Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Culture, Media and Sport – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 22 January 2001.
Gordon Prentice
Labour, Pendle
12:00,
22 January 2001
I find that reply immensely reassuring because I found myself believing a report in The Guardian—[Interruption.] We should never believe what we read in The Guardian. A report of 11 August 2000 directly quotes a British Library spokesperson as saying:
The discarding of books is an ongoing process.
Reference is made to 80,000 books having been binned—weeded out by very junior staff—although I understand that that report and others that appeared in the national press is false. However, is it true that 10 per cent. of the national newspaper collection in Colindale is to be destroyed if it is not sold?