Children: Development of Essential Skills

Perran Moon Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) on this really important debate. I hear an awful lot of guff and bluster in this place, and I just wish that we had more of these sorts of debates. I am only sorry that there is not a single Member of His Majesty’s Opposition on the Back Benches.

I will take us back to the skills required by preschool children, as has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), because an essential skill for children is the ability to read, and 2026 is the National Year of Reading. In collaboration with the National Literacy Trust, the Department for Education is seeking to address the steep decline in reading among children and young people.

A child’s earliest years are crucial to their development and life chances. When children start school, early communication and language skills make a huge difference. Being able to talk, listen, understand words and share stories helps children make friendships, ask for help from teachers and participate in learning and play. Literacy and communication skills lay the foundation for children to enjoy and take part in all aspects of school life, from imaginary games in the playground to activities in the classroom.

These skills impact children’s success later too, which is why their start at school really matters. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, children who have good language skills at the age of five are far more likely to achieve the expected levels at the age of 11. Yet at a time when parents face enormous pressures, more than one quarter of five-year-olds in Cornwall start school without the communication, language and literacy skills that they need to thrive. For too long, our society has been failing Cornish children—not just them, clearly, but children all over the country. Research consistently shows that the home learning environment—the activities that children engage in at home, such as chatting, singing, sharing stories and playing outside—has a powerful impact.

The National Literacy Trust’s Early Words Matter campaign supports parents and carers to build their children’s early language, communication and literacy skills. In my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency, the Everyone Ready for School project run by the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall provides early literacy support for families with children starting school soon. It offers free books—more than 4,000 have been distributed already—as well as resources, events and activities in the local community, empowering parents and children as they prepare together for the adventure of starting school. But the National Literacy Trust needs to secure funding for its remarkable ongoing work across one of the most deprived regions of northern Europe. I respectfully ask my hon. Friend the Minister to address that funding point when she responds to the debate.

I am proud to say that I am a literacy champion for the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall. By working together with parents, teachers, early years professionals, volunteers and the wider community, the National Literacy Trust in Cornwall hopes to inspire parents to feel confident, knowing the amazing role that they play in their child’s school journey. The way that parents and children spend time together now is preparing children to succeed and be happy at school.