Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to increase participation in grassroots rugby.

The Government believes that opportunities to play sport and get physically active should be available to everyone, including playing rugby. The Government is committed to removing the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups, especially for women and girls.

Following the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2025, the Impact ‘25 programme has reached 850 clubs across England since its inception and 37,000 women and girls in the last year alone. The programme has helped build more female-friendly facilities at clubs to encourage female participation, and we will work with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to continue to grow the game.

Our arm’s length body for grassroots sport, Sport England, is providing long term investment of £16.9 million to the RFU and £15.7 million to the Rugby Football League (RFL) between 2022 and 2029 to support grassroots rugby participation. The RFU and RFL, as the national governing bodies for their sports, are responsible for decisions on how and where to target their investment into grassroots clubs.