British Library Board (Power to Borrow) Bill

Rob Butler Excerpts

Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bim Afolami]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is worth saying that in 2013 many DCMS-sponsored museums—such as Kew Gardens, the British Film Institute, Historic England and the Ministry of Defence museums—were given 12 operational freedoms to help them become more financially independent and access finance for new projects, through commercial revenues, philanthropic donations and the like. Of the 12 freedoms, the British Library has 11. It is just that the 12th was prohibited by the 1972 Act, which this Bill seeks to change. My hon. Friend is indeed right that this Bill will bring the British Library up to date with other similar museums.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend could explain how the British Library will repay the money it borrows, because we are the party of responsible borrowing, as he knows, and indeed as the Chancellor outlined in his Budget only this week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bim Afolami]

The answer is that some would be charged for and some would not. I repeat the example I gave a few minutes ago about membership. If there were a members’ area in the British Library—it has one at the St Pancras site but if it wanted to extend that model to one of the public libraries across the country—members would pay a subscription that enabled them to go to a certain part of the library. There would also probably be a café in that part of the library, which would obviously charge for food and drink: coffee, tea and the like. Again, the café would be making commercial revenue and the members would pay, but that would not prevent people from going to the library, using the computers, borrowing books, getting advice for their business and so on entirely for free. It is a mixture and it would really depend on the part of the country people are in.

One of the things we have thankfully moved away from in this country over the last 10 or 15 years is the idea that one centralised model works everywhere. I know that libraries operate in my constituency differently from how they operate in the constituency of the hon. Member for Batley and Spen. It is just different: the demographics are different, the ages of people wanting to do things are different; the atmosphere is different; the landscape is different; the sorts of companies people want to set up are different; and the types of books people borrow are different. This is about giving our institutions enough freedom that they can move forward and innovate in an entrepreneurial way, but do that locally in a way that is locally based and locally sourced.

It is time that we gave the British Library the same freedom to borrow, the same flexibility and the same opportunities that so many other cultural institutions have, because this country will benefit from that. The British Library overall will benefit, both in St Pancras and in west Yorkshire. The expanding network of public library hubs will benefit. Indeed, the British people, whom we were all elected to represent, will benefit.

In speaking to colleagues about this Bill, they have been generally supportive, but I was asked one question more than any other. Indeed, I touched on it when my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) made this point earlier. What happens if the British Library borrows money and cannot pay it back? Just to reiterate, should the British Library apply for and receive a Government loan, it would have to pay it back, and if it did not pay it back either in part or in full, the grant in aid would be reduced correspondingly, and the British Library would have to adjust to that reduction in revenue. Ultimately, it would have to make sure that the public purse—the taxpayer—did not lose out as a result of the Bill. It is very important that the House recognises that point.

Some people, although I definitely do not agree with them, have mentioned—[Interruption.] Yes, this sounds like a straw man, but it is actually true. Some people have said that what libraries actually need to do is to move entirely online and get rid of the physical books. [Interruption.] No one here—good—but some people do think that. Indeed, I know some people do because, when I was speaking to the Department about the Bill and thinking about the questions people had already been asking and what had come up, one of the main things that came up was, “Bim, you’re going to have to have an answer to this question”.

So I thought about an answer to the question. My view is that there has to be a mix. Yes, we have to have physical collections, but we also have to match them with digital collections, a good online presence and digitising things where we can so that we can share them across the world—for example, for a school kid doing a project. We all remember having to do projects at school, and we had to go to a library and do all these things. The worse one I had to do was something on the WWF. I spent lots of time working on it, until, the night before, I realised it was meant to be about the World Wildlife Fund, rather than the World Wrestling Federation, which meant I did not get a very good mark. I do not know why I have shared that with everybody, but I have been living with the shame for a long time.

[Rob Butler]

Does my hon. Friend agree that actually there is a distinct joy in having a physical book and turning the pages that simply cannot be replicated by moving everything online and having an entirely digital world?

[Bim Afolami]

I agree so strongly, as somebody who owns well over a thousand books. My wife is always complaining that I buy more books than I can read.

The philosopher/hedge fund manager Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote a famous book called “The Black Swan”, but in his book “Antifragile” he makes the persuasive point that if we really want to judge how long a type of technology will be around, we should look at how long it has already been around, because that actually tells us more about it than anything else. In every single age, we all think that the new thing will be the thing that endures, but of course what tends to happen is the new thing is replaced by another new thing and so on. Books are not a new thing. Books have been around for a long time, and I am sure that books will be around for centuries to come.

Before I conclude my remarks, to everybody’s joy—[Interruption.] There was too much laughter from the Whip at that. What is the point of libraries in the modern world? We have talked about access to learning, digital, soft power and levelling up, all sorts of things, but the real point, I think, of libraries—and where the British Library is so important and why it needs this power—is that libraries help to strengthen communities. They help to provide a place for people to go, where they can come together, but yet be solitary at the same time. Thriving libraries in our communities, in our towns, cities and villages all across the country, are one of the things that if we can support them in this Parliament—and the British Library can help play its role in doing that—we will be serving our constituents very well indeed.

The Bill is a small but critical piece of legislation to help strengthen our communities, to help level up the country, to help improve our soft power, to help bring the British Library into the modern world, and to help improve the access that entrepreneurs and people who want to start their own business have to quality advice. It is a small thing, but it could become a big thing, and it could be a big thing for all our constituents and in all our constituencies. I ask the House to support the Bill.