Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to ensure every primary school in England has its own library. Speaking at the Labour party conference, which took place in Liverpool last week, she said a new scheme would create new libraries in 1700 primary schools that currently do not have them. Funding details have not yet been set out in full, but the government said that ‘over £10 million’ has been committed to the scheme.
Elsewhere, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer told the conference that the target of having 50 per cent of young people go to university, introduced by the last Labour government, would be scrapped. Instead it would be replaced ‘with a new ambition, that two thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship’. In further details released after the speech, the government said schools would ‘play a greater role in ensuring every pupil has a clear post-16 destination, supported by Ofsted, with a new approach to a guaranteed college or FE provider place available as a safety net being tested’. The Department for Education (DfE) said it would ‘revise guidance so that schools routinely provide targeted support for those at risk of becoming NEET, helping them choose their next step and successfully transition into post-16 education and training’.
Meanwhile, in her speech to the conference, education secretary Bridget Phillipson hailed the progress she said had been made towards fulfilling the government’s pledge to deliver free breakfast clubs in every primary school. She announced that two and a half million free breakfasts have now been served to children in England, and that the full national rollout of free breakfast clubs will begin from April 2026.
Greensheets will have news from other party conferences in the coming weeks.