Schedule 1 - Football banning orders and football-related consequential amendments
Violent Crime Reduction Bill
8:00 pm
Hazel Blears (Minister of State (Policing, Security and Community Safety), Home Office; Salford, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The issue is not only about tackling the commercial aspect of touting but about public order. If people are allowed to buy unauthorised tickets, that can damage our crowd segregation policies, which could result in dreadful clashes. The new clause is designed to plug the gap.
I was also asked about the sale of tickets on the internet. International co-operation on internet offences is becoming increasingly important. We explored similar problems with selling guns on the internet, and of people having access to paedophilia and pornography on the internet. We can prosecute in this country only if the internet host company is British. If the host organisation is an international company, we need international agreements to ensure that we get prosecutions in that way. It is not the easiest thing to do, but because we are encountering these problems more regularly, our relationships with other countries are much better in terms of our enforcement policy. That is why it is important to share intelligence internationally. We are working well at that, particularly with the European Union. There is a range of European bodies such as Europol and Eurojust. We are sharing the European extradition warrant and working on the European evidence warrant. Clearly there is a range of measures that we can seek to use in that way.