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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help increase the number and proportion of children and young people meeting the UK Chief Medical Officers' recommended levels of physical activity.

Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and this government is committed to ensuring every child, no matter their background or ability, should be able to play sport and be active.

That is why in ‘Get Active: A strategy for the future of sport and physical activity’ we introduce an ambition that all children should meet the Chief Medical Officers’ guidelines on physical activity, with a target of getting 1 million more active children by 2030.

Schools play a key role in allowing all children to have high quality opportunities to take part in PE and sport, setting them up for a lifetime of physical activity. In July we published an update to the School Sport and Activity Action Plan. This builds on the announcement we made in March that set out new ambitions for equal access to PE and sport, with guidance on how to deliver 2 hours of quality PE a week, alongside over £600 million funding for the Primary PE and Sport Premium and School Games Organiser network.

Outside of the school day, the £57 million Opening School Facilities programme will support the most inactive young people to access facilities that will enable them to play sport and take physical exercise. By opening school sport facilities, including swimming pools, disparities in access to opportunities seen between socio-economic groups will begin to be tackled through the programme.

Over the school holidays, the Government offers £200 million of support per year to the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which provides disadvantaged children in England with enriching activities (including physical and creative activities) and healthy meals. Last summer, the programme reached over 685,000 children and young people in England, including over 475,000 children in receipt of free school meals.

We are also investing over £300 million in grassroots football and multi-sport facilities across the UK by 2025 which will further support youth participation in sport.