HC Deb 10 March 1961 vol 636 cc940-3

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [9th December], That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question again proposed.

3.52 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

There was a certain amount of discussion on the Bill on 9th December last. Unfortunately, we had only an hour and a half at our disposal, which means that the Bill requires further consideration today before we can agree to it being given a Second Reading. Unfortunately, also, the time at our disposal today is inadequate for the Bill to be fully discussed, and it will certainly not enable some of us to make up our minds whether to give the Bill a Second Reading.

It is encouraging to see one or two sponsors of the Bill present, although, unfortunately, a number of them, no doubt for good reasons, are unable to be present.

Mr. William Teeling (Brighton, Pavilion)

The hon. Gentleman is casting a slight aspersion on the non-attendance of various hon. Members who backed the Bill, but they all spoke on it before and, therefore, have no right to be present. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I meant that they have no right to speak again.

Mr. Lipton

The hon. Gentleman corrected himself. Those hon. Members have every right to be present.

Mr. H. Hynd (Accrington)

They have a duty to be present.

Mr. Lipton

As my hon. Friend says, they have a duty to be present. They have taken the trouble to submit the Bill to the House, and I should have thought that on the off-chance of a vote being taken they ought to be here to record their votes.

Major W. Hicks Beach (Cheltenham)

I backed the Bill, and I am only too anxious to speak.

Mr. Lipton

It may well be that if I allow myself to be interrupted any further the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) will not get the opportunity that he desires.

This Bill is important. It raises a new, and from my point of view revolutionary, principle. It is remarkable that the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Teeling) should lead this revolutionary movement for the purpose of providing money not only for authors, but for publishers.

Mr. Hynd

May I ask my hon. Friend whether, at this late hour, he could curtail his speech so as to allow some of us who oppose the Bill to have something to say?

Mr. Lipton

My hon. Friend is apparently under some misapprehension, because it is my intention to oppose the Bill as well. It may be that the various interruptions have prevented my hon. Friend from realising that that was the point to which I was trying to address myself.

Mr. Hynd

I apologise.

Mr. Lipton

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion quoted in support, when he introduced the Bill in his usual felicitous way, on 9th December, the letter which he had received from Sir Alan Herbert. That letter is worth quoting again—it is very brief. It said: The Times is against you. The Minister of Education is against you. The Library Association is against you. You are certain to win. Had A.P.H. been a little better informed he would, perhaps, have added, "The hon. Member for Brixton is also against you, and quite a number of other people as well".

I propose to mention only one point today in connection with the Bill. Even if we assume, as I do not, that the Bill will serve a useful purpose, and put some money into the pockets of struggling authors and not so struggling publishers, the fact remains that for the provisions of the Bill to work a very substantial addition to library staffs will have to be made, because Clause 4 (2) requires all libraries to make returns of the number of issues of all the books lent by them. That will entail—

Mr. Hynd

Jobs for the boys.

Mr. Lipton

—a vast amount of clerical work, necessitating the employment of additional library staff. It will certainly serve no useful purpose as far as the enlightenment of the community is concerned. I do not want to see municipal staffs grow to any greater extent than is absolutely essential.

Mr. Teeling

The hon. Gentleman is very interesting on this point, but may I point out to him that there are such things as computors and many other inventions which would obviate the necessity of having to increase the staff? The people who would pay for them would, presumably, be the people who use the library and who, at the moment, get everything for nothing.

Mr. Lipton

The last time I made inquiries about the cost of computors I found that they were rather expensive. They were certainly beyond my pocket, and, no doubt, beyond the resources of local authorities throughout the country.

In any event, why should local authorities, some of them quite small, be compelled to invest large amounts of capital in computors for the purpose of working out how many times in the course of the year a particular novel, perhaps not of particular merit, was issued from a library? As a matter of fact, probably the more trashy the novel the larger would be the number of issues.

What shall we find? We shall find that the person who is writing rubbish will get more than the person producing a serious work, either a novel or some work of research. Therefore, even if we accept the basis of the argument that authors ought to be better rewarded, the wrong people, if the Bill went through in its present form, would get the reward.

If we are to have this expensive computation of the number of issues made and the complicated complications which will then take place to assess how many pennies or twopences, or whatever the royalty may be, are to be paid to a particular author, there will have to be a central clearing house somewhere. I do not know whether it will be in Paternoster Row, but there will have to be a central establishment in which—

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday, 24th March.