Library Services

Joan Ruddock Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on obtaining this extremely important debate and on how she presented her case. I will not repeat everything that has been said about the value of libraries, but I agree with the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), particularly about libraries’ value to older people—they help get them out of the house—and to children. In my rather deprived constituency, libraries are critical to the future of children and young people and help supplement their education.

Lewisham council is in a somewhat different position from some of the councils discussed today. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who, like me, has supported saving our libraries, would be here if she were not on a Standing Committee. Lewisham council has 12 libraries, which it has worked hard to reorganise and bring up to date. From 2005-06 to 2009-10, Lewisham invested £6.5 million in capital expenditure on libraries. It also entered into partnerships with Croydon and Bromley councils in order to negotiate jointly new e-book and e-audiobook services. The consequences have been increased library use, increased opening hours and general huge success.

In a constant drive for efficiency, Lewisham has also developed new models. We acquired three additional community libraries over those years. One, at the Pepys resource centre in my constituency, is run by ECO Computer Systems in partnership with Hyde Housing and is supported by local volunteers and, crucially, by the council’s library and information service, which supports new facilities by providing up-to-date stock, delivering professional advice, organising activities and promotions, training partner organisations and offering technical services such as access to online resources.

Lewisham was a beacon Labour council that innovated, widened participation and met the needs of the most vulnerable in the community while reducing costs wherever possible. However, the Tory-led Government have changed all that. Last autumn, like so many other councils, Lewisham was forced to propose closing five libraries as part of the programme of cuts imposed by central Government. Understandably, that led to public outcry with protests and marches as Lewisham council undertook a wide-ranging consultation on how best to meet the Government’s demands. As in all other local authorities in the country, most of the budget was devoted to social care, so it was obvious that our libraries could not be shielded. My bottom line was that we must keep the buildings for community use. The last thing we need in Deptford is another betting shop.

The council agreed to consult further and draw on the experience of the three new libraries. The community response has been amazing. People are determined to keep their library service. Local Labour councillors and community activists are working with people who have never before stepped forward to find a solution to the problem.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

My library service faces severe cuts; eight libraries will be largely turned over to volunteers. The right hon. Lady touches on something that my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) mentioned. Does she not agree that it is incumbent on every local authority to consider its entire property estate to see whether it can combine services in one building in order to reduce maintenance and running costs?

[Joan Ruddock]

Of course. There is no doubt about it. One of the new libraries that I mentioned does exactly that. My council, under a Labour Government, did everything as Labour dictated in order to make the best use of community facilities and become as efficient as possible. That is why we were awarded beacon status.

The community members coming forward are ambitious. They want longer opening hours and further innovations. I am confident that New Cross and Crofton Park libraries in my constituency will be saved. They will certainly have my continued support. The council has received 10 expressions of interest from organisations wishing to take on one or more of the library buildings and run library services from them. It seems like a great success in the making, but we must remember that front-line library jobs will be lost, perhaps forever. Most importantly, community effort can be maintained only with council support and council tax payers’ money. The installation of self-issue technology will be essential to the operation of the libraries, and that is likely to cost about £59,000 per building. The council’s outreach unit will probably be required to contribute more than 100 hours a week to servicing the outreach offer.

The cost of Lewisham’s service was already the lowest in inner London, and the cuts will bring it down to just over £14 per resident. Thanks to the Labour Government’s investment, a new library is due to open in Deptford later this year. But what lies ahead? The cuts being imposed by this Government on Lewisham are already destroying other services. The Deptford job centre has been closed and a second employment advice service, Opening Doors, faces closure as a direct result of the cuts in Government grant. As my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan and for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) have pointed out, it is the young and the unemployed in particular who need library services if they are ever to stand a chance of getting a job and a future career in the present climate.

I am proud of the way in which my community is endeavouring to meet the challenge of library closures, and I hope that the new ways of working will help us meet other challenges, too. However, let no one be in any doubt that this is not a panacea. None of us is going to become a volunteer brain surgeon very soon, and I doubt and would be surprised if many of us would volunteer to change incontinence pads. Whatever we may learn and/or achieve with our libraries in Lewisham, we will still face a Government who are bent on destroying our communities and their prospects.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am grateful to serve under your chairmanship for what I think is the first time, Mr Turner. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on calling this important debate.

I thank hon. Members for some extremely valuable contributions. I thank not only the hon. Member for Wigan, but my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who showed how a go-ahead and visionary local authority can adapt its library authority. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) gave an impassioned defence of her local library service and called for more Government spending as we tackle the deficit. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) rightly said that her county council is making the decisions, some of which she disagrees with, and she is perfectly within her rights, as the local Member, to do so. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) gave an inspired review of what is happening in Lewisham and said the changes there are a great success in the making.

[Joan Ruddock]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

I will just finish my review, if the right hon. Lady does not mind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) reminded us that local authority library services are often debated and that the debate about the future of local libraries did not begin on 6 May 2010. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who has introduced a ten-minute rule Bill, reminded us again of her passion for libraries. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) mentioned e-books, which are very important indeed. There are complicated issues surrounding e-books, not least to do with the future of this country’s publishing, which is our most important and successful creative industry. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) ended the Back-Bench contributions by making an impassioned plea for me to intervene in the library service in his area.

The Labour party spokesman, the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) made a wonderfully engaging speech, which ended with a series of questions for me, but let me also ask her a few questions. I would hate to think that her speech shared the same motivation as that by the hon. Member for Wigan, who revealed what was behind her speech in replying to an intervention when she said that “this is all politics”. The hon. Member for Ashfield asked whether I would guarantee the future of the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. Yes, unlike the previous Labour Government, who showed rank hypocrisy in publishing a document on the modernisation of the library service just as they were running out of time. Their Minister with responsibility for libraries published a document asking whether we still need a statutory library service. If Labour had been re-elected, it would have got rid of the statutory library service, but Opposition Members now shed tears for the library service. When I campaigned against the closures proposed by the Labour council in the Wirral, where were Opposition Members? Again, rank hypocrisy.