Future of Public Libraries

Anna Sabine Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) for securing this debate.

I want to talk about the future of public libraries in my fairly rural constituency. In particular, I wish to highlight the role of Radstock library, one of 11 community-run libraries in Bath and North East Somerset. Although the council supports the core service, providing book deliveries and the library system, it is the local community that keeps its doors open. In Radstock’s case, the council provides the staff, premises and IT, but for libraries without council support it is a real struggle.

The value of community-run libraries is immense. In Radstock the library is much more than a place to borrow books. People come to use the public computers and printers, which are vital in a digital age. They come to read, to study, to hot-desk and to connect. The library runs events such as Lego club and knit and natter, and hosts Read Easy and employment skills sessions, diabetes workshops and the local food club.

In a cost of living crisis, libraries provide something incredibly powerful: a free, warm, welcoming space where people can learn, access essential services and find community. Radstock library relies heavily on volunteers to run it day to day, and it matters now more than ever.

We must not forget our rural areas, where mobile libraries remain a lifeline. I would like to make sure that they are considered in this debate and in any future library strategy.

[Sarah Dyke]

My hon. Friend is right: Somerset council operates many mobile libraries across the county, which provide a lifeline to rural villages in Glastonbury and Somerton such as Penselwood, Beercrocombe, Norton-sub-Hamdon, and Baltonsborough, to name a few. The cost of delivering library services has increased, and the recent spiralling costs are coupled with years of under-investment by the previous Conservative administration in Somerset. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must prioritise funding for local government, because without it vital services like libraries will be vulnerable to cost cutting?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Sabine]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The risk with mobile libraries is that, in terms of numbers, they may not necessarily have as much footfall as a static library, but they provide much more to local communities than can be quantified in footfall. Not everyone lives near a town library, and mobile services are often the only point of access to books, the internet or advice for isolated residents. They also keep people connected, especially older residents and those without transport. From meeting the staff of the mobile library in the Somerset village of Rode in my constituency, I know that they also provide a useful early warning if someone in the village needs extra support or is vulnerable.

The function of libraries has changed dramatically over the past 20 or 30 years, but their importance is growing. If we want to tackle isolation, digital exclusion and inequality, we must protect and properly support both our community-run and mobile library services.