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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding her Department will provide to local authorities in England to maintain and run libraries in the next 12 months.

Local authorities are responsible for funding and providing public library services in England, and made net investment of £701 million in 2015/16. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has additionally provided funding support for library authorities throughout England. This included funding a £2.6 million programme to support the installation or upgrade of wifi in public libraries in England; benefitting around 1,000 libraries, and enabling over 99% of public libraries to offer free wifi. DCMS also financed the £3.9m Libraries: Opportunities for Everyone fund to support innovative library service activity to benefit disadvantaged people and places in England. The Government will continue to encourage local authorities to invest in libraries to ensure that they remain relevant and meet the needs of the community.