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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support libraries in Eastbourne.

Public libraries are funded by local authorities and each local authority is responsible for assessing the needs of their local communities and designing a library service to meet those needs within available resources.

The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires the Secretary of State to “superintend and promote the improvement of the public library service provided by local authorities in England”. To assist this function the department regularly monitors local authority library service provision.

I understand that as at 31 December 2023 the statutory library provision delivered by East Sussex County Council was 17 local authority-run static libraries. Two of these static libraries are located in the Eastbourne constituency: Eastbourne and Hampden Park.

We are committed to ensuring that funding is targeted effectively at the places and services that need it most and allocated in a way that empowers local leaders to deliver against local priorities. Recent decisions taken at the Spending Review result in an average real terms increase in local authority core spending power of 2.6% per year between 2026-27 to 2028-29.