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

To ask the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to increase the number of female football coaches.

Our national sports council, Sport England, is investing £2 million per year into the Football Association (FA) to support their work to make their coaching workforce more representative of wider society. This includes providing bursaries to support women and people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds to develop their coaching abilities from the grassroots to the elite levels of the game.

Government’s Sporting Future strategy recognised the important role coaching plays in helping people become and stay active. Sport England, evaluated the coaching landscape and developed a new coaching plan for England, ‘Coaching in an Active Nation’, which was published in November 2016. This was developed following consultation with coaches, coach educators and national governing bodies of sport, including the FA, and looks to increase diversity in coaching to better reflect underrepresented groups.