§ Mr. Douglas-Mannasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he can now say what his plans are for consulting the principal interests concerned with a view to the implementation of a public lending right.
§ Mr. Hugh JenkinsI have written today to organisations representing authors, publishers, public library authorities and librarians. The main issues to be resolved are indicated in the excerpts given below. I am arranging early meetings to discuss these issues and I shall also welcome expressions of views from other quarters.
The work of the Technical Investigation Group and the research undertaken has shown that there are two feasible ways of measuring the detailed entitlement to public lending right. Both have shortcomings and advantages, which are set out below. Some of the difficulties are formidable and must be considered carefully before the details of legislation can be determined. The problem which confronts me immediately is whether, in the face of these difficulties, I am justified in seeking legal powers for a particular method of payment.
Entitlement to public lending right can be measured either by a sample of borrowings or by recording all the books bought by libraries; it would be prohibitively expensive—£5 million a year or more—to measure all borrowings. The problems concerning a sample of borrowings relate to the accuracy which can be afforded without using up most or all of the resources available for public lending right. If the costs are to be kept within reach of the costs for a purchased-based scheme—in other words, if the sums available to authors in total are to be comparable—a sample of not much more than 72 service points will be the largest which could be afforded.
Such a sample will give rise to two kinds of errors: first, the calculation of compensation on books which are present in most libraries will be subject 233W to a percentage sampling error which will be greater the smaller the entitlement; and second, the calculation for books which are mainly in restricted localities may well be permanently subject to error.
It is estimated that as many as half the authors whose books are used in libraries will be entitled to a payment of £10 or less per £1 million of money available for distribution. For authors entitled to £10 the errors of the sample are calculated at plus or minus 20 per cent. The errors for authors entitled to smaller payments would be larger still. My concern with these findings is that the smaller the payments—and perhaps the greater the likelihood that the author might need them—the higher the error yielded from a sample.
Parliament may well find it hard to justify the paying out of public money with an element of uncertainty on this scale.
The accuracy of the sample could be improved by a factor of two by doubling the cost.
The advantages of a method based on borrowings would be that the system would immediately cover all authors whose books are now in library stocks, and they would not have to wait until new books were purchased or reprints made of existing works. In other words, some 113,000 authors could be entitled to payments from the start as opposed to 87,000 under a purchased-based scheme.
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UNEMPLOYED IN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNEMPLOYED IN EACH REGION AS A PERCENTAGE OF THOSE UNEMPLOYED IN GREAT BRITAIN Number Per cent. Great Britain Scotland Wales South East East Anglia South-West West Midlands East Midlands York shire and Hemberside North-West North 1964 … 340,299 20.2 7.4 21.0 2.1 6.0 5.2 3.4 6.9 16.1 11.6 1965 … 309,201 18.9 8.6 22.1 2.3 7.0 5.2 4.1 7.1 14.4 10.3 1966 … 374,639 16.5 8.6 23.4 2.6 7.6 6.3 4.7 7.3 13.2 9.9 1967 … 531,647 15.0 7.4 24.2 2.2 6.2 8.7 4.5 8.1 13.5 10.2 1968 … 538,762 14.4 7.2 22.8 2.1 6.3 8.0 4.9 9.6 13.0 11.6 1969 … 542,600 14.4 7.3 22.5 2.1 6.8 7.5 4.9 9.8 13.3 11.3 1970 … 576,265 16.2 6.2 21.3 2.4 6.5 8.2 5.4 9.7 13.8 10.3 1971 … 819,283 16.2 5.9 19.7 2.5 5.9 9.4 5.2 10.2 15.3 9.8 1972 … 792,119 16.4 5.9 19.1 2.0 5.4 9.5 5.0 9.8 16.8 10.0 1973 … 509,630 16.0 6.3 19.5 2.1 6.0 8.1 5.0 9.4 17.0 10.6 1974 … 612,535 13.7 6.6 20.2 2.3 7.3 (8.4)* 5.7 9.0 16.7 10.1 * Because of industrial action at some offices precise information about the numbers unemployed in the West Midlands is not available and the proportion has been estimated. The alternative methods, based on the purchases of books, would cover accurately all books bought after the date of the operation of the scheme but would not recompense authors for books already in libraries unless and until those books were replaced by new copies. However, for an initial period authors who have already published books might be paid at a higher scale. The main advantage of this method is that it is as cheap as any justifiable sampling scheme, is subject to no sampling error and can cover much more effectively the use of reference books in libraries. It is very doubtful indeed whether any other scheme can accurately reflect the use of reference books.
It may be possible to measure the use of reference books by purchase, and the use of the rest of the stock by a sample of lending. I am examining the case for providing in legislation for both methods.