Price caps for pop concerts: is there any market Labour won’t restrict?
Labour’s plan for a ban on secondary ticket sales is an open door for fraudsters. Yet more proof that only the Conservatives believe in free markets, says Andrew Griffith
Anyone would think that growth is roaring back, public spending has been brought firmly under control and small boat crossings to our shores have ceased.
Why? Because the government has committed this week to use significant amounts of its precious legislative time on effectively banning secondary ticket sales. A pile driving sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Instead of focusing with laser-like precision on the issues they promised us that they would, such as the cost of living and NHS waiting lists, the hapless duo of Starmer and Reeves have instead decided to shackle businesses operating in our crucial entertainment sector – one of Britain’s great success stories – with new burdensome and costly red tape. How costly? They don’t even know as the analysis which does that – the so-called impact assessment – has not yet been published.
Secondary ticketing is already a regulated marketplace, and quite right too. It has a series of protections in place to safeguard the interests of concert goers and sports fans. The businesses that operate in this competitive market often use innovative digital technology to service customer needs which were previously unmet or fulfilled in lower quality, less transparent ways.
But now – with its ill-thought-through price cap proposal – Labour seeks to demonise them and drive them out of the marketplace which, in turn, risks being dominated by fraudsters and scammers who operate in the shadows, free from fear of regulation or consumer checks. Ministers optimistically believe their plans might save £100m a year but that is before taking account of any unintended consequences. Ed Miliband’s similarly price capped energy market doesn’t seem to be going well with news this week that household bills are going up again despite wholesale prices falling.
Ed Miliband’s similarly price capped energy market doesn’t seem to be going well with news this week that household bills are going up again despite wholesale prices falling.
The consequences of badly designed regulation could hurt the individual concert goer who shells out top dollar on the black market, only to find their prize ticket doesn’t exist or is invalid – unlike under the current regulated system. One industry study by Bradshaw Advisory estimates that £1.2bn could be lost to such scams every year if Labour’s plans come to fruition. And of course, with Paris and Amsterdam just a train ride away, it is not impossible that Brits miss out on chances to attend top concerts whilst secondary tickets are snapped up overseas.
Platitudes
Tomorrow, in her Budget speech, we will no doubt hear the same old platitudes from the Chancellor on how the government will leave no stone unturned in the search for pro-growth measures or cutting back red tape. Yet this proposed crackdown seems to be precisely the opposite which brutally exposes the emptiness of Labour’s rhetoric. Rare is the Labour politician who finds a tax they’d like to cut or a market they’d like to regulate less. Employers, fresh from Rachel Reeves’s national insurance hike and nervously awaiting the government’s job-destroying reform of employment rights laws, will be forgiven for letting out a hollow laugh.
The Conservative party has changed. Under new leadership, and with proper Conservative values, we have re-emerged as the only party which champions private enterprises small and large. If we see measures that genuinely boost growth, we will back them to the hilt. If we spot a move which stifles enterprise and damages employment prospects, we will sound a loud warning and do everything we can to thwart it. We Conservatives are instinctively supportive of free markets and we welcome measures which reduce exploitation or scamming of music fans and which genuinely make the resale market more effective and transparent.
Of course, an ill-designed legislative price cap on secondary ticket sales won’t impact most businesses. Most businesses will head on by, averting their eyes and not speak out. But beware of the ideological nature of this government. Sooner or later it may be you!
Andrew Griffith is shadow business secretary