Alex White (Labour)

The proposed amendment will deal precisely with the Minister's area of concern. The Bill potentially contains a serious flaw in this respect. There is no commencement date specified in the Bill, and in the normal run of events such a Bill commences upon its enactment. This means that the exemption in the principal Act for lending by libraries will be repealed. However, it will take some time for the regulations under section 7 to be made. Unless the Minister can allay our concerns, it seems that libraries will be left in a legal limbo between the time of enactment and the arrival of the regulations. For this reason, we propose a commencement provision which will allow section 7 to operate immediately but will prevent the repeal of the exemption for libraries until the regulations are made. Otherwise, there may be a gap in which libraries are forced to stop lending books until the regulations are made. The Bill in its current form does not appear to address this.