Should Every School Be Legally Required to Have a Library? | Series 1, Episode 45

Episode 45 transcript

Should Every School Be Legally Required to Have a Library?

Perhaps the most useful question about school libraries is no longer whether they are a good thing. Few teachers, librarians or parents need convincing that children benefit from having books within reach. The harder question is what happens when that access depends on the school a child happens to attend.

In England, schools are not currently legally required to have a library. Decisions about library provision, staffing and spending are largely left to individual schools. But in July 2026, the House of Commons Education Committee proposed a significant change. Its Reading for Pleasure report recommended that, once library provision has been funded across primary and secondary schools, school libraries should be placed on a statutory footing.

That changes the argument. Instead of asking whether schools ought to value libraries, it asks whether access to one should become part of the basic educational entitlement of every pupil.

A library is easy to require. A good library is harder.

The distinction matters because putting the word “library” into legislation would not automatically create the places many librarians have in mind. A room containing old books, opened once a fortnight and managed by whoever happens to have time, might satisfy a badly written requirement while doing very little to develop readers.

The Education Committee recognises this problem. It recommends consulting on what should count as a school library, including whether classroom book corners and other reading spaces could qualify alongside dedicated rooms. It also wants the school census to record whether schools have libraries and dedicated library staff, a development fund to help schools refresh stock and train staff, and an expectation that schools provide dedicated library lessons.

This is where the debate becomes more interesting than “libraries good, cuts bad”. What exactly should the entitlement be? A room? A collection? Regular access? A trained librarian? A recurring book budget? Time in the timetable?

If legislation guarantees only the first of those, schools could comply without necessarily giving children much more opportunity to become readers.

We do not even routinely count school libraries

There is a basic information problem too. Because provision has not been statutory, the Department for Education has not routinely collected comprehensive school library data in the way it collects many other pieces of information about schools.

The best available picture comes largely from sector research. Evidence cited by the Education Committee suggests that 86% of secondary schools have a library, which the School Library Association calculates leaves about 484 secondary schools without one. The same parliamentary report says that 65% of primary schools which have libraries have no dedicated library budget. Among secondary schools, Great School Libraries research found that 15% had no library budget and, among those that did, 69% said it had stayed the same or fallen since 2019.

That exposes another weakness in a simple yes-or-no measure. A school can have a library while having almost no money to replace damaged books, respond to pupil requests or keep pace with new children’s and YA publishing.

Why this matters when reading enjoyment is so low

The argument is unfolding against a difficult background. The National Literacy Trust’s 2026 survey found that 36.1% of 8 to 18 year olds enjoyed reading in their free time, up from 32.7% in 2025. Daily reading also rose slightly, from 18.7% to 20.3%.

Those increases are welcome, but they are not a recovery to earlier levels. Socioeconomic inequalities in reading also widened. For children whose access to books at home is limited, what is available through school becomes particularly significant.

That is probably the strongest case for a universal entitlement. A child with shelves of books at home, parents able to buy new titles and regular trips to a public library has several routes into reading. Another child may depend heavily on what school can provide. Leaving school libraries entirely to local priorities risks making access to books another area where disadvantage compounds itself.

None of this proves that simply opening a library will make children read. Research reviewed by the National Literacy Trust associates strong school library provision and library use with benefits including reading for pleasure, literacy and learning, but libraries operate as part of a wider reading culture. The quality of the collection, the adults involved, the freedom to choose and the amount of genuine access all matter.

Then there is the money

The Government has already moved towards universal provision in primary schools. More than £10 million was originally announced to support a library in every primary school in England by the end of this Parliament, with the allocation subsequently put at £12.5 million from dormant assets.

Secondary schools are receiving a different form of support. As part of the National Year of Reading, £5 million is being distributed for secondary schools to buy fiction and non-fiction books. The School Library Association calculates that this works out at roughly £1,450 per school, or around 200 books.

Two hundred new books can make a real difference to a tired collection. But they do not employ somebody to run a library, create space where none exists, fund new stock next year or guarantee that pupils can actually get through the door.

This is the strongest argument against rushing from parliamentary recommendation to legislation. A statutory library without statutory funding could simply become another obligation schools are expected to absorb from already stretched budgets. Headteachers may reasonably ask what should be cut if government specifies a library but does not provide the recurrent money to run one.

There are space questions too. Some schools genuinely do not have a spare room. The National Association of Head Teachers told the parliamentary inquiry that staffing, running costs and lack of space can all explain why a school does not operate a traditional dedicated library. Ministers have also argued that heads are best placed to decide how to build a reading culture.

Those are substantial objections. They are not arguments against children having access to books. They are arguments about how prescriptive government should be about the way schools provide it.

The librarian may matter as much as the library

There is another danger in concentrating on physical spaces: books do not recommend themselves.

A skilled librarian or member of staff can notice the Year 8 pupil who says there is “nothing good” to read and discover that what they actually want is manga, horror, football biographies or books about gaming. They can remove obsolete stock, find accessible formats, build collections around curriculum topics and interests, run reading groups and create the social connections that turn borrowing into habit.

That fits neatly with the National Year of Reading’s Go All In approach. Its message, “If you’re into it, read into it”, starts with children’s existing passions rather than insisting that everyone becomes interested in the same kind of book.

A statutory library stocked according to adult assumptions could therefore miss the point. What matters is whether children can find something on the shelves that gives them a reason to keep reading.

Perhaps schools should ask a different question

Instead of asking “Do we have a library?”, schools could ask pupils whether they can use it, whether they can borrow from it regularly, whether they can find books they want, whether somebody is available to recommend something and whether they have any influence over what is bought.

That is a tougher test, but a more meaningful one.

The Education Committee’s proposal deserves serious consideration precisely because it forces us to define what we think every child should be able to expect. If reading for pleasure is treated nationally as something worth reversing decades of decline to protect, it is reasonable to ask why the infrastructure supporting it remains optional.

But the answer should not simply be a legal requirement for a room with books in it. If school libraries do become statutory, the useful entitlement would be broader: regular access to an attractive and current collection, somebody with responsibility for developing it, room for pupil choice, provision for different reading needs and enough continuing investment to stop today’s new library becoming tomorrow’s neglected one.

The real question, then, is not whether every school should be able to point to a library. It is whether every child should be able to experience one that works.

Further reading and useful sources

• House of Commons Education Committee: Reading for Pleasure – The July 2026 report recommending universal secondary-school library provision and, subsequently, statutory school libraries in England.
• UK Parliament: Reading for Pleasure inquiry – Parliamentary inquiry page containing evidence, hearings and publications behind the Education Committee’s recommendations.
• House of Commons Library: World Book Day briefing – Provides the current legal position on school libraries in England and details of government investment in primary-school provision.
• National Literacy Trust: Children and young people’s reading in 2026 – The latest Annual Literacy Survey findings on reading enjoyment, daily reading and inequalities among children and young people.
• National Literacy Trust: Libraries for Primaries research – Reviews evidence on school libraries, book access, reading for pleasure and literacy outcomes.
• School Library Association: Supplementary evidence to the Reading for Pleasure inquiry – Includes estimates for secondary schools without libraries and the potential costs of extending provision.
• School Library Association: Evidence to the Education Committee – Sets out the professional case for properly staffed, funded and supported school libraries.
• National Year of Reading 2026: Go All In for schools – Explains the campaign’s interest-led approach to encouraging children and young people to read for pleasure.

How School Reading List’s resources can help with school library provision

• A well-used school library needs more than a large number of books. It needs a collection that reflects pupils’ ages, interests, reading confidence and changing tastes. School Reading List’s genre and themed book lists can help teachers and librarians identify gaps in existing stock and find books for children who may not respond to the titles traditionally associated with school reading.
• The site’s year-group reading lists can also be used when reviewing whether a library offers enough choice and progression across different ages. They include contemporary fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, poetry and other formats, giving schools a practical starting point when refreshing older collections or planning new purchases.
• Interest-led lists can be particularly useful when trying to reach pupils who do not see themselves as readers. School Reading List has recommendations covering subjects including rugby, cricket, fashion, fishing and survival and bushcraft. These can help librarians respond to pupil requests and build collections around the interests children already bring into school.
• Schools could use these resources alongside pupil surveys and borrowing data rather than as a fixed purchasing list. The aim should be to identify what is missing, where choice is weak and which parts of the collection are failing to attract readers. That is particularly relevant if school libraries move towards a more formal entitlement: the quality and relevance of the books available will matter just as much as whether a library exists at all.