Obviously, I cannot give my hon. Friend a guarantee that that will happen. He makes the important point—I have heard him make it before—that a great deal of material has already disappeared into the ether. I am worried about the amount of material that has been published online, which is almost a new medium, especially for academic publications. A great deal of valuable material has been published and subsequently disappeared. Although I would not like to make a judgment about what that has meant for the scientific or any other community, I believe that we should be concerned about it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire pointed out, an enormous amount of information is published of an almost infinite variety and, depending on who might log on and pay for it, that information varies enormously in its value and cost. We will do our best to encourage all the stakeholders—if I may use that cliché—to ensure that important material is not lost to archives and future researchers while the Bill is under consideration.

The Bill will give the Secretary of State powers to make regulations relating to the deposit of different classes of published work in different media when it is appropriate to do so. At each juncture, we will need to find the correct balance between the legitimate needs of the national archive, which are likely to vary between classes of material, bearing in mind what my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire has told us about the aim of developing a national archive, and the implications and costs for the businesses of publishers and other stakeholders.

Those issues will emerge and be discussed during the detailed consultation that will precede the implementation of any regulations. I understand the sense of unease that there may be in some quarters about the possible lack of consultation, but I give an undertaking to the Committee that detailed consultation will take place. The issues will be explored further through the regulatory impact assessments, which will be prepared for each set of regulations.

The Bill has been drafted in the policy context of the need to minimise the burdens on the deposit libraries and the publishers. It is important that we do not introduce legislation that would undermine the commercial viability of publishing organisations—that would be stupid in the extreme. The mechanism of enacting the provisions through secondary legislation, with affirmative resolution in both Houses, will allow us to proceed incrementally to explore such issues fully

before each set of regulations is made. I believe that that was the point made by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire.

The question of illegal use surfaces more readily with regard to electronic works. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire for giving us the benefit of his long experience in that area. That issue troubles me a great deal. Such illegal use could apply to a single product that has taken many years to put together, whether it be a database or a piece of scientific discourse. I know that the Patent Office does tremendous work in that area, but the Committee should also take the matter seriously. The publishing industry highlighted that concern and it is dealt with in new clause 1 on the use of non-print publications.

When making regulations, the Secretary of State will ensure that the necessary safeguards for accessing legally deposited materials are included, so that publishers can have full confidence in the security of the system. We must be able to guarantee that. We are also still considering how issues of liability and defamation can be satisfactorily resolved in the Bill. We intend to table an amendment on Third Reading to provide for that.