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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment his Department has made of levels of loneliness among young people.

As announced in last year’s loneliness strategy, ‘A connected society - A strategy for tackling loneliness’, and in addition to DCMS’s annual Community Life Survey, the ONS has undertaken further research on childhood loneliness.

The Community Life Survey results for 2017-18, first published in July 2018, showed that 16-34 year olds were more likely to report feeling often or always lonely than those aged over 50. This survey showed that 8% of 16 to 24 year olds feel often or always lonely. In 2018, the Children’s Society found that 11% of 10-15 year olds feel ‘often’ lonely. The ONS published another report on childhood loneliness on the 3rd April this year.