Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will have discussions with local authorities on the long-term effect of the speaking of Welsh of inter-library loan charges for Welsh language books.

Public libraries are funded and run by local authorities. It is for each local authority to determine operational matters such as its stock management policy, including participation in an inter-library loan service. This is a co-operative and voluntary agreement among libraries which allows books and other materials from one library to be loaned out to a user from another.

Library services providing an inter-library loan service can apply charges for all book titles requested for borrowing from other library services, and are not limited to Welsh language books.