Ms Clare McNamara:

I mentioned this at the very start and Mr. Newham covered it in his opening statement. First, the research we have done into this matter shows that there are actually very few events in which above price ticket resales happen. Those would be events or concerts by very popular artists, for example, but the percentage is very low. In many cases, ticket touts get their hands on the tickets by going online and buying them with the specific purpose of reselling them, but ticket touting can take many forms. Some people make a business of this and make millions. There was a case in Leeds last year of two people who had made something like £3.5 million over a two-year period just through ticket touting. There are also people who do it on a small scale. In some cases people purchase tickets for an event but cannot go and then use the opportunity to try to sell those tickets at a higher price. What we are trying to do in this Bill is prevent that secondary selling at a price above the original cost, as best we can.