§ Mr. Colvin asked the Minister for the Arts if he will make a statement on the next stage of the new British Library building at St. Pancras.
§ Mr. LuceI have today authorised a start on the second stage of the building, which is estimated to cost £61 million and will be ready for occupation in 1993. Work on this stage will start in 1987, in parallel with the first stage, which will be ready in 1991.
When both stages are complete, the library's new facilities will include substantial new storage space in the modern environmental conditions which the collection requires, reading rooms for the departments of manuscripts and oriental manuscripts and printed books, and open access reading rooms for the science reference library.
Further decisions on later stages will be taken and announced in due course.