I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 3.

This group of amendments, of which Lords amendment No. 2 is the most significant, arises from consideration of the Bill in the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which provided a very useful analysis of some aspects of clause 1. The critical element that the Committee raised in respect of this group of amendments was the potential for the clause to be applied more widely, so that it could touch on other aspects of the regulation of co-operative and community benefit societies, not just those related to the activities in clause 1. The intent of this group of amendments is to narrow that purpose, and those hon. Members who have a copy of the amendments available at the Table Office will see that Lords amendment No. 2 specifies how the activities of the individual carrying out such processes should be restricted.

Although I understand what the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) is saying, I confess that I am not a great expert in this subject. Why have the words

"or assist him to perform any"

been included? Lords amendment No. 2 contains a similar phrase, but why are such things restricted to the processes in the clause? I understand that such a change makes the clause less compulsory, but I should like the hon. Gentleman to explain further how it will achieve what he says is its purpose.

I must admit that I always have a moment of doubt when such an amendment has to be considered at this late but quite proper stage in the proceedings on a Bill. Indeed, in this case, three such amendments have been grouped together. What worries me are phrases such as "authorise a prescribed person", which appears in Lords amendment No. 2. I say that particularly because it goes on to say that that prescribed person will

"make rules, binding on persons".

I am not sure that I fully understand why such a rather opaque expression has been written into the Bill. It would help us if the promoter of the Bill gave us his thoughts on who that prescribed person might be, and whether that would vary in different circumstances, to say nothing of the fact that that prescribed person can make the rules binding on other persons of a prescribed description. An awful lot of prescription is going on, about which we have no idea and on which we have no assistance. Trying to be helpful and positive, I suppose, the provision goes on to talk about

"enabling or assisting him to perform any of his functions under the regulations".

Again, the problem that we always face at this stage of legislation is that we are asked to approve a framework approach to something that will become clear only when the regulations are published. An element of doubt therefore exists that gives me pause for thought.

The next provision talks about the

"making, publication and enforcement of such rules".

Again, that is a permissive provision, but it is very wide, and it appears to provide some unrestricted powers in terms of the rules that can be made. These very wide, broad and rather vague provisions contain the potential for quite draconian action, because we are talking about binding rules being made—even if they are for the purpose of enabling or assisting, they are still binding. It would therefore help the House greatly if the promoter told us whom the prescribed person making those binding rules might be. It might also help us to know who are the persons of a prescribed description on whom these rules will bear.

The next rather intriguing provision is to leave out "carrying out" and insert "performing". Perhaps the semantics behind that change are too subtle for me to begin to understand. Clearly, the promoter understands them, and it would help the House enormously if he told us whether this subtle change of wording has some sinister implication, or whether their lordships are merely demonstrating to us that they have a much better command of the language than we do, which we would all find entirely forgivable. I am sure that I, along with the promoter, would defer happily to their lordships in their superior command of the language. If there is any more to it than that, however, it would be helpful to the House to know.

Perhaps the promoter could provide a little more help, give us a little more detail, and—if he could get behind the motivation of their lordships—tell us what he thinks was in their minds when they inserted those provisions. That would help the House greatly.

I very much follow what my right hon. Friend has said. Having looked at the origins of these amendments, we must be grateful to Members of the other place for having made some progress in trying to limit the Henry VIII powers in this Bill. One might almost say that a culture has been developing in recent weeks and in debates in this Chamber, particularly on Fridays, whereby people think that anybody who tables an amendment to a private Member's Bill, however worthy, is somehow to be disparaged and criticised.

Their lordships have demonstrated through these amendments that they were anxious about the original scope of the wording, because a Lords Select Committee was concerned about it. As a result of the amendment before us today, especially the second amendment in the group, I take the point to which the noble Lord Carter referred in the other place that any regulations conferring functions

"can only make provision for the specific and limited purpose expressly set out in subsection (1): i.e., they can only set up an asset 'lock-in' regime for community benefit societies".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2003; Vol. 649, c. 501.]

Clearly, that is better than the previous provision, and for that reason I would be keen to support the amendments.

I support Lords amendments 1 to 3.

Clause 1 allows the Treasury to bring forward in secondary legislation regulations enabling community benefit societies to adopt a lock-in over their assets, so that their assets cannot be used or dealt with other than for the benefit of the community, except in such cases as may be prescribed in the regulations, such as insolvency.

An asset lock-in regime for community benefit societies was one of the key proposals of the strategy unit report "Private Action, Public Benefit". The Government support the principle of such a regime and can see the benefits that it could bring to community benefit societies and to the economy as a whole. However, an asset lock-in regime would require detailed work and consultation to get the policy right, and to reflect the needs of the sector and other stakeholders. That is why we support an enabling clause, rather than bringing forward a substantive asset lock-in regime in this Bill.

The Government are committed to taking forward an asset lock-in regime. To ensure that the asset lock-in regime is sufficiently robust to give societies the certainty that their assets will always be used for the community benefit, it may be necessary to appoint a body to perform supervisory or regulatory functions. The body may also need to make binding rules to help maintain compliance with the regime. For this purpose, the clause enables the Treasury, through regulation, to confer rulemaking powers on a prescribed body under clause 1(5)(d).

Although any regulations made under clause 1(1) could only make provision for the purpose of setting up an asset lock-in regime for community benefit societies, the Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee expressed concern that such a delegation would be appropriate only if it were to be expressly limited to a specific purpose. To address the Committee's concern, the amendments made in the other place narrow the scope of clause 1(5)(d), so that the regulations can only authorise a prescribed person to make binding rules for the purpose of enabling or assisting him to perform his functions under the regulations. That expression is not new in the Lords amendment: it was already in the provision in the form in which it left the Commons. All that the amendments do is narrow the rule-making power from the wider version in the previous Bill. "Prescribed" is defined as meaning prescribed by regulations. Thus, the amendments made explicit that any rule-making powers conferred on a supervisory body will be directly related to the implementation of the asset lock-in regime.

Lords Amendments Nos. 1 and 3 made further minor amendments for the purpose of consistency with Lords amendment No. 2. Lords amendment No. 2 uses the phrase "enabling or assisting" whereas clause 1(4)(h) as it left the Commons merely used the word "enable". Lords amendment No. 1 alters this to "enable or assist" for the reasons that I have given to the House in terms of making explicit the provisions of the Bill. Lords amendment No. 2 alters clause (1)(5)(d) so that it uses the phrase

"to perform any of his functions",

whereas clause (1)(5)(e) as it left the Commons used the phrase

"carrying out any of his functions".

Lords amendment No. 3 alters "carrying out" to "performing". Each of those narrows down the specific points in the Bill. The Government support the amendments.

Lords amendment No. 2 contains the word "perform", so I presume that amendment No. 3 echoes that with its use of the word "performing". Can the Paymaster General enlighten me about whether there is any difference in meaning between "performing" and "carrying out"? Would it have been possible to use the words "to carry out" in amendment No. 2 or is there a legal difference between the two terms?

:I understand that there is no legal difference. The hon. Gentleman is right in the sense that alternative words could have been used. The changes have been made to ensure consistency of terminology between Lords amendment No. 2 and the other provisions in clause 1. The other place decided that it preferred a narrowing of powers on the specifics that the Bill addresses, and the other amendments are about consistency of terminology. That is always desirable to help people when they read such a Bill. The Government are happy to support the amendments.

:My right hon. Friend has provided an extremely elegant explanation of some of the textual issues. That responds to some of the points made about the precise choice of words.

If we dwell for a moment on the broader context of the clause and the reasons for this narrowing amendment, we realise the asset-locking provision, which is a key part of the Bill, is designed not to restrict the rights of certain citizens but to facilitate the ability of citizens who form themselves into community benefit societies to protect that particular asset so that it can do the purpose for which it was originally set up. The provision is not designed to restrict individual freedoms. As I explained on Second Reading, I deliberately chose this Bill as I was seeking one that would not restrict individual freedoms but would facilitate the means by which people could co-operate safely and in a manner that protected the purpose for which they established their venture.

It is also important to emphasise that there will be a lengthy consultation process on exactly how the regulations will be drawn up. The clause facilitates that process, so there will be many opportunities for Members of the House and those who are directly interested in the regulatory framework for community benefit societies to comment on the process and on the regulations that any Government might choose to lay before the House. Decisions on regulations will be determined by an affirmative vote in the House, and that will give Members a further opportunity to debate them in more detail should they wish to do so.

I am grateful for the comments of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). The other place performed a service in identifying the potential to narrow a little further and sharpen the purposes of the clause. I commend the amendments to the House.

I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

The purpose of this amendment is perhaps more explicit than that of the first group. It illustrates the concern of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee about what might stem from the clause should the Government proceed to consult on and publish any regulations. Those regulations would, in certain circumstances, impose penalties on those who are in breach of them. I raised questions on this issue earlier in our proceedings on the Bill, and I can certainly sympathise with the view taken in the other place that there should be a clear restriction on the penalties that could be imposed under the clause. The amendment, therefore, readily commends itself to the House.

:I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he moved the amendment, but he has failed to explain why he thinks that seven years is reasonable. The justification that Lord Carter gave in the other place for having seven years as the maximum term for imprisonment was that, once the Bill is enacted, it will be possible for offences to be committed that are tantamount to fraud or theft. Therefore, the maximum penalty should be commensurate with the gravity of an offence of fraud or theft. However, an offence of fraud or theft already carries a maximum penalty far in excess of seven years. An officer or member of a co-operative or community benefit society who is guilty of theft or fraud should surely be prosecuted under the provisions of the Theft Acts and be exposed to the maximum penalties stipulated in that legislation. The justification for this delegated regulatory power, which would give the Government the power to introduce a maximum penalty of seven years for offences that might be quite trivial, is slightly specious.

Is my hon. Friend prepared to go a stage further? The people who could be defrauded are members of co-operatives and community benefit societies and, I think it is fair to say, they are usually some of the weaker and more vulnerable members of society. Therefore, if anything, we should give them even more protection. It is bad enough for people to defraud large corporations, but to take advantage of the people covered by the Bill would surely be even worse. Is there not an argument for strengthening rather than weakening the provisions?

I take my right hon. Friend's point. My concern is that, by specifying a maximum of seven years for offences that are tantamount to fraud or theft, a reasonable person—perhaps a member of a co-operative or community benefit society—might ask why Parliament and the Government think that theft and fraud from such a society's funds is a less serious offence than theft or fraud from an organisation in the public or private sector. Lord Carter"s justification for the seven-year maximum could send a confused message to those outside who might think that we do not take seriously fraud or theft in relation to co-operative or community benefit societies.

Lord Carter was probably seeking to accept the detailed recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. Before the amendment was tabled, it was concerned that the Bill contained powers to make regulations creating new criminal offences without specifying the maximum penalties for those offences. On 13 June, the noble Lord seemed to be reluctant to accept the Committee's recommendation. He said that

"there are precedents for a power to create criminal offences in secondary legislation that do not specify a limit"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 June 2003; Vol. 649, c. 502.]

He cited the Industrial and Provident Societies Act 2002 as a precedents and although it was obviously an oversight that no limit was included in that Act he was reluctant to accept that. He tried to give the impression that he had complied with the Committee"s recommendations by suggesting a maximum penalty, although I think that it is very high. The ability to impose a maximum penalty of seven years under delegated legislation, which cannot be amended, is a pretty draconian power to give to a regulatory body or the Government. However, a limit of seven years is better than no limit at all, as the Bill originally provided, so I find myself slightly confused. When the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) sums up, I hope that he will explain why seven years is absolutely the right time period.

I was about to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) but when he finished I thought, "No, this won"t do at all." I shall not allow him to slip into the debate as easily as that and try to get all heads nodding by saying that any limit is better than no limit at all. He did not justify that statement, which was rather unusual of him, but left it as though it were received wisdom. Frankly, the amount of wisdom received in this place is usually pretty limited and even when it is offered by my hon. Friend, with all his legal expertise, we should at least ponder it.

We could dwell on the decision to choose a period of seven years for quite some time, although it would not be especially productive. It is always interesting to consider why great minds alight on such periods, especially because there is ample evidence that similar offences carry rather different maximum penalties, as my hon. Friend said. I hope that the combined wit and wisdom of the Minister and the promoter of the Bill will be sufficient to explain why, if my hon. Friend"s analysis is right, the provision would distinguish between offences committed under the Bill and similar offences, and why seven years was picked. A bit of an explanation of that would help us out.

Why is a maximum penalty being introduced at all? I am tempted to engage in a modest dissertation on whether the House should impose maximum penalties or leave that to the discretion of the courts or the judiciary, although I shall not allow myself to do so because I could stray a little wide of the amendment. Although the amendment might appear modest, it gives rise to consideration of the complex relationship that inevitably exists between the House creating framework legislation, the role of the regulations that underpin that framework, and the judicial process.

Additional information would be useful before the House rushes headlong into accepting the amendment. What do the Minister and, perhaps more importantly, the promoter envisage as the role of the provision? To pick up on what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, why is there need for a maximum penalty? As I said in my intervention, which I hope will not be brushed over too lightly, why is the Bill apparently more restrictive than other measures? I assume that the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) wants to assist the co-operative movement and community benefit societies, so why on earth does he apparently want to introduce lower penalties than those that might apply in the profit-making world of commercialism? I know how well qualified he is to comment on such matters, so his views would assist the House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) demonstrated why it is sometimes good to step back and think for a while. As my right hon. Friend said, we sometimes consider amendments that appear harmless, and there is almost an inclination to nod them though, especially on Fridays. That is regrettable because we are, after all, making law. When our constituents write to us about our consideration of private Members' Bills, they forget that such Bills actually create law and, indeed, that some create criminal offences.

I am rather confused about how the maximum limit of seven years was decided. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch talked about sending the message that a crime against a co-operative society might be considered less important than others, although I am sure that that is not the intention of the Bill. It could be possible that committing such a crime might lead to prosecution for further offences that could invoke a longer sentence.

I am always a little surprised by the way in which society"s view seems to waver on whether we should sentence more or less. I plied my trade as a retailer before coming to the House and I remember when the then shadow Home Secretary—he is the Prime Minister now—said that shoplifting was not a serious offence. I was biased at the time, but many of us in the retail trade believe that the offence takes away profit and thus people"s livelihoods. The Prime Minister made his comments at that time to imply that there would be a new, liberal regime, but things have moved on and we now have a Home Secretary who is more intent on locking people up.

Perhaps the promoter of the Bill or the Paymaster General will provide us with further explanation. Financial punishments might be more appropriate for such offences, so perhaps the amendment should set out levels of fines. Are those who commit such offences the sort of people who should be sent to our already overcrowded prisons? Now is not the time for a lengthy dissertation on whether we should leave such matters to the judiciary, but I would like a little more information about how the decision to use a seven-year period was reached and whether there are any provisions for financial penalties under the Bill.

It is important that a society's asset lock should be sufficiently robust to provide investors and society itself with the confidence that its assets will be used only for the benefit of the community. For that reason, it may be necessary to impose criminal liability on persons breaking asset-lock regulations. Penalties are already part of the legislative framework governing societies, and are an important part of the checks and balances that protect the interests of societies, their members and those who deal with the sector. The Bill currently places no limit on the maximum penalty that can be prescribed for any criminal offences created to enforce the asset lock-in.

The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) raised a pertinent issue. He is wearing his United States tie—he brings it out once a year on American independence day, and I am glad to see it in the Chamber today—and made a point about balancing the rights of people in society, people who depend on its resources and, indeed, people who may break the rules, which are designed to protect members" interests. He was right to touch on that point, which was also dealt with by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It considered the delegation of powers in clause 1(5)(a), and an amendment was introduced in the other place to address its concerns by limiting the maximum penalty that can be imposed under the regulations to seven years" imprisonment.

A number of hon. Members asked why that limit was imposed. Prior to consultation, it is not certain exactly what criminal offences may be created under clause 1 (5)(a), so it is important that the maximum penalty should be sufficiently high in light of the seriousness of offences that may be created and the current maximum sentences for similarly serious offences. The maximum penalty of seven years" imprisonment is the maximum penalty for analogous offences in company law—there is no reason why people in societies should be any less protected than people protected by company law—and the law relating to charities. There are therefore examples of the seven-year penalty. For example, seven years is the maximum penalty that can be imposed on persons who are knowingly party to the carrying on of any business of a company for a fraudulent purpose. The maximum punishment for the theft of a charity"s assets is seven years" imprisonment.

Those offences are comparable in seriousness to an offence that may be created in regulations made under clause 1—an officer of a society fraudulently using the assets of a society for purposes not permitted by its asset lock, whether for personal gain or otherwise. Clearly, if offences created under the regulations are less serious, that would be reflected in a lower maximum penalty. However, the amendment made in the other place represents, as the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst suggested, an appropriate restraint, given those examples of analogous offences, on the delegated power to make regulations. For those reasons, I am glad to give the Government"s support to the amendment, and recommend it to the House.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for her explanation of why seven years was chosen as a maximum penalty. It raises an issue that arose earlier in our consideration of the Bill—there is a desire to place co-operative and community benefit societies on the same footing as companies in their response to threats that they may face. That has been a consistent strand in our debates, so I can understand why Lord Carter recommended, albeit hesitantly—I am sure that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) is right—acceptance of the Lords amendment.

It is also worth saying that the outcome of the consultation cannot be predicted. We are dealing with a narrow group of potential offences—they relate specifically to the abuse of an asset lock on a society, and do not generally relate to fraud in the society, which is covered by other legislation—so it is difficult to predict precisely which offences will be defined after the consultation has concluded. Flexibility is therefore needed, and it may be suggested that financial penalties are more appropriate in certain circumstances. With that in mind, I commend the amendment to the House.

:I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 2, leave out from "if" to end of line 2 and insert—

"he dishonestly deals in a cultural object that is tainted, knowing or believing that the object is tainted".

:With this it will be convenient to discussamendment No. 3, in page 1, line 4, leave out subsection (2).

I shall speak to amendment No. 1, which was tabled by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and me. I shall also address amendment No. 3, which was tabled by the hon. Members for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) and for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh) and, I hope, demonstrate why it is unnecessary and unhelpful. I am pleased that the Minister for the Arts, who has been named Minister of the year, is in the Chamber to talk about the Bill. I hope that she has enjoyed getting up to speed on heritage legislation and the detail of putting online databases in libraries over the past week or two.

Amendment No. 1 is the result of a lot of work done by Anthony Browne of the British Art Market Federation, an organisation that has approached the Bill in a constructive manner. Its members will be seriously affected by any criminal legislation, as it represents the dealer community against whom prosecutions may be made. It has sought to make sure that the offence is properly and tightly drafted so that the legitimate art market, which Mr. Browne represents and which seeks at all times to avoid dealing in tainted cultural objects—objects that have been removed illegally—can conduct its business properly. However, the criminal offence remains for people outside the legitimate market who knowingly and dishonestly deal in such material.

Amendment No. 1 seeks to redraft and clarify the offence so that if someone is prosecuted, but the object turns out not to be a tainted cultural object, the offence does not apply. There was some questioning of the offence in the Bill as originally drafted, and we have tried to keep the definition tight in the spirit of private Members" legislation. We do not want drafting to be all over the place so that many offences arise—we want to keep the offence specific. In the original drafting of the Bill, if an object turned out not to be tainted, a prosecution could not take place, but we accept that there was ambiguity. The wording proposed in amendment No. 1 is a better way to deal with the problem so that we can be certain about the offence and assure people in the market that they will not be prosecuted if it turns out that a cultural object is not tainted.

The Bill aims to have a deterrent effect. We want to ensure that the protection of sites and monuments, whether in the UK or abroad, is as robust as possible so that people know that there is no market for tainted objects. It is not intended that the offence should be used regularly, but the provision should be regarded as a deterrent. There must be a strong message that someone will be prosecuted if they knowingly and dishonestly deal in tainted cultural objects. The threshold is set quite high, and the prosecution is required to prove three things. It has to prove dishonesty, the fact that something is a tainted cultural object—amendment No. 1 makes that even clearer, which I hope gives assurances to the hon. Member for Christchurch—and that the individual knew or believed that that was the case.

I understand why the hon. Member for Christchurch found clause 1(2) problematic, and I am grateful to him for giving us an opportunity to try to elaborate on the need for its inclusion in the Bill. If he has further questions once he has discussed his amendment, I would be happy to deal with them.

Subsection (2) is important. Once a prosecution has reached its threshold, we do not then wish there to be an opportunity to adopt a line of defence that effectively says that the individual did not know or believe that the object was a cultural one. That would open up greater scope for the defence than we would wish. The prosecution would already have had to demonstrate that it was a tainted cultural object, but our advice from counsel at the time of drafting was that by not explicitly ruling out this line of defence, as in, "Yes, it may have been a tainted cultural object, but I did not understand that it was a cultural object within the definition of the Bill", we would unnecessarily and against the line of policy narrow the scope of prosecutions that could take place or broaden the scope of defences.

That was run past the ministerial advisory panel on the illicit trade in antiquities and it was comfortable with that. It represents all sides of the business—those on the heritage side and those on the art dealing side—and it accepted that the current wording was appropriate. I initially queried why subsection (2) was necessary, but I hope that the hon. Member for Christchurch will be able to accept that there is a logic to it, which is to seek the appropriate balance whereby the prosecution must rightly meet a high threshold while not allowing scope for defences that would mean that cases would be extremely difficult to bring even where there was strong evidence that somebody was dishonestly and knowingly dealing in a tainted cultural object.

I am perfectly willing to answer further queries, which I am sure the hon. Gentleman will quite properly have, but I hope that at the end of the debate, having explored the issue and had some assurances about how the Bill will operate, he will not feel it necessary to press his amendment.

I hope that the House will be willing to accept amendment No. 1, which, as I say, is an effort to reassure people, particularly those on the art market side who have worked constructively on the Bill, that the offence will be appropriately used and prosecutions brought where something is genuinely a tainted cultural object, and that there is no doubt that if something is not a tainted cultural object prosecutions will not be brought, which is the purpose of amendment No. 1.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) for the way in which he has introduced his amendment and commented on mine. I hope that the Bill will reach the statute book and I am sorry that he has said that he will not seek re-election at the next general election, but that is probably because he thinks that once he has a Bill on the statute book he has achieved all that needs to be achieved in this place. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) says, the hon. Gentleman will become a cultural object, but I shall not say any more about that at the moment.

Amendment No. 3 would ensure that a person would have to know or believe that the object was a cultural one before he could be convicted of an offence. The hon. Gentleman, in introducing his amendment, made it seem almost as if there would be large numbers of prosecutions, but paragraph 37 of the explanatory notes states:

"Given that the level of prosecution is estimated at probably not more than one every two to three years costs to Courts and enforcement agencies will be de minimis."

If that is so, why try to prosecute somebody where there is evidence that they did not know that the object that they were dealing in was a cultural object? If my amendment was accepted, that problem would be overcome. Obviously, there are issues relating to dishonesty, and that would be for a jury or court to determine, but one can imagine many situations in which someone would be handling an item that they did not realise was a cultural object but which may have tremendous significance. If they did not know it was a cultural object when they were handling it, why should they be liable to criminal penalties for committing an offence?

There is a requirement on the prosecution to show that the dealer knew or believed that the object was tainted, so the dealer must know or believe that the object had been illegally removed from an ancient site or building. That requirement is on the prosecution. Having demonstrated all that in order to bring a prosecution in the first place, we seek to avoid someone then entering into a lengthy defence whereby they try to prove that they did not know it was a cultural object. We felt that it was inappropriate that, having proven that they knew that the object had been illegally removed, they could try to prove that they did not know that it was a cultural object, with all the expert witnesses and paraphernalia that that may involve.

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. I know that he has looked into the matter carefully and that his amendment tightens up the situation significantly, and in the light of that I shall not seek to press the amendment to a Division.

I wish to add a few comments in support of amendment No. 1, to which I have added my name. It may, on first sight, appear purely a rearrangement of words, which it is, but one of the points that I was eager to make in Committee was that we needed the Bill to be watertight and not to leave various things to chance that could be the subject of lengthy and costly legal wrangles in court. As with so much legislation, it is essential that we get it right and closely defined in this place rather than give further business to lawyers outside.

I, too, wish to mention Anthony Browne of the British Art Market Federation, who has been exceedingly helpful and is also a member of the panel seeking to ensure that the legislation will work and is acceptable to the vast majority of honest dealers and people with an interest in and a business in dealing with cultural objects.

Amendment No. 1 is a useful tidying exercise that will remove any remaining doubt about the thrust of the Bill and what a tainted object is. Proportionality is also necessary. The hon. Gentleman has already mentioned the high threshold of burden of proof on the prosecution in order to prove that the object being dealt with is a cultural object. Therefore, I fully support the amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has raised some interesting points, but subsection (2) is essential; otherwise the Bill would give succour to the lawyers in long-drawn-out legal wrangles.

What are expert dealers doing with objects if they do not know them to be cultural objects in the first place? It really is a bit of nonsense to be able to use that as a defence. If a dealer tries to claim that he did not know that an Egyptian artefact was a cultural object, he has no business being a dealer in such artefacts in the first place.

Is my hon. Friend saying that the Bill is purely for those who are expert dealers? Presumably, it would affect anybody who is dealing in tainted cultural objects. It could be someone who could not be expected to know an object"s exact provenance and merit.

My hon. Friend is right. This must cover everybody. Only a small proportion of people making a supposedly respectable business out of this may be flouting the law. But at the same time, this is big business among criminal classes. In many cases, they are looting to order and know exactly what they are looting. Therefore, it applies to everybody, but we do not need to give a line of defence to people involved in criminal activities by which they could wriggle out of the terms of this highly necessary Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) touched upon an important point, because we are dealing not just with big London dealers but with, for example, scrap reclamation yards. Under those circumstances, the definition of a cultural object is important. What is a cultural object? It could be a doorknob removed from an old house in this country; it is not just confined to Egyptian artefacts.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Some concerns have been raised in the press by those engaged in architectural salvage. We have examined the issue in great detail, and the panel has considered all the possibilities. The purpose behind the Bill is not to make criminals out of people who sell doorknobs that turn out to have come from a stately home of unique provenance and can be defined as cultural objects. The Bill is not targeted against that sort of legitimate business. There are enough safeguards in the Bill to ensure that those involved will not fall foul of the proposed legislation. The experts who form part of the panel have taken all that into consideration, but it is a fair point for my hon. Friend to make.

I support amendment No. 1. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that although his concerns are noted, the effect of amendment No. 3 would be to weaken the intentions behind the Bill and to provide a line of escape for those on whom we are seeking to clamp down.

The purpose of amendment No. 1 has been well explained, and I agree that it should be supported. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) that perhaps I had a slightly jaded view of the legal profession. I shall be careful because I do not wish to come up against members of it. If we removed subsection (2), it would make it easier for prolonged wrangling to take place. There are many opportunities. I can imagine hours of discussion over what is a "cultural object" and whether it is of

"historical, architectural or archaeological interest."

I was pleased to hear that the expectation is that there will be relatively few prosecutions; otherwise, shares in the legal profession would be increasing dramatically in value.

There is some confusion in my mind, and I suspect that there is confusion among those who might be affected by the Bill. What exactly do we mean by "cultural objects"? For me it means, for example, the treasures that are being looted from Iraq. What is less clear is what a cultural object means in the context of the United Kingdom. There is a scrap reclamation yard close to my constituency. It is an enormous site that deals in a raft of bits and bobs that people recycle and put into their homes. It is a big business. I am concerned about what the Bill would mean for that business. As I understand it, there would be an onus on the operator of the business to define in some way, or to be clear in his mind, the provenance of the various objects in which he is dealing. I agree that this is potentially a bean feast for lawyers as they define exactly what is meant by extraordinary terms such as "tainted" and "cultural". What is meant by "historical"? Does that mean an object from a listed building, for example? Another term is "architectural"; another is "archaeological interest". The definitions are complex.

I am interested in my hon. Friend's point. There are checks and databases for stolen and looted goods of cultural and archaeological interest that are open to reputable dealers, be they London art dealers or auction houses. They are open also to others involved in archaeological salvage. They are available for items above a certain value, and it is possible to check whether items have been looted. Those who are dealing in items of larger value can make a number of checks. That would prevent them from falling foul of prosecution.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If it were to be a defence, and clearly defined as such, that checking on a database would prevent the sort of person whom I have described from falling foul of the law, that would be fine. However, despite my hon. Friend"s clarification, I am still not clear whether that would be the case.

I shall take as an example something in which I have a great interest. In Kosovo, many monasteries and churches have been destroyed. Undoubtedly, many of the icons have been removed. They may not be historical, but they are of religious importance. They would not be on any database, but in my opinion they would be tainted.

I agree with that elegant description, and I am touching on precisely that. What is a cultural object? What is clearly a cultural object and what is not? For example, a door fitting or a piece of panelling from an elderly house in this country does not quite fit the bill, to my mind. However, it might well be on the database that has been described, whereas the truly cultural object given in the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) would not be.

I understand the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed about the architectural salvage industry, which have also been expressed to me. While the definition of "cultural object" is quite broad, the definition of "tainted cultural object" is quite narrow. For an object to be tainted, an offence must have been committed in its removal. In the context of UK buildings, that means that someone must have taken it contrary to listed building consent. The archaeological salvage industry does not have to worry about old buildings that are not listed. Material in old buildings that is taken without breaching listed building consent is not covered by the tainted definition, which as I have said is extremely narrow.

We are getting closer to the clarification that I was seeking. However, there are important buildings in this country that, for various reasons, are not listed. For example, certain estates are exempted from being listed buildings. I am still not entirely clear about the matter because it is not defined in the Bill, and perhaps it should be. If we are talking about listed buildings—perhaps that is not a bad definition—I suggest that that should be specified in the Bill.

I join the debate part way through. I read the debates on Second Reading and in Committee. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) on introducing an important Bill. He has driven it through its many stages with great enthusiasm.

Like other hon. Members, and at the risk of repeating myself, which rarely happens in the House on a Friday morning, I support amendment No. 1 and resist No. 3. In some respects, they are different sides of the same coin. Amendment No. 1 adds protection and No. 3 goes too far. It would provide a bean feast for lawyers. In the context of amendment No. 1, there is an argument that the Bill already makes things clear. However, it is right to clarify the provision beyond doubt. If the object was not tainted, an offence could not possibly have been committed. That is a common-sense interpretation. It is useful to have it defined in primary legislation.

I think that the explanation of "cultural" provided by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam was perfect. If it is illegally excavated, that is by definition the point at which a criminal offence has been carried out. That answers the concerns that have been expressed about subsection (2). A person must know that the item has been illegally excavated, and why would it have been illegally excavated if it was not of cultural value? That is the important point. This is not a definitional debate about what is of cultural value and what is not. Illegal excavation offers the protection that individuals will need. Amendment No. 1 offers protection in the sense that if something was not taken illegally, it could not have been an offence.

:I presume that when the right hon. Lady says "illegally excavated" she means illegally removed. To me, excavated means dug up.

Indeed. The Bill is about dealing with items that have been illegally removed as well.

I join the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam in supporting amendment No. 1 and resisting amendment No. 3.

:I am grateful to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) for the spirit in which he moved his amendment and for indicating that he will not press it to a vote. I am also grateful to other hon. Members for taking part in the debate. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) has been a tremendous supporter of the Bill throughout and he put the case for amendment No. 1 extremely effectively.

The hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) was right to raise those concerns. I put on the record an apology for not having sufficiently consulted the architectural salvage trade in the early stage of the drafting of the Bill. That was an oversight on my part. I have since spoken to Mr. Thornton Kay of Salvo and other architectural salvage people. They told me of their concerns, which are not entirely resolved. The hon. Member for Westbury expressed the remaining concerns. I believe that the Bill does not do what some people think it does, but it is difficult because of the way in which it is drafted.

The key to the narrowness of the Bill is not in clause 1, but in clause 2, which refers to illegal removal. In the context of UK law, for an offence to be committed there must be a breach of the law protecting ancient monuments or of the law on listed buildings. That is quite narrow, and I do not believe that the architectural salvage trade has much to fear. By way of further reassurance, my understanding is that in the case of architectural salvage, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the individual knew that an object had been taken from a listed building without consent. The onus is not on the individual engaged in architectural salvage to prove that he is innocent; the prosecution must prove that he is guilty and acted deliberately, knowingly and dishonestly. That is a considerable burden of proof.

One would expect a reasonable level of checking, and I understand that Salvo has a good code of conduct for the architectural salvage trade, which states that all members of Salvo should carry out such checks. Anyone conforming to the Salvo code his nothing to worry about, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westbury for raising the matter and allowing me to put on the record my apologies for the fact that we did not have more consultation with the architectural salvage trade at an earlier stage.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) was right to speak about non-experts. The prosecution that occurs every year or two is likely to be directed not at somebody engaged in the legitimate trade, but probably at the criminal gangs to which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Mr. Loughton) referred and which we know are operating in the field. The kind of deal that is likely to take place involves somebody arranging a deal with somebody in Afghanistan or Pakistan to import Buddhist scrolls and sell them on, or involves iconic material from countries such as Kosovo or Bosnia, where there is disorder. We want to target such people; we do not want them to be able to say, "I'm not an expert in the field, I'm not a dealer, I'm just an ordinary criminal, so I didn"t understand that it was a cultural object." We do not want them to have such a defence. If the object was illegally removed and was tainted, we want to be able to get them for it.

I hope that, with those assurances, the House will accept that amendment No. 1 provides a useful tightening of the Bill, and that we do not need to remove subsection (2), as proposed by amendment No. 3.

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 11, after "of", insert "significant".

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in page 1, line 16, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—

"(b) the removal or excavation constitutes an offence.".

No. 5, in page 2, line 2, after "of", insert "significant".

No. 7, in page 2, line 10, leave out from "of" to "thing" in line 11 and insert

"any vessel or part of any vessel.".

No. 8, in page 2, line 12, leave out "trace or".

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) said that the key to the narrowness of the Bill was in clause 2. Amendment No. 4 and its corresponding amendment, No. 5, would make the Bill clearer and less all-embracing by inserting the requirement that, in order to become tainted, the cultural object must in the first instance be an object of significant historical, architectural or archaeological interest. I would not classify as a significant cultural object a brick taken from a listed building that had been demolished, but under the Bill"s broad definitions it would be a tainted cultural object because it had been taken from a listed building without consent. However small a piece of masonry it was, it could be caught by the Bill. I hope that the promoter will be persuaded to limit the provision to significant historical, cultural or architectural objects. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) suggested in the previous debate, we should restrict the scope of the Bill.

Amendment No. 7 is a probing amendment. I should like to explore with the promoter why he seeks to extend the definition of "monument" to include vehicles, aircraft and other movable structures. I can understand that sunken vessels may well be historic monument sites. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) is an expert on sunken vessels, or parts of sunken vessels. I do not understand why old cars—old bangers—left in listed buildings or parts of aircraft should be protected under the Bill. I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam why he thinks the Bill should cover such objects.

Amendment No. 8 would narrow the definition of the remains so that there had to be a sign, rather than just a trace, of the previous existence of the object in question in order for it to qualify for protection. I am sure that in the context of weapons of mass destruction we will discuss where there is a sign of them or just a trace, but in the context of the Bill, if we are creating criminal offences, there should be a sign of the object"s previous existence—something that can be seen—rather than a trace that can be seen only under a microscope or with the expertise of a scientist.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that a trace of biological weapons could be extremely significant?

I certainly accept that, but I am not sure that biological weapons have yet become cultural objects, although I know that they are achieving a significance similar to that for the Government. The hon. Gentleman makes my point: should the mere trace of a cultural object give rise to criminal sanctions? I hope that the promoter will see the strength of the argument in support of the amendment.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) for tabling amendments so that we can explore clause 2, which defines the scope of a possible offence. He eloquently explained that his amendments would narrow that scope. He used the word "significant" in the first two amendments, but the general point is that objects should be substantial. I shall resist those amendments and speak to my amendment No. 2.

Amendments Nos. 4 and 5 are unnecessary. Under clause 2(3), an offence must have been committed. Amendment No. 2 would further clarify that, with subsection (3)(b) being amended to state:

"the removal or excavation constitutes an offence".

That creates the significance threshold that the hon. Gentleman seeks through his amendments. An offence must have been committed, so by definition we are speaking only of objects that have the legal protection of heritage law. I hope that he will accept that heritage law is not applied willy-nilly and that a building or archaeological site must already be significant to achieve protection under listed building or sites and monuments legislation.

Looking abroad, I would surprised if many of the places where looting takes place had strict heritage laws. In many places, objects might be property of the state rather than being subject to heritage law. Would that mean that the objects were outwith the provisions, or would they be included?

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the international aspects of the Bill, and I am grateful for his close attention. He is right that the scope of heritage protection laws varies in other countries and that that is significant in the context of the Bill. The Bill aims to support the United Kingdom"s membership of the UNESCO convention on illicit trade in antiquities and, by doing so, to give an international assurance that we will classify as tainted any material removed in contravention of the law of any other state and therefore not allow it to be dealt in United Kingdom markets.

That is a very important element of the Bill, which originated, in a sense, in the need to address that potential mischief. Protection laws in other states vary. Some provide that all heritage material belongs to the state. Indeed, within the United Kingdom, Scottish law points a little more in that direction than that of England and Wales. The Bill operates by seeking not to prejudge heritage law, but to reinforce it by saying that if an object has been taken in contravention of another country"s law it will be tainted in the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Uxbridge was right to say that such issues will vary, but I think that that is the most workable and practical approach. An approach that sought to define a different threshold for other countries was considered, involving bilateral agreements with Italy, Greece and so on, but it was discounted in favour of that which has been adopted, whose onus is on knowing whether an item has been legally or illegally obtained from the third country.

The hon. Gentleman is raising as many questions as he is answering. Let us take the example of property that belongs to somebody, after which there is a change of regime and the state says that no private property should be held and that any such property is therefore state property. The person who previously owned the property, which could have been in their family for generations, might decide to get rid of it or sell it. Would that constitute an offence?

There is a separate regime for illegal exports. The Bill seeks to remain narrow. The hon. Gentleman said that I had raised as many questions as I had answered. This is an area in which we cannot be entirely definitive, as there are problems concerning a lack of regime and, as he pointed out, the way in which legislation can change. All we can do—this is why I point to the United Kingdom"s accession to the UNESCO convention as a significant aspect—is attempt to make our law as effectively as we can and accept that United Kingdom courts may have to make judgments about whether the law that they are asked to work with was properly enforced. I do not think that we can cater for every eventuality, but the Bill will go a long way towards supporting our UNESCO convention membership and the general thrust of law on illicit trade in antiquities, which seeks to ensure respect for each other"s legal codes. I cannot go into the detail of every regime change that could take place, but I think that the general principle is a sound one. The matter was considered and discussed by the panel of experts, and the principle that has been used is the one that it felt was most likely to be effective.

I should like to cite a nitty-gritty example from my constituency, where there is a grade 1 listed building called Highcliffe castle, which has recently been restored. In recent years, its owners have been selling off pieces of masonry from the castle, which are now adorning people"s gardens in Christchurch. Are those cultural objects tainted? Such items are not significant, but they are cultural objects.

The hon. Gentleman cites a very good example. Provided that the building"s owners had listed building consent, the objects will not be tainted in any way. The key point in clause 2 is whether an offence was committed and, therefore, in the context of the UK, whether materials were taken contrary to listed building consent. The architectural salvage trade has properly raised concern about the issue. When a building has been demolished or altered with all the consents in place, there will be no problem whatsoever. Any material from the building can be sold on to the market in accordance with whatever other legal provisions exist. The Bill has no locus where people have listed building consent.

The concern about the word "significant" is that it would set up a double test: first, whether an offence had been committed—the test that is already included in the Bill—and, secondly, whether the material was significant. I think that the additional second test is unnecessary. If the offence has been committed, the matter should be serious enough for the offence set out in the Bill to be considered. We should not have to reach a second threshold of significance.

The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) was kind enough to indicate that amendments Nos. 7 and 8 are probing amendments. On amendment No. 7, he asked whether we need to deal with monuments other than ships, including aeroplanes and so on. I refer him to battlefield sites and second world war plane wrecks. Such sites can properly be listed as protected. Increasingly, if we are future-proofing the Bill, we must recognise that some objects and sites need protection in respect of the longer description that it sets out. Such objects might include aeroplanes or vehicles that require protection, rather than merely ships or vessels. I hope that he will accept that that is the reason for the broader scope, especially in respect of battlefield sites.

In respect of amendment No. 8, the hon. Gentleman referred to traces and the fact that scientific detection is required. He is right: archaeological scientific detection is required. One of the key points is that traces can be the most important element of an archaeological site. The Bill seeks to bolster the protection of those sites. Somebody who digs up an archaeological site, as happened recently at Yeavering Bell, can extract objects that may be of little value in themselves, but will destroy material of huge archaeological and scientific value. Frequently, such material takes the form of traces. For example, in respect of Anglo Saxon burials, the nature of the ground and soil in Suffolk is such that the skeletal remains will frequently have disappeared, leaving only a trace in the sand. Such a trace will have huge scientific and archaeological relevance, but we could not deem it substantial. Any test saying that it was okay to destroy such material as long as nobody took large objects made of silver or gold would be anathema to archaeologists and contrary to the purpose of the Bill.

Can the hon. Gentleman explain how one can deal in traces in the sand? This is the season for sandcastle building, but it is difficult to preserve sandcastles. Likewise, how could anybody move a trace in the sand, deal in it and open themselves to prosecution under the Bill?

We are not seeking to suggest that somebody should not deal in the sand that comes from the site, but trying to supply a definition of "monument" that is broad enough to include places where the primary artefacts are traces. The material taken from a monument may be a single gold clasp, but the monument would have been protected in the first place not because of that clasp but because of the many scientific traces. My concern is that the hon. Gentleman"s amendment would narrow the scope of the Bill so that monuments of the sort that mainly consist of traces could no longer be protected, and that material that had been taken—I accept that that would not be sand, but some other movable object—could be freely dealt in and could not be deemed to be tainted. I think that the amendment addresses the question of the nature of the monument rather than that of the object that is removed. I am arguing for us to continue to keep the scope of "monument" broader, so that it includes scientifically valuable sites.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel that I have dealt with the concerns that he raised in his probing amendments. I also hope that the House will support amendment No. 2, which has again been drafted with the support of the British Art Market Federation and is an attempt to tighten the definition of the sort of offence that could trigger the tainting. The amendment specifically refers to concerns expressed in Standing Committee and previously about avoiding a situation whereby somebody could commit a health and safety offence, for example, in the context of removal or excavation, and thereby trigger the offence in question. It contains a much tighter wording, which makes it clear that the removal of the excavation itself is an offence, rather than permitting a broader scope of offences that apply to the removal or excavation that might trigger the offence itself. I cited various examples such as VAT fraud, health and safety and assaulting an archaeologist. We are trying to ensure not that one cannot do any of those things—if one did, one would be taken to court under other laws—but that the tainting offence would not come into force in those circumstances. It comes into force very specifically when people have breached heritage legislation.

I am grateful for the opportunity to delve further into this matter. In a previous job, I was a tour leader for a specialist bird-watching company that went all round the world. When we were not bashing around in swamps and jungles, we often came across local people, well off the beaten track, offering objects for sale. Expert bird-watchers the tourists may have been, but cultural experts they probably were not. When they got near to a cultural site they got their binoculars out to make sure that there was not an interesting species lurking there, not to look at the architecture or archaeological features. I am therefore concerned that if they bought something in good faith—one could argue that they should be a little more cynical about where it may have come from—they would fall foul of the Bill.

My only other question delves deep into areas I had almost forgotten about. I seem to remember that there is something in law, which may have disappeared by now, called "marché ouvert", whereby if a person buys stolen property on a stall or in a market, they cannot be deemed to have committed the offence of buying a stolen object, as they would if they bought from a shop or a dealer. Perhaps "marché ouvert" went out with William the Conqueror—it sounds as though it should have done—but I should like to know whether it would apply.

I want to deal with the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) before adding my support to amendment No. 2, which is in my name and that of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan). My hon. Friend"s amendments are interesting, but they would detract from the Bill.

The most important aspect of amendments Nos. 4 and 5 is the addition of a double test in relation to the word "significant". The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam listed the various legal protections that sites have under heritage law and illegal export legislation. If the word "significant" is inserted in those two places, who on earth will judge what is significant or not? Would the significance test be based on its importance to a certain culture or cultural sequence—an importance that may be recognised only by a certain museum, country or part of the world? That would start all sorts of value arguments as to the historical, architectural or archaeological significance of items to different bodies of people. The entire subject of today"s very important Bill—it is certainly very important to hon. Members who are here—is, regrettably, of absolutely no importance to most people outside this place, who have other priorities, albeit that many people recognise that the nation"s culture and heritage is of great importance.

Can one qualify significance in terms of size? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned bits of masonry. Was the bit of the sphinx"s nose that Napoleon"s troops took pot shots at significant? In itself, probably not—it is just a chunk of old rock—but it is of exceedingly great significance in the context from which it comes. Would a little bit off the end of a Gujerat frieze or a Mayan temple constitute significance? As just a little bit of well-weathered, worn stone, it would not, but in the context of where it came from and what it was part of, it might. Many parts of the Elgin marbles in the British museum may not be regarded as significant— indeed, it is often hard to tell what they are—but they are of course significant in the broader context. Could the qualification of significance be applied to the medium in which the object was made? If it is only old, rough-hewn stone, would it have the significance of properly dressed marble? Would it have to be made of a precious metal rather than a cheap alloy?

I cite those hypothetical examples because they are the sorts of defences that people could use in a legal situation to avoid prosecution. Inserting the word "significant" in those two places would add an unhelpful extra test that would detract from the effectiveness of the Bill.

Amendment No. 7 would replace the longer description in clause 2 with reference only to vessels. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall), who has now left the Chamber, was amusingly described as being an expert in vessels—not, I am sure, those vessels that are drunk from. Referring only to vessels could detract from the definitions in the Bill, because vessels could be construed as being pots, or assorted cookware rather than ships as many people might expect. The amendment would add confusion. It is a pity that my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge is not in his place. We know him to be a retailer to the gentry, but I never had him down as a professional international twitcher, as he revealed himself to be. I am delighted that he has now returned. Perhaps a reported sighting of a lesser spotted something in New Palace Yard diverted his interest and explains his temporary absence.

While the hon. Gentleman is on that subject, I wonder whether I can allay the fears of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) about his birdwatcher friends and colleagues, whom I, too, would not wish inadvertently to be prosecuted. The prosecution test, whereby the individual must know or believe that they are buying a tainted cultural object, is paramount. Someone who cynically went over to South America—I assume that the hon. Gentleman is thinking about such countries—and bought material that they knew to have been illegally removed would be liable, but someone who inadvertently picked something up would not.

That is absolutely right. I thank the hon. Gentleman for that extra clarification.

On amendment No. 8, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch shows consummate skill and a degree of appropriateness. The Bill has great resonance in the context of Iraq because of the events at the Baghdad museum, and he brought weapons of mass destruction—biological weapons—into the equation as well. That shows great ingenuity. However, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam is right that the word "traces" is required. Often in archaeology, to the frustration of many of us who have laboured many long days in pouring rain or beating hot sun to excavate precisely nothing, finding nothing is more significant than finding something. An object may be of interest or of value, but the context in which it is found—or not found when it had been expected to be found—is often far more important in archaeological terms. For example, there may be no bone remains owing to the acidity of the soil, but something attached to the area suggests a burial. It may be a chariot. There have been interesting examples in this country: the grave of a female charioteer was excavated last year. In such cases, most of the wooden remains, such as the wheels, have gone, but a few examples of ironwork remain. In some cases, examples of metalworking or burnt layers suggest that industrial activity took place in a specific area. In those instances, the traces have greater archaeological significance. Perhaps it is like finding the dinosaur footprint. One has not found the dinosaur"s foot, but the footprint is enormously significant, not archaeologically—

Palaeontologically.

Absolutely. I had momentarily forgotten the word. I shall not attempt to spell it, but Hansard will have to.

Amendment No. 2 is a tidying-up exercise. It stems from the amendment that I tabled in Committee, which stated:

"leave out from the beginning to end of line 17 and insert

"the removal or excavation, or any failure by any person involved in the removal or excavation to comply with procedures required in respect of that removal or excavation constituted an offence at the time it occurred.'."

It was simple and straightforward but perhaps the wording of the amendment that we are considering—

"the removal or excavation constitutes an offence"—

is much neater. It makes the matter legally clearer, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said. I am grateful to the parliamentary draftsmen, whose skills have created such a neat amendment.

We took legal advice, which centred on the word "circumstances". The word adds nothing positive to the Bill, and we should concentrate on the object and its removal, not the legal status of the person or persons connected with the removal, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said. The amendment should clarify the scope of the offences that may cause tainting. The attached notes reflect that intention.

The Bill should cover removals or excavations that constitute offences, for example, when a person removes, without written permission, an object of archaeological or historical interest that he has discovered through using a metal detector in a protected place. That is an offence under section 42(3) of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam repeated the point that we made in Committee that criminal circumstances may surround the excavation of an item that have nothing to do with the item being tainted. For example, a digger that was used to dig up a large item may have been stolen. That should not taint the object. Perhaps the person responsible for the dig is the subject of criminal prosecution for something else that has nothing to do with digging up the object. Perhaps the digger on the site has been assaulted. Again, those events should not taint the object. Although amendment No. 2 makes matters much clearer, perhaps the Minister would explain what has changed and why Government thinking has changed from the response that the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), who was then the Minister responsible, gave in Committee. He said:

"The amendment would unnecessarily restrict the definition of a tainted cultural object and introduce uncertainties in the scope of that definition."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 14 May 2003; c. 15.]

He said that we needed to ensure that the offence that the Bill created covered not only conduct that breached local laws to prohibit the removal or excavation of cultural objects from monuments but cases in which the conduct breached general laws that protected property, such as theft.

Surely theft laws cover such activities and they are separate from the significant cultural nature for which we are trying to legislate. I should therefore be grateful for some clarification from the Minister of how and why Government thinking changed—I am pleased that it did—so that they now feel able to adopt a version of the amendment that we tabled in a rather more clumsy form in Committee.

I too should like to join others in supporting amendment No. 2. Although amendments Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8 are interesting probing amendments and the debate has been good and useful, I shall resist them and hope that they will be withdrawn.

First, let us consider amendment No. 2. I cannot read the mind of the former Minister, but it is entirely proper for the Government to reflect on what hon. Members of all parties say during a Bill"s passage. I accept the interpretation of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) that alternative legislation could tackle theft and that the Bill should deal with tainted objects. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to say that the Government have reflected on his comments in Committee and decided that the wording of the new amendment is better, I am happy to do so. I sense that hon. Members of all parties support the Bill and I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing the wording to the attention of the Government and the promoter. I acknowledge that, with the help of parliamentary draftsmen, the current wording satisfies us.

Let me briefly consider amendments Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 8. Like other hon. Members, I believe that "significant value" in amendments Nos. 4 and 5 is a test too far. We do not want to draw up legislation that tantalisingly leaves us unable to deal with the offences that we believed we had covered.

On amendments Nos. 7 and 8, I am informed that the definitions of monument and trace merely repeat those in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham mentioned. I have no reason to believe that those definitions have not stood the test of time. Having similar definitions in legislation that deals with similar matters is commendable. I hope that the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) will accept that.

I did not have information about, marché ouvert in the deep recesses of my mind, but experts reliably inform me that it no longer exists. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) will be surprised to learn that it has been abolished only recently. It used to exist in designated markets, including Bermondsey. I am sure that the promoter will be interested in telling the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) about that. In it, items could be sold before sunrise. Believe it or not, in this land of ours, people could sell stolen—my officials put "dodgy" in brackets, but we do not use that term—objects. I assure hon. Members that it has been abolished. I hope that that deals with the fears of the hon. Member for Uxbridge.

We have had an excellent and erudite debate, after which I am wiser. I am grateful to the promoter and to my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for the calm, precise, persuasive and thorough way in which they have dealt with my anxieties. I congratulate my hon. Friend on an ingenious critique when he explained what would happen if one took "vessels" out of context. I am grateful to the Minister for making clear the precedents for the definition of monument and trace. I do not accept all the arguments about "significant", because the amendments qualify the word. It would not stand alone but qualify archaeological and historical interest. However, I take the points that have been raised. In the light of that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I thank all who have been involved with the Bill so far. I pay tribute to the many professionals in the heritage sector who have built the case for us to tackle the trade in illicit antiquities over many years. Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn has played a leading role, which will no doubt continue when the Bill goes to the House of Lords. The next set of principal actors in the Bill"s evolution are members of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. I congratulate them on their work, and especially on returning to the subject in the follow-up inquiry that they announced recently.

ITAP, the ministerial advisory panel on illicit trade, did some excellent work on bringing together all the relevant parties under the chairmanship of Professor Norman Palmer, who was also generous with his time in helping me personally with the Bill"s preparation. I hope that ITAP"s work will be able to continue, as the Bill is certainly not the end of the story in terms of tackling illicit trade. I believe that it could have a particularly valuable role in considering the issue of databases for stolen and tainted objects. I know that the Department is also keen to work on that.

I especially thank one ITAP member, Anthony Browne of the British Art Market Federation, for the huge amount of work he has put into ensuring that the Bill can retain the support of the whole sector. That is reflected in the amendments we have discussed today, but also in much of the debate that we have had to clarify aspects of the Bill that caused concern.

David Gaimster and the DCMS team have gone beyond the call of duty to ensure that everything could proceed smoothly, and have been unstinting in the time that they have devoted to the Bill. Roger Bland and Michael Lewis of the portable antiquities scheme at the British Museum have also helped with the Bill, and have been inspirational in showing how we can better handle found cultural objects. That excellent scheme, with its network of local finds liaison officers, has led to the reporting of thousands of cultural objects in this country that would otherwise have gone unrecorded. I hope that the Department will be able to guarantee its future funding when the current heritage lottery fund arrangements run out, but that is a debate for another day.

It has been a pleasure to deal with both Ministers who have handled the Bill. The present Minister of State, Department for Transport, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), always brings a certain flair to any debate, and I am grateful to him for spending a couple of Fridays here—we had an abortive first attempt at Second Reading—as well as responding helpfully in Committee. As I have said, I am also very pleased that the Minister for the Arts has been here today.

Finally, let me thank the many Members on both sides of the House who have helped the Bill on its way. I am especially grateful to those who volunteered to serve on the Committee and to the Conservative spokesmen who have participated—the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) on Second Reading, and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) in Committee and today. On both occasions, he was an active and helpful participant. We also spent a good deal of time considering these issues during the all-party archaeology group inquiry. I think that one reason that we have been able to achieve cross-party consensus, with a group of Members working behind the Bill, is the discussion in which we were able to engage then. The all-party group has done a tremendous job.

This is, I think, a good Bill that will make an important contribution to heritage legislation in the United Kingdom. It will enhance our reputation as a nation that cares deeply for culture, both our own and that of other countries. It is, I hope, a model that other countries may wish to emulate, so that we can reach a point at which there is no market anywhere for looted cultural objects.

I hope that the House will give the Bill a Third Reading, and wish it well in another place.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) on his admirable Bill, and thank those who took part in its earlier stages. I am delighted to discover the great expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), which I am sure the Conservative party will use to great effect in the future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) referred to my expert knowledge of underwater vessels. I am not entirely sure where that came from, unless it is connected with the fact that this time last year my private Member"s Bill on marine wildlife conservation was holed below the water line in another place, and is now sitting at the bottom of the legislative ocean. I rather hope that it is found not by a team of marine archaeologists, but by a team of salvage operators who will bring it to the surface in due course.

The protection of cultural objects, whether in our own country or elsewhere in the world, is of prime importance. In Iraq and, as I said earlier, in Kosovo, we have recently witnessed the incredible destruction of centuries-old buildings, and the resulting loss of objects that were inside them. But whether we are talking about the churches and monasteries of Kosovo or historic churches such as my local parish church, St. Laurence in Cowley, this is a vital issue. Even the archaeological traces of long-lost legal knowledge that I once acquired have now, sadly, become part of history.

I wish the Bill well in the other place.

I too congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), and my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has been very actively involved in the Bill.

The Bill has been considered very carefully both before and during our debates in the House, and there was widespread consultation. It has been dealt with in an exemplary way. Its ambit is relatively narrow, but although it is a specialist Bill it is tremendously important to those who are concerned about these issues. I have learned a lot, and I now know that my constituents who have pieces of masonry from Highcliffe castle in their gardens will not offend against the Bill if they decide to sell them in due course.

I think we are all concerned about our heritage and its despoliation by those who seek to make money. That applies not just in this country but elsewhere. Although the Bill is modest and will not involve many prosecutions, it will send a clear signal that we need to protect our heritage. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam for enabling us to do that.

I broadly welcome the Bill, although there are problems of definition, which we have covered in a most amusing fashion. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) for his assurance on architectural salvage, which was most useful, but I think it is important to identify what we mean by a cultural object in this context. I still fear that we are confusing objects of obvious cultural importance—the sort referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall)—with the more workaday objects that we might see in this country.

We warmly welcome the Bill. I echo what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) about the way in which it has been handled, thanks largely to the expertise of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) and the cool manner in which he has guided it through Parliament. That has not been easy at times, but we have ended up with a very good Bill. The hon. Gentleman may well have fulfilled his political ambition by producing this important piece of legislation, and I envy him for being able to put his name to it.

The Bill has widespread support among all sorts of organisations and individuals who care about culture and cultural objects. It sprang from recommendations made by the Select Committee back in July 2000, which were taken up by the advisory panel set up by the Minister under Professor Norman Palmer. The panel did some excellent work. The Bill has the backing of the Council for British Archaeology, Rescue, the British Museum, the portable antiquities scheme, the National Council for Metal Detecting and other organisations. The Government should be given credit for the progress that the Bill has made, for taking the issue seriously and for signing up to the 1970 UNESCO convention on cultural objects, which they did last October. For once, then, on this issue, we can give the Government credit where credit is due.

As the Minister said, the Bill has all-party support. We have had a good debate and much interest has been shown by Back Benchers. I look forward to welcoming all their applications to join the all-party parliamentary group on archaeology, which is a very important body in these Houses. I belatedly welcome the Minister to her new role. We greatly enjoyed the contributions of her predecessor, not least because he said that he had a particular interest in the Bill and in archaeological matters, and he added the relic of Welsh rugby to the discussions in Committee.

It is important to get the Bill right; it should be proportionate in providing protection and in allowing honest, decent dealers in items of cultural and archaeological significance to go about their business. After all, the art market in this country is an important employer, with some 40,000 people, and London has an international reputation for expertise and honesty in this field. The Bill should add to the respectability of that market.

As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said, illegal trading in cultural items is now big business. It is not quite up there with dealing in drugs, but it is becoming an important international business, and there are links to the funding of terrorism. As Julian Radcliffe from the Art Loss Register has said:

"I used to be sceptical about whether stolen art is being used in money laundering. Now I'm not."

We need to move with the times and clamp down on an activity that has only really evolved in the last 10 to 20 years. It is unfortunate that we have to do that, but it is right that we preserve the cultural integrity of nations around the world.

Once items are lost to scholarship, particularly if, as in many cases, they are taken from sites that were previously unknown, that leaves an enormous gap in our understanding of many cultures. Often we do not learn much from the antiquities themselves unless we know their context. Those of us who profess to be amateur archaeologists do not dig up objects for their own sake; we do it to expand our knowledge of why they were there, who made them and how they fit into the cultural thread.

There have been several alarming cases such as the recent one involving a New York dealer who, I am glad to say, was given a sentence of 33 months in jail for conspiring to receive and handle stolen Egyptian pieces. Those pieces had been covered in plastic so that they looked like the cheap tourist knick..knacks brought back from Egypt by holidaymakers. People are going to extraordinary lengths to try to abuse the proper dealings in cultural objects.

Many bodies in this country are doing great things to improve the checking mechanisms. The International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art has plans for its members to conduct searches with a database for all items over the value of £10,000 to make sure that they are not stolen. It is now looking to reduce that threshold to £2,000, which would scoop many more people into the net.

The British Museum set a good example in 1990 when it restricted itself to acquiring only pieces that were documented as having been out of the ground before 1970, when the UNESCO convention kicked in. As the hon. Gentleman said, we should give a lot of credit to the work of Lord Renfrew, who taught both of us at Cambridge in our archaeological days. He also set up the illicit antiquities research centre at the MacDonald Institute in Cambridge, which does a lot of good work in this area.

The Bill"s timing has been focused by events in the Baghdad museum in Iraq, and it is right that we should raise the profile of the cultural vandalism and potential disaster that took place there. However, as events have unfolded in recent weeks, it has become clear that the extent of the looting was, thank goodness, much smaller than anticipated. Artefacts such as the bull"s head harp from Ur, which is 4,500 years old, the great vase of Warka, which is 5,000 years old, and others from all the incredible cultures in the cradle of civilisations that is that part of the middle east have re-emerged and been returned to the museum.

It was fitting that yesterday the museum was able to re-open its doors, albeit on a temporary basis, to show people that most of the exhibits were still in place. Many of the objects that were stolen had been in store rooms, and were probably taken in planned looting. We should take those matters seriously, and it is right that the Department, in co-ordination with the British Museum, has lent its help to ensure that Iraq"s culture is not lost.

If I have one qualification about the Bill, it concerns regulatory impact assessment No. 37. I made this point in Committee and it was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). The RIA says that it is not anticipated that there will be more than one prosecution every two to three years, so it is de minimis to law enforcement agencies. I hope that that is not the case, because although this is a deterrent measure that sends out clear signals that this behaviour is criminal and will not be tolerated, illicit dealing will still go on. Many people will need to be taught a harsh lesson if they are to learn about the seriousness of the legislation. I would hope that we will have some high-profile prosecutions, along the lines of that in New York, which would set an example. We do not want to lock everybody up, but there will have to be more than one such case every one or two years if the Bill is to be taken seriously. The RIA makes a serious underestimate.

That notwithstanding, this is a good Bill. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam said, it will make an important contribution to heritage legislation in the UK, and, as with much else that happens here, send out good signals and set good examples for other countries. It has the wholehearted support of Conservative Members, and we wish it a speedy and successful passage through the other House.

I, too, welcome the Third Reading of the Bill, and I wish it well as it goes to the House of Lords. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan), and all the members of the Standing Committee, on the Bill.

One of the joys of trying in the last few days quickly to read the Committee"s proceedings was to realise not only the interest but the expertise in the matter that there is in the House. It was clear from the pages of Hansard that all Members who took part in the debates on the Bill did so with great enthusiasm and energy. I was surprised at the size of the all-party group on the issue. I had not realised the extent of interest and expertise both in this House and in the other place, and that is to the great credit of Members. I suspect that that explains why this is a good Bill—the people who have guided it through the House care about it and about what it will mean.

Perhaps with greater enthusiasm than on many occasions, I congratulate the promoter, and I suspect that in years to come, when he looks back on all his contributions to politics, he will see this as a major one. I know that the Bill will stand the test of time and that many people, not only in this country but in those that are seeing their cultural heritage destroyed, will have reason to be grateful for him. I pay great tribute to his energy and enthusiasm, and I pay equal tribute to other Members who, in the Committee and the Chamber, have shown the House at its best. Every Member who has spoken today has properly explored the issues and acknowledged that the Bill is important, and we want to speed it on its way.

On behalf of my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), now the Minister of State, Department for Transport, as well as on my own account, I thank hon. Members for their comments about my officials and the help that they extended to the promoter of the Bill. We are all confident that the legislation will be good; it has been properly written and will fit the purpose.

Sometimes, when archaeological sites and sites of cultural interest are looted, local people think that they stand to gain, but they do not. They are being robbed of their heritage as well as being robbed financially. The Bill is in their interests. It is also in the interests of the legitimate London and UK art market. Because that market plays by the rules, it has been let down by the illicit trade so the Bill will be welcome.

When I read the background, I was delighted to find that the Bill is welcomed by all parts of the trade; that cannot be the case for many measures. I am grateful to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for his acknowledgement that the Bill has been dealt with speedily. As much as is possible in any parliamentary Session, the Department has tried to give it time.

If the Bill had been passed four years ago, many people in this country would not have understood its significance. Sadly, because of what has gone on in international conflict, most recently in Baghdad, no one will fail to understand the Bill's significance, so the Bill is timely. In thanking everybody for their work on the measure, I join hon. Members in wishing it good speed as it goes through the House of Lords.

With the leave of the House, I briefly thank all hon. Members for their most kind comments. I do not want to take too much time as I know that other Members are waiting to speak to their Bills.

Like all movers of a private Member"s Bill, my nerves have been thoroughly wracked on many occasions over the past few months, but each time that things looked decidedly dodgy people from both sides of the House and from all quarters have turned up to help. I even found myself warming to the shadow Leader of the House as he was advising me on dates and timings, which I certainly had not expected. I have received cooperation from across the board so it merely remains for me to thank all hon. Members who have taken part.

The Minister for the Arts referred to the size of the all-party archaeological group; she may find that the muscle of the all-party group will be knocking at her door to discuss associated issues, so I hope that she is similarly receptive to the other measures that we want to introduce to protect our culture both in the UK and abroad.

I am confident that there is sufficient support in the House of Lords for the Bill to have a good chance of reaching the statute book and I am dead chuffed that we have got this far.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

:With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Exemption from liability: activities in relation to publications—

At the outset, I want to make it clear that I encourage the House to support new clauses 1 and 2 and amendment No. 20, to which I shall speak, but to resist new clause 3.

I welcome the opportunity to return to improving this important measure. The new clause addresses an issue that was outstanding after the Committee proceedings: the concern that publishers may, in certain circumstances, be in breach of contract with some third party for depositing material with the legal deposit libraries.

The new clause provides that a publisher shall not be in breach of contract nor infringement of copyright or publication right by depositing a work in accordance with clause 1, or by depositing any computer programme in accordance with clause 6 (2)(b). It gives protection for contracts that are governed by the laws of England, although it does not offer protection for other contracts. However, I have been advised that it is unlikely that foreign courts will act when that is a condition of compliance with laws of another sovereign state. The new clause thus offers some international protection.

Publishers in some sectors want to be further protected by a clause that extends the provision to international contracts. Indeed, the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) has tabled an amendment that would address that issue. I have been advised that that may provide a loophole and allow publishers to avoid deposit. I retain concerns that if such a clause is incorporated there is a risk that there would be scope for contracts to be structured deliberately to avoid the requirement to deposit. I am sure that would not be the intention of committed publishers, but I shall revisit that point when we discuss amendment No. 21. It remains the case that those matters cause concern, so there will be an opportunity to raise detail for consideration when any regulations are proposed, consulted on and assessed.

As promised in the Standing Committee, new clause 2 has been drafted to address the liability for defamation incurred through the accessing of deposited material. Under subsections (1) and (2), it provides that libraries will not be liable for damages for defamation arising from accessing the material in the library unless the library knows, or ought to have known, that the material contained a defamatory statement and did not remove the material, or disable access to it, within a reasonable time. Under subsections (3) and (4), the new clause provides that a publisher will not be liable for damages for defamation arising from accessing the material in the library unless the publisher knows, or ought to have known, that the material was defamatory and did not inform the library of that.

I am pleased that we can introduce the third leg of the Bill. Until now, discussions have covered print and offline electronic publications. However, an important element of future proofing is the ability to harvest online content, for which specific powers to deposit are obviously not required. Protection from defamation is introduced under subsection (5), while copyright breach and other issues are reflected in amendments Nos. 7, 9 and 14.

Subsection (5) provides that where material of a prescribed description has been downloaded from the internet, in accordance with any prescribed conditions, only the library can be liable for damages for defamation and it will be liable only in the same circumstances as those outlined in subsections (1) and (2). Publishers cannot be liable for defamation arising as a result of access to material in libraries when the material has been harvested. The provision applies to any copies that are made of the original work deposited: for example, for preservation purposes.

The new clause does not include a provision for liability for contempt, as the Department for Constitutional Affairs has advised that neither libraries nor publishers would be liable for contempt as a result of accessing the material in the libraries.

I understand that, to achieve consistency, some publishers still want to cover all liabilities and activities. I have been advised that, other than defamation, no potential liabilities would arise from using the material in libraries. However, subsection (1) of new clause 2 enables the defamation issue to be addressed and, under subsection (8), the Secretary of State is enabled to pick up other liabilities where a case has been demonstrated that that is necessary. That seems a much simpler and more effective way of dealing with the concerns that were raised.

New clause 3, tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, deals with legal liability. It will deliver no benefits beyond those already provided for under new clause 2. That is because other issues arising, unlike defamation, cannot lead to the conclusion that simply accessing material constitutes re-publication. In any event, as I have just described, new clause 2(8) will create the enabling power for the Secretary of State to address any such issue if a case is made in the future. Amendment No. 20 is technical and will insert a definition of database rights in clause 10, entitled "Interpretation".

I wish to speak to new clauses 1 and 2, then new clause 3, which is on the amendment paper in my name.

New clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole), seems only to give protection for contracts governed by the laws of this country. It does not seem to offer protection for contracts with overseas content suppliers who have made those contracts in other jurisdictions under the laws of other countries. Much of United Kingdom publishing is international in content, and a great many UK publishers incorporate in their online services information sourced from information suppliers residing outside the UK—in the United States, for example—and those contracts are concluded under the appropriate laws of those foreign countries. New clause 1 will not, in our opinion, remove UK publishers" legal exposure for making deposits in breach of contractual or confidentiality obligations with third party, overseas content providers. In an attempt to clarify that difficulty, we have tabled amendment No. 21, which has been grouped with another set of amendments, but which goes to the heart of what we propose in new clause 3.

The hon. Member for Ipswich said that he had been advised that UK legislation could not go further than offering the protection from breach of contract obligations that is proposed in the new clause. He also claimed that it is not possible to offer protection in respect of contracts governed by foreign laws, but in our opinion that need not be so. It is certainly possible for the Government to provide that the deposit obligations will not override the provisions in contracts with overseas suppliers. By not addressing that exposure, the hon. Gentleman, with Government support, risks exposing many UK-based publishers to breach of contract and confidentiality obligations with foreign information suppliers. That is a new and unacceptable exposure.

The hon. Gentleman also said that he had been advised that overseas courts would not award more than nominal damages—I think that that was the phrase he used—in respect of a breach of contract if the breach were due to the publisher complying with an obligation under the law of another sovereign state. Again, in our view, the risk of damages from breach of contract will often be less important than enabling overseas suppliers to terminate their contracts with UK publishers, thus possibly depriving them of important raw material for their products. Furthermore, it would be a burden for UK publishers to be required to negotiate special terms with all their overseas suppliers, assuming—of course, this is by no means certain—that overseas suppliers would be willing to agree to contract changes.

I shall give the House some examples of such contracts. In particular, Cambridge University Press has supplied examples of software licences governed by non-English law, where it is unrealistic to suppose that the licensee could insist on a change to the wording such that the agreement would be governed by English law. First, Cambridge University Press licenses text software for use in a CD-ROM and networked version of a dictionary. That agreement is governed by the laws of Denmark. Secondly, the press also licenses Aladdin systems for, I am told, the Stuffit—an inappropriate word, I am sure—installer, which is a common decompression programme for use in CD-ROM products. That licence is governed by the laws of the state of California. If such licences were contravened by legal deposit, the protection offered by these proposals would be of no comfort. In our opinion, it would be essential for the duty to deposit to be waived in such circumstances.

Again, the hon. Gentleman took the view in proposing his new clauses that they have taken on board some of the views and opinions of the publishing community, whereby contracts with third-country suppliers would create a significant loophole. Having looked at what is proposed, the Department"s line is now that, if the Government went along with these proposals, a significant loophole would be created through which, as the hon. Gentleman said, publishers could avoid the requirement to deposit. He did not, however, attempt to explain this morning why that would create a loophole. The publishers do not believe that it would create one, and our amendment relates only to contracts with foreign-based suppliers. Apparently, a fear exists that UK publishers might decide to relocate overseas as a result. Again, we do not for one moment find that credible. Our amendment, recommended to us by the online sector, is an entirely reasonable and proportionate means of addressing this exposure by removing the offending parts of the clauses.

As far as new clause 2 is concerned, although the exemption from liability in defamation represents a welcome addition, and we thank the hon. Member for Ipswich for listening to the submissions made to him in that respect, other categories of liability need to be addressed, as is the case in the Electronic Commerce (EC) Directive Regulations 2002. The hon. Member for Ipswich went on to say that under subsection (8) of his proposed new clause the power may be used in future to confer protection from liability in respect of other matters by regulations, should that prove necessary. There is a feeling, however, that although that power exists, it may not be used, and all that remains, of course, is the proposal on defamation. Other matters of concern to the publishing industry, in terms of the additional offences that might be faced, are the following: negligent mis-statement, contempt of court, privacy, racism, obscenity and misleading advertising. All those areas of concern have been expressed on many occasions, and have not so far met with the hon. Gentleman"s approval or support from the Minister or the Department.

The hon. Member for Ipswich claimed that he has moved in the direction of the publishers by limiting liability for works published on the internet. That is in subsection (5) of new clause 2, which states:

"Where a work is published on the internet, subsection (6) applies to a copy of the work if … the work is of a description prescribed by regulations under this subsection",

and

"the publication of the work on the internet … is connected with the United Kingdom in a manner so prescribed".

With that, he makes the point that he and his advisers have gone some way to meeting the fears of the publishing industry. If we look carefully at subsection (5)(a), (b) and (c), however, no guarantee is given of any movement in that direction. Proposals will come forward in the future in regulations, but as yet, many of those have not been discussed, and those concerned have no real idea as to how they will evolve, devolve and affect them across the board.

We also believe that the notice and takedown provisions in the Bill should be consistent with the e-commerce regulations that already exist, to ensure that publishers and libraries operate under a consistent legal framework. It would be unacceptably confusing and entirely unnecessary to have a different notice and takedown regime for legal deposit under all other circumstances. For the sake of consistency, all liabilities should be addressed in the Bill as closely as possible to those provisions set out in the e-commerce regulations. Through new clause 3, we begin to address some of those issues. Although I shall return later to amendment No. 21, it is coupled with that in terms of tightening up what are considered to be problems and difficulties with the way in which the Bill is currently drafted.

Without going over the material covered by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole), I shall respond to one or two of the points raised by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss). I support new clauses 1 and 2—but not new clause 3—and amendment No. 20, which is consequential on the new clauses.

I think that it is generally agreed that new clause 1 provides the publishers and libraries with protection in the deposit of materials. New clause 2 provides that the deposit libraries will not be liable for any defamation arising out of the use of the material in the libraries unless the library is aware that the material contains a defamatory statement and has had a reasonable opportunity to prevent that use. Similarly, new clause 2 offers publishers the same recognition. Hon. Members must understand that the Bill is enabling legislation that is designed to stand the test of time. Much of how it is enacted will be subject to further consultation and debate with publishers and others. It makes provisions in relation to future media, and new clause 2 gives us that additional flexibility.

I want to deal with the point that the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire raised about contracts with entities abroad not offering protection other than under English law. I would not for a minute wish to suggest that members of the publishing community would enter into a contract with someone overseas to give them protection from depositing in the UK, but the hon. Gentleman might accept that that is a loophole that could be exploited by those who do not act in the way that he and I would hope. In law, it is a potential loophole. Therefore, Ministers and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich cannot offer publishers protection from overseas law—only from English law. However, we shall consult publishers and the industry on a case-by-case basis.

The print media currently deposit books in libraries. They do not face this problem, and do not have protection from international law; they are protected only from English law. Although I understand the hon. Gentleman"s point—none of us wants to put publishers into a position in which they might be subject to action from overseas law—I ask him to accept that we do not want a loophole to be exploited by those who act in a way that we would not consider to be honourable.

I made two points. The first is that there might be a problem with the law of the originating country. We accept that there may be a nominal position with regard to the breaking of that law. The more important point—I hope that the Minister accepts this—is that overseas suppliers of information may think that, given the circumstances under the Bill, they may not wish to continue to supply material. That would have a serious economic impact on the businesses involved.

I understand that point. To some extent, the hon. Gentleman responds in the way that I did. In circumstances that we might not expect, there is a potential for overseas people to view a contract in that light. I accept that that is possible. However, I repeat two points. The first is that that has not caused a problem with the printed books that are deposited in libraries, so it should be possible to find a way around that problem. Secondly, given that this is enabling legislation that will deal with the issues on a case-by-case basis, the hon. Gentleman"s point is one that we shall want to consider.

The fact that there is not protection from non-UK law is something that publishers will have to take into account when entering into contracts. The purpose of the Bill in ensuring that we have national archives and libraries that keep copies of published material is important. Many amendments were made to the Bill in Committee and dealt with the proper concerns that were raised. We want to give ourselves a framework in the Bill that will enable us to continue discussions with the publishers about how we can protect them while preserving our national heritage and libraries.

I add one more point in response to the wish repeatedly expressed by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire for the use of wording taken from electronic commerce regulations. I am advised that it is used in a different context and that, legally, it is possible to refer back to the original EU directive for clarification. The Bill would clearly not enable that to happen, which is why the wording, which we have been advised is appropriate, does not always relate back to the e-commerce regulations.

It was entirely proper for the hon. Gentleman to table the new clause and express concerns on behalf of publishers. We are trying to offer publishers the protection that they want while ensuring that our libraries may access the copies that they need. I hope that he accepts that even if he has remaining concerns, they will be properly dealt with by the advisory committee which I reaffirm that the Government wish to set up, which will consider matters case by case. We will not initially require all forms of online and offline publications to be lodged. We will start with offline publications and move to online publications only when we have reached proper agreement following consultation with publishers and others. In the light of that, I hope that he will support new clauses 1 and 2, but not press new clause 3 to a Division.

I welcome the contributions made by hon. Members. We will return to the question of international protection when we consider amendment No. 21. I welcome the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Minister to provide clarification and cross-referencing, and I hope that they have persuaded the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) not to press new clause 3 to a Division.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 24, in page 4, line 7, clause 6, at end insert—

New clause 4 would define more clearly the origin of a specific work or piece of information. I am informed that discussions have taken place among the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and representatives of the publishing industry and that there was a view that agreement had been reached that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) could draft an amendment to address several of the points raised, especially those expressed by the Digital Content Forum. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and the word from the Department was that there would be long-term flexibility to deal with the issue in response to evolving non-print media.

Of course, the effect of the decision is that the Bill has no territorial certainty. The problem is that inadequate consultation has taken place, and perhaps the Minister and the promoter do not really understand the implications of extending the deposit regime to include online publications, because it will raise many difficult problems. The fact that the Bill does not address and clarify the territorial scope of online services is a fundamental fault, which new clause 4 seeks to rectify. It aims to ensure that publishers know in future exactly where they stand in relation to the concept of territoriality.

I should like to speak to my amendment No. 24, which deals with online publications and would introduce a restriction on the requirement to submit online publications, which would not apply unless they contributed to the national intellectual, cultural or scientific record.

The Bill is extremely woolly on the subject of online publications—[Interruption.] I did not hear what the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) said.

He was being rude.

That is a matter for the hon. Member for Ceredigion, who should exercise his judgment. I am surprised that he is not concerned about the problem caused by the proliferation of online material on the internet and the prima facie requirement in the Bill that the contents of every single website should be submitted in electronic form to the national deposit library so that they can become part of the national collection.

I hesitate to intervene on my hon. Friend, because he knows that my knowledge of, and interest in, the internet is not merely zero but negative. However, I wish to make a modest contribution if I catch Mr. Deputy Speaker"s eye, so I would be grateful if my hon. Friend could provide me with some context. Is a website a territorial thing, and does it have a territorial existence or being? That question is germane to the issues raised by this group of amendments, and an explanation would be of enormous assistance in helping me to formulate my thoughts.

Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend has chosen the wrong person to get a good answer to that question. As I understand it, the contents of a website can be accessed on any suitable computer in any global jurisdiction. Indeed, I even believe that people travelling intergalactically can get access to those websites.

Does it follow that the material on a website cannot have a meaningful territoriality or territorial existence?

I am not sure about that, as I understand that there is a series of offences that can be committed by people who download content from a website. From my superficial knowledge, gleaned from looking at popular newspapers, it seems that people are sometimes deemed to be downloading material from a website even when they are just visiting it, rather as one may visit a library to look at the books rather than withdraw anything. However, I must admit to my right hon. Friend that my knowledge of the difference between a website that falls within a domestic jurisdiction and one that falls within an international jurisdiction is limited. However, like me, he will be familiar with the fact that some websites have a "co.uk" designation—I do not know whether that means that they are exclusive to the UK. I am also aware that some websites are designated ".eu", and do not know whether we cannot get access to them in this country until we join the single currency. There are also dotcom websites, which I understood to be an international grouping, access to which is probably more expensive than to the co.uk sites. But that takes us a bit further than I had intended with the amendment.

12.15 pm

In the past, the very process of publishing and its costs were such as to restrict the material that was published. In order for books to be published, they had to be considered by a publishers' scrutiny committee, and we know that many tens of thousands of people have sought in vain to have their work published. Now, as I understand it, everyone whose work is rejected for publication in written form can put it on their personal website. The Bill would require every piece of worthless material on a website—in other words, any book not considered by a publisher to be worth publishing—to be submitted to the national library in duplicate. It has even been suggested that six copies may be required.

We have heard much recently about the proliferation of e-mails and something called spam, although I am not quite sure what that is. But those problems are as nothing compared with the problems that will be created if there is a legal obligation under the Bill for every item that is published on the internet by someone resident in this country—to take the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth)—to be submitted to the national library.

Apart from anything else, that will impose an intolerable burden upon the library in cataloguing, storing and accessing such material. It completely cuts across the idea of having a national library collection, which is a collection of works that have been published because a publisher thought that they were worth publishing. There may in the past have been a few works that were published by rich people at their own expense, but such works have been relatively few in number. Now, anyone can set up their own website. They could put a collection of their primary school essays on the website. Some schools encourage their pupils to put their material on to websites so that it can be accessed by a wider audience. Are we really saying that the equivalent of schoolchildren"s exercise books, albeit in online form, should have to be submitted to the national library collection?

My amendment seeks to ensure that in so far as there is such a requirement it does not extend to works that do not enjoy significance and contribute to the national intellectual, cultural or scientific record. That concept is clearly reflected in the regulatory impact assessment, which runs to some 17 pages with an appendix, paragraph 2(1) of which states:

"the objective of the proposed measure is to extend the provisions of section 15 of the Copyright Act 1911 to cover non-print material to ensure that all publications of significance are collected, regardless of the medium in which they are published, and are preserved as part of the national published archive so as to remain available to future generations of users."

You will have noted, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the reference there to "publications of significance". At present, that is not reflected in the Bill, and certainly not in relation to online publications. That is why I think that the Bill would be much improved if amendment No. 24 were incorporated in it.

My hon. Friend would help me if he were to expand his remarks now so that I could set my remarks in a better context. I am curious to know whether my hon. Friend thinks that we have a mechanism that is robust enough to make a judgment about what he is calling the national intellectual, cultural or scientific record. That definition seems to have the potential to involve subjective judgments. I think that that necessarily must be so. Does my hon. Friend think that the provision in amendment No. 24 will be able effectively to be implemented? The wording, which sounds rather grand, helpful and positive, may in the end be of little or no meaning when it comes to implementation.

I share my right hon. Friend"s concern that my amendment might introduce what is in the nature of a subjective test. However, there will have to be some subjectivity. If not, we shall find that every schoolchild"s essay and every piece of any other material, however ghastly it is in terms of content or grammar, will have to be deposited in the national archive collection, if it has appeared online on a website.

On Second Reading, the promoter said:

"The purpose of legal deposit is to ensure that the nation"s published output, and thereby its intellectual record and future published heritage, is collected systematically and as comprehensively as possible. We do this to make material available to current researchers in the libraries of the legal deposit system, and to preserve it for the use of future generations of researchers. Both purposes are important. The system dates back several hundred years and has been vital in preserving and making available the published record of previous generations for the researchers of today and of the future."

However, that has not included the odd jottings of previous generations of schoolchildren, or their scribblings. Partly in answer to the question raised by my right hon. Friend, the promoter said:

"What might we be losing? The material at risk includes: major directories, such as the Europe Information directory, which is available on DVD; news sources, including the web-published results of public opinion polls from companies such as MORI; indexes to help researchers to locate material such as the Legal Journals Index; the Cochrane Library, which is arguably the best single source of reliable evidence on the effects of health care and which is available only on CD-ROM and the web; a wide range of important local government and national Government documents, such as the Home Office series of "online only" research reports; and an increasing number of e-journals, such as Sociological Research Online, which is available only on the web."—[Official Report, 14 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 577.]

When the promoter was addressing the issue on Second Reading, in a sense he was inserting his own subjective judgment on what he regarded as documents or material that would not be available for future generations because it had not been deposited in the library. However, even his examples are minor compared with the vast quantity of material that would be envisaged by the Bill as it stands, as extended to online publication.

I refer again to the regulatory impact assessment, which states under the heading "Risk Assessment" on page 3, sub-paragraph (iv):

"If the provisions of legal deposit are not extended to non-print publications there is a considerable risk that important material contributing to the national intellectual, cultural and scientific record will not be secured and preserved for the benefit of future generations."

The wording of my amendment is taken directly from the regulatory impact assessment. The assessment goes on:

"It is generally accepted that publishers do not have the expertise, or infrastructure, to preserve their publications or provide access beyond the timespan during which they are of commercial value to them."

When one looks at the regulatory impact assessment, particularly at how thin it is in respect of online publications, one realises that there must be some safeguards in the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst may be of the opinion that it should not cover online publications at all, but accepting that there may be a case for certain online publications, my amendment seeks to restrict that category significantly.

My right hon. Friend will probably ask me what the regulatory impact assessment says about the overall costs of dealing with UK websites.

Good guess.

That is dealt with under option 4 on page 7 of the regulatory impact assessment, which states:

"Harvesting UK websites

This would involve the selective archiving of UK websites, with priority given to sites of current and future research potential. This would work on the basis of partnership and sharing with other agencies. It is assumed that the main institutions who would undertake and co-ordinate this work would be the National Libraries."

The document goes on to discuss the costs and benefits and states:

"The benefits include the ability to preserve, selectively, a representative sample of UK websites, and thus create a more complete national archive in the web domain."

That speaks for itself. The assessment goes on:

"Benefits will be accrued if this is undertaken in partnership with other agencies, eg the Public Record Office."

As regards the costs, option 4, "Harvesting UK Websites", states:

"There is no means of estimating the costs of archiving noncommercial websites, especially in the absence of reliable data as to how costs might be shared through partnership arrangements. The experience of the British Library's experimental Domain UK: Interim Report (March 2002) is valuable. On a three-year time horizon, it can be assumed that the running cost of £600,000 per annum (real costs at 2003 prices) would allow the management of an archive of UK domain websites in accordance with following targets: 10,000 research-focused UK domain websites (0.3 per cent. of the total domain of UK websites"—

in other words, only three in a thousand websites—

"on a quarterly basis, and undertake an annual harvest of the entire UK domain of three million websites."

I am not sure how it is possible to carry out an annual harvest of 3 million websites, but perhaps the promoter of the Bill will explain.

The regulatory impact assessment goes on:

"However, at this juncture it is not possible to estimate, with confidence, what costs would look like over a 10-year time horizon."

Is my hon. Friend effectively telling me that the regulatory impact assessment concludes that an assessment cannot be made, and that despite the entire mechanism that is designed to allow us as legislators to make a judgment about the legislation, we are rendered virtually incapable of making such a judgment and are being asked to sign a blank and open cheque? Is that what my hon. Friend is suggesting?

I am not just suggesting that—I am stating it. That is the import of what is contained in—or rather, omitted from—the regulatory impact assessment. This is an extremely important debate. There may be people out there listening to the debate who have failed to get their work published with authorised publishers, and who may think that the way to get their work into the British Library is to set up their own website and put their essay, novel or whatever on that website. They may think that they have made a contribution to future generations that will be secured for the national archive. In the light of the regulatory impact assessment, it appears that such people may be acting under a misapprehension in building their own website and displaying the material on it, but one cannot be sure because of the vagueness of the issue.

Is not my hon. Friend getting himself into some difficulty? Having made those remarks, how does he expect the mechanism envisaged in amendment No. 24, which he tabled, to work? Somebody, somewhere will have to make an assessment of the intellectual, cultural or scientific nature of the material, yet he has just graphically pointed out that the volume of material is enormous and that the resources are, presumably, limited. In the light of what he has said, can he help me to understand, before I make my contribution, how amendment No. 24 could be made to work?

I accept that the amendment could be made to work only with a very expensive bureaucracy that would assess the material to see whether it complied with the requirements that the amendment sets out. However, the alternative is the even larger bureaucracy involved in archiving and cataloguing every single item of online material from anybody"s website, albeit within the confines of the United Kingdom—I give that the benefit of the doubt. In my submission, that task is even more unmanageable. That is why I tabled the amendment; I am attempting not to drive a coach and horses through the Bill or to undermine its purpose, but to bring some rationality to the issue of online material.

In Committee, the now Minister of State, Department for Transport, who was then responsible for the Bill, said that the National Library of Wales had a fantastic collection of pornography. I do not know whether we will find that national libraries vie with one another as to which has the largest and most extensive collection of pornography, but if that is their ambition, the burden will be breathtaking. That is why we need to give some serious thought to the implications of requiring everybody with online material to submit it to one of the national collections.

I could speak at greater length, but the point has been made and it does not need repeating. I hope that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) can respond to the genuine concerns that have been expressed and explain how he believes the provisions can be applied in a common-sense way under the terms of the Bill as it currently stands.

I encourage the House to support amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 12 to 16, but I feel that it should resist new clause 4 and amendment No. 24.

In Committee, the now Minister of State, Department for Transport undertook to consider drafting an amendment defining a UK publisher. New clause 4, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), returns to that issue. An amendment was drafted, but its implications proved problematic. It was suggested that the e-commerce directive provided a possible model, but it was thought unworkable. The Committee was also advised that the concept of the place of establishment did not translate as helpfully into UK law and applied only to the provision of commercial services, whereas the Bill potentially covers non-commercial services as well. The amendment would also refer back to European law and regulations that are capable of being changed every five years. That is not satisfactory in respect of a definition in a Bill that is certainly expected to last longer than that.

For those reasons, we have decided to keep the original provision in clause 6(2)(g) that allows the definition to be dealt with by way of regulations after a great deal more consultation and consideration. Issues to do with the location of web material are irrelevant, including the concepts of domain extensions, whether they are.uk,.com or whatever, because the Bill treats the role of the individual in publications as critical. The key point is who is responsible for the publication and not where it physically sits.

Publishers have expressed their concern at the implications of new clause 4 for international publications in which UK businesses are partly engaged—for example, in sub-editing. They fear that such a form of words would prejudice their businesses.

Under amendment No. 9, copyright would not be infringed by web harvesting, provided it was done in accordance with prescribed conditions.

Amendments Nos. 10, 12 and 13 are consequential on amendment No. 9. The first two amendments are technical and clarify references to the Bill when enacted, and the third adds the term "deposit library" to "reader" and "relevant material", so that the terms have the same meaning as in clause 7 and throughout the Bill.

Amendment No. 14 would make equivalent provisions to amendment No. 9 in respect of database rights to ensure that they are not infringed by web harvesting.

Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 are technical amendments that are consequential on amendment No. 17 in relation to terminological references to the Act and definitions.

I ask the House to resist amendment No. 24, which is in the name of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), because it very much constitutes a subjective opinion. Such matters should be left to the collections policy of legal deposit libraries. Where collection policies interact with commercial interests, I would hope that a future technical committee could give advice.

How does somebody who has a novel on their own website know whether it should be submitted to the national collection, in accordance with the national collections policy?

Such an individual should look at the website of the British Library. The point of web harvesting is not to require activity by the publisher, but to simplify the process of deposit whereby libraries gather what they feel to be appropriate through their collections policy. The individual should look at the collections policy in trying to determine whether something should be collected.

The Bill tries to enable a continuation of the framework that existed for print materials. For example, bus timetables are not collected through legal deposit, and that would not translate into the electronic media. As for the question of what will limit the decisions on collection policy, the answer is available finance. We are talking not about a blank cheque but about cutting the cloth to the available resources in determining the scope of collection policies. Annual harvesting is a snapshot by automated electronic copying of what is deemed appropriate by collection policies.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the risk assessment described in the regulatory impact assessment has to be qualified by libraries" resources? The RIA says:

"If the provisions of legal deposit are not extended to non-print publications there is a considerable risk that important material contributing to the national intellectual, cultural and scientific record will not be secured and preserved".

The purpose of a collection policy is twofold: first, to define the intellectual content of the nation; and, secondly, to ensure that collections can be made within the available resources. Perhaps I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. The British Library has developed a sound collection policy over many hundreds of years. The website states:

"The collection of the British Library has been formed over many years and embraces all known languages. It traces its formal history to the foundation of the British Museum Library in 1753 in which three existing great collections were brought together: the Cotton Collection (which had been bequeathed to the nation in 1700) the Harley Collection and the Sloane Collection. To these was added in 1757 the Royal collection, formed by monarchs of earlier ages, and since then many others. The quality, size and depth of the Library's collection (estimated at above 150 million items) are central to its position as the national library.

While no library can any longer aspire to being comprehensive in its coverage of the world, the Library nevertheless collects widely and in depth in its areas of traditional strength.

The collection of the British Library operates on many levels and with reference to the rest of the Library system in the country. At the core it represents the collective memory of the nation by retaining for posterity the intellectual output of British publishing. To assist in this legal deposit legislation ensures that the Library is entitled to a copy of all books, journals and newspapers published in Britain. To this core is added purchase research-level material from around the world and appropriate unpublished material in different formats.

Our collecting policies reflect our function as a library of first instance and last resort; last resort for those whose primary access is the university, company or public library and first instance where the Library is the sole convenient source for the research material they require."

I hope that that reassures the hon. Member for Christchurch.

I may be the only person in the Chamber who does not wear an anorak on such occasions. However, the layman is entitled to speak and I shall therefore venture into the e-world or cyber world about which I have little or no knowledge and in which I am not interested. I hope that I can add a different dimension to the debate by asking the promoter and perhaps the Minister some non-technical and non-e-questions.

My unease was increased when my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) gave us a useful and relevant analysis of the sheer volume of material in the new world that we are considering. He referred to materials that were available only online and also used the term e-journals. That could alarm someone such as me who has never visited a website; I hope to get through my life without ever doing so. However, it could also reassure me that I am immunised from the amount of rubbish that doubtless exists. I confess that I am also bereft of the wisdom that might reside on all those websites. One has to make a judgment.

New clause 4 and amendment No. 24 especially attracted my interest. In the light of the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss), who introduced new clause 4, I wonder how much meaning the provisions would have. Even with my scant knowledge of such matters, it strikes me that phrases such as "published on line", let alone

"first published from the United Kingdom"

may not be robust, meaningful definitions.

The technology is now such that people of any nationality can move freely throughout the world and communicate in a wireless mode on the internet and thence on websites. The term

"first published from the United Kingdom"

must therefore give rise to doubt in that context. Perhaps the promoter or the Minister can help me to understand better how the phrase is meaningful in a wireless world.

In the old days, there were certainties. The printed word had certainty and one could readily identify its provenance. However, provenance is a problem in a wireless world when one tries to use such phrases as

"first published from the United Kingdom"

or

"a natural person resident in the United Kingdom".

Although the term residency is well founded in, for example, nationality law and immigration law, I do not know whether the new clause would be workable. The more I look at it, the more I wonder how workable it would prove in this new technical world.

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I hesitate even to discuss subsection (3) of the new clause, because I do not begin to understand it. I only hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire understands it and that someone else somewhere does as well, because I cannot imagine what would happen if it ever found its way into statute. It states:

"The presence and use of the technical means and technologies required to provide the information society service, do not, in themselves, constitute an establishment of the provider."

I suppose that that must have some sort of meaning. Perhaps someone will help me with it at some stage. It is not very sound grammatically, or very attractive linguistically; but it may be possible to interpret it in the world in which we now move. I shall leave that question hanging in the air for the time being, though, because I want to say something about amendment No. 24.

My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and I normally agree on most things. We have worked together happily and in harmony for many years, and it distresses me to part company with him now. I gave him every opportunity to explain his amendment to me, and he tried to do so, but sadly he has not succeeded so far.

At least my hon. Friend"s speech drew from the promoter the admission—I think it was an admission—that the collection policy on which he relied so heavily in responding to my hon. Friend will inevitably be constrained by the available resources. That is, in a sense, self-evident, but, having been teased out of the promoter, it sets in context the great difficulty that underpins the Bill.

If my hon. Friend"s statistics are correct, there will be an explosion in the amount of material available electronically. For centuries the amount of material available at any one time has been limited by the sheer physical constraints of page and print, and the effort required to translate concepts on to the page and disseminate them—although more has been published in each decade of the past century than in the whole of human history before that.

Even I, in my state of blissful ignorance, can imagine the extent to which the electronic facilities currently available to us will multiply. As my hon. Friend explained, anyone with a keyboard and access to the internet and the necessary technology can now contribute in a way that was formerly restricted by the physical requirements of the printing process. We are entering a new universe, in which material will expand exponentially.

In that context, the collection policy constrained by resources that the promoter has mentioned becomes highly germane—to say nothing of the questions raised by my hon. Friend, and what he is trying to do in his amendment. A collection policy is one thing: it is established, and, although constrained by resources, it works. I think, however, that real difficulties arise when we attempt to build into that the ambitions contained in my hon. Friend"s amendment. I think my hon. Friend would be the first to admit—indeed, I think he did admit—that the mind boggles when one tries to imagine who will exercise a subjective judgment, meaningful in terms of the amendment, about what is intellectual, what is cultural, or what is scientific.

Working backwards through those, the scientific is probably by far the easiest of those categories readily to identify, although the volume of scientific material is, if anything, even greater than the literary output confronting us. At least one could envisage a start being made on identifying what is, and what is not, scientific. When one moves on to the cultural or intellectual, however, the task is much more difficult. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch pointed out, the essays of a young mind might, in some cases, be regarded as of little value, but who is to say? Many of the great geniuses of history, in whatever sphere of endeavour, blossomed at an early age. Who would have set out to judge a musical, artistic, literary or scientific effort made at a very young age?

We are getting ourselves into new and very difficult territory, and although I fully appreciate what my hon. Friend was trying to do in tabling amendment No. 24 I am yet to be convinced that it is workable. I have to say to the promoter, however, that I am not convinced, either, that the collections policies on which he places so much reliance would be sufficiently robust to achieve what the Bill sets out to do.

I have come to the subject fairly new, and I thought, in my innocence, that this was a relatively limited, technical and focused Bill. I suspect that the promoter started out thinking that too, but I am sure that he would now admit that he has been surprised at the extent to which, when the House has examined it—this is the key point, and it is a tribute to the parliamentary process—on Second Reading, in Committee and now on Report, we have begun to see its ramifications.

I pay tribute to the promoter because he has, very properly, been prepared to table new clauses and amendments to try to put his Bill in order, and he is to be congratulated on that. I am left with the uneasy feeling that although the Bill"s objectives are shared, I think, by everybody, it may be much more difficult to implement than was thought.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the problems is that the promoter has sought to make the Bill what he has described as future-proof?

If that is so, I would have thought that, in the context of the technologies that we are discussing, it is a pretty bold claim, to put it mildly. Even I am aware that the advance of this technology, perhaps more than any other in history, is mind-bogglingly rapid. I would have thought that a more modest aspiration was appropriate: to try to frame legislation that can contain what we think we know of the existing technology and to make an effort to look a little bit ahead. But the claim that this will deal with the future is barely credible.

My own reservations are about what is, or what I believe to be, and the difficulties that arise therefrom. It distresses me to say that, on this occasion, I am not happy with the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, for the reasons that I have given and, sadly, I am not yet convinced about amendment No. 24 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. Until I hear more from them, and I hope to seek to catch your eye again, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I may have to withhold my support.

I do not know about interplanetary logging on and logging off, but I feel as though we had been to the planet Zog and back in the last half an hour. There are, however, a couple of serious points to be made about the amendments.

The Bill puts print and non-print publications, published for use in the United Kingdom, on exactly the same footing. New clause 4 would change that relationship, and I would oppose that. I believe strongly that what we are trying to achieve with the Bill is the recognition that non-print publications are as important to our cultural, intellectual and scientific life as were print publications in the past, and we must recognise that they need to be collected in exactly the same way as we have collected print publications.

That brings me to amendment No. 24 and collections policy. It is a pity that some hon. Members in the Chamber today did not attend the Second Reading debate as they would have been able to hear strongly expressed views about what librarians and archivists have achieved in building up our national collections. There are six for the whole United Kingdom, three of which are the national collections for the constituent nations; there are also collections in Oxford and Cambridge and one for the whole island of Ireland.

The Second Reading debate made it clear—as I hope will also be clear today—that those national collections were built up using the knowledge of archivists and librarians and their interpretation of what was culturally significant at the time. They may not always get it right, but they have a depth of experience and a well of knowledge, as well as the sense of the history of such things that is passed on in those institutions from generation to generation. I should have thought that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) would have appreciated that work and its future.

I speak as someone who has worked in such an institution, so I have seen how such work is carried out. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would be welcome at any of our national libraries to see how the collections were built up. The Bill entrusts librarians and archivists with future proofing in the sense that it entrusts them with collection policy, and I very much support that.

I rise principally in support of amendment No. 24. I agree with the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) that librarians and archivists are extremely skilled. Perhaps they can be entrusted to determine what is significant, but they need guidance in statute, as, by nature, they are magpies—rightly so. However, the collecting instincts that are reflected in the provisions of this generally laudable Bill need some structure or framework.

Often, in our haste to collect everything, we belittle and demean what is really important. Most of us have experience of weeding our office files, for example. We do so because we want to ensure that important documents are not disguised by the generality, which is relatively trivial. That workaday example has some relevance in the context of our debate.

One of my chief concerns relates to awareness, compliance and enforcement. Under the current law applying to the printed media, we see how things can operate sub-optimally. For example, we publish political leaflets, with the imprint duly appended. Under the current law, in theory, such leaflets should be deposited yet few people would seriously claim that they were of

"national intellectual, cultural or scientific"

importance. The Liberal Democrat "Focus" leaflets—dare I say famous "Focus" leaflets?—are generally complete fiction. No one would suggest that they should be deposited, yet under current law perhaps they should be.

Most of us have web pages these days—with the exception, perhaps, of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth).

Certainly not.

In theory, under the law, web pages should be deposited and, as most of us update them, they should be redeposited at regular intervals. However, no one would seriously suggest that those documents have any great significance for future historical research, although one or two of us might flatter ourselves that they might. I suspect, however, that they will not.

Amendment No. 24 would cover such matters and, with guidance—I hope—from professional archivists and librarians, would exclude the trivial, and for that reason I support it.

I particularly want to address my remarks to new clause 4 and amendment No. 24, as I support the other amendments tabled and ably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole). However, before I do so, I wish to say that this business is undoubtedly complex and that many of the comments made by hon. Members have been right and proper. As people who have charge of passing down our cultural heritage to the generations that come after us, we must decide whether we want to include non-print publications. Whether we like it or not and whether or not we have a website, we must accept that the world is moving into a time when communication and publishing takes place other than in print.

1 pm

My personal view is that it is right for us to try to find a way forward so that future generations can have access to what was published in the past. That is my starting point. In some ways, that is very simple, but I entirely accept that, once we try to make that happen, things become very complicated, partly because it is a world that does not stand still and all the notions of what constitutes a publication, let alone where it is published, call for decisions that are very difficult to write down in law. That has been the difficulty with the Bill throughout its proceedings in Parliament. Certainly, from what I have picked up in the past few days, I sense that that has been the difficulty.

What we are doing—I think that this is what my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich meant when he referred to time proofing—is providing a framework that will allow us to have discussions with people who are far more knowledgeable than we are. Certainly the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) has admitted that he is not very knowledgeable about websites. I may know a little more about them, but I am certainly not as knowledgeable as I would need to be if I were to take decisions about what should be saved for the future. The comments made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas), who has a good background in this subject, were absolutely spot on, and I wish to emphasise them, which is why I shall concentrate on new clause 4 and amendment No. 24.

New clause 4 deals with an important issue and I give the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) credit for raising it, but I draw his attention to clause 6(2)(g). The Bill does not state what constitutes a UK publication in primary legislation. We are not deciding that today; it will be subject to further regulations. If the hon. Gentleman feels that new clause 4 offers his preferred definition of what constitutes a UK publication, he could propose that as part of those regulations and—who knows?—it might be adopted, but, for once, I agree with the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that that is not the right way to define such things.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire that that may be his preference, but the best way to deal with this issue is to have the proper consultation and discussions with those who are very knowledgeable about what constitutes a UK publication and for the definition to be the subject of those regulations. I do not wish to detract from the fact that I do not have any easy definition up my sleeve. I do not know what the definition will be—it is very difficult—but it is important to consider where things are published.

The clause that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst read out was absolutely key because some of the definitions in that clause are not used in the legislation. If we were to adopt that part of the legislation, we would have great difficulty in interpreting it. I am not arguing against the definition of what constitutes a UK publication proposed by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire; I am arguing in favour of acting under clause 6(2)(g), having proper consultations and then making regulations.

I take some reassurance from the right hon. Lady"s words in answer to the proposal in new clause 4, but does she agree that the problem for those who must deal with all this—in particular, the publishers, not the libraries—is the great uncertainty? They do not know what will evolve from the consultations that the Minister and her predecessor have promised, so they are completely in the dark about what the implications, particularly the economic ones, will be for them in future. I hope that, at some stage, the Minister will confirm her predecessor"s commitment to the consultation process and the formation of a panel, but will she now give me and those involved a guarantee that, when the panel meets and discusses the implications of the proposals on origination and territorial limitations, nothing will be agreed that strikes against their economic interests?

Further amendments to the Bill state rightly that such economic interests need to be taken into account. That is established in the legislation. To refer back to my opening comments, it is almost our duty to find a way through this, although I accept how difficult it is. If the hon. Gentleman is asking me to say that in all cases, how ever great or small the economic cost to the publishers, that consideration would in all circumstances override the decision to deposit these materials, I cannot give such an assurance, and I would not want to do so. Other people's interests are also at stake, and that is the balance that we are striving to keep. I shall take every opportunity that I can to confirm what my predecessor said about setting up the forum and the consultation, not acting without expert knowledge, and doing all that we can to take the industry and publishers with us and to allay their fears—I understand that it is difficult when they do not know what will be the eventual shape of the regulations. I repeat, however, that it is right that we try to find a way through. I can do no more than that.

I hope that the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire will withdraw new clause 4 and wait for the proper definition of a UK publication in regulations. I might make the same comments in relation to amendment No. 24 tabled by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). Again, it is disappointing news, but his childhood essay may not be deposited in one of the major libraries of this country. It never was a provision of the Bill that everything on a website and on the internet would find its way to be deposited in a library. That was never the intention. What we are left with is the process of selection, which is another difficult area. We are grappling with a legislative process that is dealing with something that was not even dreamt of when that legislative process originated in history. That does not mean that we will not have a damn good try at making the legislation as effective as possible.

Briefly, the reason that I resist this amendment is that we want to consult the experts. I can add no more to the comments made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion, whose predecessor, I remember, used to speak on education Bills, so he and I were well used to the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. It is proper to take the advice of those who may not be democratically elected but who have the practical and historical knowledge to enable them to decide what it might be appropriate to keep. I ask the hon. Member for Christchurch not to press amendment No. 24, as it will be the subject of further consultation.

If the Bill passes through all its parliamentary stages, we will not immediately begin to collect all the online and offline material that has been published. It will not be a case of everything having to be deposited from day one. The advisory panel, which, I hope, will work with the library and experts, will decide almost on a rolling basis what is collected. It will not therefore impact on all the material at exactly the same time—let us say, six months from now—but will be done in a carefully managed way. In response to both hon. Gentlemen who expressed such concern, it is absolutely right that the way that we determine what will be collected, and when and how it will be collected, will be subject to further consultation with those who have the relevant experience.

Given that the Minister has only recently picked up this responsibility, she is doing a wonderful job in the House today. If only all Ministers were as confident and competent as she has proved to be. She has earned fully the prize that she received the other night.

The Minister has made several references to future consultation. Does she not concede, given that she has only recently arrived in her post, that the Bill would have benefited from much more previous consultation and, who knows, from pre-legislative scrutiny, which is very trendy under her Government at the moment? Perhaps if the Bill had been a Government Bill, scrutinised pre-legislatively—

Online?

Certainly not. Fifty per cent. of the population are still not online, and we do not want to disfranchise them. I thought that we were all-inclusive these days. Does not the Minister concede that in offering future consultation she highlights the fact that the Bill has suffered greatly from not having enough previous consultation?

That very thought crossed my mind earlier this week.

The Minister said that she saw some sense in my amendment No. 24 but did not like its precise wording and wanted to consult about it. The wording in that amendment is the same as in the regulatory impact assessment produced by Baroness Blackstone on 11 March. Paragraph (iv) on page 3 refers to non-print publications and says that

"there is a considerable risk that important material contributing to the national intellectual, cultural and scientific record will not be secured and preserved".

However the Minister now says that that language is not appropriate and should be the subject of consultation.

The problem arises in defining that. I have every confidence in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, but I do not think that I would be taking too much of a risk if I were to say that she might not wish to take to herself decisions about defining what fulfils the criteria.

Regulatory impact assessments will be published in respect of any regulations made, so clarifications that have been sought today and not received might get another bite of the cherry later. The hon. Gentleman will have another chance to put forward his definition of what should be collected when the consultation takes place.

rose—

I will not give way, as I have concluded my remarks.

I am not surprised that the Minister sat down when she was ahead. However, will she respond to one more question before I decide what to do with new clause 4? She said that a consultation panel would work with the industry to consider carefully the implications of the definition of "territoriality". Is she saying that she believes that it is vital to define a UK publication and that she will seek to do that with the panel?

We have to find a way through that. If the hon. Gentleman is asking whether something I say will define the outcome of the consultation, the answer is no. If he is saying that it is an important issue that must be resolved to the understanding—if not the agreement—of all concerned, the answer is yes.

The Minister again chose her words extremely carefully, referring to "understanding" and not to "agreement". This is an important issue that must be addressed. I hope that the Minister will concentrate on it perhaps before the Bill goes to the other place. The Bill may fall on this issue if "understanding", not "agreement" is the key ingredient in the consultation.

With those prescribed assurances on the record, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 4, line 3, leave out subsections (3) and (4).

With this it will convenient to take the following amendments: No. 25, in page 4, line 5, leave out subsection (4).

No. 19,

that Clause 9 be divided into three Clauses, the first consisting of subsections (1), (7) to (7C) and (9) (Regulations: general), the second of subsections (2) to (6) (Regulations: Scotland and Wales) and the third of subsections (8) and (10) (Regulations: Trinity College, Dublin).

No. 17, in page 6, line 38, clause 9, at end insert—

"(7A) Regulations under section 1(4) or 6 may not be made so as to apply to works published before the regulations are made.

(7B) Regulations under section 1(4) or 6 may not be made unless the Secretary of State considers that the costs likely to be incurred as a result of the regulations by persons who publish works to which the regulations relate are not disproportionate to the benefit to the public arising from the delivery of copies of such works.

(7C) Regulations under section 1(4), 6, 7 or (Exemption from liability: activities in relation to publications)(5) may not be made unless the Secretary of State considers that the regulations do not unreasonably prejudice the interests of persons who publish works to which the regulations relate.'.

At the outset, I wish to make it clear that I encourage the House to support amendments Nos. 1 and 17 to 19, but to resist amendments Nos. 21, 22 and 25. I shall leave all comments on Government amendments (a) and (b) to amendment No. 17 to my right hon. Friend the Minister.

Amendment No. 1 relates to amendment No. 17 on proportionality. By deleting clause 6(3) and (4), which reappear in amendment No. 17, it moves, through amendment No. 19, the provision that says that regulations can apply only to works published after the regulations are made and the provision dealing with the impact on the publishers, which has been expanded and improved, to clause 9. That ensures that the provisions apply to regulations made under the general duty to deposit in clause 1(4), as well regulations on the use and deposit of non-print publications made under clause 7 and regulations made under clause 6.

1.15 pm

Amendment No. 17 addresses proportionality and publishers" interest. The question of proportionality—balancing the needs of a publisher with those of a national archive—was raised in Committee primarily by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd). The amendment is an attempt to satisfy those concerns and to meet the underlying requirements of the Bill. It will ensure that regulations may apply only to works published after the regulations were made by covering regulations made under clauses 1(4) and 6—the provision replaces clause 6(3).

The amendment also replaces the requirement in clause 6(4) and deals with proportionality and unreasonable prejudicing of the interests of publishers. It provides that regulations requiring deposit may be made only if the Secretary of State considers that the costs that are likely to be incurred by the publishers are not disproportionate to the benefit to the public of deposit. Regulations requiring deposit and dealing with access to the material deposited and harvested may be made only if the Secretary of State considers that they do not unreasonably prejudice the publishers of the relevant works.

The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire tabled amendment No. 22, which would extend the proportionality provision to all regulations made under the Bill. I can say only that we have done that, when possible and practical, and I remind him that issues of proportionality will naturally be considered under each regulatory impact assessment that is required before the production of a set of regulations.

Amendment No. 18 relates to deposits in the Republic of Ireland and clarifies the circumstances in which material may be required to be deposited with Trinity college. Clause 9 currently provides that material need not be deposited with Trinity college if the restrictions on its use under Irish law are substantially less than those under UK law. The amendment clarifies and extends that provision by providing that deposit is not required when protection under intellectual property rights and liability for defamation is substantially less.

Amendment No. 19 is a consequential amendment that arises from new clause 1. It will divide clause 9, which is somewhat over-long, into three separate clauses. The proposed headings are "Regulations: general", "Regulations: Scotland and Wales", and "Regulations: Trinity College, Dublin". I am sure that hon. Members will agree that that will make the detail in the clause much more digestible.

Amendment No. 21 was tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire. I understand that UK legislation cannot offer protection from breach of contract obligations to a greater extent than under the provisions in new clause 1. It is not possible to offer protection for contracts governed by foreign laws—we discussed the issue tangentially earlier. Future foreign contracts may be appropriately negotiated to take account of requirements to deposit, and I doubt that many international publishers would want to lose the ability to sell into the extensive UK market.

It is expected that overseas courts would not award more than nominal damages for breach of existing contracts if that were due to the publisher complying with an obligation under the laws of another sovereign state. However, if the matter continues to cause concern, it may be considered when regulations are proposed, consulted on and assessed.

I discourage hon. Members from supporting amendment No. 22, which was tabled by the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire, because proposed new clause 9(7B) in amendment No. 17 would achieve the same effect.

I urge the House to resist amendment No. 25 because it would remove the Secretary of State"s requirement to consider the impact of regulations on persons who publish works of the description prescribed in the regulations, which would thus remove the protection for the business interests of publishers that we have worked to put in place. There has been long consideration of the impact that regulations would have on publishers and there is strong need for extensive consultation on the detail of those. Amendment No. 17 specifies a tough regime in which the Secretary of State must consider the economic implications of regulations that she proposes.

I generally welcome amendment No. 17, but I have doubts about its viability. I think that I welcome proposed subsection 7A, which I would characterise as the non-retrospectivity provision. I am usually a great opponent of retrospection in legislation, but it is odd that the promoter should seek to prevent retrospection, because this is one of the very few cases in which it is justified. If we can only guarantee to capture this vital and valuable material from the point at which the Bill comes into effect, and perhaps risk missing a large part of material created until then, retrospection, rather unusually, may be justified. I shall leave it at that, because I would have to be talked into opposing the amendment for that reason. However, it demonstrates that there can never be any absolutes.

Amendment No. 17 also deals with the concept of disproportionality. Perfectly reasonably, it says that regulations shall not be made unless the Secretary of State considers that the costs likely to be incurred are disproportionate to the benefits—we are therefore dealing with our old friends, costs and benefits. I think that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) said that he expected regulatory impact assessments to be used on a case-by-case basis. However, that does not inspire confidence in me, because the recent history of regulatory impact assessments has not been very good, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has been at pains to point out, not just today but on previous Fridays. Time after time, the regulatory impact assessment has either not existed or has not been published or promulgated, or has been available only at the last minute.

At the very least, I would like an assurance from the Minister, who will preside over the assessments for, I hope, a very long time, that proper RIAs will be made, if they are to be as integral to the Bill as the hon. Member for Ipswich suggested. With that proviso, I am prepared to go along with amendment No. 17, which introduces the vital link between costs and benefits that most of us want.

We should welcome the requirement in amendment No. 17 that regulations

"may not be made unless the Secretary of State considers that the regulations do not unreasonably prejudice the interests of persons who publish works".

I would welcome the expansion of that concept. It sounds encouraging, but how on earth do we balance the interests of people who publish the works against more general interests? I should be grateful if someone could give me an example of a case in which the interests of the publisher prevail over the more general interests and, presumably by implication, prevent material from being recorded. Such recording is, of course, one of the intentions of the Bill.

Although I welcome the provisions in amendment No 17, they require a little more explanation. I would like a commitment from the Minister on the way in which regulatory impact assessments will routinely fit into the Bill"s mechanisms. I should also like an expansion of proposed subsection 7C and an example, even a hypothetical one, of the way in which the publisher"s interests outweigh more general interests.

I think that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) has misinterpreted my amendment No. 25 because it would remove the requirement that

"Regulations … may not be made so as to apply to works published before the regulations are made."

I tabled that amendment because I am concerned about the gap between the situation as it is now and the time when the regulations might be made. If it is important to capture this material so that it will not be lost to posterity, we may be waiting many years before the regulations are brought forward.

Having heard the Minister"s helpful comments in response to the previous group of amendments, it seems that the matter will be so complicated, particularly with online publications, that it may be many years before we have any regulations. In the meantime, there will be no requirement that important online publications should be deposited with the library. I hope that the hon. Gentleman can address my concern that there may be a lacuna in the Bill if subsection (4) remains.

I particularly wish to speak to Government amendments (a) and (b) to amendment No. 17. which I think has been welcomed. The amendments seek to offer extra protection to the publishers, because, as I think has already been said, one of the characteristics of online publishing is that work can be republished and republished and changed every day, so a decision has to be made as to whether a publication is new or substantially the same. The same could be true of printed books as well.

Amendment No. 17 and amendment (a) merely give the reassurance that when consideration is given to whether a publication is substantially the same, the cost to the publishers will be taken into account. I hope that will be welcomed by the publishers as some protection.

I am glad that the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) acknowledged my previous comment that RIAs will be published in respect of the regulations, and that they will be introduced in the right and proper way, giving yet another opportunity to discuss the consequences of any subsequent regulations. I hope that he will understand if I resist trying to invent an example of a case of the interests of the publisher outstripping the interests of the public; otherwise we would be here all weekend, let alone all afternoon.

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 21 and 22. I mentioned amendment No. 21 in my opening remarks on new clause 3, to which I said it was related. We had a fairly good debate on that and I do not wish to continue that discussion any further at this juncture, save to say that it is an important point that I believe will be revisited in the other place.

The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole), in discussions with the Department, has gone quite a long way to meeting some of the reasons for tabling amendment No. 22, except that it referred to regulations under the Bill whereas amendment No. 17 restricts the regulations to clauses 1(4) or 6. Clause 1(4) states:

"In the case of a work published in a medium other than print, this Act applies to a work of a prescribed description."

Therefore amendment No. 17 refers to non-print publications.

My amendment has not made the grade, so to speak, but I sought to broaden the debate from non-print to print, because there are still some concerns relating to the print medium, which I am sure is an issue to which we will return in the other place. Unfortunately, as the Committee stage was rather rushed, although there has been some consultation, the time scale has been limited and many of us received the amendments only a day or so ago and the selection of amendments only last evening. I am informed by the publishing community that it was told of amendments, or received amendments, only after the deadline for tabling them at 7 o'clock the other day. It is not pleased about that. It meant that it was unable to adjust some of its ideas and proposals accordingly. There are outstanding issues, especially with regard to print, that will be revisited. I am putting that down for the Minister and the proposer to take on board, because these matters will need to be addressed fairly rapidly in the short time that is available before the House rises.

1.30 pm

As drafted, the structure of the Bill will continue without any change to the current system of deposit of print publications to the British Library, and on request to the other legal deposit libraries. There is, however, a failure to recognise the economic impact of the current system on a significant number of print publishers of high-value business, particularly management and scientific reports, directories and printed databases. These publishers may well sell fewer than 10 copies of any given title. The costs to them are, first, the marginal cost of supply and, secondly, the loss of sales resulting from access to deposited materials by users, or by the deposit libraries not purchasing those materials.

The deposit libraries have recognised that and have accepted that publishers can embargo access to their materials and deposit to on-deposit libraries only. However, there was no consultation on the current system of print deposit. The Kenny committee was set up by the Government to consider these matters, and especially non-print publishers. It focused only on non-print publishers, and the libraries acknowledged the difficulties under the current system for certain publishers. Those difficulties are not acknowledged in the Bill. I attempted through amendment No. 21 to bring them within the ambit of the Bill. I recognise that I failed to do so, but I am sure that the issue will be revisited, as I have said, in the other place.

It seems fair and reasonable that protections should equally apply to all publications, whether they are format print or non-print. In amendment No. 17, the proposer has gone quite a long way to accepting the principles of disproportionate burden, but only as they apply to non-print publications. An imbalance is left for some publications, particularly of the high-value, low-volume producers. That being so, I shall not press my amendments. As I have said, I can assure the Government and the proposer that these issues will be revisited.

I welcome the contribution of all hon. Members. I shall respond to the challenge to identify an example of the balance of decision between the publisher interest outweighing the requirement to deposit. The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) has touched on the concept of high-value, short-life publications in the print world as much as in the non-print world. In the non-print world, it is particularly critical for a number of publishers that there should be some decisions about at least making a delay in the availability of deposited material so as not to interfere with their ability to extract commercial benefit from their short-run publications.

The other circumstance would be one where sales are less than a certain number. It would be appropriate for the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring that deposits not be made

The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire commented on the difficulties from which we have all suffered as a result of the time that it has taken to nail down some of the detail in the Bill. The issue of variants to the print regulations has been raised at the 11th hour. I thought it was clear since Second Reading and through Committee that there was no intention to change the 1911 framework with regard to print.

I respect the concern of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) about the gap that may exist until regulations are made. He should accept an honest commitment made by the Minister to make progress where progress can be made, and as quickly as possible.

I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 4, line 9, leave out "use" and insert

"do any of the activities listed in subsection (1A) in relation to".

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: Nos. 23 and 3.

No. 4, in page 1, line 11, clause 2, after "of", insert "significant".

No. 5, in page 2, line 2, after "of", insert "significant".

No. 6.

No. 7, in page 2, line 10, leave out from "of" to "thing" in line 11 and insert

"any vessel or part of any vessel.".

No. 8, in page 2, line 12, leave out "trace or".

No. 11.

I encourage the House to support amendments Nos. 2 to 8 and 11, and to resist amendment No. 23. Amendments Nos. 2 to 8 address libraries" use of deposited material or clarify what libraries can do with the material that is deposited. They provide that neither libraries nor readers can perform any of the activities listed in subsection (1A) unless regulations are made under subsection (2) allowing them to do so. Amendment No. 3 details the range of activities allowed, subject to regulations, in respect of legally deposited material. The amendment provides that activities that can be authorised are authorised. Those activities include using the material, copying it, adapting an accompanying computer programme and, lending, transferring and disposing of material. Amendments Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are all consequential upon it.

Amendment No. 7 relates to web harvesting. It provides that material that has been web harvested is covered by the restrictions on use in clause 7, as is any copy that is made of the work originally deposited.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) tabled an amendment that would allow relevant persons to copy material without exception. I understand his concern that the work of librarians and archivists must not be seen to suffer or be hindered by cumbersome legal requirements. That is not the point of the Bill. Although I appreciate the sentiment behind his argument, I conclude that at this stage it is rather premature. What a library can do with the material once it is deposited will be considered prior to regulations being made. It seems pointless now to make exceptions to the activities detailed in amendment No. 3 when the matter will be considered and consulted on in due course.

Amendment No. 11 relates to copyright and makes clear the effect of regulations made under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to exclude the application of provisions of the Copyright Act. It rewrites subsection (3), clarifying the scope of prescribed activities for which regulations under clause 8(2) can be made. It may be necessary to turn off some or all of the copyright exceptions as they apply to non-print legal deposit material, to ensure that deposited material cannot be used without infringing copyright in circumstances where that would not be possible with the same material in other libraries that have had to purchase it.

Amendment No. 23 is a probing amendment so that we can return in the House to an issue that I considered in Committee and on which I think it important to hear the views of the promoter and the Minister. We all accept that the Bill in the form in which we are now considering it is significantly changed from the Bill originally introduced by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole). It has been improved as a result of the process that it has undergone. However, one thing has been lost.

In the original Bill, clause 7(2)(a) stated that it would be right for a deposit library or a person acting on its behalf to copy relevant material for the purposes of preservation. That clause was replaced by new clause 2, which has become clause 7 in the Bill before us. It has been further amended by the hon. Member for Ipswich today. The Bill makes it clear that it is okay for a library to copy material for the purpose of making information available to readers, but there is no specific cover for a librarian or archivist making a copy for archival purposes. There is something to be gained in that respect. We must recognise that not only the content of online or off-line non-print material can be of historic and cultural significance, but its format. Sometimes the way in which the information was made available to the public can also be of interest in the future. Therefore, it is sometimes not only the content that should be given to succeeding generations, but knowledge of how it was made available. The equivalent are the values of different editions of the same book. Later editions of an original publication may have different illustrations or have been put together in a different way to react to the way in which the audience has changed over succeeding generations. That can tell us a lot about how our culture has changed in that period, and the same is true of non-print materials.

I am concerned that the Bill in its current format would make it easy to ensure that information is kept available to the reader, but would not allow a librarian or archivist to ensure that its format is preserved. In other words, preservation is not recognised, despite its inclusion in the long title of the Bill, as a reason for copying in itself.

When I raised that matter in Committee, the then Minister, now the Minister of State, Department for Transport, who has been replaced by the Minister of the year—I welcome her to these proceedings—said that my questions

"went a little further than that",

and added:

"we will certainly reconsider the matter to see whether things can be further clarified, as we are talking about an important and valuable function."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 4 June 2003; c. 2.]

He was speaking about the function of preservation. I have tabled the amendment to give the House an opportunity to reflect on what the then Minister said, so that we can reconsider it and further clarify the matter. I wish to be absolutely sure that when librarians and archivists make copies for preservation reasons and archival purposes in their institutions, they are not going outside the remit given to them in the Bill.

I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas). I certainly support my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) in his belief that the matters that are being raised are covered in our amendments. In the spirit of helpfulness, however, I should like to say that I trust the hon. Gentleman"s judgment on this issue. If he has ongoing fears or reservations in respect of his suggestion that it is not properly covered, will he accept from me an assurance that we will have the chance to discuss it outside the Chamber and reflect on it? If we are persuaded that we have not made appropriate safeguards to ensure that what he says needs to be done is done—I accept that we must preserve such things for future generations—we will take the opportunity to table an amendment in another place. That is not a promise to table an amendment, but given the passion and clarity with which he spoke, I hesitate to say that he should have no fears and that the issue is fully dealt with. I am merely trying to be helpful, because I do not have the background knowledge to know whether there are genuine grounds for his fears. All I can say is that I am assured by our lawyers that his concerns should be covered. If we discuss the matter outside the Chamber, we will be left with an opportunity to table amendments should it be necessary to do so.

That apart, I support the comments and recommendations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich.

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who are here today to debate my Bill, some of whom were involved in its Committee stage. I thank them for their interest. The Bill is now very much better for having been through that process; it has benefited from the close scrutiny of many experienced colleagues and what they have been able to bring to it.

I welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister to her new role. I am sure that she will take the opportunity to reassure members of the industry who have expressed concern about the matter that the assurances and commitments that her predecessor made in Committee will apply whoever the holder of that ministerial position may be. I thank her predecessor and her Department for their continued help with the Bill.

I thank the legal deposit libraries, especially the British Library, for their continued support.

The Bill originated from the need to update and extend the current legal deposit legislation, which was passed in 1911. That legislation covers printed publications, yet more than 60,000 non-print items were published in the UK last year—a figure that will increase by a factor of four or five by 2005. Non-commercial publications, including websites, add enormously to that number. At present, there are no systematic or comprehensive arrangements for the collection and preservation of such non-print publications. Without new legislation to ensure that non-print materials are saved for future generations, the 21st century could be seen as a cultural dark age in which we failed to archive a substantial and vital part of the nation"s published heritage. The Bill proposes to extend legal deposit legislation to include non-print publications such as CD-ROMs and online resources, enabling the six legal deposit libraries to ensure that those items are collected and preserved for the national archive.

Together, the six legal deposit libraries—the British Library; the national libraries of Scotland and Wales; University library, Cambridge; the Bodleian library, Oxford; and Trinity college library, Dublin—maintain a world-class national published archive that has benefited generations of researchers from industry, academia and the general public. The existing print legal deposit arrangements have enabled the British Library alone to collect, and to save in perpetuity for the nation, more than 50 million items. In the past year, the library acquired 95,286 books, 248,686 journal issues, 1,994 maps and 2,357 newspaper titles through legal deposit. Once acquired, the library stores and catalogues those items and provides facilities for researchers to access them. In that way, millions of unrelated items, which form the national published archive, are transformed into organised knowledge and secured for posterity.

The legal deposit libraries and the four main publisher trade bodies—the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, the Directory and Database Publishers Association, the Periodical Publishers Association and the Publishers Association—have been working for several years to extend the national published archive. Through the joint committee on voluntary deposit, they oversee the code of voluntary deposit. The Joint Committee on Voluntary Deposits has already proved valuable in helping publishers and libraries to address implementation issues and in safeguarding the economic interests of the publishing industry. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has given an assurance that a body in a similar role will be developed; that will be essential to maintaining a high level of consensus.

Prior to Second Reading, publishers identified several issues that were not to their satisfaction. The Department has worked closely with publishers to address their concerns, and amendments and assurances in Committee went some way towards doing that. We are confident that the amendments that we have just agreed to will go further to satisfy those concerns and to reassure publishers that we recognise and appreciate the economic environment in which they operate. I thank publishers for their continued involvement in the process.

Those who have followed this issue, and indeed the passage of the Bill, will be well aware and, I am sure, appreciative of the urgency of the need to legislate. As we all understand, the world of new media publishing is fast changing, and we are discussing a Bill whose generic nature we consider to be the best way of tackling that situation. In terms of pace, the practice of legislating for legal deposit is not far behind technological advances in publishing. A few weeks ago, the Parliament of New Zealand passed the National Library of New Zealand Act 2003. It is hoped that that Act will protect New Zealand"s most precious heritage items, and at the same time allow the library to operate with credibility in the electronic environment.

That is what the Bill will do. The British Library and the other deposit libraries have shared expertise in this area and are respected across the world. The Bill is essential to them in building on their excellent work of collecting and preserving print material by extending legal deposit to non-print material. I commend the Bill to the House.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) on his success in the ballot and on selecting the Bill. I thank him for acting on suggestions and proposals that were made in Committee and subsequent consultations. He has tabled 19 new amendments and two new clauses; perhaps that suggests that the measure has turned out to be more complex than originally envisaged.

Hear, hear.

The Minister has been dealing with it only for the past week. Perhaps it has less overall support than we were led to believe.

I congratulate the promoter on the professional way in which he has taken the measure through the various stages and on the consideration that he has shown to Opposition Members. I join him in thanking the British Library, members of the Joint Committee on Voluntary Deposit and members of the Digital Content Forum, who have assisted me to table amendments that would affect their interpretation and implementation of the measure.

I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box. I had the pleasure of participating in a debate on a statutory instrument with her only the other day. I reiterate the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) that she has shown her professionalism in picking up a brief and becoming expert at it in a short time. Such is her ability to cleave through the huge tomes that relate to the Bill and other measures that she has already concluded that the Bill could have done with more consultation. She reached the same conclusion as her predecessor. He soldiered on gallantly for the Government on two enormous Bills—the Communications Bill and the Licensing Bill. I suspect that the measure was parked on the top shelf during that time and that when the former Minister lifted it off the shelf, he made similar comments to those of the Minister this morning, hence his many assurances in Committee about further urgent and necessary consultation between the end of the Committee stage and Report.

However, although some consultation has taken place, it has not satisfied those who will be affected by the Bill. I believe that the Minister acknowledges that much work remains to be done to reassure those who are on the receiving end of many of the Bill"s proposals. I want to communicate to the Minister and the promoter the growing feeling that the measure is being rushed through.

Hon. Members understand that the Bill is mainly enabling legislation and that flesh will be put on the bones at later stages. However, those who are staring at a potentially ruinous economic impact are rightly worried that so much, especially on the online side, is not defined. We discussed some of those matters in today"s debate. People feel exposed to potential problems. Consultation needs to happen urgently and in greater depth to reassure the relevant organisations. They believe that no matter what proposals they have presented, all have been rejected except slight suggestions in amendments Nos. 17 and 22. They should be shown a little more understanding in future negotiations so that their genuine fears can be allayed.

On Second Reading, we expressed broad support for the Bill. We still think it is important to the national archive and our heritage, and that it is probably overdue. We also acknowledge the excellent work done by the Joint Committee on Voluntary Deposit, and the progress that has been made to date. Because of the enabling nature of the Bill, however, and because many questions are still hanging in the air, it is difficult for the publishing sector—particularly the Digital Content Forum—to accept the Bill as it stands. No doubt the sector will press its case in the other place. I have already warned the Minister that the Bill is not done and dusted and that a good deal of work remains to be done to ensure its passage. We want that to be done because we think the Bill is important, but it must be as right as we can get it.

Although more work is needed, we will not oppose Third Reading, and we congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich.

The Liberal Democrats accept the principle of the Bill, although we agree with the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) that more work needs to be done—in the other place, if we send it there today.

I have followed the Bill"s progress with interest—indeed, I served on the Standing Committee—but I did not intervene on Report because the issues were covered so thoroughly and ably by other Members. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) on having got this far, but I shall leave it at that because there is other important business on the agenda.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole). This is a highly complex matter, and I am glad that improvements have been made to the Bill. It is only the latest in a long line of measures dealing with legal deposit. In 1537, François I issued a decree requiring every printer in the country to deposit one copy of each book produced in his printing office. That was taken up in this country in 1610, when Sir Thomas Bodley made an agreement with the Stationers Company that became law in 1662. The Bill dates back directly to legislation passed in 1911 giving publishers and distributors in the United Kingdom and Ireland a legal obligation to deposit published material in the six legal deposit libraries.

The Bill seeks to ensure that non-print formats are included in legal deposit. More than 60,000 non-print items were published in the UK last year. The various non-print formats include DVD, CD-ROM, electronic journals and other items delivered via the web.

I hope that the Minister can reassure us about a couple of things. We all support the Bill, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) that it is highly complex. The publishing industry is worried about the detail, and it is important for us not to rush it through.

I am particularly worried about two aspects. First, how can we protect publishers of valuable material who publish in low volumes? A number of such publishers are concerned about illegal use of their material. In Committee the then Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Kim Howells), said that the Government would ensure that the necessary restrictions were put in place when regulations were made. I hope that the Minister can confirm that assurance.

My other concern, which has been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), relates to how online material will be deposited. I think everyone agrees that that is a complex problem. I understand that the Government will proceed stage by stage, dealing with offline material first and then, after consultation, online material. That seems a sensible way to proceed, but I should like an assurance today that the consultation process will start as soon as possible, that it will be thorough and that it will involve all interested parties.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cambridgeshire for addressing some of those concerns, and we hope that by the time the Bill becomes an Act it will meet all our requirements to help the publishing industry and ensure that we preserve our valuable cultural heritage. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich on his Bill.

I support the Bill. This is a complex matter, and we have delved into some of those complexities today, but this skimming of the surface has revealed that a great deal more work is needed. One looks forward to seeing that work done before the Bill passes into law.

I am concerned about awareness. I highlight the example of the printed media and the fact that people are unaware of the requirement to deposit printed publications. I suspect that the same will be true of electronic media if the Bill passes into law. I am also concerned about compliance and enforcement. I particularly draw the Minister"s attention to the current situation relating to printed matter. Most people are not aware of the existing law; they do not comply with it and enforcement is extremely difficult.

I have said enough. Many of us want to proceed rapidly on to the High Hedges (No. 2) Bill, so I just want to say how much I support the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) on it.

I shall try to keep my remarks brief, but it is important that I put on record the assurances that I need to give the publishing industry.

I want first to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Mole) on the Bill. He has done incredibly well in guiding it through Committee. It has not been the easiest of Bills, and it has involved him in not only adopting the original principle, but being prepared to take on board comments from other members of the Committee and the industry. He has done a brilliant job and I thank him for that.

I know that my hon. Friend will want to join me in thanking the Department"s officials and lawyers, who have helped us in recent weeks to end up with a Bill that is far better than when it went into Committee. I pay tribute to everyone who has been part of that process, which was a cross-party effort. I hope that eventually we will have a Bill that will stand the test of time and perform the function for which it was intended.

I want to emphasise the importance of getting this right. It is of great importance to future generations that we preserve publications of great cultural, intellectual and scientific significance. The fact that those now appear in non-print material should not stop us preserving them, but we have to ensure that we have the necessary provisions to do that as effectively as possible.

I want to give assurances about the way forward. The Bill is generic, so it has enormous potential to generate regulations, but our enthusiasm must be tempered by a recognition of the burdens that those could impose on deposit libraries and publishers. The Bill is enabling, but it makes clear the process by which regulations will need to be made. All regulations will be subject to consultation of 12 weeks or more and, as I have said, accompanied by a rigorous regulatory impact assessment that will examine the potential cost of deposit for all parties. That will be prepared in advance of an affirmative resolution in both Houses. No regulations will be produced without that adequate assessment and understanding of their implications for other people.

The Bill, as amended, assigns areas of responsibility relating to access and preservation to publishers and deposit libraries. It provides specific protection concerning copyright and liability for defamation relating to contracts under UK law. It also directs the Secretary of State to take particular note of the legislation"s impact on the commercial interests of publishers and of issues of proportionality. I know that the measures will be welcomed by the House.

As noted in Committee and again today, we shall create an independent advisory panel to assist us in drawing up regulations. I reaffirm the commitment made in Committee and shall briefly describe our intentions. I hope that will reassure hon. Members that the Bill is in a fit state to move to another place.

The advisory panel will be constituted of members from the deposit libraries, the publishing industry and other stakeholders, as well as including expert members. We believe that it will be best served by an independent chair who, together with the members, will be able to guide us on drawing up the regulations. It is important that the advisory panel is up and running in advance of proposals for the first set of regulations and we shall take action to ensure that that is so.

Once the panel has been set up, it will play, and will continue to play, a key role in advising the Secretary of State on the preparation, monitoring and review of regulations. We expect that, typically, it might assist in the development of policy on new media that are eligible to be brought under the scope of the measure and would advise on how best to achieve that.

In conclusion, the Bill is important, and I repeat that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, the publishers and the deposit libraries are all to be commended for their work and their engagement during the Bill"s passage through the Commons. The legislation will, no doubt, be implemented slowly, incrementally and, above all, selectively, but it offers the possibility of enhancing the wealth of our national repositories to the ultimate benefit of us all. Against that background, I commend the Bill to the House.

With the leave of the House, I shall do no more than thank my colleagues for their comments and for the opinions expressed during this interesting debate. I single out my right hon. Friend the Minister for her quick grasp of the subject and the hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) for his constructive approach on behalf of the official Opposition.

I commend the Bill to the House and hope that it has a trouble-free passage in the other place.

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

With this we may discuss the following:

New clause 2—CHP targets—

"(1) Before the end of 2003 the Secretary of State must make a statement specifying those measures that he intends to take to move towards the achievement of the generation of 10 GW of electricity by CHP by the end of 2010.

(2) At any time after making the statement mentioned in subsection (1) the Secretary of State may make a further statement specifying those measures he intends to take to increase the generation of electricity by combined heat and power for the period beyond 2010.".

Amendment No. 8, in clause 1, page 1, line 2, after "2004" insert "and ending in 2015".—

Amendment No. 5, in page 1, line 5, leave out paragraph (a) and insert—

"() Achieving a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent. by 2010 based on 1990 levels".—

Amendment No. 6, in page 5, line 4, leave out Clause 5.

My remarks will be brief because I am as keen as anybody to see the Bill on the statute book. I am as disappointed as the promoter, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White), and most Members at the attitude of the Government, which has resulted in the Bill we supported on Second Reading being filleted of all its important targets in the Standing Committee.

New clause 1 is fundamental. Without it, the measure will not exert on the Government the necessary pressure for renewables. It requires that before the end of 2003 the Secretary of State should make a statement specifying the measures he intends to take to move towards the achievement of the generation of 10 per cent. of electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2010.

If that sounds a familiar target, that is because it is—it was included in the Labour party manifesto and in the Government"s White Paper. Successive Ministers have given a commitment to it. In the Standing Committee, the former Minister for Energy and Construction, the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), said:

"I am happy to restate the renewables target, which is that 10 per cent. of our electricity should come from renewable sources of energy by 2010.—[Official Report, Standing Committee C,11 June 2003; c. 5.]

Later, he described the target as "extremely challenging".

Perhaps it was because the target was too challenging that the Government decided to remove references to targets from the Bill. However, I think that such references need to be put back, because since Second Reading we have received the great insights of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. Paragraph 214 of the Committee"s fourth and very thorough report concludes:

"There is no prospect of achieving the target of 10 per cent. renewable generation by 2010 or the aspiration of 20 per cent. by 2020. There is no chance of meeting the Government"s targets for CO₂ reductions if current policies and market conditions remain in place."

The most important part of that is the Select Committee's finding, it having taken a wealth of evidence, that there is no prospect of achieving the 10 per cent. renewables target by 2010, despite that being at the core of the Government"s energy policy.

Is it surprising that everyone regards the Government"s energy policy as being in chaos, and the way in which the Bill has been conducted as a tussle between Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Trade and Industry? The Bill would be immeasurably better if the new clause were included, and I hope that the promoter will accept it.

I am already in trouble for spending my wedding anniversary here rather than at home, but I will perhaps get into more trouble by sympathising with the speech made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). Although stringent targets were originally included in the Bill, they were changed in Committee because of a long series of negotiations, so I sympathise with the points that he makes. However, it took a long time to try to get to a position where the Government, the interest groups and others, as well as the Opposition spokespersons, could accept the Bill. I say spokespersons because the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) is the third official Opposition spokesman on energy with whom I have had to deal in relation to the Bill, and I welcome him to his new post.

No one is entirely happy with the Bill, but everyone can live with it at the moment. Even though I am sorely tempted by the proposal made by the hon. Member for Christchurch, I shall resist it because it would upset the balance. To be fair to the Government, they are taking action on the renewables obligation. They have exempted renewables from the climate change levy. They are putting £350 million into capital grants and research and development. They have changed the planning guidance on renewable energy, and they have set out a strategic framework for offshore wind generation and a programme under the Renewables UK unit.

The hon. Gentleman mentions a missed anniversary: I recommend lnterflora—it works wonders.

The hon. Gentleman lists a catalogue of very positive things, but does he agree that the introduction of the very reasonable target in new clause 1 would only add to the achievements and ambitions that he has outlined?

When I originally proposed what was clause 1, there was a whole series of targets, not just one, such as those in the White Paper. There was a long discussion between the different interest groups and the Government about whether a generalised proposal would achieve those targets. The Government gave certain commitments in Committee that, within that generalised duty, they would report on the specific items in the White Paper. I accepted that commitment from the Minister, and I hope that he will reiterate it now and say that the generalised reporting duty will ensure that those targets are addressed.

Rather than take up valuable time with the Minister reiterating what the hon. Gentleman says he has already said, may I tell the hon. Gentleman that, if he sits down and no one else stands up, it is my intention to withdraw the motion, so that we can move on?

On that basis, I shall sit down.

The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has made a very helpful offer to the House. Of course, I would have opposed his proposal and taken a little time to explain why he was mistaken in some of the points he made about the Government"s approach to such matters. He has made a generous offer, which the House will appreciate. In the light of that good will, I will not put to the House the points that I would have otherwise made.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 2, line 2, leave out from "household" to end of line 3 and insert

"which needs to spend more than 10 per cent.of its income on fuel costs to heat its home to an adequate standard of warmth.

() In this section an adequate standard of warmth means 21(c in the living room and 18(c in other occupied rooms.".

2.15 pm

The amendment would introduce a definition of fuel poverty that is already the standard definition, which, for some reason, is not included in the Bill. The Government say that they are committed to ending fuel poverty or reducing the numbers of people in fuel poverty, but they are prepared to accept a definition of fuel poverty in statute that is only in the most vague and general terms. Why do we not take the opportunity of incorporating into the Bill the same definition of fuel poverty as is contained in the Government"s warm front policies—that anybody is in fuel poverty who must spend more than 10 per cent. of their income on heating their home to a reasonable standard of warmth? That is set out in the amendment. I hope that the promoter of the Bill and the Government will accept the proposal. If not, I will be extremely suspicious that for all the Government"s talk about being keen on reducing fuel poverty, they are actually keen on having a target to reduce something that they are not prepared to define.

My definition was based on that in the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess)—not Basildon, as I have written on my crib note. The point about incomes and the more detailed definition of fuel poverty is absolutely right, and it will be covered in reports. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment.

This is a crucial amendment, and it goes to the heart of whether the Bill is a serious exercise to help the fuel poor or an exercise in trying to claim that we are achieving something that we will not achieve.

I have some knowledge of this matter, as we had a hearing in the Public Accounts Committee on the basis of the National Audit Office report, "Warm front: helping to combat fuel poverty". We found that even the warm front scheme, on which the amendment is supposed to be based, does not address the fuel poor. It is essential to include a benchmark in the Bill to ensure that those who live in most poverty benefit from its provisions. The NAO report found:

"The suitability of passport benefits as a proxy for fuel poverty has not been tested systematically, but some limited exercises suggest that there may be significant numbers of fuel poor (perhaps 35–40 per cent) in these vulnerable groups who are not eligible for Warm Front because they are not claiming benefit or are not entitled to the relevant benefits. Similarly, recent work commissioned by the Scheme managers combined with other data indicates that between 40 and 70 per cent of households eligible for Warm Front may not be fuel poor, because they have a reasonable level of income or live in a home which is already energy efficient."

That brief quote shows the difficulties that are already being encountered with the Government"s warm front scheme, about which we had a long hearing. The very least that we need in the Bill is what is contained in the amendment. At the moment, the provision is so vague that it is virtually unenforceable.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) rightly pointed out, the definition reflects that in existing primary legislation, and is the appropriate one to use. I should point out that both the fuel poverty strategy and the Government"s annual report on progress in implementing the strategy provide information on the basis of the two common definitions of fuel poverty. We are therefore ensuring that the information that everybody needs is placed in the public domain, where it can be accessed. By contrast with the previous Government, this Government have a very strong commitment to make real progress on this issue, as we are now doing.

I find this incredibly disappointing and frustrating. I am tempted to say, "Let"s divide on this", and see whether we can add the provision to the Bill. At the same time, I am conscious that I want to see this Bill, however inadequate, on the statute book. I find it frustrating that the Government are so pig-headed, particularly on something that is of such fundamental importance to millions of our constituents. I know that some Members are minded to say, "Let"s divide", so if I were to seek the leave of the House to withdraw the amendment, perhaps they may wish to resist that. However, if we divide on the amendment, we will not be able to discuss any other aspect of the Bill, but perhaps the Government are already intent on destroying it. None the less, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 3, at end insert—

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

This group of amendments deals with the nuclear industry. There has been a fundamental failure by the Government to incorporate anything sensible about nuclear power in the White Paper. If we are to be serious about reducing carbon emissions, we must recognise that we cannot do away with the 20 per cent. of electricity that is generated by nuclear and replace it with the energy generated by windmills, because not enough windmills will be built quickly enough to replace the energy that would not be generated if our existing nuclear generating capacity were closed. If the Government are to be serious about global warming, they must be much more serious than they have been in recognising that there is and should be a role for nuclear in the future.

The Nuclear Industry Association"s newsletter, "IndustryLink", of June-July 2003 contains an article headed "Grand vision-small promises". It says:

"The Government's long-awaited energy White Paper was published on 24 February. It expounds a grand vision, but promises to deliver very little.

The cornerstone of the White Paper is the ambitious objective of reducing carbon emissions by 60 per cent. from 1990 levels by 2050".

It then says that that aim is not capable of achievement.

The same document refers to what has been happening in Switzerland, where 40 per cent. of electricity is generated by nuclear. Recently, there have been referendums in Switzerland and people have shown their support for nuclear energy when faced with the possible alternatives and their concern about carbon emissions. In Finland, there has been a great development of nuclear power, so why cannot we have a similar vision from the Government here if they are to be serious about energy issues? Some 20 per cent. of our electricity is currently generated by nuclear, but they are keen to phase it out and they have no proposals for an alternative. In the meantime, our nuclear generating industry is losing its best scientists and experts. They are forced to go overseas because they do not see a future for themselves in this country.

This is a serious issue, and the amendments would ensure that its seriousness is brought home to the Government regularly through the legislative procedure contained in the Bill.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need a nuclear debate in this country similar to the one that has just been held in Finland. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth) would be quite right to object if we tried to slip that debate in at 20 minutes past 2 on a Friday afternoon. We need such a debate. Both pro and antinuclear people support the Bill. On that basis, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment but to join me in calling for a proper nuclear debate.

We set out clearly in the energy White Paper our policy on nuclear. It is currently an important source of carbon-free electricity, but its economics are not attractive at present and major issues about nuclear waste are still to be resolved. That is why we have not made any proposals to build new nuclear power stations, but we do not rule out the possibility that, at some point in the future, new nuclear build might be necessary. As my hon. Friend rightly said, there would need to be full public consultation before such a decision was made. Indeed, we have undertaken to publish a further White Paper setting out our proposals if we decide to go down that road. I hope that the House will not accept the amendments.

Again, that was a totally unsatisfactory response from the Minister. Why do we need a further White Paper to discuss nuclear in the future when we already have all the information before us? What is missing is the Government commitment to endorse nuclear as a means of enabling us to reduce carbon emissions. I again express my grave dissatisfaction with the Government"s approach.

A letter from one of my constituents says that replacing nuclear with renewables would result in an enormous bill to the taxpayer that would be far in excess of what would otherwise be necessary. It says that nuclear electricity accounts for about 25 per cent. of total electricity output, and that if British Energy had been supported to the same extent as renewables, its shares would be worth more than £10 each today rather than the 4p at which they currently stand. That shows that the Government have discriminated unfairly against the nuclear industry, including through the climate change levy. I again express my dissatisfaction, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 2, line 7, at end insert

"in respect of residential accommodation and at least one energy efficiency aim in respect of office accommodation.".

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 10, in page 2, line 10, leave out "residential".

No. 11, in line 20, leave out "residential".

No. 12, in clause 3, page 2, line 38, at end insert

"in respect of residential accommodation and at least one energy efficiency aim in respect of office accommodation.".

No. 13, in page 2, line 41, leave out "residential".

No. 14, in page 3, line 8, leave out "residential".

The amendments identify a lacuna in the Bill. The Government sit on an enormous office estate. Those of us who occasionally visit it know that it is overheated, badly designed and wasteful of fuel and energy. However, the Government are prepared to accept only obligations on people with individual houses, which is unsatisfactory. If the Government were to accept the amendments, it would demonstrate that they are serious about their desire to improve energy efficiency.

I had to draw the line in the Bill somewhere. Many people wanted me to include provisions on many things, such as transport. I drew the line where I drew it and although I have sympathy with the points made by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope), I ask him to withdraw the amendment.

I have several problems with the amendments, not least the lack of a clear definition of office accommodation in the Bill, which would cause considerable problems with the Bill"s implementation if they were accepted. I hope that the House will resist the amendments.

I presume that the Minister is saying that he will amend the Bill accordingly when he has a definition of office accommodation. That may be done in the other place if the Bill receives its Third Reading today, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

I shall not object to the Bill receiving its Third Reading, but I hope that the Government are suitably ashamed of the way in which they have destroyed the will of the House by holding the Bill's promoter to ransom and destroying it in Committee so that it is now a pale shadow of its original form.

May I thank the Ministers, their civil servants and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat spokespeople who have helped me greatly to put the Bill together? I thank the sustainable energy partnership and various members of the industry for their work. The Bill does not represent as large a step forward as I would have liked. It is not a panacea but it has useful aspects, and I commend it to the House.

In view of the time, this must be the briefest debut as a Front-Bench spokesman that the House has ever known. I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) on promoting the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has raised extremely important points and I, too, regret the fact that the Bill is considerably weaker than it was when it began its passage through the House. Nevertheless, the official Opposition want the Bill to be passed, as do many people throughout the country.

I warmly welcome the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) to his position and congratulate him on his brief first contribution to our debates. I especially congratulate and commend my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East (Brian White) on his skill and patience while piloting the Bill. I commend to the Bill to the House.

I beg to move amendment No. 91, in page 1, line 7, after "on", insert `adjoining".

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 77, in page 1, leave out lines 9 to 20.

No. 2, in page 1, leave out lines 9 to 22.

No. 92, in page 1, line 14, after "on", insert "adjoining".

No. 55, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

"No complaint shall be made under this Act in relation to a high hedge by the owner or occupier of a domestic property if that property was constructed after the hedge was established.".

No. 71, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

"This Act shall not apply to any land situated within a conservation area".

No. 60, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

'() Nothing in this Act shall apply to a hedge growing in a National Park'.

No. 62, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

"() Nothing in this Act shall apply to a hedge growing in a cemetery or burial ground".

No. 68, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

'() This Act shall not apply to any land situated within a rural area".

No. 70, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

'() This Act shall not apply to any tree which is protected by a tree preservation order".

No. 59, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

"() Nothing in this Act shall apply to a hedge growing in public open space".

No. 61, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

"() Nothing in this Act shall apply to a hedge growing within the curtilege of a school or other educational establishment".

No. 58, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

"() Nothing in this Act shall apply to a hedge situated within 3 metres of any public highway.".

No. 51, in page 1, line 22, leave out subsection (4).

No. 41, in page 1, line 22, at end insert—

"() This Act shall only apply to hedges which were planted or otherwise came into existence after the commencement of the Act.".

No. 3, in page 2, line 6, at end insert

"or prospective owner or occupier.".

No. 69, in page 2, line 12, at end insert

""rural area" means any ward or postcode sector which is outside a settlement of 10,000 or more people".

No. 8, in clause 3, page 2, line 27, leave out "wholly or mainly.