Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I would be very happy to ensure that officials follow up with the hon. Member to resolve that issue. She is right to point to changing facilities as one of the key reasons why girls do not stay involved in sport. We really have pushed hard to ensure that this is a priority for funding from the Football Foundation and others. A number of Members across the House have raised with me as Culture Secretary over the past couple of years the significant challenge of navigating these funding systems and the conditions attached to them. We are looking at how to make it much easier for councils and Members of Parliament to access that funding to solve the local problems that she describes, but I would be very happy to follow this up.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State please join me in thanking the volunteers at Junior Parkrun at Parc Bryn Bach in Tredegar. It has good facilities, but their hard work has doubled the number of girls and boys getting out to run on a Sunday morning. Having said that, research from Sky shows that girls in my constituency still do an hour and 16 minutes less sport each week than boys. Can she give us the wider picture of the steps that she is taking to close that gap and get more girls to be active?

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy for Parkrun, which has been one of the real bright spots on the sport landscape in recent years—I am a keen participant in my local Parkrun at Haigh Hall and across the borough. I take this opportunity to congratulate all the volunteers at Junior Parkrun, because without them these amazing events would not happen. He is right to point to the challenges we still have with women and girls’ participation. There is no single solution, but I can assure him that I and my hon. Friend the Minister for Sport are treating this as one of the top priorities in the Department.