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Library Services (South Manchester)

I am grateful, Mr Gale, to serve under your excellent chairmanship for the second time this afternoon. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) on securing this important debate. He spoke with passion and eloquence on the library in his constituency that he seeks to keep open. I hope that, when we look back at this campaign, which I hope will be successful, the library will be renamed the John Leech library, in honour of the campaign that he has started. I have probably said too much already, because it would be wrong of me to get involved in any specific campaign on any reorganisation of a local library service. As the Minister with responsibility for libraries, my first point is that library provision is still very much a local service, albeit with a statutory underpinning to which I shall return in a moment. One of the things that I was keen to stress when I became a Minister was that libraries are a local service, which means a number of things. It is important that they are a local service, because one would expect the local council to understand the local community and to know its varied needs, which are different in different parts of the community. The idea that that provision could be second-guessed from Whitehall is absolute nonsense. It is also important that local councils engage with their local communities in the running of their local library services. One of the things that I have found disappointing over the past few months, as library closures have reared their heads and campaigns have started, is that some councils—I would not dream of naming any of them—did not engage more with their library services many years ago to see what opportunities were available. Some truly innovative councils have realised that libraries are an extraordinary resource to support the local community. Yes, they are about books and literature, but, in the 21st century, they are also about access to the internet, education, adult education and learning, and about access to health, council and community services. Those councils that have seen and seized that opportunity have provided go-ahead library services. It is also important to stress—I say this as a matter of principle, with no reference to the specific case raised by my hon. Friend—that, sometimes, closing a library does not necessarily mean that the service is being run down. I always think about the service in Tower Hamlets, where a number of libraries were closed to create a much more vibrant library service. It provided access for a much wider part of the community, particularly young people, simply by investing in core libraries and looking at the different services that different parts of the community wanted. I also look, at a time of cuts, at library services that not only sustain their existing service, but go ahead and open new libraries. For example, the royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead plans to open more libraries and is putting police points in its library service, because it understands that it is a community service. Hillingdon has also refurbished its library estate.