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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of loneliness in the workplace.

Employment can be a vital lifeline for social contact. As part of the cross-government loneliness strategy, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Campaign to End Loneliness established the Loneliness Employers Leadership Group to deepen our understanding of workplace loneliness and identify what employers can do. This work was taken forward as part of the Tackling Loneliness Network. In 2021, we commissioned the Campaign to End Loneliness to carry out a consultation with a wide network of businesses and produce a good practice guide on employers and loneliness.

Government speaks regularly with business organisations, such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, on a range of issues including workplace wellbeing and how employers might look to improve it.

In the coming months we will publish the fourth annual report on the loneliness strategy, including a commitment to work with BEIS to engage with the APPG for Tackling Loneliness and Connecting Communities on their recent inquiry into workplace loneliness.