Subordinate Legislation
Glasgow Commonwealth Games Act 2008 (Ticket Touting Offence) (Exceptions for Use of Internet etc) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 [Draft]
We move to agenda item 2. I welcome Shona Robison, Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport; Odette Burgess, a senior policy officer on the Commonwealth games delivery team; and Mark Eggeling, who is a solicitor in the Scottish Government.
I invite the minister to make some opening remarks before I invite questions from the committee.
Thank you, convener. We are here to consider the draft Glasgow Commonwealth Games Act 2008 (Ticket Touting Offence) (Exceptions for Use of Internet etc) (Scotland) Regulations 2012. As part of Glasgow’s bid to host the 2014 games, the Scottish Government agreed to take steps to prevent the touting of games tickets.
Provisions in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games Act 2008 will, when they come into force on 29 November 2012, achieve that by making it an offence for an unauthorised person to sell, offer to sell, expose for sale, advertise, make available, or give away a games ticket in a public space for an amount exceeding the ticket’s face value, or with a view to making a profit. That is known as “the touting offence”.
The regulations specify circumstances in which making facilities available in connection with electronic communications or the storage of data is or is not capable of constituting the touting offence. They also ensure compliance with a European Union directive on electronic commerce. In particular, they set out when mere conduit, caching or hosting will not constitute the offence. Those are mechanisms that internet providers use for online temporary display and/or storage of information.
The regulations also set out conditions that must be met before the offence can be enforced against a person based in another European economic area state who provides internet-type services. The absence of further provision would give rise to a risk that the touting offence would be enforced incompatibly with the requirements of the EU directive. The draft regulations are therefore very much a technical measure to comply with EU law.
Scottish Government officials have worked closely with the games partners on the proposals for the regulations. United Kingdom Government officials and officials from other devolved Administrations were consulted separately on similar provisions, which were extended to the whole of the UK through the making of a section 104 order under the Scotland Act 1998. Comments on the draft order resulted in changes to make the meaning clearer, and those refinements are reflected in the regulations.
A public consultation on the draft regulations took place earlier this year. More than 60 agencies and businesses were contacted about the consultation, including the industry representative organisation and a number of businesses in the internet ticketing industry. Two responses to the consultation were received, and both supported the regulations.
I am happy to take any questions before I move the motion.
Thank you, minister. Do committee members have any questions?
What was learned from the Olympic games in setting up the regulations? Were there any lessons that had to be learned?
A lot of the regulations follow quite closely those that were brought forward for the Olympic games. On the general ticketing strategy, you can imagine that many lessons will have been learned about the sale of tickets. A lot of detailed information on ticketing was gathered. The regulations mirror quite closely those that were brought forward for the Olympic and Paralympic games.
Was there much ticket touting at the Olympic games?
There were some cases and some prosecutions. I do not know whether we want to say a little bit more about the prosecutions.
Mark Eggeling (Scottish Government)
I cannot add much to what the minister has said, other than that I believe that several hundred instances of ticket touting for the London Olympics were investigated. I do not know how many of those investigations related to offences in Scotland, but that is the ballpark figure.
At the London games, one provider was used for credit card transactions, for example. When are decisions on such things likely to be made in relation to the Glasgow games? Do you envisage a similar approach? I am asking whether the London games are being used as a model for the strategy.
The organising committee is in the process of procuring a ticketing agent that will provide the software to manage the ticket sales for all the games. There are no plans for restrictions around the credit card provider, because we know that that was an issue in relation to not just the purchase of tickets, but merchandising. I understand that the organising committee has no plans to replicate that.
The other difference is that the purchase of tickets for the Commonwealth games will not be restricted to the internet. The initial sale of tickets will be on the internet, but there will then be provision through a call centre and walk-in, over-the-counter, box office-style ticket booths. That is very good, as it means that people will be able to pay for tickets with cash. Obviously, the ticket prices will be substantially lower than the average prices for Olympics tickets. It is fair to say that, on a number of fronts, access to tickets will be easier than perhaps was the case for the Olympics.
As the minister is trying to be as helpful as possible in giving us information that a lot of us have not yet seen, I will ask another question.
Do you know yet whether tickets will be available for specific events, so that people will be able to choose exactly what they want to go to, rather than having to participate in a balloting system like the one that operated in London?
There will have to be some management of oversubscription for ticket sales for particular events and venues, but it is difficult to be too precise, given that the ticketing agent has not yet been appointed. It is fair to say that a lot of the discussions are on-going. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to get tickets; they might not get tickets for the number 1 event that they want, but we need to ensure that our communication is as good as it can be.
There were some issues with tickets for the Olympics, and there was a bit of frustration among people who kept going back on to the internet to try to get tickets and were unsuccessful each time. I assure members that much of the discussion around the ticketing strategy is aimed at trying to avoid some of those frustrations around ticket purchase.
One of the problems with ticketing in London involved the allocation of tickets to the organisers or the organising committees in each country, which did not use those tickets appropriately. Is that issue being examined, or is there a completely different system for the Commonwealth games?
All those matters will be considered. It is difficult, because the Commonwealth Games Federation and the associations in each of those countries will want tickets. Those discussions are on-going, but we can certainly provide the committee with more detail once all that is worked out.
That would be helpful.
As there are no further questions, I thank the minister and her officials for the statement, the answers that have been provided and the offer of further information.
We move to agenda item 3, which is the formal debate on the affirmative Scottish statutory instrument on which we have just taken evidence. I remind members that, under standing orders rule 10.6.3, the committee has up to 90 minutes for debate. [Laughter.]
The time for questions to the minister has passed. This item is a formal debate on the merits of the order and officials—as they know—cannot speak in the debate. I invite the minister to move motion S4M-04636.
Motion moved,
That the Health and Sport Committee recommends that the Glasgow Commonwealth Games Act 2008 (Ticket Touting Offence) (Exceptions for Use of Internet etc.) (Scotland) Regulations 2012 [draft] be approved.—[Shona Robison.]
Motion agreed to.
I thank the minister and her team once more. I suspend the meeting for a moment.
09:59
Meeting suspended.
09:59
On resuming—