Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department’s has made on the commitment in the loneliness strategy to explore with seven mobility centres in England how the Government can help to identify signs of loneliness or lack of social connections.

In May this year, the Government provided a grant of £250k to enable seven of the thirteen Mobility Centres in England to trial an expansion of their services to disabled people who do not or can no longer drive, and need support to access public transport. This includes Mobility Centre staff identifying and acting on signs of loneliness amongst their clients. The trial will commence by the end of the summer.

Transport has a key role to play in tackling loneliness and the Department is very active in the cross-Government efforts to tackle loneliness and works closely with stakeholders to ensure transport's role is fully aligned to the wider strategy.

Government has engaged closely with the Loneliness Action Group in the development, and now implementation, of its loneliness strategy, and regularly attend the quarterly Loneliness Action Group meetings, to share updates and hear views from the group.

The Department will continue to engage widely in support of the implementation of the Government’s strategy and to ensure our transport network plays its part in this vital area.