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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department has taken to improve female participation in sport at (a) player and (b) manager level.

This Government is taking a number of steps to improve female participation in sport at both player and manager level.

Sport England's This Girl Can campaign was launched as a response to women's low participation in sport. It is based on a wealth of insight which highlighted the fear of judgement as a unifying factor putting women off sport. The campaign aims to eliminate this fear and change perceptions of what sport is and who it's for.

We are also taking steps to ensure women are participating in sport in leadership positions. SportCoachUK is running Project 500 to increase the number of women coaches, and has supported over 400 women through scholarships to start coaching and progress in coaching. At the very top, there is an expectation that women will comprise at least 25% of the Boards of National Governing Bodies by 2017. We are hosting a Women on Sports' Boards event this week to help sports bodies reach this goal.