Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support visits by urban schools to the countryside.

Not all children have easy access to green spaces and the Government is taking action to address this.

Spending time in nature during school can encourage children to have a relationship with the outdoors and the new science and geography curriculum and qualifications encourage pupils to undertake fieldwork as part of their course of study.

In the 25 Year Environment Plan, £10 million has been committed over the next five years to programmes that will connect pupils in the most disadvantaged areas with nature. This includes ensuring that schools, special schools and alternative provision institutions in the most disadvantaged areas will be offered support to establish a programme of visits to natural spaces, such as city farms, local nature reserves or Nationals Parks. This programme will be open to schools from autumn 2019. The Government will also support these settings with funding to transform their school grounds and to design and run activities to support pupils' health and wellbeing through contact with nature.

More information regarding these programmes will be made available in due course, and the 25 Year Environment Plan can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/
government/publications/25-year-environment-plan.