Books

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the role of books in promoting a civilised society.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, about 450 years ago Michel de Montaigne said:

“When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind”.

Montaigne was a great example of a man who tried to live what he believed. He was tolerant, even when sorely provoked. He was hospitable to strangers, even though he lived in a time of feuds and war. He was always a prolific writer and reader, even while councillor and legal adviser to parliaments and kings. His essays are as vivid and relevant today as when he wrote them some 450 years ago. His diaries and essays reach out to me across the centuries.

That is the point of books. They can reach across centuries and national borders and promote comprehension of other cultures and other nationalities. Books are increasingly important, being reflective in our age of instant reactions. Books take us beyond ourselves to a wider humanity. I passionately believe that books promote understanding, tolerance and reflective attitudes in societies. Noble Lords will be able to recall many intolerant regimes which have destroyed tablets or scrolls or books as one of their first acts of aggression before turning against their own people or other people. Noble Lords have only to look at the list by Index on Censorship to see that the world is still not free from that sort of tyranny against the written word.

We in the UK have a terrific tradition of free speech and a free press. That freedom has relied on the book trade to nurture authors, their ideas and the books they write. I am sure that other noble Lords today will speak of how important this is to a number of matters, such as education, the role of libraries and other important issues. I will concentrate on the part that the Government can play in keeping that proud tradition of a vibrant, creative book trade.

It is a time of great change in the book trade. Much of that change comes from the move from print to digital. That move offers opportunities, but it also comes with enormous risks. There is a lot to be positive about. The book trade is worth £3 billion a year to the UK, and the quality and range of British writing is recognised around the world. Forty percent of publishing industry revenues are derived from exports, a bigger proportion than in any other country. The UK is the largest e-book market in Europe.

The past 20 years have seen a huge rise in the number of book clubs, literary festivals and creative writing courses. Book prizes highlighting all the new writing are sponsored by imaginative parts of the corporate world, such as Costa, Baileys and of course Man Booker, so the corporate world is playing its part. The National Literacy Trust’s 2013 study of children’s and young people’s reading was sponsored by the international law firm Slaughter and May. The appetite for reading is very healthy but—and this is a big “but”—the money made by authors has fallen by some 30% in the past decade. As a former bookseller, I am really sad to say that the number of independent bookshops in the UK is now fewer than 1,000. That is down by 500 over the past few years. Publishers face a dramatic challenge in the rise of self-publishing.

The book trade as we have known it is metamorphosing. The Government have a part to play in ensuring that the outcome is a continual flowering of creative talent. There are four practical ways in which they can help.

The first is with copyright. As I have said, it is a time of rapid change from print to digital. There are pressures to relax or ignore laws on copyright, which would be a really bad move. Happily, the Government have already made a move in the right direction. In March 2013, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, announced £150,000 of government money to fund the innovative Copyright Hub, the development and growth of which he said could add £2.2 billion per year to the UK economy by 2020. The hub will support open and competitive markets for copyright licences, present a more efficient online marketplace and cut costs for businesses. Importantly, it will simplify copyright licensing for customers—that includes everyone from the public to schools. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that further disruptive changes to copyright law at both UK and EU levels must be resisted? Can he update us on how the Copyright Hub’s development is progressing?

Secondly, author incomes have fallen in real terms by about 30% in the past 10 years, so fair contracts are incredibly important. Oddly, the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 excluded intellectual property. Given how valuable the creative industries are to the UK, surely this is an urgent issue for UK plc as well as for authors. Will the Minister see whether the Consumer Rights Bill offers an opportunity to remove this anomaly and to provide fair contract protection to authors and other IP creators?

The third issue has been on the table since I was a bookseller in the 1970s and the 1980s. It is the threat of removal of zero-rated VAT on books, which is still a live issue. No Government since the Second World War have elected to tax books, but there is now some pressure—I think coming from the European Commission—to end 0% VAT on printed books. Are the Government committed to maintaining zero-rated VAT on print books? What about e-books? They attract a 20% VAT rate, but a couple of other EU countries which really value their books, France and Luxembourg, have unilaterally reduced the rate of VAT on e-books. Will the Government follow their positive policy and reduce VAT on all books, e-books included?

The fourth issue is the rise of Amazon, which has a big share of print sales but almost a monopoly—around 90%—in the e-book market. As we know, it has a disgraceful attitude towards paying its taxes—that is a slightly different issue. Given that Amazon has a 90% share of the e-book market, will the Minister ask the Competition and Markets Authority whether that constitutes a monopoly and, if so, to act accordingly?

There are therefore several practical things that the Government can do, but they need to be aware that they are one of the main drivers in the attitude and framework surrounding books. They are doing lots of positive things; for example, the involvement of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills with the Creative Industries Strategy, which it has just developed. The Department for Education has certainly created a debate around books, with the slightly negative comments from the Secretary of State about Steinbeck and Harper Lee. He is perhaps a little misguided in thinking that there is not a place for a globalised attitude to literature. Although UK writers should always have a special place in our literature courses, I would hope that our children are studying literature from China to Colombia to Russia.

The Government set an attitude, and perhaps the most negative is that of the right honourable Chris Grayling about books for prisoners. The support for the Howard League for Penal Reform and the English PEN campaign on this issue goes far beyond people who normally worry about prisoners. I very much look forward to hearing the remarks of my noble friend Lord Dholakia with all his experience of rehabilitation, and to what he will say in greater detail about this issue. Indeed, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have chosen to speak today and who will share their perspectives on the critical issue of the role of books in our society.