Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of primary school children have daily reading lessons in (a) England and (b) Northamptonshire.

We do not collect information about schools’ timetables and therefore we do not hold this information. We have placed phonics at the heart of the curriculum and introduced the phonics screening check at age six to help identify children that need additional help with their reading. In 2017, 81% of pupils nationally met the expected standard at the end of year 1, up from 58% in 2012. In Northamptonshire, the figure was also 81%, up from 55% in 2012. Thanks to our reforms and the hard work of teachers and pupils, an additional 154,000 six year olds across England are on track to become fluent readers.

In addition, the 2016 Progress in International Reading Study results, published last week, put the success of our increased emphasis on phonics and continued focus on raising education standards on a global scale. England rose up the rankings from joint 10^th in 2011 to joint 8^th, and achieved the highest performance since the study began in 2001, driven by an increase in the number of low-performing pupils reading well.