Vol. 764 Tuesday No. 31 14 July 2015 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDER OF BUSINESS Questions Authors: Rights and Income........................................................................................453 Mediterranean: Migrant Trafficking.............................................................................455 Income Per Capita........................................................................................................458 Criminal Justice: Secure College ..................................................................................460 Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] Report.............................................................................................................................463 Future of the BBC Question for Short Debate............................................................................................521 Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL] Report (Continued)........................................................................................................536 £4·00 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. Corrections for the bound volume which Lords wish to suggest to the report of their speeches should be clearly indicated in a copy of the Daily Report, which, with the column numbers concerned shown on the front cover, should be sent to the Editor of Debates, House of Lords, within 14 days of the date of the Daily Report. This issue of the Official Report is also available on the Internet at www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldhansrd/index/150714.html PRICES AND SUBSCRIPTION RATES DAILY PARTS Single copies: Commons, £5; Lords £4 Annual subscriptions: Commons, £865; Lords £600 LORDS VOLUME INDEX obtainable on standing order only. Details available on request. BOUND VOLUMES OF DEBATES are issued periodically during the session. Single copies: Commons, £65 (£105 for a two-volume edition); Lords, £60 (£100 for a two-volume edition). Standing orders will be accepted. THE INDEX to each Bound Volume of House of Commons Debates is published separately at £9·00 and can be supplied to standing order. All prices are inclusive of postage. The first time a Member speaks to a new piece of parliamentary business, the following abbreviations are used to show their party affiliation: Abbreviation Party/Group CB Cross Bench Con Conservative DUP Democratic Unionist Party GP Green Party Ind Lab Independent Labour Ind LD Independent Liberal Democrat Ind SD Independent Social Democrat Ind UU Independent Ulster Unionist Lab Labour LD Liberal Democrat LD Ind Liberal Democrat Independent Non-afl Non-affiliated PC Plaid Cymru UKIP UK Independence Party UUP Ulster Unionist Party No party affiliation is given for Members serving the House in a formal capacity, the Lords spiritual, Members on leave of absence or Members who are otherwise disqualified from sitting in the House. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2015, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 453 Oaths and Affirmations[14 JULY 2015] Authors: Rights and Income 454 Baroness Neville-Rolfe: I agree with much of what House of Lords the noble Baroness says. She is a great role model from her work in the publishing industry, which was worth Tuesday, 14 July 2015. upwards of £9.9 billion of GVA in 2013. The creative industries make an enormous contribution to our 2.30 pm economy. The digital world and the digital single market are of course changing everything; that is why Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth. we are always looking at how we should adapt our regulatory framework, both at national level and within Oaths and Affirmations the European Union. 2.36 pm Lord Clement-Jones (LD): My Lords, as the Minister knows, there have been many calls to change the Several noble Lords took the oath, and signed an undertaking application of the Unfair Contract Terms Act to to abide by the Code of Conduct. intellectual property contracts over the past few years. Is it not now time to have a full review of how contracts for creators can be made fairer? How can we Authors: Rights and Income regard ourselves as the champions of creativity in the Question UK when the scales are so heavily weighted against creators? 2.38 pm Asked by The Earl of Clancarty Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I do not agree that the scales are too heavily weighted against creators: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps there is a balance between the consumers who are they plan to take to improve the rights and income going to buy works and the creators and writers. We of professional authors and writers. have to have a good incentive system. The noble Lord knows a huge amount about the law of contract and I The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department will follow up the point that he makes with him. We for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for made a lot of reforms following the Hargreaves review. Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con): We have adjusted and changed matters appropriately, My Lords, it is important that authors are properly and I think that was a good result. remunerated for their work, which is why the United Kingdom provides strong copyright protection for authors Lord Walton of Detchant (CB): My Lords, I declare as well as the public lending right. The Government an interest in that for many years I have been a have introduced a range of measures to improve the member of the ALCS—the Authors’ Licensing and enforcement of copyright, including a dedicated online Collecting Society—from which I receive minuscule IP crime unit run by the City of London Police. sums about twice a year when people, in their wisdom, decide either to borrow or to photocopy from any of The Earl of Clancarty (CB): My Lords, is the Minister my published works. Many libraries have lost their aware of the recent ALCS research which finds, alongside paid staff and are staffed wholly by volunteers. Can a significant decline in the number of full-time writers, the Minister say whether such libraries are no longer a 29% drop in the median income of professional covered by the public lending right so that those authors in the last 10 years to a paltry £11,000 a year? authors whose works are photocopied or borrowed What are the Government doing to protect the written from them no longer receive any financial benefit? word in this country and enable being a writer to be a Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, it is for the local viable career choice for young people? authority to determine how best to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. Volunteer- Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, I agree with the supported libraries are considered for public lending noble Earl that writing is a vital part of our creative right—the point that was at issue—where they are industries, and that is why we have the public lending within a library authority’s statutory public library right. We have a great library network to encourage service. people to read and to borrow. I think that we also have world-leading copyright laws. Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD): My Lords, in the discussions that are going to take place on the Baroness Rebuck (Lab): My Lords, I declare that I BBC licence, will the Minister recognise the huge have spent 40 years in book publishing. We should be contribution the BBC makes to encouraging and proud of launching more titles per head of population supporting young authors? It has a whole list of series, in this country than anywhere else in the world. However, such as “Book of the Week”, that depend on attracting our overall revenues are falling. Half of our independent young authors. Would the Government agree to bear bookshops have closed, undercut by cheaper e-books this very much in mind in whatever decision they and heavy discounting of physical books. “Every little finally make about the licence issue? helps”, as the Minister will know from her former life, but it does not always help everyone. Does she agree Baroness Neville-Rolfe: The noble Baroness is absolutely that we need to safeguard not only the revenues for right. I am glad to say that, thanks to my noble friend writers but the whole book ecosystem on which their Lord Fowler, we will be debating the BBC later today revenue depends? in this House. 455 Authors: Rights and Income[LORDS] Mediterranean: Migrant Trafficking 456 Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab): My Lords, a Lord Roberts of Llandudno: I am delighted at that. very sunny atmosphere descended on your Lordships’ Last week, it brought in thousands of people but only House as the Minister mentioned the PLR and public one group there had a standing ovation—the group libraries, which cannot be right. Fully operating public from Nepal. People are sympathising with the terrible libraries have been decimated in the last five years and, destruction that there has been. It shows the basic as the noble Lord said, there are now difficulties in compassion and care of the British people. Does the interpreting how the PLR operates when volunteers Minister really think that the Government are responding are involved. Is it not time now, given the change in the to the immigration and the great tragedy evolving in way publishing operates, for the Government to institute the Middle East and Mediterranean—and the burden a proper review of the PLR to make sure that our is being shared between Greece and Italy more than authors, who contribute so much to the creative industries, anybody else—in a way that is equivalent to the get proper remuneration from all borrowing that is compassion and care that British people feel? done? Lord Bates: The noble Lord is absolutely right in this regard. This country has a proud record of offering Baroness Neville-Rolfe: My Lords, the noble Lord asylum to those in need, and we continue to do that is right that libraries have declined in number, but the through a variety of programmes—but our view is new modern libraries are amazing.