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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to provide assistance to public libraries to address digital exclusion.

DCMS is engaging with national Digital Engagement partners to help users of public libraries get online and to tackle digital exclusion. Thanks to Government funding, over 99% of public libraries in England will provide free access to Wi-Fi from March 2016. BT and Barclays have worked together to provide free Wi-Fi in 100 libraries and community centres in deprived areas across England; and Lloyds Banking Group and Halifax Community Bank have piloted a scheme to match local branch staff with libraries to deliver basic digital skills training to adults in the UK. Tackling digital exclusion is also one of the priorities of the Leadership for Libraries Taskforce, established in 2015 by DCMS and the Local Government Association. The Taskforce has been working in partnership with the Tinder Foundation on new approaches through libraries to build digital skills in socially excluded, hard to reach groups and address digital exclusion.