I was interested to see Fiona Bruce, the MP for Middlewich, has inserted herself into the discussion about library opening hours in Cheshire East.

The MP for Congleton has Middlewich, Alsager, Sandbach, Holmes Chapel and Congleton libraries in her constituency and she is concerned that Labour-led Cheshire East Council has proposed to reduce library opening hours by at least one and a half weekdays every week.

She’s so bothered about it, she even raised the issue in the House of Commons, describing it as an ‘inexplicable proposal’, saying it would have a ‘negative and, indeed, potentially damaging impact’.

Ms Bruce added: “Not only on young people’s learning but on many of my least well-off constituents, who depend on libraries for welfare checks, bus applications, computer use for job applications, to read the local papers, and many other everyday essentials.”

Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt agreed, saying: “I encourage her council to be a bit more entrepreneurial by generating income, working with partners, asking for business support and doing the many other things that councils up and down the country have done to secure such vital services, including, in some cases, community asset transfers.”

Oh dear. Words come easy but sadly the facts don’t really help either Ms Bruce’s or Ms Mordaunt’s case here. The facts show that rather than councils ‘up and down the country’ securing such vital services, the truth is councils up and down the country have simply closed libraries.

Back in 2019, theguardian.com reported almost 800 libraries have been closed since the Conservative-Lib Dem government implemented austerity in 2010.

The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy’s (Cipfa) annual survey of the UK’s libraries revealed that since 2010, 773 libraries have closed and more have gone since then.

The number of paid librarians has also plummeted. In 2009/2010, the point marking the start of the Tory-led government’s austerity drive, there were 24,000 salaried staff working in libraries. By 2019, that had dropped to 15,300 employees. And picking up the slack were more than 51,000 unpaid volunteers.

Now I am a massive fan of library services and it’s not just Ms Bruce and Ms Mordaunt who think they are vital for all the reasons Ms Bruce so eloquently listed.

But when a council is faced with a £20 million budget shortfall as a direct result of the policies put in place by the very government Ms Bruce represents, what’s a council to do?

Have a look at the Cheshire East website where you can read proposals to try to eke out some savings from the highways and parking budgets.

The upshot is you can expect to see street lights switched off in some places for at least part of the night and don’t be surprised if you have to pay more to park in council car parks.

As Cllr Craig Browne, deputy leader of Cheshire East Council, said: “We continue to face significant financial pressures and must look to reduce costs and consider other sources of revenue generation so that we can continue to protect essential frontline services and fill a £20 million gap in funding.”

With all this in mind, I actually applaud Cheshire East for trying to keep its libraries open.

Yes, I know it can be irritating and inconvenient if your local library is closed for an extra day a week and I sympathise but imagine how much more irritating and inconvenient it will be if your local library is closed permanently.

Sadly, the answer isn’t to lecture local councils on financial prudence from lofty positions in Westminster. That doesn’t help anyone.

Perhaps if we hadn’t had years of an ideologically imposed austerity followed by complete mismanagement of the economy by Johnson, Truss et al, there might have been a little more money available to keep libraries open and councils such as Cheshire East wouldn’t have to taking steps such as reducing library hours and switching off street lights.

So maybe the library proposal isn’t quite as inexplicable as Ms Bruce would have us believe.

On another separate but related topic, I see Sky News and Tortoise media have been doing some more research into the amount of money MPs are earning from their second jobs as part of their Westminster Accounts investigation.

You will recall that the investigation previously revealed Ms Bruce was the fourth highest earner, making £711,749 since December 2019.

And last week, Sky News have told us Ms Bruce pulled in £2,992 an hour for her outside work.

I’ll just leave that there, shall I?