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 is taking to promote the discussion of mental health concerns among young athletes.

The government’s sport strategy “Sporting Future” highlighted the importance of welfare and wellbeing for everyone participating in elite sport, regardless of age.

In March 2018 I published a mental health and elite sport action plan, based on discussions I held with sportspeople and key stakeholders from across the sport and mental health sectors. The plan sets out a range of actions to improve the support available to athletes, the sharing of best practice across the sport sector, and mental health education and training in sport.

As highlighted in the plan, UK Sport has worked with key agencies to develop a Mental Health Strategy, being implemented during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games cycle (2017-2021). The aim of the strategy is to deliver positive mental health for all people operating in the high performance system, for athletes as well as senior leaders, coaches, practitioners and administrators.