Children's Access to Books

Debate between Matt Rodda and Alexander Stafford

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of improving children’s access to books.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. It is undeniable that books should form part of our children’s holistic education curriculum. What is less clear, but no less true, is the impact of literacy and reading rates on their personal life, their education and their future career. There is no better skill to give our children than a love of reading, and there is no easier way to do so than by ensuring good access to books.

Members will be aware that I recently secured a similar debate that sought to promote school libraries, which are an excellent way to improve children’s access to books. To capture the benefit of literacy that reading gives to children, we must have a comprehensive strategy that includes making sure that books are accessible to every child at every stage of their education.

Books play a vital role in our cultural heritage. It might seem trivial to an outsider, but it seems particularly British to me that there was a national outcry against retrospectively modernising Roald Dahl’s children’s classics. These stories and books bring home the respect and love we have for our books of all varieties.

Books not only have value as a cross-generational medium or because of nostalgic personal value, but because we all know, deep down, that reading is good. It is a simple fact that reading for pleasure bestows unlimited returns for a child’s education, their future vocation and their life in general. The best way to give our children the success and opportunities that come with reading is to cut away the barriers that obstruct them from accessing books.

As those present at my previous debate will remember, Yorkshire and Humber, which includes Rother Valley, has the unfortunate accolade of being the worst area in the UK for children’s book ownership, with nearly 10% of children, primarily from lower-income households, reporting that they do not own a single book. It would not be unreasonable to think that children with books at home are slightly more likely to enjoy reading and perhaps have marginally higher reading skill than their peers who do not have books at home, but the size of the gap is far larger than could possibly be imagined. The gap is perhaps most starkly characterised by the statistic that children with books at home are twice as likely to say they enjoy reading as those who do not, and are six times more likely to read at above the level expected for their age.

We also might not take account of the impact of these statistics on the rest of children’s lives. Literacy has a stark, direct impact not only on education but on standards of living, job prospects and even life expectancy. For example, those with a lower literacy rate earn roughly 7% less than those with an average literacy rate, and 75% of women with a low literacy rate have never received a promotion. Perhaps the most shocking statistic is that the disparity in life expectancy can be up to 20 years, depending on the literacy rate in the area in which a child was born.

Sadly, it may soon be too late for some. Low rates of book ownership, combined with a global pandemic that disrupted education, means that some children may never be able to develop a love of reading. This is clear from official statistics. For example, key stage 1 SATs results for English literacy fell from 76% to 59% between 2019 and 2022.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech highlighting the vital importance of literacy and the importance of children having books at home. Does he agree that those statistics indicate and support the need for a much greater catch-up programme for children in school?

[Alexander Stafford]

I have been clear that more must be done, at all levels, to make sure that literacy rates catch up. Of course, access to books is one answer, but we should also introduce measures so that those children who do not have access to books can catch up. Nevertheless, without books at home, at school or at a library, children will always struggle to catch up, so we must deal with the root causes