Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure that the nine Departments tasked with tackling loneliness receive adequate funding to (a) deliver the Government’s long-term vision on tackling loneliness and (b) build on the progress made against the 60 commitments set out in the 2018 strategy entitled A Connected Society.

The government is taking a cross-departmental approach to tackling loneliness, recognising that no one department holds all the levers for successful change. The work is led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with eight other departments contributing commitments to the Loneliness Strategy. The government's Loneliness Strategy was published in October 2018 and an annual report was published in January 2020, setting out headlines on progress so far. The government will carry out a Comprehensive Spending Review later this year, where the government will take a systematic view across all spending over multiple years and set future budgets. An announcement on the timing of the Spending Review will be made in due course.