Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the findings of the report entitled Libraries on the front lines of the digital divide published in 2021.

Library services are a statutory responsibility of local government and each library authority determines how best to deliver its services and allocate funding for the benefit of its communities in a manner which is “comprehensive and efficient”. Library services already play a vital role in bridging the digital divide.

Libraries Deliver: Ambition, the Government’s strategy for public libraries included improved digital access and literacy as one of the seven outcomes that libraries deliver for their communities. Information and Digital is one of the four Universal Library Offers recognised by the libraries sector, and libraries are flagged in the 2017 UK Digital Strategy. More recently their vital role was recognised through an exemption under the National Restrictions to enable provision of access to public PCs for people to use essential services during lockdown; we are aware that this was highly valued and used.