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Library Services (South Manchester)

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Gale. I am delighted to have secured this short debate. Most of my remarks will relate to Barlow Moor library on the Merseybank estate. This debate was sparked by the decision of the Labour-run Manchester city council to close the library as part of its cost-cutting programme. Before I give the House a brief history of Barlow Moor library and the council's policy on the provision of library services, I pay tribute to the staff who work in library services in Manchester. I suppose that I ought to declare an interest, as I hold Friday surgeries in three of the libraries in my constituency: Chorlton, Withington and Didsbury. I appreciate the work that the staff do to accommodate my surgeries and, more important, to make libraries a welcoming place and encourage more people to use our local library services. Manchester has certainly had a tough Budget settlement —it has been particularly hard due to the front-loading of spending reductions—but the Labour council has responded by using the settlement as an excuse for cuts that it has wanted to carry out for many years but never thought that it could get away with politically. It is making politically motivated cuts with the intention of discrediting the coalition and the coalition's attempts to tackle the Budget deficit. When the Labour council announced its budget, it included the axing of numerous front-line services, including libraries and leisure centres. Labour said that there was no alternative, blaming the Budget settlement and coalition cuts. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrat opposition on the council proposed an alternative budget that would have kept all the leisure centres and libraries open, but it was voted down by Labour. However, it was not the alternative budget that nailed the lie that there was no alternative to cutting front-line services such as Barlow Moor library and leisure centres; it was the huge community campaign in the constituency next door against the closure of Levenshulme baths. The council's position was that it had no alternative but to close the baths, but it has done a U-turn, and Levenshulme baths will now remain open. The council failed to con people into believing that there was no alternative and got cold feet once a community campaign was up and running with enormous local support. Why does the council want to close Barlow Moor library? The simple fact is that it has wanted to run down the library service on the Merseybank estate for years. It has made no real commitment to maintaining the local library, concentrating resources instead on the main libraries, including a multi-million-pound investment in the city centre. The council has shown a serious lack of commitment to Barlow Moor library over the years. Even before I was elected as a local councillor, one of the first campaigns in which I was ever involved opposed plans by the Labour council to reduce Barlow Moor library's hours to save money. At the time, we warned that reducing the library's hours would ultimately threaten its future, which is proving true. Unfortunately, a few years later, the library was burned down in an act of arson. Despite promises to the contrary, the library was not rebuilt. Instead, it was permanently relocated in a shop unit on the other side of the road. After the library was burned down, it was agreed that the council should delay rebuilding while discussions continued about revamping the shops and the opportunity for a joint service centre on Merseybank avenue, which would have secured the future of Barlow Moor library for years to come. However, it is unfortunately now clear that the council never had any intention of pressing ahead with that much-needed investment. Although the plans were supported by council officers, local Liberal Democrat councillors and local people on the estate, they were dropped by Labour councillors. The council's Labour leader, Richard Leese, stated in a council meeting that Merseybank was not a priority for the council—a shameful remark—despite the fact that Merseybank falls within the top 5% of deprivation in the country. Why was the library not simply rebuilt with the insurance money? That would seem fairly sensible, and insurance was paid out, but unfortunately it appears that the payout was not enough to rebuild the library. The council spent half of it securing the site and removing the remains of the building. That is a scandal, and we still do not know what happened to the rest of the money. Instead, the temporary library on the other side of the road has remained, but it has been open for only 15 hours a week. Given that it is open for so few hours, is it any wonder that library usage at Barlow Moor is lower than at any other permanent library in Manchester? There is a lot of uncertainty about when the library is open. Residents often tell me that they are never sure when the Barlow Moor library will be open, so they choose to use other libraries that are open longer. Compared with those 15 hours a week, the next closest library, Chorlton library, is open 61 hours a week. That is the crux of the problem. Although investment has been made in the main district libraries, including Chorlton, and hours have been extended, smaller local libraries, which tend to be in more deprived areas, have been neglected. In my view, there has been a deliberate policy of concentrating resources in the bigger libraries while starving the smaller ones and running them down so that they can ultimately be closed. Since the announcement that Barlow Moor library would close, along with a couple of other local community libraries, the Labour executive member with responsibility for libraries has gone on a charm offensive, attending consultation meetings on the future of library services and attempting to blame the proposed closures on the coalition Government. At a meeting on the Merseybank estate, Councillor Amesbury even had the cheek to claim that the council had been just about to rebuild the library when the coalition cuts were announced. That is simply not true, and when he was challenged, he made no attempt to back up his claims. That series of meetings is not just about Councillor Amesbury's attempt to deflect the blame for Labour's closure of libraries in Manchester; it is also about a consultation on the future of the libraries. My concern, which I voiced at the Barlow Moor library meeting, is that the consultation will be unbalanced and will give the council the opportunity to press ahead with its policy of running down the smaller libraries at the expense of the larger ones. Far more people who use the bigger libraries, which have a much greater footfall, will fill in the ““Over to you”” consultation. Although council officers have agreed to make the consultation documents as readily available as possible in the local community, the reality is that people are far more likely to pick up a consultation document about library services in the library, so the consultation will be skewed in favour of the larger libraries. At the same time, what incentive do users of Barlow Moor library have to fill in a consultation on the future of their local library when they have already been told that the council has decided to close it? I am trying to get as many people as possible to take part in the consultation. Part of the reason why I wanted this short debate was to highlight the issue of the consultation and get as many people as I could to sign the petition against the closure of Barlow Moor library. The people of Levenshulme have shown that the council can be forced into a U-turn, and we know that there is an alternative to Labour's cuts. A politician recently said:"““Libraries are a vital resource; they are hubs of our communities. Libraries open doors to a world of opportunities, not just for reading, but for learning, self-improvement, access to employment. Closing libraries denies many people these chances and leaves us all poorer.””" I could not agree more, and I am sure that the Minister could easily have made that statement himself. However, it is actually a quote from the shadow libraries Minister. It is a shame that Manchester Labour councillors seem to think that it is acceptable to close such an important local facility. The additional worry is that the consultation will result in further cuts to our library services, possibly including a reduction in hours across all libraries. The council consultation document points out that a reduction in hours can always be reversed once budgets are not so tight, but that somewhat contradicts the decision to close libraries such as Barlow Moor. I am fairly certain that most library users would prefer to see a reduction in hours across the board rather than library closures, but the problem is that a reduction in hours is much more likely to be in addition to, rather than instead of, library closures. We ought to look at all alternatives to reducing library hours, whether through a volunteer network of library supporters or through other cost savings, because there is a real danger that the hours will not be restored in the future. This is particularly important for local community libraries, which may end up, in years to come, with the same fate as Barlow Moor library if their hours are cut further, perhaps down to the number on which Barlow Moor library has been surviving. Finally, I will mention briefly the mobile library service, which also faces the prospect of being wiped out following the consultation in Manchester. The provision of mobile library services costs £13.26 per visit, which is approximately six times as much as the £2.27 per visit to permanent libraries. The library service in Manchester says that there is evidence that a significant number of mobile library users also visit permanent libraries. Clearly, those people would be relatively unaffected by the closure of the mobile library service, but it is a lifeline for a relatively small number of mobile library users, who are probably among the most vulnerable of library users. It is vital that those people are included in the consultation, to ensure that they are able to retain some level of library service in the future.