Alex White (Labour)

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 3, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following:

"(4) This Act (other than section 7) shall come into operation on the first making of regulations under section 42A of the Principal Act inserted by section 7.".

I wish to repeat the concern I raised on the last occasion. This amendment deals not so much with a technical issue as with a matter of some substance. There is not a commencement order in the Bill, so in the normal fashion it will commence on enactment. Under the terms of the Bill that means existing exemptions in the principal Act will be repealed. While the exemptions are gone, in the normal run of events it will presumably take the Minister some time to produce regulations to be made under the new lending scheme as envisaged in section 7. That would appear to leave libraries in a legal limbo between the enactment of this legislation and the issuance of regulations to be prepared by the Minister. Will the Minister of State assure the House that the regulations are either already prepared or will be prepared prior to the enactment of this Bill? That seems to be a big ask for the Minister of State to give such an undertaking, so I will await his reply in that regard.

If the new regulations are not in place when this Bill is enacted, there will clearly be a gap. There will be a period of time following the enactment of the Bill — which will remove the exemptions — during which we must await regulations governing the new lending scheme, which is the principal purpose of this amending legislation. I suggest a commencement provision is required, which would allow section 7 to operate immediately, while the repeals would only come into operation on the making of the regulations. That would seem to meet my concern, otherwise libraries might be forced to stop lending books until the regulations were made. That is the implication of not accepting this amendment, which is an attempt to deal with the problem by plugging the gap.