---

Library Services

We have heard about libraries as a leisure activity for people in their later years and as places housing computers, but does my hon. Friend agree that there are still communities for whom libraries are a window for their young people on the world of books and learning? I was brought up in a household in which there was one book—the ““Encyclopaedia Britannica””. When I had just turned five, my mother took me to the library. She did not read, but she understood the importance of reading. We need to preserve libraries for communities in our cities and rural areas, where libraries give children their first introduction to the world of books and learning.