Speeches by Huq.

“Anyone else? Joff, you are dying to get in.”

“So in this changing ecosystem, the pipeline is not there with the venues. We get figures from the British Bar and Pub Association. A shocking number of pubs are closing every week. Before, there was a pub circuit. There was even a genre called pub rock. If I go into a boozer now, it is always a covers band. Does that m…”

“Do you think things like Night Czars make a difference? There was Amy Lamé in London. I don’t think she has been replaced. There was Sacha Lord in Manchester. I think he is still in post. UK Music has said that every local plan, a council-level thing, should include a commitment to music. Would those sorts of things ma…”

“Is it the case that more and more of your staff are freelancers? Does that make it difficult for you to retain and train?”

“Thanks everyone. Jon, you have alluded to this already, but I just wondered, do you agree with the Government—the Minister has just walked in—and also with my private Member’s Bill that it is time to do something about secondary ticketing?”

“Ed Sheeran has made his Ticketmaster resale-proof, but I think at a lot of expense to himself. Do you have any comment on that?”

“What would you like to see come out of that? There are two Government consultations that are both closed now. There was a secondary ticketing formal consultation. There was a dynamic pricing call for evidence. Also, the CMA, after the Oasis debacle in the summer, launched one as well. What would your members—the three …”

“That is another question I had. I can understand when you buy something online what a delivery fee might be, but why are there things like a print at home fee for using your own cartridge and your own paper? Why are there things like a facility charge fee? There are always these mysterious things. There is the actual p…”

“I think with the Kylie concert, BST at Hyde Park, it was £89 for the ticket, £25 for this other stuff—nobody knows what it is—and a processing fee. In the olden days it used to cost less to get it online than going in person and now it has gone the other way.”

“Well, the Minister is here so is there any last-minute plea for him—you can vocalise it now—of what you want to see coming out of these two consultations?”

“This on the record here. We do not know what happened behind closed doors.”

“Okay. That is the big problem.”

“In the last year or so, we have seen the demise of the night czars of two major cities—Amy Lamé in London and Sacha Lord in Manchester—and those posts were not replaced. Does that give the suggestion that this stuff is being a bit sidelined, shunted aside, or downgraded?”

“We touched on the very un-rock and roll subject of planning law. I am pleased to see that on the idea of agent of change, you are not averse to that in the world of build, build, build, and this very gung-ho, “We are builders, not blockers.” I just wondered, could there be an argument for enshrining provision of music …”

“She still does Radio 6, if you wake up early.”

“Very last thing—you know about my Bill already—when will the results of the two consultations see the light of day? Because we have a Friday when it is coming back, which is 4 July, but will that be after your results?”

“Okay, so as Diana Ross said, I am still waiting.”

“T5. My constituent Charlie Vernon was happily benefiting from the Access to Work scheme until redundancy. He found a new job and did a fresh application last autumn, but since then, well beyond the 24-week timeframe, there has been nothing. Will my right hon. Friend look into these sorts of delays and have a more joine…”

“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about this very complex condition. He mentioned Rory Cellan-Jones, who is well known as a BBC technology correspondent and, as the person who houses Sophie from Romania, a famous dog lover. He is my constituent in Ealing. I totally agree with my hon. Friend; the “Movers and Sh…”

“The hon. Gentleman, who always speaks with such compassion and conviction, is making a powerful case. One of the worst examples is the detention of Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijan. They have not broken any criminal code, as he says; they are public servants held for political purposes, with no clear legal redre…”