17 July 2026
After contributing to the Committee’s inquiry alongside our Reading Rights ambassador Frank Cottrell-Boyce, we’re pleased to see the focus on early years in the report.
Reading for pleasure is fundamental to children’s wellbeing, development and future life chances. That’s why we welcome the Education Committee’s report today.
We’re particularly pleased to see the Committee champion reading as something every child should have the opportunity to enjoy, regardless of background or circumstance.
As contributors to the inquiry, alongside our Reading Rights Ambassador Frank Cottrell-Boyce, we’re encouraged to see many of these priorities reflected in the report.
The Committee is right to highlight the importance of the earliest years. A love of reading starts long before a child enters a classroom.
BookTrust support millions of children across the UK and our Bookstart Baby programme, delivered through every health visitor in the country, helps families begin that reading journey from birth.
We see every day how sharing stories, songs and books from birth helps build language, confidence, creativity and empathy.
If we want to reverse the decline in reading for pleasure, supporting families to make reading part of everyday life from the very start must be at the heart of the solution.
The Committee is also right to recognise that lasting change will require a sustained national effort.
We welcome the ambition behind a National Reading Guarantee and the opportunity it presents to put reading at the heart of childhood.
To succeed, it must reach the children facing the greatest barriers to reading and recognise that reading is a right for every child.
Giving every child access to books and stories from the earliest years is critical if we are to ensure more children become readers for life, with all the benefits that brings.
Find out more about our campaign to ensure that reading is embedded in every child’s life from the earliest moments.
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