PUBLIC LIBRARIES (SCOTLAND) BILL (Hansard, 3 May 1955)

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME)
My Lords, this is another of those Bills, of which your Lordships have been fortunate to have a number lately, which I think command the support of all Parties, and it passed through another place without a Division. That is a tribute to the skill of Sir William Darling, the Member of Parliament who piloted it through another place, but it is also, I think, a measure of the merits of the Bill, because the need for it is widely recognised. It is something like a hundred years since, by the Act of 1854, the State took the first tentative steps to provide a public library service. There has been little change since then. That is a tribute to the pioneers and to the sound lines on which they proceeded. But, inevitably, there are one or two places where the Victorian shoe pinches, and certain modern adjustments are required.
The Bill has two main purposes. Until now, local authorities have been subject to a limitation of a 3d. rate: they have not been able to levy a rate of more than 3d. for this service. That limit the Bill removes. The cost of books, the cost of bookbinding and costs generally have risen in the last twenty years or so, with the result that local authorities have found it impossible to provide an efficient service with this rate limitation. Indeed, quite a number of the local authorities have been compelled to promote Local Acts in order to contract out of this very inconvenient limitation. Therefore, it seemed to the Secretary of State, and to all of us that it was a common-sense thing to get rid of it for all local authorities, particularly since there is no corresponding restraint on library authorities in England.
Secondly, the Bill empowers local authorities to co-operate among themselves in the exchange of books and for the support of the central library services—the Scottish Central Library is there to act as a clearing house for inter-library lending. Under the nineteenth century legislation which I have just mentioned, 695 no powers have been available to library authorities to enable them to lend to each other the more rare and important books. Local authorities have long wanted these powers. There have been disputes from time to time as to the actual conditions, but I am glad to say that the proposals in the Bill as it is drafted and put forward to your Lordships command the support of the three local authority associations in Scotland.
My Lords, I am glad that we in this Parliament are able to complete this legislation, and I hope your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading. Not only is it necessary; it is also opportune. Your Lordships will remember the great part which the late Andrew Carnegie played in originating and largely sustaining the library services in Scotland: he was an extraordinarily generous and farsighted benefactor. Up till now much of the finance has been supplied by the Carnegie Trust, but they say that they cannot continue to do that after this year. If this Bill is passed the finance for the Scottish Central Library will be provided partly from Treasury grant, with, in addition, a grant from local authorities arrived at according to a formula on which they are all agreed. As we have a large measure of agreement, and as I believe that everybody in Scotland feels that this is a modest advance which should be made, in order to bring our library services up to modern conditions, I commend this Bill to your Lordships for Second Reading.

§ LORD GREENHILL
My Lords, from these Benches I should like to add a word of commendation of this Bill. I can say from personal experience that it ends years of agitation on the part of library associations for the abolition of the rate limitation. The Bill implements one or two recommendations contained in a report on libraries issued some time ago by the Scottish Advisory Council on Education. It extends to town and county councils the powers which other authorities 696 already possess by virtue of the fact that they have promoted private legislation, either on their own behalf or through other channels. In this particular regard the Bill satisfies the views of municipal associations. I think it will mark a great advance in library activities in Scotland, and I have much pleasure in supporting it.

§ EARL JOWITT
My Lords we are told that this Bill was originally piloted by Sir William Darling, whom we may see though not hear. We have had the Second Reading proposed by a Scotsman. We have had the Question, That the Bill be now read a second time, put by another Scotsman, and we have had the Bill supported from these Benches by still another Scotsman. I find myself asking, in these circumstances, what should an Englishman do? I feel quite certain that all of us who are English will say we should do everything we can to increase the educational facilities of the Scots. We should remember what Dr. Johnson said: Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young. In these circumstances, from this side of the House and on behalf of all Englishmen in all quarters of the House, we cordially welcome this Bill.

THE EARL OF HOME
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Earl. We in Scotland have sometimes been accused of retarding education and civilisation for something like 300 years; perhaps had we known what it was going to be like we should have retarded it for a good deal longer. But we here are in harmony on this Bill and I am grateful to your Lordships. The noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, asked whether a library authority which felt that the public would get a better service if it surrendered its authority to a local education committee could take that step. The answer is that under this Bill a library authority can do so if it feels that in that way the public will have a better service.