Publishing Industry

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

I declare an interest as a director of the Telegraph Media Group. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is to be congratulated on securing this important debate. Publishing is the lifeblood of a free society. It forms the basis of democracy, our education system and our creative industries; yet its future is uncertain because of the massive impact of digital. Every publisher is faced with the central challenge: adapt your business model or die.

However, in order to find time to adapt, traditional publishers need two things; namely, as little regulation as possible and as much protection for the absolute right to copyright as possible. Both are under attack. I want to flag up three ways in which the Government can help. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said about VAT. As printed material in the UK rightly attracts a zero rate, it is wrong that the electronic equivalent attracts the full 20% rate, which leaves UK publishers at a real commercial disadvantage. Given the rapid development of this market, there is now an urgent need to remove or reduce VAT on electronic publications. I would ask my noble friend if he would talk to his very kindly friends at the Treasury on this point.

As regards music publishers, I should declare an interest as a member of the Royal College of Music Council. Music publishing is an incredibly important business because it is at the core of our creative industries and certainty about copyright is crucial for it to flourish. Of specific concern therefore is the Government’s plan to water down copyright protection—again, the noble Lord mentioned it—which is of fundamental importance to its existence through extending the exceptions for educational use by introducing a so-called “fair dealing exception” which will be available to “all organisations and individuals”. This will increase exemptions in this area to include one-to-one music lessons, Saturday music services and music clubs, and could lead to a proliferation of photocopying of sheet music, which would be a real loss for the UK music publishing industry at a time when it is trying to make life easier for schools which want to copy musical work. I ask my noble friend to ensure that any scheme is sufficiently carefully drafted to protect small, specialist providers of educational material. Perhaps he could write to me to explain how the fair dealing exception will work.

Finally, I come to newspaper and magazine publishing, where the internet has been fiercest. Here we need to ensure that the press in the UK is not subject to any form of statutory content controls which would hugely disadvantage it with global competition. But proposals from the EC High-Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism would usher in a draconian European system of controls, including proposals to force media councils to ensure that newspapers comply with European values. These proposals would push the EU into an information dark age and the Government must do everything that they can to stop it. I ask my noble friend for his support on my three points.