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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to improve access to participation in (a) the National Citizen Service and (b) full-time social action projects.

DCMS has made over £1 billion funding available for the National Citizen Service over this parliament to ensure every young person who wants to take part is able to. The NCS Trust strives to ensure young people from all backgrounds are able to participate - in Summer 2016, 17% of NCS participants were eligible for Free School Meals (compared to 8% in the general population).

DCMS is carefully considering the recommendations made by the recently published independent Review of Full Time Social Action by Young People and will respond in due course.