Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that local councils have adequate funding to sustain (a) leisure centres and (b) sports clubs through the covid-19 outbreak.

At the Spending Review on 25 November the Chancellor announced estimated funding of around £3 billion of additional support for Covid-19 pressures next year. This takes the total support committed to councils in England to tackle the impacts of Covid-19 to over £10 billion.

In addition to this, the Government is providing a £100 million package to support the leisure sector in meeting the challenges brought about by the pandemic and local restrictions. This will be led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and they will provide more details in due course.

We fully recognise that the facilities that will be supported by this funding will play a vital role in maintaining the health and wellbeing of the nation, and the contribution they play in building community cohesion and participation in sport.