World Book Day

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for securing this World Book Day debate, and I thank hon. Members who have contributed. It has been an incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion.

This is one of those topics that reminds us why we got into politics: to ensure that all children get the best start in life. I know that my children have enjoyed many a World Book Day, getting stuck into stories and the occasional dressing up. I had a look through some old photos of costumes that we had made over the years: many were of dubious creativity and quality, but the experience of sharing them has always been fun. I really commend the work of the World Book Day charity.

Beyond World Book Day, there is something incredibly special—hon. Members have touched on this point—about reading with a child, rediscovering old favourites and discovering new stories and authors with them. Anything that promotes and encourages that is to be hugely applauded.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall. We have heard many examples of the contribution that World Book Day, and reading generally, can make to a person’s life and particularly to a child’s education and life chances, yet we know that there are huge challenges in this space. Last year, the annual literacy survey found the lowest levels of reading enjoyment since the survey began almost 20 years ago, with just two in five children saying that they enjoy reading in their free time and only 28% saying that they read daily. Those are incredibly worrying statistics. They form a trend that we really need to work to reverse.

For the 1 million children in the UK who do not have a single book in their home, World Book Day is a fantastic opportunity to introduce or reintroduce reading into their life. That is especially true for the children in our poorest households, where books can often be seen as a luxury during a cost of living crisis. Ensuring that every child can choose a book with their £1 token is an important step towards igniting that passion for reading and making it accessible to all.

Being immersed in a story can help a child to think creatively or to become interested in an entirely new topic that they may never have encountered. Reading is so important, as many hon. Members have highlighted, and too many children are leaving school without those essential reading and writing skills. Without getting the basics right, they are being left behind, and it is often the children in the most challenging circumstances, who have the least access to books, who are hit the hardest.

A Labour Government would prioritise a curriculum and assessment review to ensure that we provide an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and maths. We want to get the basic building blocks right and give every child access to a broad curriculum that not only reflects the issues and the diversities of our modern society, but ensures that children from all backgrounds do not miss out on the things that make school fun, like music, art, sport, drama and reading. Together, those building blocks will ensure that children are able to develop life skills such as better communication skills, which are essential for their future. For Labour, the key to that is resetting the relationship between Government, schools and families so that we can improve literacy outcomes together as a community.

Schools that have faced challenging budgets have had to make some difficult decisions, and many do not have designated funding for libraries. Whether they are in schools or in our communities, libraries play such a vital role in encouraging children to read and ensuring that every child has those resources. I have vivid childhood memories of going to our local library when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, flicking through the dockets of books and seeing what delights might have newly arrived when the exchanges took place. I also remember the library buses that used to come round our school, and how excited I always was about books. We all need to recognise, as we have done today, how important that is for every child. Every child should have books available to them.

A lack of books in schools can entrench inequality in access to reading, and we know the impact on literacy outcomes. Michael Morpurgo, among others, has highlighted that crucial point. We also know that parents value it when children have access to books, or to a good school library or local library. It is a big pressure for parents to ensure that their children have the same access to books and the same love of reading as every other child.

There is a gap in the support available, and many charities have filled in where they can. I pay tribute to the amazing work of the National Literacy Trust and BookTrust. In its strategy, the World Book Day charity says that it wants to see

“more children, from all backgrounds, developing a life-long habit of reading for pleasure, benefiting from the improved life chances this brings them.”

We could not sum up the purpose of this debate any better. In a recent Westminster Hall debate, the Minister himself said that

“we cannot knock down barriers for children if we do not teach them to read well.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2024; Vol. 744, c. 137WH.]

I could not agree more.

We should all focus on improving literacy outcomes for our children. A Labour Government would focus on that as part of our curriculum review to make sure that we have the building blocks in place. We would focus on hiring more teachers to fill the gaps left in our classrooms and make sure that everybody can be supported to reach these aims. We would invest in early language and speech interventions to ensure that the very youngest schoolchildren get the strongest possible start.

I conclude by paying tribute to the amazing work that World Book Day does year in, year out to encourage more children and their parents to take up reading. I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster for giving us the opportunity to discuss such a positive thing today.