Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the level of (a) structural and (b) institutional racism in professional cricket.

Racism or any form of discrimination has no place in cricket or wider society.Organisations such as Kick It Out play an important role in helping to tackle discrimination in local, national and international sport. It is ultimately for individual sports to decide on the appropriate initiatives for their circumstances.

The Government welcomes the steps taken by the English Cricket Board (ECB) in recent years to increase diversity in cricket, including the announcement in July this year around strengthening its Inclusion and Diversity Strategy.

There is still more to do, however, and we will continue to liaise with the ECB to ensure this issue is tackled effectively.