Shouts of “shame” and “disgraceful” rang out in the House of Lords over a bitter row about the Royal Albert Hall, home to the BBC Proms.
The parliamentary clash emerged as peers debated a private Bill, put forward by the Hall’s trustees, that would make changes to the charity’s governance.
Because of a quirk of history, of the 5,272 seats in the central London venue, 1,276 are owned by so-called seat-holders, who can use or sell their seat’s tickets to hundreds of events each year, including on third party sites such as Viagogo.
Critics of the Bill argue that it does not address serious conflict of interest concerns that the charity’s ruling council is made up of a majority of seat-holders.
Conservative peer Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts argued that this breaches charity law that states trustees must not benefit personally from decisions they make on behalf of the charity.
Peers on Wednesday voted 206 to 45, majority 161, in favour of an amendment to the Bill at third reading aiming to address this.
Meanwhile, three current seat-holders have petitioned against the Bill, which is set to increase the number of events that seat-holders can be excluded from.
During the Bill’s third reading in the upper chamber on Wednesday, a cacophony of angry heckles broke out during a speech from former Royal Albert Hall president Lord Moynihan of Chelsea.
The Tory peer accused the Bill’s select committee, chaired by former Supreme Court president Baroness Hale of Richmond, of being “uninterested in hearing both sides” regarding the seat-holders’ petition, claiming that they had “refused to allow the Hall’s representative to present the other side”.
Lady Hale said she “didn’t expect to have to answer that sort of accusation” and insisted the committee had heard from the Hall at “enormous length”.
The independent crossbench peer said: “We certainly heard both sides of the story.
“And I have to say that, having spent decades of my life as a serving judge whose job it is to hear both sides of the story, I have been particularly upset by Lord Moynihan’s accusation.”
Labour frontbencher Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent reminded peers that “the use of language and how we refer to each other is very important”.
This testy exchange came as peers debated Lord Hodgson’s amendment addressing the conflict of interest for seat-holding trustees, which has been a contested issue for years.
He argued that seat-holders can make huge profits on their seats, selling them at inflated prices online at many times their face value.
Meanwhile, the Royal Albert Hall has been a charity since 1967, meaning it benefits from tax relief and other perks, but also means it must act for the public good.
By having seat-holders make up a majority of the council, they are able to make decisions for the charity that could benefit themselves financially.
Lord Hodgson argued that the Bill has the potential to make this situation worse, as it gives the council more freedom in deciding which events are available to seat-holders, raising the possibility that trustees could designate more lucrative events as open to seat-holders.
His amendment, backed by the Charity Commission, would add safeguards to decisions made by the council and mean that seat-holding trustees must sell tickets only through the Hall’s box office, not the open market, to avoid “super-profits, which will have arisen as a result of decisions of which they were ultimately responsible”.
He branded it an “operation which involves ticket touting for posh people, certainly very rich people”.
The Labour peer insisted: “We need to sort this out because it’s wrong, it excludes ordinary members of the public from enjoying the benefits and delights of the Royal Albert Hall, because the tickets that then go on sale from the box owners go on at a premium price.”
Lord Moynihan, a seat-holder and former trustee himself, opposed the amendment, branding it an “unworkable, impractical, misconceived, unreasonable, wrecking amendment”.
The Tory added that he felt seat-holders had been “misrepresented”, adding: “I and so many current seat-holders have put our hearts over many years into making the Hall, the charity a renowned success.
“It has been anguishing for all the Hall’s members to watch misunderstanding and misinformation about the Hall and its governance gain currency in this House.”
Culture minister Baroness Twycross assured peers that the Government is consulting on a range of measures to tackle ticket touting in general, including introducing a price cap on the resale of tickets for live events.
She added: “In the Government’s view, it is regrettable that these matters relating to the conflict of interest inherent in the Hall’s governance model have not been resolved prior to the introduction of this Bill.
“However, the Government does not generally take a position on private Bills, unless they contain measures which would contravene public policy.”
She told peers that the Government will therefore “remain neutral” on the Bill and the amendment.
