HC Deb 28 March 1961 vol 637 cc1106-9
2. Mr. Morris

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will now publish his statement on the working of the grant scheme for Welsh books to date.

Mr. Brooke

Yes, Sir. As it is lengthy I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Morris

May I convey my thanks to the Minister for what he has done already and for his interest in the matter? Is he aware that he promised me this report as far back as 24th May last year? Has he considered the points I raised on that occasion regarding the inadequacy of grants for the publication of individual books and the publishing of out-of-print books?

Mr. Brooke

I should be grateful if the hon. Member would read this report. I am quite ready to make a further statement when I receive the next report that the Welsh University Press Board makes to me. Frankly, I think it wise on the part of the Government to leave detailed decisions to the Board.

Mr. C. Hughes

I appreciate that more money has been made available for this purpose. Is the Minister aware that experience has shown that the administration of the scheme is not entirely satisfactory? When he consults the University Press Board and the Welsh publishers, will he bear in mind that it would be a good thing if the scheme were revised so as to make i[...] more effective than at present?

Mr. Brooke

I think that it is becoming more effective. An increasing number of grants are being given. But those grants and the method of administration of the amounts, I think, are without precedent, and the Press Board has to proceed empirically. In general, I think it has administered the grants very sensibly.

Following is the statement:

Following the report in 1952 of the Ready Committee on Welsh Language Publishing the Council for Wales and Monmouthshire proposed this scheme for securing the publication of more books in the Welsh language. The scheme was accepted by the Government, which promised a grant of £1,000 a year for a period of five years, the first £1,000 being made available on 23rd August, 1956. This amount was increased to £3,000 for the financial year 1960–61, with a statement that the amount would be raised by £500 a year to £5,000 in 1964–65. At the end of this period it is hoped that publishers of Welsh books will be in a strong enough position to carry on without assistance.

The grant has throughout been administered by the University of Wales Press Board, which has unfettered discretion in the giving or withholding of grants in respect of particular books. It is the Board's practice to meet twice a year to consider grant applications from publishing houses, and each year a report is presented to the Minister for Welsh Affairs showing how the grant monies have been spent. New works only (including translations), as distinct from re-issues and reprints, are eligible for grant, payment of which is made on publication of the book.

The numbers of applications and allocations of grant in successive years has been as follows:

Year Applications Number of Publishers Applying Grant Allocations
1956–57 … 17 6 12
1957–58 … 28 5 27
1958–59 … 40 7 34
1959–60 … 47 10 41

The amount of grant has varied within the range £25 to £150 per book. The Board has based the grant for each book on consideration of a number of factors, such as the cost of production, the size of the edition, and the prospects of rapid sale. In the early stages the grants were sufficiently favourable to enable the books to proceed to publication, even though the amount of grant allocated has never been as high as that asked for by the publishers. As the number of applications increased, the amounts of grant were reduced in order that as many books as possible might be helped with the available money. At that time the reduction of the grants reached the point where in some cases the publishers judged that they were inadequate to make the publication of the book a reasonable risk, with the result that some grants were not taken up. However, the increased grant made available in 1960–61 enabled the Board to review and increase their original grant offers in 9 such cases.

The books for which grants have been paid or promised during the period August, 1956 to August, 1960, can be classified as follows:

— 1957 1958 1959 1960 Total
Original Works:
Novels 2 6 7 14 29
Poetry 2 4 7 12 25
Drama 2 1 1 4 8
Short Stories 1 2 2 — 5
Other Works:
Travel 2 4 7 2 15
Biography — 2 7 2 11
Essays, folk songs, religious works, translations, etc. 3 8 3 7 21
12 27 34 41 114

In 1957 the Cardiganshire County Council made a contribution of £1,000 to the Cardiganshire Welsh Books Society to be used to foster the writing of popular books in Welsh and similar contributions have been made by the County Council every year since then. This money has been used to assist the production of quite a number of books, but by grants to the authors, not to the publishers. In judging the effect of the Government publication grant on the output of books in Welsh, it must therefore be remembered that there has been this other source of finance, which has assisted the same operation though in a different way.

The numbers of books for adults published in Welsh each year since 1956 are as follows:

No. of Books
1956 … … … 60
1957 … … … 62
1958 … … … 71
1559 … … … 64
1960 … … … 93

On the announcement of the grant in August. 1956, some time was bound to elapse before publishers could make firm plans for expanding their output of Welsh books. After that more time was bound to elapse before the additional books could reach the point of publication. It was therefore to be expected that the number of books published would show no significant increase before 1958. The subsequent fall in 1959 must be regarded as attributable to the lengthy dispute in the printing trade which took place in that year. The Government grant appears now to be fulfilling its purpose successfully.

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