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Library Services

No, I will not give way, because I have only five minutes left. The number of visitors to libraries in Wigan has risen by 13%. Tower Hamlets closed libraries, but it did so with a strategic vision, re-engineering them and turning them into idea stores. Calling libraries idea stores upset some traditionalists, but visits to idea stores have gone through the roof. Despite reducing its budget, Hillingdon has kept all its libraries open and refurbished them under the inspired leadership of Councillor Henry Higgins. This week, I met representatives of Havering, which is pioneering signing up kids and babies to libraries. The London Libraries Consortium—12 authorities working across London—has already made enough savings to increase opening hours substantially. Swindon, which I visited in opposition—I invited a prominent library campaigner to visit Old Town library with me, but he told me he was too busy—has invested £10 million in a central library and has moved the Old Town library to an arts centre, where there have been more visits. Lancashire has pioneered the ““Get it Loud in Libraries”” scheme. What happens also depends on how people go about things. The local authority in Leeds is closing libraries, but it is doing so in a strategic way and bringing the local population with it. I have not sat back. My first speech as a Minister was on libraries, when I communicated my passion and support for libraries. I said it was right—I think it is right—that local library users challenge a local authority that is planning to close libraries. My first executive action as a Minister was to set up the future libraries programme, because I felt passionately in opposition that much of the innovation in good library authorities was not being communicated to many authorities that were perhaps not so innovative and which did not have such a go-ahead approach. After the debate, I will meet some of the local authorities involved in the 10 pilot projects. I also made sure that the Local Government Association was involved in the project from the start, because libraries are a local authority service. I recently wrote to every local authority in the country—there are 151 library authorities, and I have gone on record as saying that that is too many and that people should be thinking about cross-border working and mergers to reduce overhead costs—to remind them of the statutory duty, which still exists thanks to the election of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government and despite Labour's plans to get rid of it. At any one time, local authorities are considering their plans, and almost every library closure that has been mentioned today is a proposal—these things are being consulted on. In Oxfordshire, in my own backyard, the proposals will undergo a three-month consultation. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), let me say that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council—I pay tribute to Roy Clare, who is a fantastic leader of that organisation—is working with authorities to show them ways of moving forward without necessarily closing all the proposed libraries. No hon. Member can say with all honesty that no library should ever close in any local authority area. We need a strategic vision. The good thing that came out of the Wirral inquiry, apart from the fact that the Wirral's libraries were saved, was that the Charteris report now provides local authorities with clear guidelines on how they should reorganise their library service, if that is what they want to do. Some 75% of children and 40% of adults visit libraries. Unlike the hon. Member for Wigan, who introduced the debate, I think that libraries have a future. We talked about the potential closure of the Kensal Rise library, which was opened by Mark Twain, and despite the best efforts of Opposition Members, I have to say that the death of libraries has been greatly exaggerated. It is up to local communities, working with local councillors, to keep our libraries open, with volunteers supplementing and working with librarians, rather than replacing them. All of us who care about libraries must work passionately to save this service and make it as effective as possible, instead of spreading pointless scare stories.