Plaid Cymru Ceredigion Your representatives in Ceredigion

Elin Jones MS and Ben Lake MP have issued a joint statement regarding the urgent financial situation at the National Library for Wales.

The National Library, based in Aberystwyth, is currently in consultation with employees regarding potential job cuts of up to thirty members of staff, due to ‘systematic underfunding’ by the Welsh Government.

Last week, a petition was launched calling on the Welsh Government to fairly fund the National Library, which in only a few days reached over 10,000 signatures.

In their joint statement, Elin Jones and Ben Lake said:

“The National Library is subject to chronic long-term underfunding and this needs to be urgently addressed. This underfunding was highlighted by the independent Tailored Review of the National Library commissioned by the Welsh Government and published in the autumn. 

“We jointly called on the Deputy Minister, Dafydd Elis Thomas, at the time to address this funding shortfall in this year’s budget. Now that budget is published, we see that no such funding increase has been forthcoming to the National Library from the Labour-LibDem Welsh Government.

“This now leads to the prospect of 30 precious job losses in the Library.  Staffing at the Library has already been scaled back to the minimum and the further job losses risk jeopardising the crucial work the National Library does on behalf of the nation.

 “The National Library keeps our national history alive and accessible to the world and this work must not be diminished. As local representatives we will be raising this funding crisis again with the Deputy Minister and First Minister, as will Plaid Cymru, so that it can be addressed before the final budget is published. 

 “The 30 jobs are highly valuable in the Aberystwyth area but we have been overjoyed to see the national support for the Library, from all over Wales, as the petition submitted to support the Library has crossed the 10,000 threshold in a very short period of time.  The National Library has our full support and we will leave no stone unturned to ensure its future.”