John Bird slams absence of library funding in autumn statement

Stressing the need to improve literacy to reduce poverty, the peer said library closures would eventually result in greater disorder and crime

The Big Issue founder John Bird has attacked the short-term thinking of Theresa May’s government, after the autumn statement ignored the House of Lords’ appeal to provide libraries with emergency funding.

“We called for emergency funding to stop closures [in October] and there was nothing about libraries in the autumn statement,” Lord Bird told the Guardian. “More than 300 libraries have closed and 8,000 librarian jobs are gone. We have this problem with just-in-time-ism, where the government is only doing just what it has to and not doing any deep, probing work that will bear fruit over 10, 20, 30 years.”

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