asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action is being taken following the recommendations of the Bullock Committee, and in advance of the development of any entirely new monitoring system, to make a national survey of the reading standards of primary schoolchildren.

Language and literacy is one of the broad areas which is being covered by Her Majesty's Inspectorate in the course of its current national survey of primary education. In parallel with that survey, the Department has recently asked the National Foundation for Educational Research to undertake the supply and servicing of reading tests at a cost of about £14,000.