The price of resale tickets could be capped under plans to stop the public being “fleeced” by professional touts, the government has announced.

The limit could range from the cost of the original ticket to a 30% uplift, with a consultation to be launched on the specifics of the measure.

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Restricting the number of tickets resellers can list to the maximum they are allowed to purchase on the primary market is another option being considered.

The proposed changes come after concert sales for artists including Taylor Swift were marred by professional touts reselling at heavily inflated prices.

Others have been caught out by a lack of transparency over the system of dynamic pricing, which left Oasis fans watching the cost of some standard tickets more than double from £148 to £355 as they waited in the queue.

Ministers have already promised a dynamic pricing review, with the latest measures aimed at stopping touts “hoarding tickets and reselling at heavily inflated prices”, the culture department said.

There has long been concerns about rip-off ticket resales for events, with high-profile artists like Ed Sheeran pushing for more regulation.

According to analysis by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), typical mark-ups on tickets sold second hand are more than 50%, while investigations by Trading Standards have uncovered evidence of seats going for up to six times their original price.

Last year, Virgin Media O2 estimated that ticket touts cost music fans an extra £145 million per year.

The proposals announced today will apply to music concerts, as well as live sport and other events, delivering on a Labour manifesto commitment to make the system fairer.

DJ Fatboy Slim said it was “great to see money being put back into fans pockets instead of resellers” and he is “fully behind” the proposals.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said the proposals “would go some way to help address the perverse incentives that are punishing music fans”.

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However she urged ministers to go further and launch a fan-led review of music, to look at how the industry could better support struggling small venues and fledgling artists.

Other proposals under the ticket tout crackdown include new obligations so that resale platforms are legally responsible for the accuracy of what is advertised by third parties on their sites.

Professional sellers often advertise false information about their identity or key details of the ticket, especially for events where the organiser has imposed restrictions on re-sales, a report by the CMA in 2021 found.

The watchdog has also raised concern about “speculative selling” – when touts advertise seats they haven’t yet bought, cash in on the proceeds upfront and hope to secure a ticket later to fulfil the order.

The government also wants to bring in stronger fines and a new licensing regime for re-sale platforms to increase enforcement of protections for consumers.

Trading Standards can already issue fines of up to £5,000 for ticketing rule breaches and the consultation will look into whether this cap should be increased.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said: “The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports team live is something all of us enjoy and everyone deserves a fair shot at getting tickets – but for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.

“As part of our Plan for Change, we are taking action to strengthen consumer protections, stop fans getting ripped off and ensure money spent on tickets goes back into our incredible live events sector, instead of into the pockets of greedy touts.”

Harriet Harman has suggested a “mini inquiry” into issues raised by the grooming gangs scandal and called on Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch to discuss “terms of reference”.

The Labour peer told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast that there should “openness” to a future probe as long it does not repeat the previous investigations.

In particular, she said people need to be “trained and confident” that they can take on matters “which are in particular communities” without being accused of being racist.

“I think that whether it’s a task force, whether it’s more action plans, whether it’s a a mini inquiry on this, this is something that we need to develop resilience in,” Ms Harman said.

The grooming gangs scandal is back in the spotlight after Elon Musk hit out at the Labour government for rejecting a new national inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, saying this should be done at a local level instead.

The Tories also previously said an Oldham inquiry should be done locally and in 2015 commissioned a seven-year national inquiry into child sex abuse, led by Professor Alexis Jay, which looked at grooming gangs.

However, they didn’t implement any of its recommendations while in office – and Sir Keir has vowed to do so instead of launching a fresh investigation into the subject.

Ms Harman said she agreed with ministers that there is “no point” in a rerun of the £200m Jay Review, which came on top of a number of locally-led inquiries.

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However, she said there’s “always got to be an openness to further analysis, further consideration of what proposals would move things forward”.

She called on the Conservative Party to start “sensibly discussing with the government what should be the parameters of a future inquiry”, as they “can’t really be arguing they want an absolute repeat of the seven years and £200 million of the Jay inquiry”.

She said the Tories should set out their “terms of reference”, so “the government and everybody can discuss whether or not they’ve already got that sorted”.

Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns in England – including Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford – over a decade ago in a national scandal that was exposed in 2013.

In many cases the victims were white and the perpetrators of south Asian descent – with the local inquiry into Telford finding that exploitation was ignored because of unease about race.

The Jay review did not assess whether ethnicity was a factor in grooming gangs due to poor data, and recommended the compilation of a national core data base on child sex abuse which records the ethnicity of the victim and alleged perpetrator.

Ms Harman’s comments come after the Labour Metro Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said he believed there was a case for a new “limited national inquiry”.

He told the BBC that a defeated Tory vote on the matter was “opportunism”, but a new probe could “compel people to give evidence who then may have charges to answer and be held to account”.

Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister who has born the brunt of Mr Musk’s attacks, has told Sky News “nothing is off the table” when it comes to a new inquiry – but she will “listen to victims” and not the world’s richest man.

Sir Keir has said he spoke to victims this week and they do not want another inquiry as it would delay the implementations of the Jay review – though his spokesman later indicated one could take place if those affected call for it.

Tory leader Ms Badenoch has argued that the public will start to “worry about a cover-up” if the prime minister resists calls for a national inquiry, and said no one has yet “joined up the dots” on grooming.

Last year was the warmest on record, the first to breach a symbolic threshold, and brought with it deadly impacts like flooding and drought, scientists have said.

Two new datasets found 2024 was the first calendar year when average global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – before humans started burning fossil fuels at scale.

The record heat has not only has real-world implications, as it contributed to deadly flooding in Spain and vicious drought in places like Zambia in southern Africa.

It is also highly symbolic.

Countries agreed in the landmark Paris Agreement to limit warming ideally to 1.5C, because after that the impacts would be much more dangerous.

The news arrives as California battles “hell on earth” wildfires, suspected to have been exacerbated by climate change.

And it comes as experts warn support for the Paris goals is “more fragile than ever” – with Donald Trump and the Argentinian president poised to row back on climate action.

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Friends of the Earth called today’s findings from both the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change service and the Met Office “deeply disturbing”.

The “primary driver” of heat in the last two years was climate change from human activity, but the temporary El Nino weather phenomenon also contributed, they said.

The breach in 2024 does not mean the world has forever passed 1.5C of warming – as that would only be declared after several years of doing so, and warming may slightly ease this year as El Nino has faded.

But the world is “teetering on the edge” of doing so, Copernicus said.

Prof Piers Forster, chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, called it a “foretaste of life at 1.5C”.

Dr Gabriel Pollen, Zambia’s national coordinator for disasters, said “no area of life and the economy is untouched” by the country’s worst drought in more than 100 years.

Six million people face starvation, critical hydropower has plummeted, blackouts are frequent, industry is “decimated”, and growth has halved, he said.

Paris goal ‘not obsolete’

Scientists were at pains to point out it is not too late to curb worse climate change, urging leaders to maintain and step up climate action.

Professor Forster said temporarily breaching 1.5C “does not mean the goal is obsolete”, but that we should “double down” on slashing greenhouse gas emissions and on adapting to a hotter world.

The Met Office said “every fraction of a degree” still makes a difference to the severity of extreme weather.

Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo added: “The future is in our hands: swift and decisive action can still alter the trajectory of our future climate”.

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Copernicus found that global temperatures in 2024 averaged 15.10°C, the hottest in records going back to 1850, making it 1.60°C above the pre-industrial level during 1850-1900.

The Met Office’s data found 2024 was 1.53C above pre-industrial levels.

The figures are global averages, which smooth out extremes from around the world into one number. That is why it still might have felt cold in some parts of the world last year.

Greenpeace campaigner Philip Evans said as “the world’s most powerful climate denier” Donald Trump returns to the White House, others must “take up the mantle of global climate leadership”.

The UK’s climate minister Kerry McCarthy said the UK has been working with other countries to cut global emissions, as well as greening the economy at home.

“Not only is this crucial for our planet, it is the economic opportunity of the 21st century… tackling the climate crisis while creating new jobs, delivering energy security and attracting new investment into the UK.”