Public Libraries (England)

Steve Reed Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown]

Thank you.

Some hon. Members present may believe that libraries should or will be consigned to history, and that the rise of the e-book and digital services will render libraries obsolete. Those Members should remember that one in five families in this country do not have internet access at home. Although we have seen a drastic rise in the number of internet users in coffee shops, half our libraries still do not have wi-fi. To respond to the changing needs of the 21st century, the library offer must adapt and change. That, just like the people’s network, will take real commitment and leadership from the Government—or a Government, perhaps I should say.

Our local authorities were once the mainstay of cultural funding throughout the UK. Today, they are underfunded and reduced. They are struggling. Even the local authorities with the best practice are being forced into taking previously unthinkable action. Gateshead, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and many others that have been successful over many decades are struggling to maintain a decent cultural offer. Indeed, one Tory council, Barnet—which, when I was chair of the Local Government Association culture services executive, had beacon status for its libraries—is now consulting on service reductions. It posits a choice between closing six out of 14 libraries and cutting the space in 10 out of 14 libraries to what it describes as the size of a living room.

The council proposes to rent out the rest of that community-owned space as commercial offices. I understand that Labour’s candidate in Finchley and Golders Green, Sarah Sackman, is doing all she can to stop those vicious closure proposals. I wish her and all the other library campaigners across the country well.

[Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate on an important topic that matters so much to so many of our communities. She mentioned a consultation run by one Conservative-controlled council in north London. Would she like to comment on Croydon council, which, under the Conservatives, consulted local people on how they wanted their libraries to be run—so far, so good—but subsequently privatised the libraries, even though that had not been one of the options for consideration during the consultation?

[Lyn Brown]

I think it is awful that a council would go out to consultation on an option and then disregard the views that people express. I cannot conceive of that. I understand that councils are struggling enormously under the cuts that the Government are making, so essential services such as libraries are at risk. At one time, Croydon council’s libraries were considered to be among the best that we had to offer in the capital.

[Lyn Brown]

What astounds me about the Minister’s contribution is that he does not seem to think that he has any responsibility in this debate. He wants to offload the responsibility on to councils, but he has offered very little leadership to enable those councils to take decisions collectively to make the best of their resources. I do not understand how the Minister has the brass neck.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend will have heard, as I did, the Minister cite Lambeth as a Labour-controlled council that has closed libraries. In fact, Lambeth has opened a new library in Clapham and has closed no libraries at all. Does she agree that the Minister should withdraw his comment and apologise?

[Lyn Brown]

I think it would be a jolly good idea for the Minister to withdraw what he said and apologise. I will give way to him if he wishes to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

I am happy to do that, although I was going to come to that at the end of my speech. Resources are clearly one of the most important problems. The worst thing about what the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government have done is take out the needs element from the local authority funding formula. That means that in Surrey, Berkshire and Dorset the local authorities have received 1% increases in their resources, whereas in Durham, Liverpool and Hackney, the places where council services and libraries are most needed, the cuts are the biggest. A Labour Government would rejig the formula within the overall envelope, to take the pressure off the hardest pressed local authorities.

[Mr Steve Reed]

Is my hon. Friend familiar with the way Croydon and Wandsworth councils, which were at the time both run by the Conservatives, attempted to secure value from their libraries by putting them all out for tender jointly? Wandsworth chose the best value bid in the tender operation. Croydon chose the worst value bid, and happened to go with a firm of builders with which it had a £450 million property development joint venture. Will my hon. Friend comment on that example of Conservative values?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend has set out something that is of extreme concern to the people of Croydon. I wonder whether what the council did was legal. To issue consultation, ignore it and then take into account completely different factors does not seem to me to hold water.

In Lincolnshire a Tory local authority decided that it wanted to close three quarters of the libraries. It is very different from Croydon—a large rural area needing a totally different library service. A consultation was held, which was so inadequate that local library campaigners took the council to the High Court and won. It had not been properly carried out and the council must now do it all again. Would not it have been better to carry it out properly in the first place? That is what we think. It is similar to the Croydon case and shows that local authorities must take their responsibilities seriously, which is not happening at the moment. The Minister does not provide the leadership that he should.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman]

Once again, a colleague has anticipated what I was going to say. My hon. Friend is right.

There seems to be quite a lot of confusion regarding numbers. The Minister says that he produces an annual report. We have figures from the trade unions and from the Carnegie UK Trust. I do not want to debate statistics, but it is clear that library provision is down, and that is not helpful to many communities.

[Mr Reed]

Will my hon. Friend consider visiting the Upper Norwood joint library, which will be opening five days a week instead of just three because the newly elected Labour administration in Croydon has reinstated £50,000 of the funding that was cut by the previous Conservative administration?

[Helen Goodman]

I am very pleased to hear what is happening in my hon. Friend’s constituency and congratulate the Labour local authority responsible.

Despite the unhappy austerity that libraries face, there is a growing consensus about the role of libraries in modern Britain. The professional bodies have done a lot of work on that. The Society of Chief Librarians feels that every library should offer four things. The first, obviously, is books and reading; the second is information; the third is action to facilitate digital inclusion; and the fourth is health and well-being. I have sparred with the Minister on several occasions about the need for more Government action on digital inclusion, and the Government’s failures on broadband, and there is no need to go over it all again today. Suffice it to say that 5 million households are not online, and 11 million people lack basic online skills. Digital exclusion is a problem for many groups of people—not just old people, but also young people and, particularly, people on low incomes. Under the previous Government we had the People’s Network. A massive investment was rolled out through the library service. The present Government do next to nothing on digital inclusion. I have urged the Minister more than once to switch £75 million from his failing SuperConnected Cities programme into digital inclusion. I further urge that the best location for that would be in the public library service, which would give a boost to the libraries and to digital inclusion.

The geographical aspect of access also matters. It was fantastic that campaigners in Lincolnshire won some of their points in the High Court. It goes to show how, when a determined group of local people put their mind to it, they can achieve things for their community. It is not acceptable that people in a rural area should have to travel for more than an hour to reach a public library. I do not know why the Minister did not intervene, but I know why one of the professional bodies has passed a vote of no confidence in him, given that he has not intervened in any of the places in question.