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Library Services

Of course, volunteers are important. In fact, last Friday in my constituency, I met a volunteer archivist from Bromborough who does an amazing job. However, if she were here, she would say that, without a library service underpinning that work, it is impossible for volunteers to get the platform on which they need to stand to do the job they want to do. It is chutzpah to imagine that we can substitute volunteers for professionals rather than seeing them as an addition, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has said. That is what most volunteers themselves think that they ought to be. For example, the charity Volunteer Reading Help makes great play of the fact that it provides additional services to schools. I shall move on, so that I do not take up too much time. We need to trust the professional librarian. In such difficult times, local authorities ought to listen to librarians. In my experience, the librarians that service my constituency in the areas of Heswall, Bromborough, Eastham and Bebington have been incredibly creative in getting other services—for example, the university of the third age—to use their buildings. The poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has not once but twice visited Bromborough to encourage a love of poetry and reading. We want to support that kind of creativity but, at the end of the day, that takes a budget. I have already made comments about that. We need to say to local authorities that where they are looking to provide a better service, they must trust the professional librarians they have and encourage them to support volunteers. They should maintain the vision of the public library that hon. Members here today hold so dear and enable those professional librarians to do the job that they are qualified to do.