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Scientific Publications: Free for all?

I welcome the opportunity to debate the Science and Technology Committee's 10th report of session 2003–04, ““Scientific Publications: Free for all?”” I am delighted that the former Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson), is present. I want to put on record my thanks and that of the Committee for all the work that the hon. Gentlemen did on this report. We shall see by the end of the debate whether the people in the Gallery think that his work on this report is noteworthy. I am also delighted that other former members of the Committee are here to debate the report. I confess that the market for scientific journals did not feature prominently either in my postbag or on my radar before I became the Chairman of the Committee. It soon did. Of all the issues that I have been involved with in the past six months, this is the one that has created the most heat, and sometimes the most light. I hope that there will be more light than heat today. I have been staggered at the level of interest and the intensity of feeling on the subject, which tends to divide both the academic and publishing communities and which sees Ministers running for cover, although I hope that that will not be the case today. Only last week, 40 fellows of the Royal Society, which is not noted for its protests, wrote to protest at the position that the Royal Society had recently adopted on open access publishing. My task is to put the issue of scientific publications into context, to provide an overview of what the Committee's report did and did not say, to trace significant developments since the Committee reported and the Government replied, and to ask the Minister where we go next.