Speeches by Bailey.

“We absolutely encourage people to have a diverse range of books, but it is up to schools what books they have in their libraries. That is the right way, because headteachers know their school community the best, and they know what is best, but as a Department we recognise and reflect the importance of a diverse range o…”

“Yes.”

“Yes, there will, I am sure. Jenny, do you want to come in on that?”

“That is a really important question. This is certainly a central consideration for us through the National Year of Reading and the partnerships we are working in with booksellers and others when, for example, we look towards the £5 million that we want to invest in secondary school books. I have mentioned it for my own…”

“What I would say to that is that loads of schools are already doing this. They are checking in with pupils at this crucial stage to make sure that they can access the curriculum and also access reading for pleasure. It enables the schools—there are lots of schools that are already doing this—to put in place the plans t…”

“I agree with Jenny. You will know, Sureena, that our approach with the curriculum and assessment review was to have strong academic foundations, but there is a breadth that we also want to see across sports, music and the arts, and the space and time that we want to see, as we have discussed. We also just want to bring…”

“Sure.”

“I have tried to address the congestion point and the time point, but on the text point I would just add that we are accepting the recommendations and making changes to ensure that schools can pick more texts that we think their children will love. Whether that is about their place or things that they recognise their ch…”

“If I can test what you are saying and what you have heard in the evidence, that sounds like a text challenge—what the children are engaging with in the English literature GCSE—and that is something that we are addressing in our response.”

“As you say, we will come on to talk about that, but to respond very briefly, that is why we are doing all the things that we are doing. We are doing it through the changes we are making to the curriculum, which I can go into more detail on now or we can discuss later. We are also doing it through the investment in book…”

“I have said—and I stand by this—that a love of reading is embedded in everything that teachers are doing and is embedded in the curriculum. In fact, it is directly discussed in the curriculum. First, the most important thing to say is that our teachers are doing a brilliant job at that, and I thank them for all their w…”

“I will definitely have a look at it, because that sounds like it would be very instructive. We can follow up with you, Manuela.”

“That question is the hub of everything we are trying to achieve. Let me say how wrong I think Andrew Tate is on that and many other topics—most topics, in fact. We are working with a range of people who we know young boys will look up to—people such as Marcus Rashford and Leah Williamson—and that does have an impact. W…”

“That sort of school-to-school, peer-to-peer relationship really works. You will know from your experience as a school governor that that is the most effective way of spreading good practice and getting a love of reading.”

“I have mentioned before that having a love of reading is something that is in the curriculum. It is also something that is embedded in the initial teacher training and early careers frameworks. I think in every school in the country a love of reading and learning to love reading is really embedded and central to our ed…”

“That is a really important question. It is central to the work that we are doing with the National Literacy Trust, which is our partner on this, along with the many partners working with us on the programme. The Reading Agency and BookTrust are among a range of others who we are very grateful to for their engagement. T…”

“It is a significant investment that we have put into the Best Start family hubs. One of the things I would like to emphasise here is that we have recently had this new stretching target—we want 2,000 network sites. Part of that is about trying to force more connections between things that are already happening in commu…”

“Absolutely. We can definitely follow up. There are interventions that do that. As Jenny said, a lot of it is early communication. Certainly, there will be examples. Everything that we are doing in Best Start family hubs is around the three words—chat, play and read. These are the three most important things that we wan…”

“Absolutely. Jenny might have some of the data to hand, but the way that we have approached this is by looking at the overall challenge of the decline in reading and at the data available to us, and trying to make the best judgment about the groups that would benefit the most from this focus. We have used data, our expe…”

“I think I have been clear in my answers so far, but let me be very clear: conversion practices tell people that they should be subjected to physical and emotional abuse to change their identity. I think that is unacceptable, the Government think it is unacceptable, and we will ban it.”