Oral Answers to Questions

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

I have visited my hon. Friend’s constituency and can confirm its beauty. As I am standing in as proxy for the Minister for Sport, may I also confirm his acceptance of the invitation to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency?

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

7. What plans her Department has for a gender audit of public spending on sport.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)]

The Department measures sport participation by gender via the Taking Part survey. In addition, Sport England’s Active People survey provides more detailed data on sport participation. Together, those provide a good understanding of the gender implications of public spending on sport. The Department has no plans to undertake a specific gender audit.

[Barbara Keeley]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The Active People survey shows that more than 2 million fewer girls and women than men take part in sport, at both weekly and monthly intervals, but 12 million say that they want to take part in sport. Is not it time we had a full audit of public spending on sport to find out what it is spent on and why so many fewer women than men take part?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Lady puts her finger on it. We know that there are participation issues, so rather than simply continuing to audit it, we are taking action. We already have our £1 billion youth and community sports strategy, which is looking at ways of ensuring that girls take part in sport, and the Active Women programme, a £10 million lottery programme aimed at getting women into sport. Of course, the most important audit of all was the Olympic games this summer, in which the very first gold medal was won by a woman, as indeed was the last. That is evidence that things are moving in the right direction, but clearly there is still more to do.