section 90 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
The second part of the amendment is also very important. It requires the ticketing website to provide information if there is a resale restriction. This is key information for a potential buyer so that they do not purchase a ticket which is in fact invalid. That was noted by the Competition and Markets Authority when it launched its investigation last December into breaches of consumer law. Even at this late stage, I very much hope that the Minister will accept that amendment.
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