Nigel Huddleston corrected a written answer on Public Lending Right

22 October 2021 · Commons written answer · Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion) asked written question 57257 on 15 October 2021. Nigel Huddleston answered on 20 October 2021 for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Nigel Huddleston corrected the answer on 22 October 2021. The correction replaced 2 figures (£1, £6,600) with 1 figure (20,911). Altogether 156 words differ between the two versions.

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many authors received compensation through the Public Lending Right in (a) Wales, (b) Scotland, (c) Northern Ireland and (d) England in 2019.

Original and corrected answer

Struck through: original only. Bold: correction only.

Original	Corrected
~~The~~ Public Lending Right ~~Act 1979 provides a right for authors, known as~~ the ~~“public lending right”, to receive payments from a central fund for the loan of their books to the public by local library authorities.~~ The ~~central fund is provided from government grant-in-aid, and~~ the PLR Scheme ~~is administered for DCMS~~ by the British Library. The PLR Scheme sets out how to calculate the payments that authors can expect to receive from the central fund and this is calculated, and recommended to the government, by the British Library using the number of ~~‘notional loans’ of their books from public libraries~~ in the ~~UK. The PLR Scheme sets out a maximum payment threshold per author of £6,600 and the minimum level for authors to receive payments is £1.~~	For the Public Lending Right (PLR) Scheme year 2019/20, PLR payments were made to 20,911 registered authors in the United Kingdom. The British Library, which administers the PLR Scheme on behalf of the department, does not maintain a record of payments to authors by country of residence in the United Kingdom.

Original

Corrected

~~The~~ Public Lending Right ~~Act 1979 provides a right for authors, known as~~ the ~~“public lending right”, to receive payments from a central fund for the loan of their books to the public by local library authorities.~~ The ~~central fund is provided from government grant-in-aid, and~~ the PLR Scheme ~~is administered for DCMS~~ by the British Library.
The PLR Scheme sets out how to calculate the payments that authors can expect to receive from the central fund and this is calculated, and recommended to the government, by the British Library using the number of ~~‘notional loans’ of their books from public libraries~~ in the ~~UK. The PLR Scheme sets out a maximum payment threshold per author of £6,600 and the minimum level for authors to receive payments is £1.~~

For the Public Lending Right (PLR) Scheme year 2019/20, PLR payments were made to 20,911 registered authors in the United Kingdom. The British Library, which administers the PLR Scheme on behalf of the department, does not maintain a record of payments to authors by country of residence in the United Kingdom.

The question and answer on the Parliament website.

Receipt

Read from	https://questions-statements-api.parliament.uk/api/writtenquestions/questions/1360275?expandMember=true
Date read	15 October 2026
SHA-256	`408ebfa78b2a5efe739227ba750542889e25fc81cd9b36f4c84726781c94f342`