To ask the Chairman of Committees who receives the income generated from the sale of House of Lords papers protected by parliamentary copyright; and what is the annual net profit derived from such sales in each of the last five years. [HL2382]

Parliamentary copyright has no bearing on the arrangements for the sale of parliamentary papers: all House of Lords parliamentary copyright publications are available free of charge online. The distribution of printed parliamentary publications is managed as a public service concession contract, which means that the supplier, The Stationery Office (TSO), does not charge the House of Lords for the service of distributing publications to the public, but keeps the revenue from any sales. In the absence of such an arrangement, any shortfall in TSO's revenue would necessarily be met, under the terms of a revised contract, from the public purse. The amount of revenue generated from sales is a matter for TSO.