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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she plans to extend funding for (a) free and (b) subsidised swimming for children from low-income families.

Local Authorities are responsible for swimming provision, taking decisions locally in line with local strategies and contractual positions.

Pupils have the opportunity at primary school to learn to swim and be safe in and around water. The National Curriculum for Physical Education states that all schools must provide swimming instruction in either key stage 1 or 2 and that pupils should be taught to:

• swim competently, confidently and proficiently over a distance of at least 25 metres

• use a range of strokes effectively (for example, front crawl, backstroke and breaststroke)

• perform safe self-rescue in different water-based situations

Primary schools can use their PE and sport Premium funding to provide top-up swimming and water safety lessons for those pupils that do not meet national curriculum requirements after they have completed core swimming and water safety lessons.

The Government believes that opportunities to play sport and get physically active should be available to everyone and we recognise that there are barriers which prevent some people from getting active. We are committed to breaking down the barriers that contribute to these persisting inequalities in participation and want to ensure that everyone can experience the physical, mental and social benefits that come with being active.

As part of this, Sport England’s long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement, prioritises tackling these longstanding inequalities, focusing on providing more support and more investment targeted towards least active groups.

Sport England also track usage of swimming pools through Moving Communities to understand usage levels by children and by a user’s home postcode, to build an evidence base on usage in areas of higher deprivation.