I beg to move amendment No. 10, in

clause 2, page 2, line 12, after ‘determined’, insert ‘by the publisher and’.

I shall be brief. As I interpret the Bill, the form in which information is to be published is to be determined in accordance with regulations made by Secretary of State. The amendment simply says that the publisher should be able to determine the form or medium in which he deposits that information. After all, the publisher has the costs. He has to spend time doing it and to make the arrangements. It seems not unreasonable that as long as the material is deposited in one form or another, the choice of the medium should be down to the publisher, not the library. It is up to the libraries to ensure that they can receive information in all sorts of formats rather than impose a format on a publisher that may involve them in additional costs and arrangements.

I just wanted to say a few words that are unfortunately in opposition to what the hon. Gentleman has just said. The danger in the

amendment is twofold. First, it takes away from the librarians and archivists a decision about the best medium of preservation. That would worry me. I do not impugn for one minute the publishing industry, but it would be easy to opt for the cheapest medium to be deposited at the relevant legal deposit library rather than the best medium that might be useful for the long-term preservation of that material.

Secondly, and allied to that, a legal deposit library may have collected that type of material in a particular format for several years and made it available to readers in that format. For the publisher to insist on offering it in a different format, even though it is still available in the old format, would make it difficult for that library to deal with its readers. It would be difficult to make the material constantly available.

Let me give an example. This does not come under the aegis of the Bill but it is work that I used to do and it illustrates the point. If a library collects a video archive of the output of S4C on Betamax, it should be allowed to continue to do so on Betamax because it has the necessary machines to make that archive available to the public. If the publisher says that it must not be made available, or that it must be collected on DVD, that would put an extra strain on resources, storage, conservation and possible cataloguing.

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but agree with him only so far. Why should a publisher have to deal with the costs of returning to outdated technology just to satisfy a library that had not kept up to date?

I certainly accept that point. I do not think for a moment that the Secretary of State would allow regulations to exist that forced that on a publisher.

However, the clause relates to more than one medium. The same work might be published in several media; it might be available online, offline and in different digital formats. We know how much we have already lost. Indeed, it is curious that we can pick up a book that is 500 years old and still read and understand it, but we cannot pick up digital media that is five years old and still easily read or understand that. That is the difficulty in the Bill. Such issues must be thrashed out and the interests of the national archive must be paramount. I am not suggesting that we disregard publishers’ interests or do not consult them about the best usual medium for the deposit of work, but if the Bill is to mean anything, the information deposited under it must be available to readers in an easy format from libraries. It must be catalogued and available in a technologically suitable form.

Decisions about deposits should ideally be left to the Secretary of State who, as the hon. Member for Ipswich said, can draw a ring around those issues. However, placing the onus on the Secretary of State to come to an agreement with a publisher on every medium seems too great a centralisation of responsibilities, and suggests not enough trust in the system, or in our archivists and librarians to get it right—and they do get it right most of the time.

I rise to agree in large measure with what the hon. Member for Ceredigion has said—it is the first time I have ever said that, so I have broken my duck.

The word “medium” is used in the narrow rather than the broad sense. Most people think that medium means a book, a film, a play or an online publication. It is made clear in clause 9 that

“‘medium’ means any medium of publication, including in particular any form of on line or off line publication”.

Therefore, the technical standards necessary to access a particular work in a digital medium will be as important as the provision of the material in the first place. Clause 6(2)(b) will require the person

“to deliver, with the copy of the work, a copy of any computer program and any information necessary in order to access the work”.

None the less, it is important that the onus for ensuring access to work is on the publisher. If, for example, someone complied with the law by still providing copies of The Times in microfiche form, but in a microfiche form that was completely different from that which is used by almost every library in the world, they would be deliberately seeking to subvert the meaning of the law. That is why it is important that the onus for ensuring access to work should be on the publisher rather than the library.

I wonder whether the primary purpose of the clause is to deal with situations in which something is published in printed form and on CD-ROM, and to resolve whether it is acceptable for a publisher to say, “Right. The legal deposit libraries will have the CD-ROMs, because that is cheaper for me.” In those circumstances, can the libraries insist on having the printed format, because that is the most acceptable one? I am trying to clarify whether we are dealing with those situations, rather than situations involving the technical choice between two different online formats, which is another matter that we would deal with in regulations about online formats. This is about judgments as to whether a publisher can say that they will provide the product that is cheapest for them to deliver, or whether a library can insist on having a more expensive format. In the context of the amendment, who makes the decision as to whether a library has the power to insist on the more expensive format? It would be useful if the Minister could respond to that point.

That is an invitation that I cannot refuse. This is fascinating. We have had a short but good debate on an issue that is central in many ways. It is not appropriate for the publisher to have the final say as to the medium of deposit, as that medium may have implications for the libraries. I am thinking, for example, of storage. However, I have a great deal of sympathy with the argument of the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, and I want to reassure him that, before any regulations are made, including those that spell out the medium of deposit, publishers and other stakeholders will be fully consulted to ascertain what is best for all.

As hon. Members have said, since almost the first decade of the 20th century, a good voluntary system has evolved whereby common sense has almost always prevailed. I want the spirit of that to continue, certainly in the Bill, and the way to achieve that is by trying to ensure that a good arbitration system is set out in the regulations, so that the best solution to individual cases or quandaries is found without too much hassle. I am sure that that can be done.

The purpose of clause 2 is to address the issue of duplicate publications, which was raised on Second Reading. It provides that it is not necessary to deposit a new edition of a work if it is substantially the same as one already published in that medium. Secondary legislation would detail the circumstances in which a work was considered substantially the same as a previously published work, and determine the medium of deposit where the same work was published in different media. However, it is thought that print will remain, as now, the preferred medium.

It is important that the iterations of certain works come into the archive. A classic example is Izaak Walton’s “Lives”, which changed every five years. The changes are just as important as the final text that we now know and that is published. Indeed, nowadays many publishers will publish several iterations. In the process of establishing the regulations, it will be just as important on occasion to ensure that different iterations of the same work, even though they are substantially the same, remain in the national archive.

I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. Those are exactly the sorts of issues that will have to be thrashed out through regulations.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned regulations, and I should like to ask him about that. The matter raised by the hon. Member for Rhondda is of extreme cultural importance, but not so important in terms of intellectual property, which the Bill covers. I think that the cultural importance issue is overcome by the fact that libraries can buy extra editions if necessary. We are trying to protect intellectual property.

I want to ask about a particular proposal in the Bill. Regulations set out by the Secretary of State will frame certain matters, but we all know that there will be thorny issues that fall through the net or create problems. Is there an appeals system? What happens if nothing seems to work properly and a particular legal deposit library wants to get hold of a particular publication, and the publisher says, “No”? What sort of appeals system or arbitration could be used to decide such matters? Would it be the responsibility of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport or would it be decided elsewhere?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those two points, of which the second will be covered by clause 3.

With regard to the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, and given the commitments made by the Minister earlier, it is clear that there will be full consultation with publishers and other interested parties in the publishing community before any regulations are made in this area, and all representations will be given full consideration.

I am grateful for the assurances given by the Bill’s promoter and by the Minister that full consultation will take place with the interested parties. In the light of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.