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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what funding he has made available for disabled (a) rugby, (b) basketball and (c) other sports to help them attain international recognition and assist in their hosting international matches.

UK Sport, an Arm's Length Body of DCMS, works with National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and other partners to help them build strong and positive relationships with their respective International Federations (IFs) and other national and international sporting bodies.

To do this, investment is prioritised to support International Relations strategies for those sports that receive UK Sport World Class Programme funding and/or have an agreed Major Events hosting target. UK Sport also provides limited investment to those sports which fall just outside of its World Class Programme funding. These include fencing, badminton, goalball, weightlifting and wheelchair rugby.

As a result, GB Wheelchair Rugby are in receipt of UK Sport investment to support their International Relations strategy over the course of the Tokyo cycle (2017-21). This investment amounts to up to £50,000 over the four years.

Since the London 2012 Games, a total of £1.5m in grant awards were made by UK Sport into the successful delivery of 16 non-able bodied sports events between 2013 and 2017. Of this, £340,000 was invested into the European Wheelchair Basketball Championships and £57,000 into the BT World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge which both took place in 2015.

This year, the UK will be hosting the World Boccia Championships in Liverpool and £390,000 is being invested by UK Sport into that event.

Next year, the UK will be hosting the World Wheelchair Curling Championships in Stirling and £56,000 is being invested by UK Sport into that event.

The UK is also currently bidding to host the Para Cycling C1 International event in Manchester in January next year.