Payday Loans, Betting and Libraries

Haringey Council becomes the latest Council to block payday lenders from its library computers.  It has also been done in Cheshire, Dundee and Edinburgh.  Dundee was responding to a specific local problem.

Payday loans are also seen as a widespread problem in Brent, and I suspect that blocking them from library PCs would be a good idea, although I suspect we need other measures as well. My colleague Cllr Janice Long has long been an advocate of supporting credit unions as a way of giving people a better alternative.  It would also be good if we could use planning and licensing to limit them more effectively, although as with betting shops there are legal limits to this.

In principle, Brent libraries would not give access to certain kinds of materials _ racist materials for example.  However, it seems to me that there is food for a much wider debate here.  I can imagine that some people might want to limit all sorts of things.  I think that the line has to be drawn at things that do active harm, rather than simply what one disapproves of, but still leaves plenty of grey areas.