Canterbury City Council Bill

I regret giving way to the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall try to resist the temptation in future should he catch my eye. We are where we are on European legislation—unfortunately—and it is perfectly clear that any legislation that the House passes today must meet the services directive. It seems to me that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury made a compelling case, which I did not hear anyone deny, that the ticket touting aspect of the Bill does not meet the requirements of the services directive. I do not see how the House can pass legislation that we know, in our heart of hearts, cannot be maintained, justified and sustained in a court of law. That would be an entirely pointless exercise. That is one very deep concern I have about clause 4. I was not aware of the problem before, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the House aware of it. I am particularly concerned with clause 4 of the Nottingham City Council Bill, which clearly states that it would deny people the chance of""purchasing…or offering to purchase any ticket for gain or reward"." Why on earth Nottingham city council has taken it upon itself to determine the law relating to ticket touting in its Bill is beyond me. This ill-considered—in fact, barely considered—provision would drive a coach and horses through the law on ticket touting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch generously mentioned in his speech, I am a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee which had an inquiry into the merits of ticket touting only last year. We took huge swathes of evidence from consumers, people involved in the industry and ticket touts themselves—including those who work on street corners and those with websites—as well as the Office of Fair Trading, which has made it clear that it believes that touting acts in the best interests of consumers and it has no reason to want to try to ban it. In fact, there have been very few cases in which anybody trying to restrict the selling on of tickets has taken a case to court, because such cases are very flimsy and would not be allowed. However, Nottingham city council has decided to put the subject in the middle of clause 4 of its Bill. The touting provision could lead to a ridiculous situation for someone who bought a ticket for a large event in Nottingham. I am aware that Nottingham Forest and Notts County are not as well supported as they were in their heyday a few years ago, but the latter are back on the way up, and the former are doing better than they were—