Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what comparative assessment his Department’s has made of adult literacy levels in each of the last five years.

The department has not conducted an assessment of adult literacy levels within the past 5 years.

We participate in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Survey of Adult Skills to assess our performance in literacy, which was last conducted in England and 24 other countries in 2011-12. Findings from the survey can be found at: http://www.oecd.org/skills/.

The next Survey of Adult Skills will take place in 2021/22, with results available in 2023.