Hodgson Enjoys Taste Of Victory

Hodgson, who is shadow minister for women and equalities, was one of the spearheads of the campaign to rein back ticket touts, and she’s co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group that looked into the activities of the secondary market. The amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill put forward in the House of Lords last month by former sports minister Lord Moynihan means that when tickets are re-sold the actual seat number must be divulged, as well as its face value and any restrictions on the resale of the ticket.

The bill will become law once the Queen formally agrees to make the bill into an Act of Parliament, the final procedural part of British lawmaking.

“This is an issue I have campaigned on for a very long time now, and today we finally saw the amendment accepted in the House of Commons,” Hodgson said, after the debate that accepted Lord Moynihan’s changes to the bill. “It may have taken longer than I had hoped, but the Government finally backed down from its total opposition and accepted these new measures that will do so much to clean up the secondary ticket market, and today certainly marks a real success in this fight. “Now that this has been accepted the crucial next step is to conduct the review, which will hopefully highlight even more ways to protect fans and make the culture of exploitation a thing of the past.”

She said the review – which is due in 12 months – needs to have strong leadership in order to tackle the scope of the problems, and further improve the secondary ticketing market so it works in the interests of fans rather than the touts.

The leading secondary market firms including Stubhub, Seatwave, Viagogo and Ticketmaster’s Get Me In have agreed to cooperate with the Competition and Markets Authority, the non-government body that will oversee compliance with the new legislation.