Library Services

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Lisa Nandy]

I am aware of the campaign that my hon. Friend has mentioned, and she is a passionate supporter of it.

I gave the example of my Wigan borough, because it shows that libraries can continue to improve and to be relevant, but they need investment. In researching this debate, I was pleased to see that web hits on libraries nationally are up by 4%, which shows that libraries are starting to adapt to changing usage and that they can be a success. I say to the Minister that library usage is undeniably changing, so by all means let us debate the future and the improvement of such services, but let us not pretend that libraries can be run on thin air and that this Government are presiding over anything other than the unravelling of one of the great steps forward in civilised society.

I have heard a great deal of talk about volunteers, and the hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) has asked me about them. Coming from the charity sector, I am well aware of the value of volunteers, but we cannot run a service on volunteers alone. We need infrastructure and paid staff. To suggest that volunteers can take the place of skilled librarians is an insult and not something with which I want to be associated.

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

Does the hon. Lady have a specific reference to someone saying that volunteers should take the place of librarians?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. I expect that the Minister will go back and have strong words with his colleagues as a result of this conversation.

[Mr Vaizey]

indicated dissent.

[Lisa Nandy]

In conclusion, this is a test of whether this Government value not just libraries but communities. If the Minister takes this step, there will be no way back for generations. I urge him to ensure that libraries are protected. If he will not, I urge communities to make themselves heard on the national day of action on 5 February.

--- 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.

[Alison McGovern]

rose—

[Mr Vaizey]

I will finish my opening remarks.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

I will give way to my hon. Friend.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Lady has had a chance to speak. I have been sitting here, but I have not had a chance to speak. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the way in which he is approaching the subject, but I tell him that Gloucestershire has received the worst local authority settlement in the country. Seven of the eight libraries in my area face the prospect of being cut to volunteer-only services. Will my hon. Friend’s officials work with Gloucestershire county council to make sure that it is given every possible support? Even a volunteer library requires seed corn to keep it going. Incidentally, this is not only about libraries being cut to volunteer services, because Gloucestershire’s mobile library service is being cut altogether.

[Mr Vaizey]

I will certainly give my hon. Friend that commitment. I will explain exactly what the Government are doing in a minute. First, however, given that this is all politics, let me perhaps correct some of the impressions given by Opposition Members. The hon. Member for Wigan opened by saying that libraries in her local authority had no future.

[Alison McGovern]

I feel driven to intervene because the Minister mentioned Wirral, which is where my constituency is situated. Will he tell us why, if Labour is not committed to the 1964 Act, a Labour Secretary of State used it to inquire into what was happening in Wirral?

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady will have to ask him—first, because this is all politics and, secondly, because I asked him to do it; indeed, I had to push him, kicking and screaming, to do it.

Every local library is different, but there is a lot of good news on local libraries. For example, Wigan will potentially be part of the Greater Manchester future libraries pilot project, which has already identified 15% savings if the authorities involved work together. Despite the fact that the hon. Member for Wigan said that her libraries have no future, £1.5 million has been invested—

[Lisa Nandy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

No, I will not give way, because I have only five minutes left.

The number of visitors to libraries in Wigan has risen by 13%. Tower Hamlets closed libraries, but it did so with a strategic vision, re-engineering them and turning them into idea stores. Calling libraries idea stores upset some traditionalists, but visits to idea stores have gone through the roof. Despite reducing its budget, Hillingdon has kept all its libraries open and refurbished them under the inspired leadership of Councillor Henry Higgins. This week, I met representatives of Havering, which is pioneering signing up kids and babies to libraries. The London Libraries Consortium—12 authorities working across London—has already made enough savings to increase opening hours substantially. Swindon, which I visited in opposition—I invited a prominent library campaigner to visit Old Town library with me, but he told me he was too busy—has invested £10 million in a central library and has moved the Old Town library to an arts centre, where there have been more visits. Lancashire has pioneered the “Get it Loud in Libraries” scheme. What happens also depends on how people go about things. The local authority in Leeds is closing libraries, but it is doing so in a strategic way and bringing the local population with it.

I have not sat back. My first speech as a Minister was on libraries, when I communicated my passion and support for libraries. I said it was right—I think it is right—that local library users challenge a local authority that is planning to close libraries. My first executive action as a Minister was to set up the future libraries programme, because I felt passionately in opposition that much of the innovation in good library authorities was not being communicated to many authorities that were perhaps not so innovative and which did not have such a go-ahead approach. After the debate, I will meet some of the local authorities involved in the 10 pilot projects. I also made sure that the Local Government Association was involved in the project from the start, because libraries are a local authority service.

I recently wrote to every local authority in the country—there are 151 library authorities, and I have gone on record as saying that that is too many and that people should be thinking about cross-border working and mergers to reduce overhead costs—to remind them of the statutory duty, which still exists thanks to the election of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government and despite Labour’s plans to get rid of it.

At any one time, local authorities are considering their plans, and almost every library closure that has been mentioned today is a proposal—these things are being consulted on. In Oxfordshire, in my own backyard, the proposals will undergo a three-month consultation. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), let me say that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council—I pay tribute to Roy Clare, who is a fantastic leader of that organisation—is working with authorities to show them ways of moving forward without necessarily closing all the proposed libraries.

No hon. Member can say with all honesty that no library should ever close in any local authority area. We need a strategic vision. The good thing that came out of the Wirral inquiry, apart from the fact that the Wirral’s libraries were saved, was that the Charteris report now provides local authorities with clear guidelines on how they should reorganise their library service, if that is what they want to do.

Some 75% of children and 40% of adults visit libraries. Unlike the hon. Member for Wigan, who introduced the debate, I think that libraries have a future. We talked about the potential closure of the Kensal Rise library, which was opened by Mark Twain, and despite the best efforts of Opposition Members, I have to say that the death of libraries has been greatly exaggerated. It is up to local communities, working with local councillors, to keep our libraries open, with volunteers supplementing and working with librarians, rather than replacing them. All of us who care about libraries must work passionately to save this service and make it as effective as possible, instead of spreading pointless scare stories.