My Lords, it is an honour to open today’s debate, first proposed by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. It really is a pleasure to see so many noble Lords, which shows how valued libraries are by so many of us and it does mean contributions will be frustratingly short. As a first question, I wonder: given the clear interest, might the usual channels discuss making time available during this Session for a longer debate on libraries?
On to the main business and, even with today’s time limitations, I am sure that we will hear about the many different ways in which libraries can alter the course of people’s lives so, rather than mention that here, I shall just mention the thing that I find so magical about libraries. And that is the fact that, no matter who you are or where you are from, you can walk into any library in the country and ask for help. In return, you will be asked for precisely nothing. There will be no charge and you will never be asked to justify yourself; you will simply be welcomed in. There is no other institution today, be it public or private, which can say the same.
That is something worth preserving so I was delighted, at the request of my noble friend Lord Parkinson, to carry out an independent review of public libraries which would inform a new strategy. The review made eight recommendations, designed to address four clear challenges. I am afraid that I cannot claim any great discoveries here, for they are the exact same challenges that libraries have faced for decades.
I will list them briefly. First, there is a lack of recognition across government—national and local—of the extent of the work that libraries do. Secondly, there is a lack of awareness among the wider public of what the library offers, which partly explains the inconsistency whereby libraries are viewed with great affection—as we can see—and there is a fierce desire to protect them, but this does not always translate into people making proper use of them. Thirdly, there is a lack of comprehensive data on our libraries which has worsened over time. Finally, we need a better sense of what the Government want to see from our libraries. On that final point, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether they are still planning to go ahead with the strategy and, if so, in what timeframe. In the hope that she says yes, I shall highlight some of the recommendations from the review.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson, for her comprehensive review and recommendations, and thank the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for commissioning it. I draw noble Lords’ attention to my interests in the register.
The BBC reported recently that public libraries are in crisis: 800 have closed in nine years; funding has halved, leaving many with reduced opening times; books have been cut by a quarter; and there are fewer computer terminals. However, there are still brilliant libraries busy with rhyme time for babies, homework clubs, employment support, access to local services and cultural activities. This could be the norm. There is no shortage of ideas in this sector, but now is the opportunity for delivery.
The review recommends an awareness campaign, but who would make it work, given that there is no single lead in government to bring policy and funding together? It also recommends a Libraries Minister, while a forthcoming Fabian arts paper suggests adding community digital responsibility, as research shows that 45% of families with children are digitally excluded. The Fabians also ask the BBC to consider local radio, news and community broadcast hubs from libraries to reach a new generation.
Most libraries are run on modest sums, but libraries urgently need a multi-year commitment of funding to plan ahead in the face of local authority funding crises. According to the Reading Agency, low literacy costs us £80 billion a year; as we have heard, its successful universal library membership trial should be rolled out. With a mission-led Government, we can be bold and transformative. My key ask of the Minister is that libraries, prime for action as they are, become central to the mission on breaking down barriers to opportunities; this should join up decision-making, funding and delivery to ensure that libraries guarantee inspiration and opportunities for all.
My Lords, standing as the second person in this “Just a Minute” challenge, I am very much a product of the equivalent of the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge, but from many years ago—I was doing it at a Carnegie library when I was at primary school. We did not do many things when I was a child. We did not go on holiday, so what did I do over the summer? I went to the library. I was so empowered and enriched by those library facilities that I have always remembered how important it was.
That library has now closed; it is going to become a café. While café society is important, one thing you will find in continental Europe, particularly in France, is that if you go to a small town there will be a library; if you go to a larger town, it will be a médiathèque. Libraries are so important for encouraging children to read and for digital inclusion. For equalities purposes, please support libraries. Let us have that national strategy.
My Lords, I feel as though I am in the BBC; I shall need a red light for this one-minute cue.
Public libraries are gardens of earthly delights, especially in less advantaged areas, where they are the seedbed for young writers of the future, where children can travel abroad and beyond without moving and where the elderly can source comfort and friendship. They are, in short, indispensable. Cicero maintained that all you need in life is a garden and a library.
Libraries, like the arts, are just too easy a target when the going gets tough. I urge the Government to encourage the self-help groups of volunteers who have had such success in places such as Camden—the Keats library, for example—by supporting them and making their contribution to society easier to achieve. It is not “instead of”; it is “as well as”.
My Lords, if we are to stop the decline in the number of rural libraries, we urgently need something that many of us have been calling for for a long time, which is an integrated rural strategy with a commitment to rural sustainability. There is huge, mainly untapped potential in the countryside to use existing community buildings as hubs and provide many services such as access to computers and the internet—vitally important—banking services, basic dispensing, post offices and, of course, libraries. They could be sited in our rural schools or sometimes in underused village halls or even church buildings. We have managed to do that in some places; we can do it more. We need to find ways to make this vital service work economically. Will the Minister commit to supporting this radical rethink about rural services?
The proposed multiyear funding settlements for local authorities from the Government are most welcome. They should enable councils to make more strategic plans for services.
The Senedd’s Local Government and Housing Committee considered how libraries and leisure facilities could continue to be funded, and it published a report in July 2023. It was of no surprise to me, as a former leader of a city council, that the report concluded that,
“councils have found it challenging to maintain their existing local … services”,
after such a sustained period of austerity and diminishing budgets. It discovered that many councils sought to deliver those services differently, such as by contracting the management to not-for-profit social enterprises, as I did when I established our leisure company, Newport Live.
I urge my noble friend to ask her department to review that report from the Welsh Government and see what areas of congruence can be brought to bear on ensuring stability of future library provision by the UK Government.
At Historic England, we use the benefit of our wonderful libraries as the cornerstone of many of our regeneration efforts around the country, in incredible places such as Tyldesley in Wigan, Redruth and North Shields. The library is the place that, once regenerated and restored, brings back life, footfall, vitality and economic growth to places. Yes, DCMS superintends the library system, but it has to use the rather woolly requirement of
“a comprehensive and efficient library service”
specified in the Act. At the same time, the paymasters are the MHCLG and local authorities. It is too dispersed and means that there is no political will or leadership to make sure that the library sector does not decline further.
We have a great moment: the Secretary of State for Culture and the Minister for Arts are both accomplished authors. Perhaps that would help get some enthusiasm back towards our sector, so I say no more reviews—they are done—and let us move ahead with the strategy.
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The first was the creation of a Libraries Minister, which was enacted by the previous Government. This sent an important signal not just to the sector but to other government departments, where the work of libraries is not always recognised despite it contributing so much to so many different departmental priorities.
Secondly, and crucially, is the creation of a national data hub, similar to that created for the leisure industry, which would capture all the data held by library services. Currently, some data is provided manually, but by only some local authorities. This means that we are lacking even the most basic national overview on library provision—and I do mean basic: opening hours, books borrowed, services used et cetera. This is not helpful to libraries nor, frankly, to government. As I said, we are talking about the most basic data. With a data hub, the dataset would be richer and, if built in the right way, could be used alongside the local government and British Library platforms to provide a more targeted, modern and agile service. In time, it could also help evaluate how libraries contribute to national agendas, which is essential if we want our libraries to thrive.
This will depend on local authorities sharing their data. Crucially, the Local Government Association supports the initiative, and Arts Council England has begun work, with input from DCMS, Libraries Connected, the British Library and CILIP. However, it can be realised only with the support of national government, so can the Minister confirm, either today or in writing, that her department is looking seriously at this? If it is considering other ways of addressing the data black hole, I ask that it plan to consult the sector on the different options, and that these options include a data hub, as this could be as transformative as the national rollout of library wifi a decade ago.
Thirdly, I wish to highlight the ambition to make every child a library member. This has been looked at before but has always run into problems with data protection. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Reading Agency, but that is not why I mention the results of their three-year, cross-authority summer reading challenge pilot, which included the trialling of universal membership to schoolchildren.
Working with libraries and other local authority services, including schools and HAF programmes, the pilot delivered automatic membership in many areas of the country, which was GDPR compliant and reached many disadvantaged children. It created tens of thousands of new library members; the children with automatic membership read more books than in comparator groups; and book issues remained consistently higher across the year for children provided with a library card. Because of the nature of the challenge, it also introduced many new parents and caregivers to the library. This is a significant step forward, with the potential to provide huge benefits to the children and families in most need, so I ask the Minister to look at this, too.
Finally, I wish to mention the creation of a “front door” for those wishing to engage with public libraries. The governance of libraries is like spaghetti junction. DCMS is the policy lead; MHCLG has responsibility for funding; ACE is the development agency; and Libraries Connected, CILIP and ASCEL all support the sector and, alongside the LGA, provide co-ordination and partnership working. It is ferociously complicated.
Although those involved do a fantastic job, it can be difficult for outside organisations to know where to go in the first instance. Many people agree that libraries need more national, big-scale programmes delivered locally, but this will rely on building new, ambitious partnerships across the public and private sectors. The British Library could play a really important convening role in this, as happens in some European countries, since it has stature and reach across the whole of the UK and internationally; indeed, it has already successfully delivered such a programme with its Business & IP Centre network, which provides start-up support and has helped to create more than 18,000 businesses.
When talking about the British Library, we should bear in mind the recent cyberattack—this rightly remains its foremost priority—but the Government could still provide some small, proportionate, extra resource for the British Library to take on the work of building a consensus about what a future front door could look like. Will the Minister look at this and, perhaps, the other recommendations in the review, which reflect the views of the sector after many months of consultation? I take just a moment to thank the officials behind the Minister, who were incredibly helpful in that work.
Finally, I was delighted to see that, in 2011, the current Secretary of State initiated a Westminster Hall debate on the future of libraries. She spoke passionately about the value of libraries in her own constituency and, more generally, she raised the financial pressures that libraries were then under. It is true to say that the pressure is severe—it would be wrong to open this debate without acknowledging that—but I would also say that, during the course of the review and despite the difficult circumstances, it was notable that, where councils valued their libraries and placed them firmly on the assets side, rather than the liability side, of the balance sheet, library services had been protected and improved.
The recommendations in the review purposely did not place further burdens on local authorities. Instead, they focused on improving the infrastructure in ways that could help our libraries to flourish now and into the future. So I hope that the Government are planning to continue with the new strategy and, if so, that the Minister will find at least some of these suggestions useful.