The political battle over library closures has intensified. Earlier this morning, shadow culture secretary Dan Jarvis chastised libraries minister Ed Vaizey for being the ‘Dr Beeching of libraries’. Jarvis said that Vaizey should not be so ‘short-sighted’ as to permit 600 libraries to shut in England. He urged the government to intervene to save these ‘vital assets’, adding that not to do so would make a ‘mockery of the 1964 Public Libraries and Museums Act’.
The Act allows the secretary of state to intervene if local authorities are in breach of their statutory requirement to provide a ‘comprehensive and efficient’ library service in local communities. Library campaigners have already demanded that Jeremy Hunt block closures.
Many campaigners attended this morning’s select committee hearing, where Ed Vaizey was quizzed about these issues. Asked about the importance of the 1964 Act, Vaizey replied that it still had a ‘huge role to play’.
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