Speeches by Western.

“We heard just now that 1% of small businesses are aware of the NSCS. Is that a surprise to you, and what do you need to do to build awareness? If we are going to have a whole-society approach, small businesses may be vulnerable, as we know, but small businesses supply larger businesses, and that can affect the larger b…”

“This is a question for you, Richard. The Government talk about a whole-society approach to this challenge. How do you think our deployment of resources and investment in our capabilities, in both the private and public sector, are matching up against the investment of our adversaries?”

“I welcome this statement. The point about Exercise Pegasus reminds me of Exercise Cygnus, the findings of which, I am saddened to say, the previous Government ignored in advance of what then became the pandemic we faced. In recent weeks we have seen attacks on Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and others, and the fire at …”

“We need good community policing, but we also need good senior leadership teams in our forces. A recent review of Warwickshire police showed the leadership and the force management need improvement, and that its response times were inadequate. Would the Home Secretary look into Warwickshire police?”

“Just picking up on the point about the shortage of 250,000 people, I assume there is a certain age profile to certain specialisms. You made the point about colleges, Mr Berry. Other than Skills England and what the Government are doing to put more funding in, how do we get more young people who want these vocational sk…”

“I am really interested in the associations’ perspectives. Victoria, you mentioned the Home Office. What response are you getting from the Home Office on the suggestion that there are a lot of illegal businesses involved in money laundering? I am sure many of your members are on the high street. They could identify or s…”

“Sometimes it does not work so well with the police directly. It might be better to have this channelled straight into Home Office and then for it to come back down again. Would you agree with that?”

“What is the industry’s sense of how much is being lost in terms of business to these illegal operations?”

“The same applies to nail bars, presumably.”

“How could the sector help bring that about?”

“So the conclusion is that your policy was misleading to the consumer?”

“The average person who would like to go to a gig is being priced out of the market, sadly, and I am sure there are many around this table. The consumer sees a price advertised to go to see whatever gig, and then find that it is not the price they are going to pay, because it has moved into a different price category. T…”

“Let us be clear here. You said that you do not operate dynamic pricing. Are those weasel words? You are suggesting that you have predetermined what the escalation in price might be in the system, as opposed to it being live and you are influencing or interfering with it on the day or at the moment of sale. You have pre…”

“Even though you are in this business, you did not recognise the word “dynamic.””

“Andrew Parsons, when we last saw you, which was about February, you were questioned about Ticketmaster’s approach to dynamic pricing. You were categoric in your statement that Ticketmaster does not use dynamic pricing, which was contradicted by a statement on your website. Can you be absolutely clear to the Committee t…”

“I understand, but will you also be giving a guarantee in terms of the number of tickets that you will sell?”

“So your guarantee to the performer is about the total revenue from tickets.”

“But you are advising them on what you think is realisable.”

“So you say, “In this category, we could sell this number of tickets at that price.””

“You said that you advise them.”