Libraries: Local Government Finance Settlement

Lord Tope Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My noble friend makes a brilliant point. There was a 20% increase in volunteers working in libraries last year. Some local authorities are embedding this into their statutory service, as in Buckinghamshire. The Government are encouraging this joint provision because it will help to take our brilliant libraries—there are 3,000 across the UK—into the future.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister is right that it is local government’s responsibility to make the decisions on how to implement the Government’s severe budget cuts to local government, but does she accept that it is central government’s responsibility under the 1964 Act to ensure that there is a comprehensive and efficient library service, to which she referred, and which is the responsibility under the 1964 Act? If so, when and how are the Government going to implement that responsibility?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, the duty is of course on local authorities, but the noble Lord is right: the Secretary of State has a statutory power to intervene when an authority fails to provide the required service. Complaints that a local authority may be failing are considered very carefully by my department, case by case. The closure of a library branch, or branches, is not necessarily a breach of the 1964 Act—but of course we keep this under very careful scrutiny, as he knows, and publish a report on libraries every year, which is very important.