School Libraries

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. It is part of the role of reading to challenge us and broaden our horizons, as I have said, and it is part of the skill of teaching for teachers to support, through the way they teach about reading and books, the ability for students to be able to critically assess what they are reading. Those are really important parts of our schools and something we should be proud of and defend.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, although I am completely opposed to book banning, does the Minister agree that it is not censorship when parents raise safeguarding concerns about age-inappropriate books that tell children that, for example, there are 100 genders, or they are born in the wrong body, or books featuring double-mastectomy scars positively, or a book for three to seven year-olds entitled She’s My Dad? Conversely, will the Minister agree to read the new report by SEEN in Publishing and Sex Matters, Everyday Cancellation in Publishing, which features the censorship of gender-critical children’s writers such as the award-winning poet Rachel Rooney, who lost her career when her picture book My Body is Me! was smeared as transphobic?