Secondary Ticketing Market — [Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 4:04 pm on 24 October 2024.

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Photo of Chris Bryant Chris Bryant The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) 4:04, 24 October 2024

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.