Public Libraries

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The noble Lord is ahead of me if he is confident that 10% of the fund will be allocated to libraries; my understanding is that the split between museums and libraries has not yet been determined. On revenue funding, both elements are important and we are seeing that the successful libraries are the ones that are being most innovative in responding to the needs of their communities, including in digital literacy and other services that they offer. The funding settlement for local authorities this year will help contribute to sustaining that.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I have some confusion in interpreting the figures that are constantly put by one Minister after another giving an indication of the Government’s commitment to the Question currently under discussion. They sound like huge amounts, but I have no way of conceptualising them as percentages of or trends towards the kind of progress that we must surely all want. I heard the figures, but can the Minister guess—or, perhaps, do even better—whether the five-year plan she announced a moment ago will undo the losses of the 10-year lack of a plan that is just ending?

[Baroness Barran]

I do not want to guess at the Dispatch Box, as ministerial careers get cut short if one makes a habit of that, but it is clear that there is massive divergence between the top-performing libraries —the 25% which are seeing their footfall grow—and those which are seeing their footfall decline. We are trying to understand from those very successful libraries how to replicate that more broadly across the country. One thing that certainly comes out of this is that commissioned libraries appear to be disproportionately represented in that rapidly growing element, so perhaps there is also something about visibility of funding which helps in planning.