Library Services

Debate between Alison McGovern and Anne Marie Morris

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on securing this debate. I have been struck by the remarks of all the hon. Members who have spoken so far about how passionate we are about library services. In some sense, there is a shared vision that library services are part of our future and not a thing of the past.

A recent ten-minute rule Bill of mine argued that the 1964 Act, which covers library services, should be extended to cover related cultural services as well. That set down a marker and said that not only are cultural services important, but that the Act—limited though it is, and which protects library services—is important and that we should all stand up for it. During that debate, I explained that part of the reason why I am so passionate about libraries is that libraries were not always free in Liverpool. My grandfather used to steal books from Liverpool central library, but I have checked with my dad and apparently he put them back. It is good to use this opportunity to restore the reputation of the McGovern family.

I have two brief points that build on those that have already been made, and I hope that the Minister will respond to them. My first point is on the situation in which local authorities find themselves and how they might go about supporting libraries in difficult times. My second is on the role of the professional librarian and how we can support them and ask them to go further in what they do.

On local authorities, it was great to hear the comments of the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). I did not know that he was previously a leading member, but it is always important to hear from those who have been local authority members. I was a local councillor in the London borough of Southwark, and I learned a great deal from that experience. One thing that I learned is that the best way to make decisions is to consult widely, listen, marshal a great deal of research and think about a vision for the service that fits the needs of the locality. Never mind what central Government say, in dealing with a community, a town centre area or similar, we must ask what they need. We need to think hard about that, which is what the best local authorities do.

Unfortunately, local authorities face a crisis. If we think of local government as another Whitehall Department, it is the one that is under the most financial pressure, because it is being asked to make the deepest cuts and to deliver them in the shortest possible time. How will any leading member of a local authority have the time to do the work that I have just described in terms of understanding the picture of a locality and talking to community groups, especially in areas in which there is poverty? Those of us who have worked with communities that suffer great poverty know that one has to expend a lot of time getting to know people and understanding the issues. I am sure that that experience cuts across the Chamber.

That all takes time, effort and resources, which are three things that local authorities do not have. Local authorities are being forced to look at libraries from the wrong end of the policy telescope. Instead of working out how to deliver a long-term vision and to stack up the financial business plan behind that—either from co-location or from involving the private or voluntary sector—they are being forced to cut first and deal with a vision for the service after. Local authorities are being forced to say, “What can we possibly afford? Okay, well that is what we have to give people.” They do not really have a choice here. As much as it is wonderful to hear comments about the different ways in which we can do things—I absolutely support that—we must be real about the situation that local authorities are in.

I accept the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who is very experienced at working with local authorities. We cannot say that local authorities are in position to do the kind of visionary job that we want them to when they are facing such severe cuts. One thing that the Government have done regarding the role of professional librarians, for which I give them credit, is to re-establish that it is important for politicians to assert trust in the professional. They have talked about trusting GPs and teachers, and they are right to do so. So let us start talking about trusting librarians.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that although the professional librarian is clearly a very important part of the make-up of the library service, the volunteer also plays a considerable part? As a result of reading the transcript of the debate, I would not want volunteers to feel undervalued because, at the end of the day, there are 17,000 people across the library service who give their free time and spend 500,000 million hours every year working in the service. Without them, some of the smaller rural libraries in particular would not survive. In Ipplepen in my part of the world, the old library has been closed and, without those volunteers, we would not be considering moving back to a new library resource in the local village hall.

[Alison McGovern]

Of course, volunteers are important. In fact, last Friday in my constituency, I met a volunteer archivist from Bromborough who does an amazing job. However, if she were here, she would say that, without a library service underpinning that work, it is impossible for volunteers to get the platform on which they need to stand to do the job they want to do. It is chutzpah to imagine that we can substitute volunteers for professionals rather than seeing them as an addition, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has said. That is what most volunteers themselves think that they ought to be. For example, the charity Volunteer Reading Help makes great play of the fact that it provides additional services to schools.

I shall move on, so that I do not take up too much time. We need to trust the professional librarian. In such difficult times, local authorities ought to listen to librarians. In my experience, the librarians that service my constituency in the areas of Heswall, Bromborough, Eastham and Bebington have been incredibly creative in getting other services—for example, the university of the third age—to use their buildings. The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has not once but twice visited Bromborough to encourage a love of poetry and reading. We want to support that kind of creativity but, at the end of the day, that takes a budget. I have already made comments about that. We need to say to local authorities that where they are looking to provide a better service, they must trust the professional librarians they have and encourage them to support volunteers. They should maintain the vision of the public library that hon. Members here today hold so dear and enable those professional librarians to do the job that they are qualified to do.